learning more about my healer self

12 Dec 2017

so lately i’ve been leaning (for several reasons, including some experiences with evolutionary leadership) into my healer self.

if i look back at my life, it’s something that people have noted about me for a long time. it’s also something that has come pretty naturally. for example, it was definitely part of the mentoring work i did back in my church youth group days. it feels good (as a two) and i definitely gravitate towards it.

two specific things i want to point out today:

1. i really appreciate adrienne maree brown’s thinking on radical empaths. the way i see it in my head is like this: if someone else is overwhelmed with something, i have the capacity to make some room in myself to (affectively) take into my body some of what that persona is feeling. by taking a bit of the load off of them, they are able to access parts of themself that can help them process and deal with whatever it is they need to deal with. then i can either just take what and process for myself whatever it is they gave to me (feelings, energy, chi, thoughts, idk) for the time. or, now that their capacity to hold their own thing has increased, i can give the excess i took for some time back.

   for me, this is what it means to “hold space.” it happens in 1on1 contexts and it happens in an extreme way when i facilitate. when in a group setting, i have this visual of holding the energies of the people in the room in my body. this also explains the “release” that comes after facilitation. i get to “let go” of all the things i was carrying for the hours or however long it was.

2. part of my way of holding space for people is intuitive and through my eyes. twice at the boston emergent strategy gathering it was said to me that my eye contact was a powerful thing (which is funny because luana’s gaze is SO much more powerful than mine, but i can understand wat people mean because of how i experience her). but i was able to hold space for someone during lunch to cry as i met their gaze and my connecting eyes with another person indicated to both of us that we needed to connect with each other in some way after the gathering.

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anyway, i need to get ready for work, but i’m definitely having a few final thoughts: (a) i see why eye techniques are the most powerful in anime/manga, and (b) there is a sci-fi story in here for sure.

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ps - i think i believe that everyone has the capacity to be a healer. that is, we each have the capacity to heal other people. i also think healing can look all sorts of ways. talking through something with someone, bringing good food, praying with/for someone, etc. i think that word has gotten tangled up (at least in my mind) with things that are “bad” but really we all have the capacity (maybe even responsibility) to heal and take care of each other. now, i think it’s possible to be particularly suited for healing work just like it’s possible to be suited for hunting or fashion design. but just because there are skilled specialists doesn’t mean we all can’t do it.

words / writing / post-processing
567w / 17min / 7min