Being a Healing Presence

Being a Healing Presence

We are all healers. Each of us has the capacity to reach out to another human being, to an animal or plant, or the Earth itself, and offer help where it is needed. It is in our nature as thinking, feeling, human beings to extend ourselves to others when we can.

I first learned this from my fifth-grade teacher when she assigned our class one of the standard essay questions, “What I want to be when I grow up.” Then she very sternly said, “And don’t write, ‘I want to help people.’ Everyone wants to help people,” she said. “Write how you want to help people when you grow up.”

Every profession can be a healing profession. Every walk of life can be a healing walk.

There are stories told of beings called “The Just Ones” who come from another place but who walk among us. They are the ones who are like the person behind the car rental counter who notices when you have arrived in a strange city and are tired from your trip, and who welcomes you cheerfully, gives you a map and directions to your hotel, and recommends a good place to eat. They don’t know they are Just Ones; they just are.

There are enlightened beings in our world who can bring a sense of peace, kindness, and groundedness to us simply by walking into the room. Each of us can cultivate this healing presence in ourselves on a mental, emotional, energetic, and spiritual level.

As human beings, we are social creatures. We are wired to communicate with each other on many levels and to act almost as a single organism, like a flock of birds, in reaction to our environment. We alert the group when there is danger and also when the danger has passed.

What this means is that fear is contagious, and so is anger and aggression. So is compassion, loving kindness, acceptance, and groundedness. So is responsibility and integrity.

We get to choose. We can choose complaint or gratitude. Sadness or joy. Complacency or action. Narrowness of thought, or creativity and magic.

In my experience, the path to conscious choice isn’t usually easy or short, but the rewards are ever-growing happiness, health, meaningfulness, and the sense of a life well-lived. And as we grow in this way, we can spread our healing and abundance to others simply by “being in the room” with them.

In the end, this is why I can’t stop doing healing work, teaching shamanic practice, or helping people publish their stories, raise their voices, and follow their own soul.

The world needs people like you and me to remember how safe and strong we are, to remember why we are here, and to spread seeds of hope, through our collective presence, instead of fear, until humanity as a species understands that the world is okay, we are all okay, and we can move forward with resourcefulness, appreciation of our diversity, and love.