Hello,
Everyone.
I hope you've had a beautiful week.
In today's episode,
We're going to talk about what it means to be a healer.
When we think of healers in the Western world,
We have a tendency to go one of three ways.
We could be all on board envisioning shamans,
Herbalists,
Reiki masters,
Breathwork coaches,
Or Native American ethnobotany.
We could be the complete opposite and think of witch doctors,
Those who are crystals and mala beads and are eccentric,
Believing they're trying to sell snake oil.
Or we could be somewhere in the middle,
Being open to tarot,
Interested in mediumship,
Having seen spirit themselves,
And using Eastern medicine.
Healers in today's society,
However,
Generally have to navigate through a lot of dirty looks,
Eye rolling,
And scoffing with regards to their chosen profession.
And it takes a lot of mindfulness if you are moving into the field of healing arts to not allow the ego to be affected when your profession is so often negatively judged.
In the dictionary,
There are three definitions of a healer.
The first is,
Quote,
A person who seeks to cure diseases or heal injuries by means other than conventional medical treatment.
The second is,
Quote,
A person or thing that mends or repairs something.
And the third is,
Quote,
Something that alleviates distress or anguish.
In truth,
Everyone is a healer to some degree.
Have you ever given advice to a friend when they are going through something?
You are a healer.
Have you ever calmed down a situation or broken up an altercation?
You are a healer.
Have you ever comforted a child,
A parent,
Someone else,
Or even yourself?
You are a healer.
Psychiatrists are healers of the mind.
Doctors are healers of the body.
Shamans are healers of the spirit.
Are you a tarot card reader,
Astrologer,
Medium,
Yoga or meditation instructor,
Sound bath facilitator,
Reiki practitioner,
Or herbalist?
You are a healer.
Everyone,
No matter what profession,
Is a healer in some form.
Electricians heal darkness.
Mechanics heal broken cars.
Veterinarians heal sick animals.
Writers heal boredom and egoic ignorance.
No matter what you do or don't do for a living or via your actions and words,
You are a healer of some sort.
Now,
I'm going to tell you a personal story.
I had been in the art and academic world for 13 years when I had my severe ego degradation and became a yoga instructor.
I remember I went to a party,
The first one after changing my profession,
And someone came up to me and asked what I did for a living.
I told them I was a yoga instructor.
They said,
Oh,
And walked away.
This had never happened to me before.
When I had told anyone in the past that I was in the art world,
I would usually be stuck for an hour talking to them as they prodded me with questions and took interest.
This was a whole new ballgame for me.
I felt so judged and invalidated by this random person at this party that I spent the next decade trying to come up with ways in which I could make myself sound more serious.
I felt like I always had to justify my choices and my profession to people as,
What do you do for a living,
Is one of the first things people have a tendency to ask us.
See,
We have a propensity,
Especially in the States,
To view healers as woo-woo or crazy or eccentric or out there,
And we have a propensity as healers to either lean into that eccentricity and act more and more New Age or bottle it up and downplay what we do because we've been judged or are scared of being judged.
Let me remind you that it's no one's business what you do for a living or how you spend your time.
You don't have to answer them and you certainly don't have to justify your choices.
It's a ridiculous social norm to ask people what they do for a living when it has literally nothing to do with who they are,
But instead feeds into egoic purpose and identification.
What all of this comes down to,
As always,
Is the ego and what we perceive or believe to hold societal value.
That an acupuncturist does not hold as much prestige as a medical doctor is judged by those who care about societal status over the body as a whole.
But both an acupuncturist and a medical doctor are both healers under the same vein simply with differing approaches.
A stay-at-home mother is just as much of a healer as a school nurse.
An avid gardener is just as much of a healer as an agriculturalist.
It's just about societal value systems that create a false duality with labels and expectations.
At the core of it all,
Every single person is a healer in some form,
No matter what title you put on it,
For the underlying basis is that of healing something.
By being part of the workforce,
You are mending,
Repairing,
And alleviating the distress of the community and the economy.
By being in a relationship,
You are helping to heal the isolation of loneliness people feel.
Or,
On the flip side,
By not being in a relationship,
You are repairing your own mindset and past traumas through self-reflection and self-care.
No matter what you do,
You are healing something,
Somewhere,
And that is what a true healer is.
Until next week,
All of my best and highest vibrations to you.
