When working with a patient in my office, the conversation often turns to their claim that I am a healer. This always makes me feel uncomfortable as this view does not conform to what I observe as to how people heal.
To see people heal is a stunningly beautiful thing. It excites me; it makes me feel awe. To experience, to be in the presence of people healing is to be in the presence of the essence of life itself. To see people heal is life affirming. It is to know how “fearfully and wonderfully we are made.”
I always feel so honored to be in the presence of someone who is healing. Their innate nature is choosing to be in its fullness; to be strong, bright, and beautiful; to reach out and engage with the world; to express their essential character and strengths; to touch, feel, see, taste, hear the world and the people in it; to breathe in life and be filled up with it. To be present to their delight with being alive.
It is such a tremendous gift to be allowed to be involved in the process of someone’s healing. Each person who has chosen to work with me has chosen to trust my work; allowed me to touch them, to treat them, and to follow my direction for them and service to their healing.
When one walks into my office, they see a very large print of a lotus blossom and above it on the wall reads: “The lotus represents each of us. Each pedal represents an aspect of our original and innate nature.
As we heal from our injuries – physical, chemical, mental – the petals open and we show our deepest and truest nature – the jewel in the lotus. This is our work.”
Again… beneath all of our unhealed injuries – physical, chemical, emotional – is our original nature. And, it is innate to our original nature to heal. Our process of healing is called allostasis and our process of maintaining our health is called homeostasis. We own these internal processes. No one else gives them to us and they don’t come from a healer.
Healing is a choice to do the work that is required to heal. Our health is the summation of our genetics and our epigenetics, with epigenetics being every variable in our environment – physical, chemical, mental – that influences the expression of our genetic potential. Sleep, diet, exercise, environment, work, relationships, and mission – it all touches and influences the expression of our innate capacities. Choose wisely and work diligently. Ultimately, those who become the healthiest know that their work on their health has a purpose; that to optimize the expression of their innate nature realizes their inherent talents in a way that ultimately serves others.
I play many roles in my work – physician, teacher, advocate, coach, and fellow human. But, I would never claim to be someone’s healer. Everyone already owns that superpower themselves.
