Helping Others Heal Without Hurting Yourself - How to tell when the pain you feel is not yours
by Ask a Healer
Suggested Resources:
Spiritual Development Course
Chakra Balancing Tools
Most people called into a life of service as a healing facilitator exhibit a stronger than average impathy for others.
Healers care, to a deep degree, about the welfare of those who are ill on emotional, mental, physical or spiritual levels.
Having strong impathy, however, is no the same as being a spiritual empath. Going beyond strong compassion and a true connection with the suffering of others a spiritual empath literally experiences the pain of another in their own body.
Handling empathic overload is the subject of this spiritual wellness article.
Question on spiritual development: I just began working at a natural herbs and food place last week. Again, because I felt compelled from the spirit to go and apply. Today the message theripist seemed down and in pain. We were talking and I told her I thought she needed and deserved to have some love put into her and that I would like to rub some oils on her feet.
Well, I did with no thought of healing, just giving her love and hopefully the oils would help with her energy level. I left when I was done to go home and on the way home I became overwhelmed and wanted to bawl my eyes out. I made it home but still want to cry and my neck is aching like crazy. Is it possible I took her pain with me?
Healing Facilitation response: Once you choose to offer yourself in service, the universe takes you up on that immediately. I think you saw just how fast your decision has shifted your reality.
I suspect that the reason you took her pain home with you was that you were not clear in your intent before you offer assistance. You wrote to me this:
"I told her I thought she needed and deserved to have some love put into her."
Whether you recognize it or not, that thought was a judgement, about this person, and you also made a decision that there was something you needed to do (an action you personally needed to take on her behalf) because "put" is an active verb.
It may help to clarify the role of the energetic healer as well as the role of the empath.
Many new healers feel that they are the causative factor because they work with someone and then that person experiences benefit. The truth is that healing facilitators are actually not doing anything except keeping their own fields clear (by being diligent about their own state of spiritual awareness and balance) and opening ourselves for something to be done through them.
Healers provide Sacred Space, Sacred Intention, stand as Sacred Witness and in Sacred Support. However, the energies are directed from beyond the personality and it is the person on the healing table who allows or does not allow healing energy to transform them.
The moment an empathic healer decides they, personally, have to do something then, at that same instant, they decide to use personal energy rather than allowing Universal Life Force Energy to flow through them.
Big difference.
Now, healers, whether actively empathic or not, normally have the capacity to store more Life Force Energy than others so there can still be what seems a very beneficial result to the person on the healing table but it's a quick fix and will likely be temporary.
The healing facilitator who uses personal energy will probably end up drained or feeling as if the pain of the other person has lodged in their body and is stuck there.
Whenever we decide that a person needs our help, we take away their right of choice. To empower the other person, we can wait patiently for an invitation or request to assist in their healing, even if you can plainly see that healing is needed. When we decide, for someone else, what they need, we partner with them in a disempowering way and tamper with their natural sovereign rights.
Healers, myself included, often forget that people have a right to stay sick. This is particularly case for the actutely empathic because it can feel so terrible to know that a person is choosing to hold their pain rather than let it go.
It takes courage to heal and each person has to decide for themselves when they are ready for the work that healing requires.
When we approach healing as something we "do" rather than something we allow to be done through our surrender to Universal Source Energy, then we set ourselves up either to be drained by sending forth our own personal energy (I did this a lot when I first started).
We may also take on the pain of the one we are trying to help because we have said to them, on an unconscious level, that we know what they need.
p.s. There is a way to walk the path of the healer with no protection needed.
Let the Light Shine > Celebration Through Community
Free Class on Working as an Energetic Healer
Spiritual Health Disclaimer: Making a decision to be of service in the healing profession is a very personal decision and it's good to go into prayer and retreat for clarity. The information contained in any health care / spiritual healing article or material on this site is not intended to take the place of personal medical or spiritual advice. Any action taken based on the contents found in this or any educational health information on Ask A Healer is at the sole discretion of the reader. Please consult with your chosen healthcare professional matters relating to your spiritual health and well-being.
