“Get a back bone not a wish bone.”
Myss explores the healer archetype, and breaks through the myths that have clustered around it. Her intention is for healers not only see themselves realistically, but also to experience their own deep compassion. We often assume that healing is reserved for everyone else. However, the healer cannot afford to abandon him or herself. We are on shaky ground if we don’t know ourselves well enough to address our limitations. We need to be authentic about what we can and cannot do.
Healers are primarily schooled in how to address others. Myss wants us to look squarely at ourselves, and build our own self-esteem. This requires that we confront our egos, find out who we are and why we are, and not simply align ourselves with the myths about the profession.
One of the myths she addresses: Healers as Mystics. All healers are not mystics, though she says, all mystics are healers. You can be a 9-5 healer, i.e., someone who practices a skill, such as massage, and goes home at the end of the day feeling you have helped clients, without having gone core deep.
She calls this the “eau de toilette” version, but still considers it equally legitimate. What she doesn’t condone is the “burned out” healer. In what other profession, she asks, do you find such massive burn-out from what is considered someone’s goodness?
Being a healer does not make you inherently good. Everyone has a shadow and it’s the healer’s job to integrate her own. Otherwise, you’ll have a private agenda, which could include: being needed, being superior, or something that would inevitably force you to cross someone’s boundaries.
You need to know yourself well enough to know what you can and cannot do. Therefore you have the ability to say no to situations and people that are inappropriate for you, and to know without doubt that it’s a higher force that does the healing; and you are simply the vessel that has been made strong enough to channel it.
You can be an elegant healer without being a healing practitioner. For instance, she cites Eleanor Roosevelt as one of our greatest healers, someone whose leadership left a legacy that continues to inspire us today.
The Wounded Healer:
Are you called to heal? Can one be a healer without experiencing a profound call? Can you simply provide a healing presence wherever you are even without seeking credit?
The Call
The psychic wound will bring you to your knees. It will convince you that you are completely alone, causing everything you depended on to fail you. In fact, this “gutting,” as she calls it, removes all the old perceptual wiring.
However, once you’ve surrendered to being emptied of your attachments, you can become a sturdy vessel. You will trust inner guidance over the chatter from the world, and will not compromise what you know in order to avoid being alone. If you endure this kind of wound, you will have the capacity to maintain your center no matter what pulls at you from the outside.
The pain of the wound has to be so great that you would willingly let your old world dissolve. And with it dissolves the belief system of what can and cannot be healed.
This journey, she tells us, will require you to tolerate a light that would implode a body that was unprepared. Mystics have always had experiences of seeing the light before transformation; in fact, at times being temporarily blinded by it.
Myth of the Wounded Healer:
All wounds are not the psychic wounds of the healer. Some are simply the lessons of “earth school.” From our earthly perspective, life’s issues look insoluble. From the soul’s perspective, we are simply learning and growing.
I haven’t heard anyone make this wound distinction before. My sense of what she’s saying: Although a divorce, for example, can be traumatic, it does not necessarily “gut” one to the core and demand a rewiring of perceptions. There’s a distinction between feeling lonely, and feeling as if you have no place in this world. The psychic wound convinces you that your world gone and no amount of tinkering will restore it.
Self-Esteem Is the Access to Love:
Self-esteem, she believes, is more powerful than love. Without self-esteem all you have is connivance to get somewhere. You can only reach true love through self-esteem. Everything else is agenda.
She defines self-esteem as the ability to hold yourself in enough respect not to compromise who you are for affection or survival.
As mentioned, if you require someone’s approval, then you will violate their boundaries and your own. We must be aware of our motives.
She believes in detachment. The healer is merely the vessel. After all, if the gods wanted someone to be healed, they could send them to the store to eat cat food, and that would heal them.
The healer is merely a small spec in the larger scheme of things.
Can You Be Invisible?
Can you be a silent presence and simply observe, absorb, and if necessary, transmit? Can you work in anonymity or is your ego engaged in the glory?
Do you listen within and take the actions that are instructed for your own life? If not, then why should anyone listen to you? And why would you be given high voltage information for others?
Intuition – An Important Distinction
“Intuition is not a visionary skill that makes sure nothing ever goes wrong in your life!” In fact, she believes “Your intuition tells you how you mismanage power.” We’re imploding from all the intuition we ignore. Right now, she demands, stop and list all the positive things your intuition is telling you to do that you ignore. Tremendous difference can be made by risking the smallest changes.
Intuition is about bringing congruence between the heart and mind. Without it, she says, we’re a mess.
Fear of success is ridiculous. Where are you not following your guidance? Where do you lack the honesty and integrity?
If you hold yourself back so you won’t upset others, know that: “Everyone’s feelings are hurt if you change their plans for your life.”
As we change, those around us must change (or re-evaluate) as well.
Healer as a Calling
Callings require transformation. That doesn’t take the place of healing training. Start anywhere. You need the discipline to be schooled.
Decide what is appropriate for you and don’t compromise. (As mentioned, she doesn’t heal children. As a psychic, I prefer to look at relationships rather than homicides.)
You can never promise an outcome. Healing only has a capacity not a promise.
Don’t mix friendship with clients or your mixing your agendas.
Money
Where did we get the idea that “to serve God” you must be poor? Healers need to break through this myth and create a template of abundance for ourselves and future generations.
Hugging
“Don’t hug me,” Caroline Myss instructs her vast audiences. Where, she wonders, did we get the idea that healers have to hug people? You don’t see bank managers hugging their clients. Why do we think it is incumbent upon us as healers to cross that threshold?
Hugging, says Myss, is like having three hundred people lay hands on you. Why would she want to be left with all that unconscious energy?
Healer Not Mother
Her skill is healing not helping. She cautions us to clarify the difference between the mother and healer archetypes. While the mother may be all loving and willing to take on your aches and pains, the healer is a conduit for the ineffable. This requires incredible stamina and an ability to channel energy that moves faster than a disease. The healer may not be a soft and fuzzy kind of person, someone to hold your hand. In fact, the healer is more likely to be a flawed human being, someone with his or her own issues to work on.
Click here for Caroline Myss’ Essential Guide for Healers
