Today I had a discussion with one of my students. The subject that came up was the fear of persecution that healer’s and energy workers feel in society today. The fear of speaking up about their gifts, the fear of judgement, and the fear of not being accepted in society.
This is not something I have within me now. though I do recognize these fears, for they are things I’ve worked through.
It began with my nearest and dearest, my family. Who still to this day don’t understand my work. In fact they still like to ‘tease’ me for being ‘woo woo’, ‘witchy’ and ‘oh look Sarah’s talking to her imaginary friends again’. Luckily nowadays I am strong enough in who I am and what I do that I am not hurt or silenced by their inability to understand me. I accept and love them for their choices and for who they are. Once I did this and once I stopped needing them to understand me everything changed. In accepting each other for the people that we are, I have found that I am able to love and laugh and be me and they are too.
Then my colleagues within the movement industry when I started out in the early 1990s, the osteopaths, the physiotherapists, other movement therapists wouldn’t acknowledge that there could be something more than flesh, bone and muscle. Going back 20 years I was looked upon as completely crazy to have ideas that energy could heal, a fruitcake that mental and physical were not separate. Now, I’m thankful that the industry has gone some way to accepting that thought and emotions (energy in motion) impact the physical body causing posture, tension, disease and misalignments. Looking back I am grateful that my knowing was laughed at. Why? It made me determined to show that energy work could heal. That looking within and understanding emotional patterns and wounding could shift and change self awareness to such an extent that the person can transform.
My culture is one of conforming, of not standing out, of not being different, of fitting in and you will be looked after. Get a job, find a husband, have some children and you’ll be secure. If you let it British culture would have you in school, university, career, home purchase, marriage, holidays, grandchildren, retirement, care home, death. Not something I ever felt I wanted. Thankfully more and more this is shifting and changing with extended families, entrepreneurship instead of jobs, travel instead of holidays, and self knowledge instead of self sacrifice.
I have connected to past lives where I was persecuted for my work as a healer. The thing is though, that past lives are past. It is good to understand and acknowledge the wounding, collect the energy, and heal them. But I will not allow them to perpetuate in this life.
I have struggled to find my voice as a spiritual teacher and spiritual mentor, this was tangled up in my inner child, as she had never felt heard. As I worked with that aspect of me and learned to love the child within me this got easier and easier. Nowadays, I have no trouble in sharing my work, speaking about spirituality and energy and other dimensions and teaching about it.
I, historically, never felt good enough. I would question “why me?”. Again, this was a fear of the responsibility of my potential. Of the bigger stage, of the bigger me. I hid my light deep inside myself and it was only when I uncovered all of me from my Shadow that I owned my gifts and stepped out as the Modern Day Shaman.
If I could have told my younger self something to help her as she stepped tentatively out as a healer, it would be….
Be yourself without apology. Love who you are, warts and all, know who you are confidently, believe in great things coming towards you, and they will.
Learn from the past but don’t bring it with you. Look to the future while living and savouring this moment.
Know that you have come to use your gifts and that they are needed and wanted by so many out there.
Accept those that don’t understand you for who they are without needing to change them.
The path of the healer is filled with self discovery, self knowledge and self healing. Embrace these as they come to make you stronger and more compassionate and with that, a better healer, and a better facilitator of energy.
I know you are ready to do the same. I know you are ready to push past the fear you hold within you. The fear you’ve learned from your family, your peers, your colleagues and your culture. The fear you hold of being you.
Want to go deeper and overcome the fears within you? I’m here to help.