Healer
How To Trust Your Spiritual Teacher
If you have a spiritual teacher, how do you know you can trust her? Weren’t you told to trust yourself first? Wait, how do you know you can trust your therapist, or even your doctor? Especially with all the sexual assault cases coming to light these days, it is scary to think that someone who is supposed to be your protector, care-giver, or mentor will use that position to manipulate you into a situation that is abusive, sometime violently abusive. Thinking about this can be horrifying, but so is not thinking about it.
What about the idea ‘trust yourself’? The problem with just trusting yourself is that if you grew up in an alcoholic, drug-abusing, violent family, or in some of the more subtle dysfunctional family dynamics, such as having a narcissistic or wounded parent, your radar for self-care is damaged. You do not yet have the skills to discern what is healthy for you. Your brain and nervous system is literally wired for dysfunction as your default normal setting. This means you will choose the dysfunction you know, because it is all you know. You will seek out an alcoholic lover; or you will find jobs with narcissistic bosses, for example.
The Magic Of The Plant Kingdom
I recently enrolled in a course to become professional herbalist. Herbs are something I’ve always been interested in. I wouldn’t say I have a green thumb for growing plants and gardening, but I certainly do love immersing myself with the herbs. I love combining them with oils, making tinctures and herbal remedies, and doing all of this in a magical setting with candles and other healing modalities.
One of my herbalist instructors said something that stands out for me. She said that you don’t need to be a great gardener, farmer, or botanist to be an herbalist. She went on to say that many of her greatest students and graduates have been urban dwellers who live in big cities. Rather than growing and harvesting their own herbs, they purchase them from trusted suppliers, both locally and online.
The Spiritual Teacher As The Enemy
In psychology, therapists are trained to handle what is known as transference behavior in some of their clients or patients. Spiritual healers, readers, and teachers generally do not have much knowledge or skill in this regard, which can be detrimental for both the practitioner and those who come to them for services.
What is transference? When people go to spiritual professionals, they are often hurt and in psychological, emotional or spiritual pain, which sometimes also manifests as physical pain. People mainly are ‘hurt’ by other people in their lives, with whom they have emotional connections. When emotional connections are damaged (real or imagined) people feel hurt, betrayed, abandoned or experience various other emotions. When seeking healing or guidance (in whatever modality) those feelings of hurt are often transferred to the healer, teacher or other ‘authority figures.’
Chiron Retrograde Can Heal The Empath
There is much talk lately regarding astrological retrogrades and the seven planets involved, including Mercury, Mars, Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter. The fact that some of this energy will be around until next year, led me to reading up on the potential negative effects, but also the metaphysical power of the retrogrades.
As an empath, I am particularly drawn to Chiron, a planet about which I was woefully uniformed in the past. If you are an empath (even if you are usually not paying close attention) it is worthwhile looking in into the role of this planet in your everyday life.
Apparently Chiron was named after a centaur Chiron from Greek mythology. Chiron is known as the wounded healer in astrology or metaphysics. He was the god of healing… but was unable to heal himself. He is epitomized by the concept of ‘healer heal thyself.’
But We Have Such A Connection!
I hear this often from callers… how they have met someone whom they have such an amazing ‘connection’ with, and then they tell me they wouldn’t have otherwise given this particular person a chance. It could be this person is not their type, looks or otherwise; or the person treats them very badly; or the person is attached to someone else.
I often hear from my callers, who are experiencing negativity and toxicity from such a person, that they would have run the other way had it not been for that amazing ‘connection.’
I have also experienced such a circumstance in my own personal life. I met a man a few months after I moved to a different state. I wasn’t necessarily looking for a relationship at the time, I just decided to go out and have some fun socially. I met him a few days after registering on this online dating site.
Power And Protection From Your Ancestors
I come from a long line of female herbalists of European origins on my mother’s side of the family. They were seers, healers, and prophets who combined their psychic gifts with ancient healing practices. Today, they still come to me during meditation, to offer wisdom.
The family’s mainly Germanic connection is one I’ve researched for many years, but more recently I discovered that my ancestors crossed into Scandinavian and Norse territories too, which suggests a bloodline of fierce women who were warriors of their time. It’s really not surprising to me, as even my own mother today, who is 84 years old, can still kick anyone’s butt who crosses her path in an unkind way! I always knew she was strong when I was little, and I always admired her power and independence.
Spiritual Development, Or Putting Out Fires?
Many people come to me when life gets tough, things go south, dreams are crashed, emergencies are looming, and then, once they are up and running so to speak, off they go again. I call this ‘putting out fires.’ It is just a superficial solving of problems, getting quick answers, or even seeking to ‘feel good again’ once the externals in their life are working… for now. When the problems come back, people then once again seek out another ‘fix’ without addressing any of the underlying reasons or issues, or energetic or spiritual causes of the problem.
Treating only he symptoms will provide quick relief, or perhaps simply some entertainment value. It can be a way to distract yourself, in order to feel good again. Seems a bit like having a drug, alcohol, sugar or nicotine habit, no? Therapists run into this same issue. People seek out therapy when there is an issue, problem, challenge, or they don’t feel good, when actually the best time to get deep work done, to actualize your growth, expand and get stronger, is when you are stabilized (at least a bit), and when you are strong enough to have the psychic and emotional space to grow – not just struggling to get out of pain, or fear, or grief.