Do you remember the motivational aphorism, “fake it ’til you make it” that came about in the 70’s? I never could wrap my mind around that and when I did finally understand what it meant, it didn’t resonate with my spirit. I’ve spent much of my healing practice undoing the repercussions of that misguided notion in many ways in many different individuals.
I ask you, when has faking something ever brought about the real thing for you? Why did anyone think faking something like confidence would actually cultivate confidence, inspiration or anything else?
You can’t pretend your way into or out of anything. You have to do the real work to get the real payoff. You can’t half ass stuff and hope the rest falls into place. What you put out or in comes right back to you, so if you don’t like what you are seeing then you might just need to take a look at what you are actually putting out rather than what you believe you are putting out.
I also think there is intrinsic value in being authentic. If you are nervous or unsure I think it is powerful to admit that, to own that. I think pretending is foul.
I had a conversation with a friend and business partner today about holistic healers who hang up their shingles too early and this falls in line with that.
It is a great responsibility and honor to work in the holistic healing world. So, ethically speaking, you need to be leading a holistic life if you want to provide holistic support to others. After all would you patronize a dentist who didn’t take care of his own teeth? A weight loss clinic who’s staff was all overweight? A pulmonologist who smoked? A therapist who self-medicates? Would you go to a General Surgeon who was faking it ’til he made it?
If you are a healer – any kind of healer – I believe you need to be on the road of self-mastery before you hang up your shingle. We never fully master ourselves because we are ever evolving, ever growing, there is always new ground to cover if we are doing it ‘right’, so I’m not talking about perfection here. I am talking about self-awareness though. If you haven’t used your formulas, techniques, programs, tools and interventions on yourself, in your own life, for a significant period of time then how can you, in good conscience, say you are prepared to assist others in using them in theirs? How can you look them in the eye, with confidence and say ‘trust me…I know this is hard…but trust me’?
You have to have a fair amount of practical application under your belt in order to fully develop as a practitioner and to attain credibility. A person who graduates medical school isn’t automatically a doctor! No. After the four years of medical school, they need to complete 3-7 years of residency training before they are even eligible for medical licensing.
Why? Because practical application of learned information is needed for the student to develop into the healer. I believe the same goes for holistic healers, even though there is no regulating body to establish such a protocol.
Maybe it is because I started in energy healing before it became mainstream, when education and certifications were not as readily available as they are today. In fact, the internet did not even exist then! Let that sink in for a minute.
I learned energy healing modalities at the side of my mentors, in classrooms with live teachers, I read every book I could get my hands on and worked on friends, family and strangers. I lived in metaphysical stores and picked the brains of everyone I met. I did it in conjunction with my duties as a hospice and medical social worker. Clients came to me by word of mouth or they were my co-workers in my mainstream job.
I love Hippocrates’ quote above and I think it can be applied to the healer as well. “Before you heal someone, you need to be willing to give up the things that make you sick.”
If you have a healing practice – not just learning as a student – then healing should be active in your vibration. What does that mean? It means that you do your due diligence in your own self-development. That you are looking at every aspect of yourself and making higher vibration choices every chance you get. It means that you have at least 75% of your shit together, the majority of the time.
Does it mean you heal yourself overnight? That you can’t practice until you are perfect? No. It means that you have healing and health in your forefront. It means you make yourself a priority.
It means -at the very least- that you are stellar at taking care of yourself.
You need to be your first client. In theory, you should take no better care of any patient than you care for yourself. You serve as a prime example of the fine work you do.
As an ethical healer, you walk the walk, not just talk the talk. It means you have an active healing plan in place for your optimum holistic health and that is your priority everyday; even though it might take weeks, months or years to accomplish your longterm goals. On the daily though you are working towards your optimum holistic health. No matter your situation, there is always something you can do every single day that is moving you towards your longterm goals. Even if it’s as simple as visualizing.
When you take on the role of a healer, you are saying to the world that you are going to make it better…one person at a time. The first person should be you.
When you do not have healing active in your vibration then you can do more harm than good. You don’t have the perspective or experience to handle the situations you may be faced with. This is not memorizing remedies and interventions and spitting out the facts. This is very personalized interaction and if you haven’t done your own work it will show up as inauthenticity for some of your clients.
The bottomline is how would you assess a client who showed up the way you show up? Would you let your client get away with the excuses you are making and the amount of effort you are putting in? Would you consider them doing ‘good enough’ or ‘the best they can’?
Would you?
Or would you call them on their shit? So do that to yourself! Look, the world needs more healers. I am not out to talk anyone out of being a healer. I just need you to be your best. You need to be honest with yourself if you are going to be honest with anyone else.
Have big dreams of healing? Great. Start out small. Start with what you know, what you have done and could do in your sleep. What do you have the most experience with? What have you failed at, then succeeded in? That’s where you excel. That’s where you need to start building your business. Then as you acquire more experience in other areas you can add to your services, but make sure you own them first. That you have failed and succeeded many times over, so you know that technique and it’s relevant issues inside out.
No one is going to come to you with textbook anything. There will always be some unique glitch in their experience and the more experience you have the better you will be able to put all your knowledge together to heal that client.
And remember that healers need healers too. We never do anything alone!
I love you!
~Jade
You’ve had a conflict with another person. Things may have gotten out of control and both sides are hurt. You may think the other person is at fault or at least at greater fault. At one point someone suggests you apologize and you reject that notion. That person then says to you, “be the bigger person” and you reluctantly decide to make the first move towards resolution.