Sometimes I Just Don't Know

Sometimes, I just don't know what I'm supposed to do in a given situation. 

Sometimes I'm just bogged down with all of my spiritual responsibilities - to self, society, and God. 

A situation presents itself, and I'm faced with a dilemma. First, I focus inward, centering and grounding myself. I focus on my breathing. I listen for higher guidance. I notice any sensations in my body. I notice my relationship to my surroundings. How am I feeling? Is this an ego reaction? What is Spirit trying to tell me? 

Then my mind might drift to more existential aspects. I might be thinking what sign the Moon is in, how this is affecting me. Or what essential readings I've been digesting, and what lessons might be coming up for that. Have I recently had bodywork or other healing work done, am I processing and releasing stuff there? Or perhaps other astrological aspects, like how this is exactly a lesson for my South Lunar Node, etc etc. Or some past life stuff coming up. Or is this related to my soul's Goal of Flow, as related to the Michael teachings... or an instance of a blockage in my Solar Plexus chakra giving me an opportunity to release and strengthen here...

We're always processing these things. Sometimes more aware at certain times than others. You might be sitting right across from us and have no idea that all of this is playing on a background track of our minds, all the while trying to regulate our body and energy and breath, and stay completely open and relaxed and present to the conversation we're having with you!

Then, I might think, do I share this with you? Or is this for me to sort out for now?

As healers, we are taught discretion in what we tell our clients. Maybe they don't give a damn about angels and spiritual entities surrounding us and guiding the work. Maybe they're not ready. Maybe telling a client some message we received would be detrimental or disturbing, or confusing. 

It's our duty as healing practitioners to practice discretion, and err on the side of 'less is more,' I believe. If something is really pressing or meant to come to light, generally, it will, in one form or another, or louder than before. This is part of the process of learning to trust the healing process and greater powers that be, as well as becoming more attuned to divine timing.

Then I step out of the default healer role and let myself just lose my shit sometimes.

Then forgive myself, practice non-judgement for myself, not needing to analyze what's been released, not needing to understand...

Then I'm with someone else, and they're in pain. And I know, but I don't know... they're asking for help, but I can see myself in them. I empathize, I feel their pain, but I know this is a lesson they have to learn. And I can't do this for anyone but myself. We all ultimately have our own journey, our own lessons and learning.

Sometimes the hardest thing as a healer is knowing we have to stand back and let others do the work. 

Sometimes, I have no idea what to do but provide compassionate presence. A kind ear. 

Sometimes, all I know to do is just try my best. 

Whatever that 'best' is, in that moment.

Straighten my spine, breathe deeper. Am I focused enough in this mediation now? Am I doing this yoga pose the best that I can? 

Am I fully present to this person right now? To my body? Is there something more I can do now?

And for all the things that I do not know, God help me, to do the best that I can, for the highest and greatest good of all.

Aho.

The Healer's Toolbox: Perceptive Awareness and Trusting the Process

Often I get the question of, "How do you know where to put your hands in a healing session?" Or, "How can working on one area affect another?"

The answer can be understood when we recognize the meta-scientific perspective that we live in a reality of matter, space and vibrating particles that are all connected. Through the power of the mind and setting intention, we guide energy to flow through a medium and reestablish balance in a system in order for optimum functioning to occur. 

In other words, I'm opening my awareness to what's already occurring and guiding a process while leaving the final result to higher intelligence beyond me. 

The body is a highly intricate machine. We eat a meal, the food gets digested and its components are distributed correctly. We don't consciously think, "Protein particles of chickpeas, go rebuild my muscles. Fiber, sweep through my intestines and exit my elimination organs." We don't stare at a flower bud and will it to open its petals in a mathematically beautiful and symmetric spiral. Life happens. Intelligence unfolds. 

So it is with energy. 

A person comes to me with a headache. We set the intention to clear the headache. I lay my hands on the person's forehead and there's enhanced energy flowing through this area. But there's also energy flowing elsewhere. I feel energy in the forehead erratic and buzzing. I sense a stream of energy connected to this down through the Solar Plexus area. I sweep my hands down to this energy, following the pulsating that I feel, centralized as a dense, heavy energy ball. I continue to move my hands and clear this area until the heaviness, the buzzing, eventually relaxes and dissipates. In that moment, even though I'm not even working on their head, the person reports that their head feels so much better! In addition, the sense of nervousness they'd been feeling in the "pit of their stomach," that they didn't even realize they'd been carrying, is gone. 

So while we set an intention, working on one area of the body or energetic system can clear another area. 

We trust that wherever the energy needs to flow for the client's highest good, it does. Could I have cleared the headache directly by working in the head area? Perhaps, yes. But was that the core of the problem? Where did the disturbance originate, their thought process, or in the energetic area of the body connected to our values, sense of self, and sometimes emotions? Or did one affect the other? 

Yet perhaps more importantly, how would I have known?

Part of this is the mystery that requires the flexibility and openness of healing work versus the diagnostic and prescriptive science of traditional medicine. 

So, as healing practitioners, while we trust the process of healing and energy to go where it's needed, we can more effectively assist the process by using our tools of perception. 

I read a quote that went something like, "How do we fill up a swimming pool? Sure, we can turn on the hose in the backyard, and eventually it will fill up the pool. But we can be more effective by putting the hose directly into the swimming pool." 

That is the role of a healing practitioner.  Opening to a process unfolding, and with awareness and intent, guiding it along. 

Ending with a quote from Albert Einstein:

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.

What You Don’t Know About Your Healer

So, you think all health and holistic practitioners are wishy-washy, carefree spirits twirling in sunshine and rainbows of our own glorious auric fields?

(Well, maybe some are, and to them I say… grrrr!!!!!!!!) 

No, seriously. I think it’s good to share some things that many of us in the healing community go through to dissuade anyone thinking we’re disconnected from the full spectrum of human experience. If any practitioner ever has come off as flighty or down-right ridiculous, maybe there’s a reason for it, or, perhaps if you knew the things that often plague and bewilder us, maybe you’ll  forgive us a little. 

Dirty Secret #1

Let me let you in on a dirty secret: health practitioners have hang-ups, too.

 Since we tend to be a lot more sensitive, this can lead to a lot of self-criticism, self-judgment, and insecurity about our self-worth. I can’t tell you how many practitioners I’ve met who have gone through these same growth points on the way to developing their craft: 

- recognizing we have certain talents, much of which are intangible, yet nonetheless valuable to human experience (caring, compassion, empathy, listening, nurturing … I’ll hold off of any extra-sensory perceptive skills for now)
- seeing where there is need, and where we are drawn to help: the elderly, veterans, children, spiritual life coaching, cancer community, women’s issues, abuse, trauma, etc
- feeling worthy to accept payment for our services, period! (a reflection of self-worth and confidence)
- being able to brand and market ourselves, and charge more for our time and credentials

Dirty Secret #2: 

We’re constantly tottering on the line of our heart’s desire and what the rest of society actually wants from us. 

We feel spiritually called into our vocation. It is a sense of duty to humanity, the world, divinity, whatever you want to call it. There’s this progression of trepidation to accepting our path, elation when we’ve claimed it, and then frustration when the rest of the world doesn’t seem to understand or want our gifts. 

Example: We want to witness miracles of people breaking through limitations and emotional bondage through massage and bodywork and end up over-worked and underpaid in a corporate structure that doesn’t resonate with our ideals. The quality and depth of the work that can be done is unforgivably diluted. Yet we need to pay the bills. 

I’ll reiterate: we’re sensitive! It takes SO MUCH STRENGTH to actually claim our identity as healers. After so much inner reflection, refraction, sometimes dissolution and tedious rebuilding of ourselves, to only face rejection can be soulfully crushing. 

So what do we do?

We keep going. We improvise. We sometimes forcefully push our noses back to the grindstone and make ourselves finish that certification or class or grit our teeth through our daily jobs as a stepping stone to getting where we want to be… which isn’t always clear. 

We also come together in community support. Sometimes we just need to know we’re not alone in this journey. Or that we haven’t completely lost our minds. Yet… (see below for #3). 

Most of all, we keep searching within for inspiration and answers. It’s a never-ending journey. 

Dirty Secret #3

We crave community and don’t always know how to ask for it. 

You’d think the people touting how much we need deeper connection would be able to tack this one on the wall no problem, but not always. This goes back to our sense of self-worth and self-acceptance. Or feeling like we have to shoulder the burdens of the world and therefore do our own healing alone so as not to unload on anyone else. Oddly enough, sometimes it’s our clients that remind us to seek help and support when we need it. 

Dirty Secret #4

We have inner demons, too. We have our shadow side.

We just get more practice with how to release and express these sides of ourselves. We understand the ebb and flow. All things come to pass. There’s always something brighter and sweeter past the painful spots. 

And no, unless we attain Buddhahood, I don’ think this ever goes away. Like anything else, the process and pattern just gets more fine-tuned, our responses more precise. 

Dirty Secret #5

We are always driven by something greater than ourselves.

Even if it makes you cringe, inevitably, most health and healing practitioners subscribe to some higher source, authority, or power, even if it’s simply within ourselves, or a sense of universality and connectedness. 

It might annoy the crap out of you, you might think we’re hopeless idealists… but it’s what we witness day after day, and it’s what keeps us going. 

On that note…

Dirty Secret #6

We like to use the word “God,” but shy away from it publicly. 

Unfortunately. Don’t want to offend anyone else out there. So we keep it for private use. We’re okay with it. 


One more thing. We will never, ever stop trying to be better for ourselves and others, no matter how crazy our rituals and appearance and vernacular become. If it betters the whole, then it’s worth it. We’ve done our duty.  

Healing - Beyond Just a Practice

I think I'm finally getting it. 

That is, how to explain what I do. It's so funny when I meet people for the first time, or even when catching up with people, and inevitably the question arises, "What do you do for a living?" or, my favorite, "How is it going... whatever it is that you do?"

One way to answer is the technical way: With a person laying on a massage table, I use my hands in an intentional, heart-centered way, in a series of techniques with hands moving or still, with light touch or no touch, to balance someone's energy.

While completely accurate, this response is not complete. It leaves out the very nature of the work, which is also the greatest cause of its ambiguity -- that fact that it addresses our existence on spiritual, mental, and emotional levels of being -- and importantly, our experiences within them. 

In the beginning, I used to shy away from answering the question more fully in this way because honestly, it was a bit ambiguous. It's sometimes difficult to describe something that is so experiential and beyond physical, tangible context. While I wanted to explain my experiences, the logical part of my brain was fully aware of the words leaving my mouth and how crazy it all sounded. Because I didn't want to alienate myself, I would put a filter on my experiences and understandings, perhaps lending to vague generalist statements. 

But now, I don't filter myself. I speak from the heart and let the words flow, even if it sounds a little crazy. Or if at times there are no words at all. 

The world of healing is a world of poetry and flow. It's not just about getting the techniques right in the sequence of a healing session. It's about dedicating our own lives to continual self-evaluation, deconstruction, and rebuilding. 

Committing oneself to the path of a healer is about discovering just how complex and intricate we are -- how we learn and function, and what our principles, beliefs, and perceptions are. It's about being honest with where we need to heal ourselves; what areas are emotionally tender or psychologically frightening. As healing practitioners, we constantly delve into the places most fearful and vulnerable within ourselves. We experience everything viscerally and fully, coming out on the other side of the darkness with greater light, clarity, and awareness. 

We do this again and again so that when holding space for others, we can honestly say, "I know what you're going through. I know it's painful. I've been there. And it gets better. I've done it, and you can, too."

I've discovered that the process of healing is about breaking down the barriers we have set up within ourselves. This is what is meant by "dissolving the illusion of separateness." 

So, when I am asked, "What do you do for a living?" I answer, "It's not only about what I do, it's who I become." 

Blessed!

I almost feel like another Hello and Welcome is needed! It's been quite a while since my last post. Why? you may ask... or not... anyway. I've been so BLESSED and busy doing healing sessions, working towards completing requirements for Level 5 Healing Touch and certification. 

Really, I feel like I am the luckiest person in the world when I'm working with other people during healing sessions. It is a huge bond of trust established between healer and recipient. Even more than traditional massage, energywork truly delves deep into the energetic layers of a person, revealing the stories written in their aura. I can feel energetic flow throughout the chakras and energetic bodies, sensing where spaces are stronger and weaker, how this translates into the way a person processes every day experiences, emotions, stresses, and how connected a person is to themself and sense of divinity. Every person is different, every session is different, and to be allowed into one's energetic space is such a sacred act. I am so grateful each and every time. 

As an energy worker, I can raise my vibrational level in order to channel energy for healing. Just as one can experience gentle, soothing strokes in massage versus intense pressure in deep tissue massage, energy work can function the same way, I find. Sometimes gentle releasing held for a longer period of time is needed. Sometimes an intense burst of energy is needed to open a blockage or to seal a weak area. Many times a problem area manifested in the physical body cannot be worked on until another area is released or cleared. The ideal from any session is to clear tension, congestion, or heaviness in order to produce flow and movement. Sometimes all that's needed is for me to hold space while a person's energy does all the work. Even then, to be witness to this healing is amazing. 

To hear afterwards, "I feel so relaxed!" and accounts of never being able to slow down the thinking until having a session, and a sense of being more centered, grounded, connected... it's so gratifying. And all that's needed is an opening, willing heart to serve. And trust me, this giving builds and multiplies, spilling forth so that you want to give more and more. I can't possibly contain all this love for myself!!! Everyone needs to do this! At least, everyone needs to give, to serve, in some way or another for someone else's well-being. Even if it's as simple as putting aside everything and giving your undivided attention listening to a loved one speak for a few minutes, or volunteering time and effort towards a cause. It's the most beautiful thing we can offer to others. So in whatever way you can, please serve! Give of yourself purely to others and feel blessed.