I want to be a healer

To be some sort of healer is the wish of many people. To have the awareness and insight that makes it possible to help others who are struggling with health and emotional difficulties. Strange as it would seem most of the people who want this gift are very much in need of help themselves. It’s an old saying but a true one; every psychiatrist needs a psychiatrist, but I suppose it is part of being human that makes it is easier to see the faults and needs of others while being able to ignore our own. I have noticed over many years that some healers and therapists attract clients who have similar problems to their own. It is as if there is a need to see a reflection of themselves in others and by treating people with difficulties very much like their own they are in fact treating themselves.

I know of therapists who tell me how important it is that their clients release anger and practice a therapy that brings out the required anger. But in fact the anger is first in the therapist who is releasing it through the client. This is a transfer of energy from the stronger, the therapist, through the weaker, the client. I know of therapists who say how important it is for the client or patient to release the primal scream and are successful in causing the patient to release such a scream. But the scream is in fact coming from the energy of the therapist through the patient and it is no coincidence that the therapist gets great satisfaction from their work. Of course the patient continues to suffer from whatever emotional problem they have, the treatment being of no lasting benefit to themselves. Any therapist who practices one type of therapy to treat most problems should take a good look at themselves because the problem is more likely to be with the therapist than the patient. Take the example of healers or therapists who specialize in birthing believing that everyone can benefit from the experience. It is usually the healer or therapist who needs the experience but believing they have no problem they continue to unknowingly treat themselves through their patients.

Of course this problem of people doing work to satisfy an inner need does not only apply to healers and therapists. I know of many people who have taken work to satisfy an emotional need such as a doctor I know who works with an emergency unit, travelling to accidents.  The doctors father was a policemen and mother used to worry that he would be hurt in his work. The child then took the concern for father into a career situation and went into a profession where he could to rush to accident situations, to help him if necessary. This desire became satisfied in his work. A medical consultant I know always carried an emergency heart resuscitation kit with him in the car, ‘just in case someone has a heart attack,’ he told me.  As a child his father nearly died of a heart attack because there was no help available, he is a doctor caring for heart patients.
 
The reason for your career choice might well be because of a childhood experience which you have forgotten. Of course not all people go into careers or work because of concern from a past incident.  However there is often a link between a chosen career and a past fear or guilt situation, especially in the care professions, which the therapist is unknowingly trying to work out through the patient.   Before you go too deeply into the care professions decide what emotional need is driving you in that direction. It is necessary to know your own needs before trying to satisfy the needs of others.   

Another point to consider when deciding to become a healer is that you don’t become the word. It is the word spiritual that pulls many people towards healing. I hear the term used in many ways but most often as wanting to be ‘on my spiritual way’. It’s as if until the moment when a conscious decision is made to become spiritual we had been something less than spirit. We are on a spiritual path long before we are born and life and its experience is just part of the journey. But the moment someone decides to become spiritual they often have a need to somehow change their personality as if they will be more acceptable as spiritual when they display the correct image. A bit like the doctor who has to wear a white coat and carry a stethoscope in a pocket where everyone can see it. A sort of badge of office. He believes he has to look like a doctor because he is a doctor. Instead of being our true selves we change to become the word we have chosen for ourselves.

There is the extreme and absurd situation of the spiritual type who thinks it necessary to dress all in white, grow a beard, sorry ladies you miss out on that bit, ware sandals go around as if in some sort of trance. It is of course an act and all part of the performance to look and be spiritual, to be the word. But it has nothing to do with being spiritual. There is the belief that you should never eat meat, drink coffee or alcohol acquire personal wealth and so on and that if you do you will lose your gift. If you had these beliefs before deciding to be spiritual that is fine, it is your belief system and you have decided it for yourself but to do it because you believe it is a requirement to be spiritual  or that you may lose some healing of other gift is nonsense. Unfortunately becoming the word makes you appear and act the part and be something that really isn’t you. As you become the word there is the risk that you see all situations in life having spiritual meanings such as thinking that whatever happens around you has a spiritual connection. A picture falls off the wall and there has to be a spiritual significance, the wind blows a curtain and there has to be a ghost in the room. Your whole life becomes the word. This is also true in other professions, hobbies and life situations. People lose a balanced outlook on life seeing everything in terms of the word they have chosen for themselves.  Of course this would normally have little importance for anyone but yourself but if you are going to be a healer you have to be careful not to project your feelings and beliefs into your friends and clients and see everything in their lives as having the same significance and meanings for them as you feel it has for you. Remember other people will have chosen a different word for themselves and their personalities and will be seeing the world from a different perspective. Healers don’t try to change anything, they just do what they can to satisfy another’s physical or emotional need but first we have to be aware of our own.

A question I was recently asked when discussing distant healing was; shouldn’t you ask for permission before sending someone healing, as if I was doing something sinful and spiritually wrong. I know it is often taught by healing groups, that it is wrong to send healing if permission has not been given on the basis that it is interfering in someone’s life without their knowledge.

Distant healing is the sending of healing thoughts of love to those in need of help. Why would you ever consider it necessary to seek permission to send thoughts of love? If you are angry with someone you are powerfully sending thoughts of anger which are harmful and I don’t expect you first asked for permission. Whenever we think about other people or situations we are sending powerful energies in their direction which can have a good or bad affect on their emotions. I don’t know anyone who first asks for permission before thinking negatively about a person so why suddenly be so spiritual and holy and believe you need permission to think lovingly of someone. People do have some strange ideas.