The Healer's Walk

Choosing to be a healer can be a rough professional choice.

There are aspects of it that are so amazingly rewarding. Miracles happen, lives change, education transpires and enlightenment reaches once confused vessels of clay. Sometimes, with full-on ego, or with quiet humility, the healer steps back and observes that he or she has just been a part of something really big. A life was touched and transformed, as a flower is kissed by sunlight and at once opens its petals to bloom happily for all to see. And we, the channels of such light, stand back and say (in our best Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure voice), "Whoa..."

These moments are the rare times that keep us filled with hope and dedication. However, they are also the few and far in-between. The typical scenario can instead be depressing, discouraging, and it twists our souls into calloused and desensitized goblins of being. It is a wonder why so many of us are eager to jump into this line of work. We enter it full of ideals, full of intentions that our light will change the world into a beautiful Utopia on Earth. And then reality hits, and hits hard.

We give of ourselves so thoroughly that we drop our boundaries; we allow clients to invade our space, and we take on troubles and exhaustion willingly because we convince ourselves that we are stronger than our clients and therefore we can bear the weight so much easier than they can. We fight for our patients, lecture and plead with them, wrap our identity and self-worth around their journey each and every step of the way. And then finally, sadly, we break down. We get sick. We get tired. And then we have to face the obvious: only our clients can choose to heal themselves. We can't do it for them. And, the truth is, most people refuse the chance to heal. They just won't do the work.

I find that most illnesses are caused by the long-term choices we make on a daily basis. Many issues can be resolved easily by a change of diet; others will require more work, such as an exercise program or the giving up of an addiction (smoking, overeating, drugs or alcohol, coffee, etc.). Some actually require a major lifestyle change, which may include moving away from toxic people (family, friends, an abusive spouse, etc.). A gentleman who was here yesterday is chronically dehydrated; all he needs to do is to drink water. He wants to feel better, wants to detoxify and get his life back, but he barely eats and refuses to drink. Tall and emaciated, already the recipient of a stroke at 27 years old due to a lack of movement, water and decent food, he spends his days in his parent's basement smoking pot and wasting away. He says he wants to get better, that he's not "giving up", but this otherwise gentle soul is doing nothing to save himself. And no one can want it more than him.

People want overnight miracles. Anything that is subtle or gradual isn't a happy option. They try things once, and if the hand of Jesus didn't reach down from the sky and drop their illnesses, like scales, to the ground, then they're done. And they refuse to take responsibility; its the healer's fault, they must be a charlatan, otherwise years of chronic pain would dry up within seconds. And they want to heal immediately WHILE STILL holding on to their poor eating habits, toxic friends and ugly addictions. How do you heal someone who wants to stay as they are?

Some people, those who I'm grateful for, know that it doesn't realistically happen overnight. It takes work and discipline, both on the side of the healer and of the patient. It takes a willingness to let go of your old patterns and the courage to put yourself first...not selfishly, where no one else matters, but "self first", where you realize that you can't be strong for others if you can't carry your own weight. Someone who understands healing knows that if they are unstable, then they have nothing to give, so they learn to say no to outside pressures to conform, learn to push aside naysayers, learn to focus on what they need to do to become balanced. Only then can they emerge and spread more light.

To be a healer, you must become aware. You must see and know who truly wants to heal, and who just wants to waste your time. You must honor EVERYBODY'S individual choice of journey, even if its not one you would choose for yourself. And you must honor yourself first, your own precious light, and guard it with all the selfless love you have within. To love yourself is the most selfless thing you can do...otherwise, your heart will break under the weight of all those who have already given up on themselves. There will never be anything that you can do for them. And that is the true sadness of being a healer.