I recently received a call from someone who was interested in my healing work, and wanted to know 
what made my work as an Energy Medicine practitioner stand out. I loved the question, and was happy to share my perspective.
I have been deeply involved in the world of holistic and spiritual healing for a long time, both as a client and as a practitioner, and have also long been a student of humanity, spending time in deep reflection and observation of the ways of being human. One of the things I have encountered over and over again is the desire that clients have for a healer to magically make things better. And seriously, who *wouldn’t* like that to happen? Everyone longs for that now and then when life brings difficulties and confusion and suffering. But this magical thinking, and the desire for someone to just fix it already, is not helpful. It gives away the power of the individual, and puts that power in the hands of someone else who may or may not be able to do much in the bigger picture. This creates an imbalance of power and recreates the power over / power under dynamic that keeps people stuck. And sadly, there are a lot of “healers” who feed on this power dynamic. It feeds their egos and makes them feel important and powerful, and may also bring financial rewards ~ and the client continues to believe that it takes a powerful healer to fix things beyond their own capacity to navigate. And sometimes, even ego driven healers can bring results for a client ~ for a time, anyway. But I have learned both through my own personal journey, and through my work with others, that this is never a lasting shift.
My work is focused on empowering my clients to claim their own power and do the challenging work of initiating their own inner shifts. My role is to guide that process, to listen deeply and reflect what is happening, to hold a safe container, and to encourage clients to go into the challenging shadowy places that they might want to avoid. I have heard questions like these:
“Can’t you just tell me what YOU think is going on?”
“Can’t you connect with my guides and tell me what they are saying?”
“Isn’t it your job as the healer to shift these things for me?”
And the answer is… “NO!”
Because continuing to give away our own power and wisdom keeps us from healing, period.
Years ago, as my healing work was expanding in new ways, I had a conversation with one of my guides. The guide brought up the image of a friend of mine who was struggling with breast cancer, and began showing me how to scan her body to sense the density that was creating the cancer. I was shown that a tumor is no more than a concentration of dense energy, and that it is possible to unwind that density and shift the tumor out of being. I was ecstatic!! What a wonderful and potent tool to use in helping others to heal. And then, the guide shouted to me, “… and this is NOT YOUR JOB!!” I was baffled, and asked for more information. The guide told me that in this kind of scenario, even if I was able to shift the energy and clear the tumor, it would come back because the energetic patterns that created it in the first place must be shifted. And that the only way that would happen would be by empowering the client to shift those things directly. “This is your job,” the guide showed me. And I have embraced that ever since.
And so, my job as an Energy Medicine practitioner is to support my clients in cultivating their own capacities to feel, sense, listen, and shift. To hold space in a potent and safe way, and to guide clients in their journey of healing in a way that allows them to reclaim their own power, intuition, and knowing. For it is only when that happens that the healing takes root and brings lasting and meaningful change.
