There are times when we feel we need something different than the pathways we have walked down on our journey to health and healing. There are many questions to consider…What’s next when we aren’t finding relief? How do we know when to move on from one practitioner to another? Is it helpful to have multiple practitioners in our tool boxes? How do we navigate the differences in systems? When is it better to stay the course we’ve started?
I believe it is very useful to have many capable practitioners on our side in life. I think of it like building a successful team. However, there can be problems or struggles in translation from one modality to the next. For example; the approach a western medical doctor or surgeon takes is very different than say an Energy Worker or Medical Medium or Homeopathic Doctor might take. There are often holistic modalities or practitioners that approach healing from a western medical model; addressing the symptoms instead of the root cause of an ailment - mental, spiritual, or physical. The issue I have found with this method is that it tends to only address the presenting symptoms instead of digging deep into where the symptoms began and why they started in the first place.
This requires a lot of awareness and participation from the patient or client to understand their own struggles and where they may have come from. For example; life stressors or deep seated traumas that start to manifest physically. It also requires a willingness to journey down a deeper path of healing than just finding momentary relief from presenting symptoms. Utilizing a psychotherapist and a medical doctor at the same time might be useful. Or examining our personal beliefs with a Life Coach and moving energy with a Reiki practitioner while also seeing an acupuncturist. We navigate these different systems by allowing them to be different. Then getting curious and learning more about what was said or offered up during the sessions. Then choosing an action and seeing it through until another action is needed.
Be willing to be a student of life. Learn as much as you can about your ailment or present moment situation so that you can be equipped to advocate for yourself. There is actually no reason to not have information that offers us great questions to ask our practitioners since there are podcasts, books, online info galore. Regardless of how busy we think we are our situation wont get better until we commit to the process of being inside of the situation. No one else is having your experience.
It can be discouraging as this can lead to a very long journey towards health when many are just simply struggling to get by. It is completely understandable that people want to be able to just show up to the very basics of their lives. The truth however, (in my opinion) is that a person will eventually have to face the underlying causes whether it is now or in the future regardless of whether or not they had the awareness of what is or was happening to or within them. I tend to think now is a better option because in my own healing journey I have found that if I wait it is always a much more challenging or urgent issue that could have been avoided had I just faced the music as it came up the first or second time. Regardless of whether or not we bypass our healing now and look for a quick fix or whether we dig into healing in the very moment, it requires a choice and that choice is either made consciously or unconsciously. If we make choices unconsciously we are still choosing something. I’d rather consciously choose than be whipped around by my lack of ownership and limited awareness. If we just stop, sit in what we are in and start to face the truth we will figure out what we need eventually.
We lack awareness simply because we are in it and likely haven’t done this before or are revisiting something we didn’t pay much attention to before. We are always revisiting patterns. An analogy that I like that is strange but useful; it’s like an alien is sitting on your face, you sort of know something is there but your focus is so external you just can’t see it because you are too busy looking past it. Yet it’s right there on your face. We feel it there, it’s uncomfortable but we just wont make the time to slow down, step back, and really take the time to look honestly at ourselves and the situation. We aren’t willing to take ownership of how we are using our time and where we could give ourselves the time to figure out our situation.
Or it’s like wearing your glasses but looking for them at the same time. So use to the pattern we don’t realize we are in the pattern. This is where having multiple practitioners in your corner is crucial. They will all see things differently from the outside of you, from their knowledge, and from their own vantage point. They will all approach things differently; some ways will be useful, some ways will not. None of it is wrong. It is just simply information. Others might be able to help you see past your own blind spots. You in turn are being your own scientist. Getting curious and asking questions to yourself and them. Turning around and researching what came up to learn more. They will speak to you and ask you things that another might not. This gives you a more well rounded view. It also pulls you out of relying on one person for all of your problems. This relieves them of the heavy burden you put on them to know it all. It gives you the opportunity to ask new and different questions of yourself and to each of them in order to find a more well rounded path of healing. I have many practitioners I utilize at different times, sometimes all at one time (if my finances will allow it or if I’m in dire need of a solution). I continue to seek out new practitioners of different modalities all the time.
We can definitely outgrow a practitioner though. I often think it is more a lapse in effective communication on our part as the client or patient than it is on their part in not doing enough or the optimum things for us. I’ll give a very simple example that I think many can relate to; you find a massage therapist that is great at their style of massage and you feel good when you leave your appointments but after getting to know them they still talk a lot during your appointments. You want more silence during your massage. Instead of silently no longer booking with them, or hoping they will get the hint when you’re short with them why not ask for a silent session? Most, if not all of the therapists I know want to give their clients what they want and need though we aren’t mind readers. We may think it makes you feel more comfortable to talk or it makes us more comfortable because we might feel nervous or because that is how it’s always been so we continue as it has been. I’ve also been on the receiving end of the opposite where I want to get to know this person working on me but they give short answers and that feels awkward too. Maybe that practitioner doesn’t want to talk during their offering which is also fine. This is where the practitioner can state what they need or want from the client. I always tell my massage clients that I’m good with talking and I’m good with silence whatever it is they need but I gauge it off of how much they talk. This is me giving them an easy way to communicate in a way that we both understand but I set it up like that. Some people don’t think to do that. We can all learn from each other if we are willing. It simply takes practice. It also takes time. Time given to have the conversations and time given to get to know one another.
Nuances can be difficult to navigate that’s for sure. What if we were to ask for what we need? What if I said to that practitioner; ‘hey, I would feel more comfortable if I got to know you a little better. I don’t need juicy details but maybe we just chat a little until we feel more comfortable. Would that be okay?’ It definitely puts me in charge of my own experience and responsible for what I need which is actually the only way to get what we need. No one can read our minds. We have to find a way to bridge the gap and communicate.
If we navigate the world from the place of wanting people to provide for us what we aren’t willing to voice we will never get our needs met. Not in a professional relationship or a personal one. Often when people find out that I do this or that modality they tell me about the times they received a bad session from another practitioner. For example, someone complained to me the other day that the last person they went to for Reiki “used all these scents”. After further inquiry I found out the practitioner was using essential oils in spray form. I explained why that might be and asked if he had stated that he would prefer her to not do that. He didn’t tell her he didn’t like it, he just never went back to utilize her services. He believed that Reiki was supposed to look, feel, or be a certain way but didn’t take responsibility for that vision. What if he is missing out on exactly what he was needing in that moment simply because he didn’t voice his needs or wants?! The practitioner then isn’t given the opportunity to make a correction or meet the client where they wish to be met. They both loose.
It’s like when someone wants to merge into traffic but doesn’t use their signal to let people know they want to get over in rush hour traffic. No one will magically let you over. You’ll wait for a gap and may not get one. Or maybe someone is the kind of person that is hyper vigilant on trying to always anticipate other peoples needs (this is so often codependency, is rooted in trauma, and is unhealthy for this person and those around them). There will be people that will not let you in no matter how hard or often you try to communicate your needs. Those are the practitioners or relationships that might be worth moving on from. When the person is willing to hear you, work with you, and meet you where you are those are the relationships worth keeping. The kind of practitioners worth having in your tool box. However, we will never know if they are the right ones for us if we never advocate for what we need. The hard part is knowing what we need.
This takes self awareness. We build self awareness by being willing to be curious and to not always get things right. We must be willing to stumble on our journey and maybe even look “stupid” while doing it. We have to accept that there will be successes and failures. Whether it’s the path to healing or its learning something new. We must be willing to be curious students of this life we are living in. Willing to dig into what is presenting itself to us.
The reality is that no one is going to do it for us and this is why so many people get caught on the merry go round of being put on pharmaceuticals that don’t work from a doctor that doesn’t know them from the next patient. Or is simply too busy to dig into figuring things out on a deeper level for their 200th patient that day. This is how we become statistics or just paychecks. This is how we stay sick, in pain, not seen, not heard, and not well. If the practitioner is worth your time you will be challenged and at the same time you will be heard. They will explain themselves, their methods and have patience for your questions, fears, and curiosities. They will be willing to be wrong and will be interested in you and your experience.
I think so much of our struggles reside within a communication barrier. We don’t know how to communicate. They don’t know how to communicate. We are all left in the dark without answers or meeting our purpose. Could we all just commit to doing our best and being curious in the process? Could we let go of quick fixes and commit to the process trusting that it will all work out in our favor in the long run? Can we finally find ourselves worthy of healing and see it worth our time to find the discipline it requires?
Client compliance is one root cause of a lack of healing success. Which is one reason why the medical system in the west has so much buy in; it seems easier than the other pathways to healing. Though that is actually an illusion since it removes the full circle aspect of true healing. It bypasses the depth of what is necessary for a person; an energetic being that is having more than a physical experience to heal the imbalance happening inside their own ecosystem. We are not just bodies stuck in gravity on a floating rock in space. We are dynamic ever changing organisms that mimic the very ecosystem we are living in. Inside of each of us is a whole world of living energy trying to survive. Just like the earth has bacteria good and bad so do we. Just like the earth has parasites good and bad so do we. Just like there is electricity firing through the air around us turning on lights we too have electricity firing neural pathways lighting up our communication from one part of the body to the next. Just like the earth is not a simple organism we are also not simple. Our complexity is beautiful and deserves our interest and attention.
The details of how we are executing our daily tasks has zero bearing on the full depth of how we truly experience this life. If we are focused on the details that don’t actually matter while we were on our death bed than we are missing our lives. You heal because you want to, because finding your way up this mountain is interesting and worth your time. Not because you have a business to run or a family to feed. Those details may be true but if we are truly living in our lives we will accomplish those things without the expense of our health. A health crisis is present because we are ignoring some aspect of our own truth. It’s always an opportunity to not only heal the symptoms but the underlying dis-ease or the past pain and trauma that is no longer serving us.
This is a spiritual conversation. This is why learning about different modalities and getting curious could show us the ways in which we are spiritually out of alignment with true health. When we are curious we are not threatened by a new or different way of approaching something. We see it as an interesting prospect. The bad news is that sometimes this process takes a long time. Maybe even a life time of trial and error but live we must. Or not but that is a choice too. So why not live fully and see this struggle as another opportunity for growth and self realization? What have we got to loose to see it through this lens? What if just changing our mindset gives us a better experience in this life we are given? What if we finally live the life we have always hoped for? Then it wouldn’t matter if we are carrying an illness because we would still live a life worth living. We would still be grateful for the opportunities we have been given. Changing the lens we look though could literally make all the difference in the world in our own little world.
My dis-ease, your dis-ease is an opportunity for a more fulfilling life with deeper connections and amazing awareness’s. It’s part of the ride. Not something we get to bypass but something we get to experience. Buckle up! We get to experience the struggle and the over coming of the struggle. What an epic ride we are on! What a cool mountain to summit!
And it’s okay to be tired. I’m so often tired of what feels like the never ending false summit of my autoimmune dis-ease. Stop, take a break, eat a snack, then pick yourself up and keep moving up the damn mountain. It’s not the destination, it’s the journey that makes this life worth it. Stop focusing on arriving somewhere you think is ideal. Stop focusing on the struggle as if it’s all there is. For once let yourself be where you are with love in your heart for the miracle that is you in all the dysfunction and perfection. In all of the nuance that is your experience. You are beautiful and this is a beautiful opportunity.
What if where you are going is so much better than where you thought you should be?