Radiant Health Blessing, copyright 2014, Janet Hovde
I went to see a healer recently, and I am still recovering. She had comments about how I could improve on everything. With catch-22’s. For example, if I said I was weeding and biking rather than going to the gym the past few weeks, she said the gym would be better. If I said I was dealing with fatigue, she said I needed to pace myself. (Isn’t it possible that pulling weeds and then resting, pulling more weeds and then resting, IS pacing myself?) I could give you several more examples. (I’ll spare you.)
I was present with her in an open-minded, open-hearted way. I left feeling like a confused failure.
This healer is recommended by at least one person I highly respect, which adds to confusion over my experience. I think it is possible that this healer is a good healer, for some people. My sense is that there is something about me that triggered her to go into defensive mode, with her needing to be superior to me. And to be right. What really bugged me was that she seemed to assume I was doing everything wrong.
So what can I take away from this experience? That was one of my questions as I puzzled my way out of it. Aha! When I am working with clients and students, I need to be extra-aware of coming from a place of assuming they are gifted rather than assuming they are broken. And—I think this is even more relevant—as I recover from breast cancer, chemotherapy, and surgeries, I need to notice my own giftedness and build on that. Instead of assuming I’m doing everything wrong, and pushing myself to be better. What if I assume I am doing most things right? Huh.
Have you had similar experiences? Thoughts?
I feel just like this about so many of the messages that are in my FB feed from very well intentioned, loving people. But, the “healing” message comes from a place that I (we) are broken and need to be fixed. Wonder if it’s a surfacing of that old “original sin” thing? Could just be that, as you say, this is the thing that’s up for us to look at.
You are beautiful, Janet. Thanks for this post.
I love the take away you had from this whole experience Janet. Thank you for sharing, and by the way you are an amazing person and healer. xo
Perhaps this “healer” was really a very good healer after all…..you did, after all, in the end result, come to very wise conclusions of who you are and what your roll is when working with your clients. Perhaps, this is also to teach you that the people we seek out to help us, are NOT in fact, the actual “healers” themselves, but really only messengers sent to us to share their wisdom or tools of which is delivered just how we need it at the most opportune timing. By this action, you, yourself, is now able to heal that place within you that needed healing. As a practitioner myself, working with many healing modalities,. I never call myself a “healer” for the simple reason that I cannot heal anyone no matter how hard I try. All I can do is deliver the tools and techniques, and from there, the client is the actual healer within themselves. It is after all, their free will. The universe supplies us with whatever we need when we need it to heal from anything as long as we are willing to do the work within ourselves to reach that point. It sounds like you’ve been a willing participant in healing yourself up to this point. Even when you agreed to go this person. Sometimes what we perceive is not necessarily what was actually intended in order to bring us the very best of what can actually be. Sometimes, we need to be pushed in directions we would normally not take by ourselves in order to see the big picture that was there the whole time after all. Limited thinking to the fact that we, ourself, sometimes cannot even imagine a bigger picture only due to the fact that we have never been there before. 🙂
Ah both your post and the comments left on it have me reeling. In a good way. I think your reaction is spot on Janet. Good on you for reversing the perspective.
Good for you for being able to recognize that, Janet, for not internalizing her advice and wounding yourself. When it comes down to it, YOU are your own best healer.
TV Tropes calls this sort of thing the “Compassionate Critic”, the person who only ever tells you what they think you’re doing wrong because they think (or claim to think) that that’s the best way to help people. Which is great if being told what you’re doing wrong is exactly what you need. Not so helpful if you need encouragement.
A book I’ve reviewed that I recommend is “Thanks for the Feedback”. It’s by a couple of Harvard researchers, and is about how to mine out the useful bits from people’s feedback to you, even when it’s expressed badly or is by someone you don’t trust.
Maybe you just weren’t a good match for each other. I hope you aren’t going back! Even though you didn’t get the best experience, it seems you got out of it with a great mindset shift. Yes, what if you know that you’re doing everything right?
What a wonderful post Janet. Your perspective is a real gift and your insight is a valuable one that I suspect you hold close in your heart now to the betterment of all of us. None of us are broken, and how fabulous would it be if we could all see that about ourselves and each other. Yay to you for all the things you’re doing! Your Radiant Health Blessing is a fabulous piece – I think it may be my favorite of all your work.
I love that you were able to go to that place of what am I supposed to learn from this experience? There are always lessons in every situation if we are open to them and it sounds like you went into the experience with an open heart and open mind. Thanks for sharing this inspirational post with us Janet:)
“Take what you need and leave the rest.” Janet, YOU are the amazing healer of your own self. The healer that you visited only guided you to your own self truths. People come into our lives for a reason. Sometimes their message is good “hey what a great idea, I’ll try that!” and sometimes their message is anything BUT good “well, I guess I know what NOT to do now…” either way, we find within our own infinite wisdom, that right path to take on our own, yet often delivered through others. I think you are an amazing, brave, strong and enlightened woman. You go, girl!
Love the beautiful way you turned the message around, I am not sure if I am yet in that mind-frame to do that. Your clients are all the better for having YOU as a wise and compassionate healer <3