The reason you’re a healer
If you’re like many, healers, coaches, therapists, and practitioners, you likely came into the industry as part of your own healing journey. Having suffered through challenges or trauma in your past, you experienced profound healing from working with a practitioner, and now you want to give back.
You went on to train as a practitioner. You’re passionate about helping others. You want others to recover and experience the transformation that you had.
As a result of your past, you’re probably extremely compassionate, understanding and empathetic. When you’re in the presence of someone in pain, you will likely feel their pain.
You don’t need protection
Although you might be tempted to think that you need protection to prevent yourself feeling that pain, the opposite is actually the deeper truth. Because although, yes, it’s uncomfortable to be in the presence of others who are in pain, it’s this that makes you so damn good at your job!
Your sensitive superpowers
Your ability to sense others’ pain, often even before they are consciously aware of it, is what will make you an exquisite healer. You know exactly what to say, what question to ask, and how to identify the source of their pain.
Your sensitivity and empathy are your superpowers! Even if protection did work (and why it doesn’t is another story), it would simply numb you out, make you dissociate, and prevent you from being the highly sensitive and attuned healer that you are!
You need your sensitivity to do your job well. Just as you wouldn’t want your dentist or surgeon to wear welding gloves whilst operating, you need to be open, available and fully present to your client’s needs, so you can serve them.
That being said, your sensitivity does come with some challenges and drawbacks, and some things to be aware of.
Signs and causes of burnout
Firstly, it’s important that you avoid burnout. Many people think of burnout as simply being overworked. But there are actually several different causes of burnout.
If you’re like many deeply compassionate healers, my guess is you’re not charging enough. I know that’s controversial in the holistic community; but trust me, if you don’t feel adequately compensated in the long term, you’ll start to feel resentful, cynical and burnt out. Yes, you can still offer SOME services for free or at a very low cost. But make sure YOUR needs are met, and this includes your financial needs.
Their pain is your pain
When we apply the spiritual principle of the mirror, that everything we experience in another is a reflection of our inner selves, the pain we feel in another comes from within ourselves.
When we’re triggered by the painful emotions of another, this is a sign that the source of the pain is within us, and we may not have fully completed our healing.
It means that within us are the remnants of some unconscious, and yet unresolved, trauma from our past. Feeling it is a good sign and means you’re ready to let it go.
Research shows that many of the commonly recommended coping strategies of positive thinking, or saying affirmations, and using protection, have been shown to have little long-term effect. A modality such as Conscious Emotional Transformation (CET) does pretty much what it says on the tin. It enables you to consciously transform your emotional pain. Not only does it clear trauma and pain from the past, CET also raises your consciousness, vibration, and most importantly, your emotional resilience.
Increase your emotional resilience
One of the causes of burnout is when the outer demands on us exceed our inner strength and emotional resilience.
There are four main factors to emotional resilience: Emotional Wellbeing, Support Structure, Mindset, and the presence of any trauma in the neurology.
Emotional Wellbeing
Your emotional wellbeing is a measure of how well you can manage your emotions and state. It’s not about being happy-clappy all the time. It’s about knowing how you feel and why, and being able to handle those emotional states with maturity and grace.
The ideal to aim for is to be able to welcome all emotions and realise that there are feelings that we might label “negative” – knowing that they are simply information that we need to use to guide us towards what we want in life and away from what we don’t want.
For example, if you feel angry when someone treats you badly, the anger is there to let you know it’s time to stand up for yourself or leave the situation.
Support Structure
Being resilient isn’t a solo game.
Although resilient people have great inner strength, they know the importance of a support system. They actively cultivate a network of people, places and practices to turn to for support, feedback and advice.
Your support structure is the foundation to which you return when you are out of balance and seeking perspective and healing. It’s those people who ground your thoughts and keep you focused on what you’re aiming to achieve.
A strong spiritual connection is also a great help at any time. Especially if you’re the sort of person who has a big vision and higher calling to make the world a better place. As a healer or therapist, ensure you cultivate a great support structure as it’s essential to you avoiding burnout and being brilliant in your work.
Mindset
Your mindset score is a measure of your optimism, attitude, beliefs and outlook and how open you are to change. You can have a fixed (limiting) or growth mindset.
Do you feel you are in control of your life and circumstances? Or do you feel things are down to luck or chance? You can cultivate a growth mindset by being open-minded, learning new things, including other healing modalities.
Trauma
Trauma is the result of events in the past which have caused changes to your neurology in ways that limit, restrict or disempower.
It’s not the events themselves, but the lasting effects of them.
It takes energy to have trauma. It takes energy to hold on to painful emotions. It takes even more energy to suppress the pain of trauma. Holding on to trauma limits our ability to help others.
Clear your pain, raise your resilience, become a better healer
By increasing all of these four areas, you can raise your overall emotional resilience.
When you have fully cleared painful trauma, you are able to witness the pain of another without it negatively impacting yourself. This makes you a far better therapist. You are braver, more resilient, more inspiring to your clients. You’ll effortlessly attract more clients who will sense, at the level of the higher self and unconsciously, that YOU have the strength to help them.
Discover your Emotional Resilience Celestial Power with our two-minute quiz and receive a free report of your results.
Dr Lisa Turner
