STEVE Timm used to think he was
Superman, when he was a kid. He loved
swimming and rowing and all kinds of other
sports, and because he was tall and strong,
he could not imagine being any other way.
He thought of his body as indestructible
and he pushed it as far as it would go. If
he felt pain, he ignored it. Until one day,
it was too late. An injury that happened at
work, when he lifted a heavy piece of
equipment, left him flat on his neck and
unable to move. He tried to ignore the pain,
but the agony was so overwhelming that he
couldn't, and he had to turn himself over to
the care of a whole host of medical
practitioners to try to get some relief.
Not all of us end up flat on our backs,
riddled with back pain. But according to
statistics, 80 per cent of Americans, and
probably the same amount of Irish people,
experience back pain at some time. And even
if it is not excruciating, low-level back
pain is responsible for constant misery for
many people.
Most of us never give our backs a second
thought until the pain forces us to. Luckily
for Steve -- and possibly for the rest of us
-- the pain can sometimes trigger a level of
inquiry and awareness, a new degree of
respect for the body that points us in the
direction of a cure.
In Steve's case, having exhausted the
knowledge and abilities of the chiropractors
and osteopaths he was seeing, he was told
that there was nothing more they could do
for him, that he would just have to get a
new body or else suffer. Not having the
first option, and not being willing to
accept the second, Steve set out on a
mission to heal his own back.
And once he had found a cure, he set
about sharing it with other people.
The first thing that strikes me about
Steve, when I meet him in
Dun Laoghaire, where he has stopped for
a brief visit as part of his perpetual
journey around the world (he tells me that
he travels for 300 days a year), is how
perfect his posture is. His back looks
perfectly straight, and he moves with ease
and grace, despite being almost 70 years of
age.
"I was always interested in yoga," he
tells me. "Even as a child."
"That is very unusual," I say, aware that
he grew up in
Chile.
"I was quite unusual!" he says with a
laugh.
Another unusual thing about Steve is that
although he is an engineer by trade, his
approach to his own healing was not logical
or scientific in the way that it came to
him.
"I used my intuition to discover what
worked," he says.
He explains that he used his interest in
yoga and meditation and also in what
psychologist
Abraham Maslow called 'peak experience',
which is accessing that level of
consciousness which transcends the intellect
and gives us access to genius-level
knowledge. "Following that inner journey
came the response I was looking for. The
healing techniques that I am now offering to
share came as whispers of intuition."
Having accessed the insights, he then
tried them out on his own body, very
carefully and slowly discovering the way to
heal his own back. It worked.
"I knew I was on the right track when I
began to experience some bliss and happiness
emerging from the pain," he says.
Eventually all the pain was gone. "I
would have left it at that," he says. "If
not for something that happened to my
friend Anne."
His daughter had a car accident in which
she severely damaged her back, so much so
that after five years of treatment from
expensive specialists, she was still
crippled and dependent on morphine.
"After everything else had failed, she
agreed to try my technique," he says. "And
almost immediately she got a signal that it
was working, she felt her body being flooded
with bliss. Within a year, Anne could
swim and work out in the gym, she had given
up the painkillers and was leading a normal
life.
"My daughter's miraculous recovery
convinced me God had given me a truly
precious gift that needed to be shared with
others," Steve says.
"So I formulated everything I had learned
into a program designed to enable everyone
to maintain a healthy back, called the Mind
Your Own Back program."
After our conversation, Steve talks me
through a simple sequence of exercises,
which take about 20 minutes. I find them
easy to do, and uncomplicated to remember.
He rewards me by telling me that I am a very
good yogi, and I am delighted. He also gives
me a copy of his book in which all the
exercises are explained and many more poses
are included. I am extremely fortunate to
have met him, especially seeing as I have
been given a one-on-one lesson. Tomorrow he
is off on his travels again, journeying
round the world teaching what he knows.
"I am a bit silly," he says. "I am
spending my retirement money doing this!"
But he also tells me that he loves the work.
Clearly, when you have a double miracle in
your life, you really enjoy passing it on to
other people.
