The Healer Delusion

Life is painful, and its only human, to want to alleviate pain and suffering wherever we see it. Finding the ‘cure’ to pain is big business, and everyone is selling their wares for good dollars. Pharmaceutical scepticism is high, and alternative approaches to personal development, health and wellbeing is rife.

Personal development and spirituality are now mainstreaming. There is a growing army of so called ‘lightworkers’ armed with crystals, purpose, feathers, oils and burning essences. This shows us the extremity to which pain is showing up individually and collectively, and our very human attempts to work with it, face and transform it at scale we haven’t seen in our life time. Personal development and healing modalities have become so vast, common and available now, that it can be daunting for anyone embarking on this  journey of change. With exponential technologies, connectivity and the democratisation of media, anyone can become an expert, or influencer, especially if there is a voice and a following. I’m writing this short piece to lay out a few principles for anyone wanting to go down a personal / transformative journey, who wish to avoid some major pitfalls I fell into. This is not a dig at healers, gurus, coaches or leaders, as many of them are my friends, and I believe there intentions are mostly well founded. But here are some of the hidden pitfalls I have directly experienced:

1.     Joy and salvation - All spiritual paths and their practitioners will ‘sell’ sacredness and healing to you. Sacredness is by definition often packaged into the product. If the marketing collateral includes healing ‘core wounds’, finding ‘joy’, obtaining ‘enlightenment’, becoming a lightworker to heal the world, be sceptical. This is not to say that these modalities aren’t powerful, will not help alleviate pain, support your growth and get to know yourself. However, if healers are selling joy or salvation, if you follow certain steps (or principals), it is NOT a lived experience, but a hope or dream embodied in sales material, looking for a buyer.   

2.     Leaders and lightworkers – Beware of those who ‘self-identify’ to being leaders in their communities / lightworkers (or my worst – ‘visionaries’ – on Linkedin) / martyrs sacrificing themselves for the ‘greater good’. Those who often identify themselves with these attributes, seek and gain a following, based on this premise. They have something you want, and they are more than willing to show you how to get it. With all good intent, they try develop and exhibit those worthy attributes of goodness they sell or proclaim they have found. However, those characters typically, have not integrated or acknowledged their darker, more shadowy psychological aspects, as they push ‘to the light’ or ‘heal’ them away. When forming close relationships, these so called leaders will starkly show you the opposite to what they advertise themselves as. At bare minimum, they may never show up for you, break agreements, or even when pushed, be outright abusive or dishonest. Again, this is very human, natural and part of maturing in life. The principle is, what you are trying to project yourself as in the world, you haven’t quite found (myself included) for yourself.  This is just a warning against ‘false advertising’, and you might very well find those ‘worthy’ attributes in those quiet beings, who feel no need to sell them.

3.     The business of healing – Healers are businesses, offering a service you value, nothing less or more. Their reputation / credibility is usually sold through experience, testimonials, being linked to some guru, and/or some ‘ancient lineage passed down by generation to generation’. The modalities that scale globally, usually come through some sort of  practitioner ‘certification levels’, licencing, learning modules which carry a belief system, teacher training courses, etc. In the modern world, you can now get your certificate with really little effort, and be a practitioner, so it shouldn’t be treated with any more seriousness than an under-grad getting their psychology degree. This knowledge may be powerful where you are right now, but depth and wisdom can’t be bought nor provided through certificates and trademarks.

4.     So many stories – There is a litany of belief systems, sacred geometry, Merkaba or life activations, astrology, mythology, ascended master channelings, shamanic experience and altered states of consciousness through breath, dance, meditation and taking of plant entheogens. Your mind and intellect will become full of stories, and profound experiences to share. Enjoy the experience, but let them go once they are done. They are just stories, which become distracting as we focus on them. There is lots to feel, lots to let go of, and it will be a waste of energy hanging on to stories. The risk of these stories is that they can become so over stimulating, make life sooo symbolic, and we forget to breath and stay present with what we are feeling. Presence is a greater gem to hold onto than stories for the mind. Yet, paradoxically stories are important to share, to grow and point us back to presence.

5.     Over confidence – When someone tells you on that stage with certainty, that they have life worked out, and know the secrets to happiness if you follow their program or steps. Run the other way. None of us know what we the fuck we are doing on this flying biosphere through space and time. But we are hear breathing right now.   

6.     The wounded healer – The archetypal wounded healer is the most common character trait found in healing practices. Their healing modality, is their attempt to heal themselves. There is nothing wrong with that, as the most powerful coaches and healers, are carved by their wounds, pains and experiences. However, don’t elevate their supposed knowledge above your own. You are most likely gleaning off their experienced knowledge, but also their unreckoned wounds, which they often believe they have solved.

7.     Accepting pain – As long as you are in a human skin, you will feel pain until your last breath. If you make the choice to love someone, find a partner, have children, there is a price to pay. That is grief and pain when they fall sick and die. We are human. Full stop. We are beautiful, loving, fragile, vulnerable, imperfect and mortal. Everyone and everything you have, including yourself, will be lost at some point. The acceptance of pain and mortality as a part of life is the most profound way to participate in it fully. We can and will work with our pain, and there is no need to cure or heal it. When held, and formed a relationship with, our pain CAN BE the mythical Excalibur or Philosopher’s stone, which leads us to our greatest power and expression. When we turn to the fire of pain, and cook in it slowly, our personalities and egos can be transformed or burnt alive. This cooking process is the difference between a boy, a man and a king. It is the facing of life, just the way it is, and refusing to ‘end game’ it, escape it, supress it, identify with it or find a cure for it. This learning to be intimate with your pain, whatever it is, whenever it comes up, is the ultimate route for growth. So, yes, work with healers to help you know yourself, and alleviate the pain when it gets too overwhelming, but only YOU can go through the fire alone if you want to find what’s on the other side. The gifts are numerous, but not guaranteed, and what’s often on the other side is more pain. This is not to say that we won’t experience joy, happiness, love, care, connection, and less pain as we grow and transform. We won’t however find them ALL the time.  

So, tread gently friends. There is lots of growth to be had, and there are no wrong paths, as we try build a map of human experience together. I hope this post adds to your map, and as by design, which is my nature, it’s been written to trigger. In my experience, treat all life with reverence and care. There is no need to place more (or less) attention to an ancient practice, a friend, a YouTube star, your child or a bird, for wisdom. Extreme pain and tender loving gentleness are there too for growth and wisdom. If this article offers nothing to you, then just move on. You are the alpha and omega in your own life.