Healing is optional. It is easy to assume as a healer that everyone wants healing. We assume that if someone has a physical mental or emotional issue that causes stress, pain and discomfort, that the person would do whatever it takes to relieve the symptoms of distress.

But healing can be disruptive. It is easy to see the ‘problem’ that we are working on as serious and underestimate the disruptive nature of the healing process on all levels of the person’s life. If you heal insecurity, for example, and all of your relationships are based on you being the insecure one, you may end up losing some relationships. Your newfound security could get you rejected. Some people would rather not heal their insecurity if that is the case.

Healing is Optional but sometimes the Healer Forgets That

And when we have prior positive experiences in facilitating a client’s healing and they resist further healing, we get confused and go into a state of YEARNING that helps nobody. This is when the healer’s agenda can be a problem and I’m sure every healer has had to deal with this issue.

I used to yearn to help others transform their lives. It was partly because I was born to do just that. It is my passion, my calling, my talent. But before I turned professional it was also just meddling in issues that were none of my business sometimes. Nobody had hired me. Since I hadn’t harnessed my abilities and directed them constructively I just threw them at whoever was in front of me.

I regret that now. Yearning made me weaker, like a dis-empowered beggar, but also aggressively intrusive. I could see the areas that needed healing in others but was not trained to help in a systematic way. There was a misguided belief that positive transformation was a good thing in itself almost regardless of the consequences. I stirred up storms I had little ability to calm, thinking that at least it brought the issue to light and the potential of healing.

Dis-empowering Negative Ideas

Now I have a different orientation.When people say they have a certain issue I first affirm their right to have that issue forever. Of course, nobody comes to me to keep these issues forever, quite the opposite. But it is important, in my opinion, to avoid reinforcing the issue through opposing it. You see, when we oppose something we oftentimes strengthen it. That’s why suppressing emotions only causes them to intensify and grow deeper roots.

Also, as a healer it is important not to see negativity of any kind as powerful. It is important to see the illusion while also honoring the damage these illusions can cause. Just because your issue is an illusion doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. Ask any amputee suffering from phantom pains. But when we yearn to heal these things we can oftentimes energize the issues and make them more concrete in our own minds. That’s the opposite of dissolving the issue.

Allowing the issue NOT to heal paradoxically opens up space for resolving/healing the issue. For example, allowing sadness and tears to be expressed opens up space for happiness to emerge.

It is important as a healer to see health, happiness, confidence and vitality as the core reality while allowing the illusions of their opposites to do their dance until a person is genuinely done with the drama those issues contain. Healing is miraculous and exciting but healing is optional. When it’s not imposed a space opens up where it is received. Then we as healers can bring the magic and spread it to someone truly ready for it.