In my work as an astrologer, past life seer, and tarot reader, I am often asked by clients to tell them what kind of healer they are destined to be. It seems that in readings from others, these clients have been told that they are on a path to being a healer, but the details about exactly what that will look like have been elusive.
I love looking into this kind of question. There are so many ways to be a healer, and I’ve been fortunate to work with many in the complementary and alternative medicine fields. Perhaps not everyone thinks that being a healer means having knowledge and skills with which to help patients overcome various problems, but that’s where my mind goes first. And part of having knowledge and skills is having appropriate training, credentials, and do no harm ethics for taking a central role in other people’s healing process.
Even in the alternative health realm, there are fields of healing that require extensive training and rigorous testing to achieve licensure, because of the life and death decisions that can be encountered, or the potential for physical and emotional injury, such as becoming a:
Naturopathic doctor
Homeopathic doctor
Ayurvedic doctor
Acupuncturist / traditional Chinese doctor
Chiropractic doctor
Mental health counselor / psychologist / psychotherapist / hypnotherapist
Massage therapist / physical therapist
Closely associated in terms of the required years of training or intensity of the way of working with clients, along with some industry-developed practice and safety standards are:
Feldenkrais instructor / yoga teacher / taiji or qigong instructor
Reiki masters / healing touch practitioners
Nutritionists / diet coaches / personal trainers
Shamanic healers
Then there are the energy practices that promote holism and healing of the hurting soul, which may have varying types of credible training, but lack industry standards and government regulation – making for easy access for those who have neither the time or money to spend on lengthy education programs and licensing hoops. In this category might fall practitioners such as:
Aromatherapists / essential oils healers / flower essence remedy practitioners
Greenwitches / food as medicine teachers / raw foods & whole foods advocates
Meditation teachers / chakra balancers / faith healers
Energy practitioners / matrix healers / quantum touch healers /
Sound healers / crystal healers / psychic surgery healers
And so on. Whether the knowledge and skills for any of the above types of healers are acquired in an academic curriculum, a lengthy training program, or a personal apprenticeship, there are multiple levels of investment required.
The Healer-Soul
But then there is another type of healer that is often overlooked. That is the person who heals with their way of being -- with their gentleness, their deep and focused listening, and with genuine interest and compassion exuding from every pore. In my opinion, this is the true healer-soul, and the one who needs only their magnetic and transformative healing presence to make the essential difference in the lives of others.
The healer-soul requires no training, although it is useful to have some skill in asking good questions, holding energetic space, setting boundaries, and perceiving emotional and spiritual pain and suffering that is under the surface.
The healer-soul is a natural personality type, and may at times be subordinate to the more overt traits of personality that are necessary for functioning in modern daily life of western cultures. But there are specific and unmistakable qualities that only true healer-souls have, which include:
Being unself-conscious and focused 150% on the other person
Maintaining deep eye contact with a look that conveys unconditional acceptance
Naturally synchronizing breathing rhythms
Pure non-judgment
Generating a sense of having known them forever
Pulling forth secrets, fears, and sorrow that have never been said before
Leaving others feeling bathed in / renewed by their healing presence
The phenomenon of healing presence, which in this context I’m calling the healer-soul, is one that has intrigued me for many years. I researched and wrote my doctoral dissertation about it. That research focused on healing presence of naturopathic doctors that was a palpable energy felt by their clients. But you do not need to be a doctor to have these qualities of soul. You just need to have these qualities listed above in enough abundance that others feel them when they are around you.
If others have told you that you are a healer, they may have been picking up on some of these qualities that you already have as part of your natural way of being. If so, you can put them to use for the benefit of others without further training. It’s just a matter of how you use your spirit to listen deeply, how you gently respond to others’ sorrows, and how you generate that feeling of trust and healing presence that others feel.
It might take a shift of mind in how you think about being a healer to accept yourself as a healer-soul, and start putting it into action in ethical and appropriate ways. But regardless of what is going on in your life, what challenges you have, you may well have the potential to heal with how you interact with others.