Musings on Healers and Healing
After the last five years of working with the SCENAR and watching people make amazing recoveries, I have to ponder the nature of healing and what the term “healer” really means. Certainly I don’t really consider myself a “healer.” That term seems to better fit shamans and those people I’ve met in my life who have a deep power about them, where one feels healed somehow just to be in their presence. And I have a bit of an issue with the term itself. The word “healer” seems to imply that people should depend on others to do their healing for them. My work with SCENAR makes it very clear that it is the client’s body that does the healing. My function is simply to remind it, in case it may have lost the thread.
A paradigm of “healer” that better fits what I feel comfortable with has several components. It would include the following aspects:
1. A healer must act from a position of unconditional positive regard for the client. A personal humility and profound respect for the client is imperative. The relationship between the healer and the client must be egalitarian, as two sojourners together finding their way home to healing; for in truth everyone is a healer, and every relationship carries within it the opportunity for healing to each one involved. To be a part of this kind of relationship, the healer must work on themselves so they can effectively work with others. With enough inner work, the healer can pay attention to the “feeling level” with a client and can discern non-verbal communication at an intuitive level. This creates the “gentle knowing” that can guide their approach to the client’s dis-ease.
2. Healers must be educators and facilitators such that people can begin to recognize their own needs and begin to have a sense of power to take charge of their own well being. In doing so, they can deepen their intuitive relationship with their own inner wisdom. They can listen to its messages not with fear but with confidence and trust that whatever the message is, it is leading them toward healing and they can participate cooperatively with it. In this way, healers can help clients transform their thinking from negative, defensive ideas of social conditioning to positive, empowered, and hopeful attitudes that grow from self-knowledge and trust in one’s own inner knowing.
3. Development through training with the particular modality expands the healer’s understanding of how to be the most effective in its use. The modality should be a passion for the healer, but never to the point where they believe that it is the “only modality that works” or is the “best modality available.” Only the client knows what is the best modality for their healing, and all healing is ultimately individual. A healer should only be interested in assisting the client to find the modality that works for them. If a healer’s modality is not a fit, they would best assist the client by suggesting other possibilities that might be.
The power to heal rests in the one looking for healing. Healing is a mysterious process. Although science knows much about physical healing, well being is created through the synergistic alignment on many levels of inner and outer experience. To me, a “healer” is one who is willing to walk with their client, with deep caring and a sincere interest in being of assistance, as they both journey toward wholeness.
April 12, 2010 9:04 pm 
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