A True & Effective Healer Respects Your Path
Your path is your own. That's not a betrayal.
An installment from Eyes Wide Open: Avoiding Re-Traumatization, tools to recognize and prevent getting burnt or re-traumatized in therapy and self-help. Installments are standalone pieces and can be read in any order. Depending on my healing cadence, published weekly or biweekly, as I am able.
All installments can be found here.
Essential Trait #9 Respects Your Path
Sometimes, your healing isn’t about what you choose but that you choose
For our purpose, path refers to specific steps you take on your healing journey. It’s the tools and resources you use along the timeline of that journey.
There are many paths to learning, healing, and growing. It’s your right to choose the ones that are right for you, how long you travel them, and with whom.
You can explore a number of paths with the same practitioner. You can work with different practitioners on one path. Your path may be well-worn or less traveled. You can create a new one, altogether.
When choice collides with ego
You don’t want to be put in a situation where your therapy is the validation for your practitioner’s personal experiences or education.
Validating your practitioner isn’t your job.
If your practitioner is trained in a particular school of thought or practice, or they have personal experience in healing, of course, they’re going to talk about or recommend what they know. And that’s great! The knowledge and insights from their training and/or experience is what you want, what you turn to that individual for.
But that doesn’t mean they get to set the course of healing for you.
It becomes especially problematic when the practitioner takes your differing views or preferences, personally. Major red flag there. It’s a serious crossing of boundaries, not knowing where they end and you begin.
This problem isn’t exclusive to any type of healing modality. It can occur within self-help communities and among practiced professionals.
Recommend, yes. Give your best expert advice. Make your learned argument for or against. Then sit back and respect your peer’s, your client’s or patient’s right to discern what looks and feels right for them at this point in their journey.
The bottom line is you can’t empower someone by taking away their empowerment.
You can’t even walk another person’s path, not really.
You can walk in the same direction. You can make your way through similar terrain. You can pick up the tools set for you. You can engage in the philosophy and practice, but you can’t truly walk the same path as another.
You have your own gait, timing and cadence. Your footsteps fall on different parts of a path than the ones who went before you. You may see things another person missed, value one leg of the journey more than another, take a different turn along the way.
The steps you take, simultaneously, create the ground that unfolds before you, and in those steps, some nuance or unique aspect of your story will ask, even demand, to be addressed. This makes the path yours.
Most practitioners and peer support will agree that this is the goal of healing.
When Your Practitioner Becomes Offended
Leave.
A good healer knows they can’t be all things to all people, and they understand you are an individual who just may not be enthusiastic about all their brilliant ideas.
And they may very well be brilliant, and you may be better off taking their advice or going down a certain road… unless you aren’t, because sometimes it’s not about making the right choice but the process of making that choice and learning from it.
Anyone who denies you this, “for your own good”, does you a disservice, especially if they express their displeasure or resentment through passive aggression or even rage.
Personal story: a practitioner who lost her mind, and her integrity
Years ago, I met a woman in a message board community for women writers. She had a presence on the web as a successful event planner with impressive clients. She was also interested in helping others develop a “prosperity mindset”.
In our communications together, I shared a bit about my current situation and childhood background. She stated she could help me with my “consciousness of lack due to my childhood abuse”. I was like, okay, I’m in!
I made my first payment and eagerly read the Introduction and Lesson #1.
Unfortunately, I found it to be really lacking, a sparse Word document that contained general New Age ideas, with promises of a secret prosperity practice that would come in future lessons.
I thanked her and expressed my gratitude for letting me preview her work, and while I greatly appreciated the material (I was trying to be kind), I didn’t think this course was quite right for me at this time.
This was within the 30-Day Money Back Guarantee, by the way, that she advertised on her website, as proof of how confident she was in the quality of her material and skill as a teacher.
In a flash, she went from an enlightened, kindhearted, Dr. Jekyll to a foaming-at-the-mouth Ms. Hyde. She verbally attacked me. She cursed me to a life of poverty. She told me I would face ruin, and that she was returning my initial check because You’re going to need it!
If we had been standing face to face, I would have felt her spit as she yelled.
And she did mail my check back. No note, but the “fuck you” was loud and clear.
So, there’s no room for any doubt that I did the right thing dropping her. This was a clear case of narcissistic rage. But not all responses to you choosing a different path are that overtly outrageous.
Being offended can express itself as a cold shoulder or icy silent treatment. It can be worn as disappointment on their face or carried as judgment in the tone of their voice. It can slip out as criticism or patronizing dismissiveness. It can be angry and disappointed in you, or slime you with guilt for “hurting their feelings”.
They can simply drop you, which is an entirely different energy from expressing they can’t meet your needs, and perhaps recommending or referring you someone else, or just wishing you well.
Choosing your own path is not a betrayal. Some will act as if it is.
Be alert to, and aware of, how much someone’s ego takes up the room, and how careful you have to be to not offend it.
Listen to what you feel. Pay attention to any feelings of discomfort or unease, or if you feel disrespected, or shutdown. If you feel diminished in any way, take note. Speak your concerns.
Pay attention to the response.
If the energy and interactions you have with this individual feel more like a power struggle or pushback than honest communication, then leave.
The steps you take to your authenticity must be authentic steps.
Avoid those who would make you trip over your own feet. Let your steps take you right out that door and onto the path that calls your name.
From my heart to yours,
Demian Elaine’ Yumei ~ Silent No More
Have you ever experienced backlash for choosing a different path, a different healing modality or therapeutic practice than was recommended by another? I’d love to hear! Share your experiences in the comments, and we can compare notes. 😊
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Big hugs and hearts for you!!!
There is so much wisdom in this post Demian. There is so much salesy stuff out there, that can hook and manipulate, and your words are an antidote to all of that. Like a layer of truth we can slather on, like balm, to help us trust ourselves and our inner knowing as we seek the right companions on our journey :)