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Who Heals the Healers?
Coaches, teachers, and healers need balance, too
As a sex educator, the majority of my professional career is spent holding space for others as they process their own needs. It’s sacred, fulfilling work, but emotionally exhausting in a way that I couldn’t have imagined.
So how exactly do healers strike a balance between others’ healing and their own?
The process can take on varied forms. Taylor Ursula, astrologer, tarot card reader, energy worker, and potion maker, defines it as a constant flux of self-awareness and recontextualizing: “Everything that I help others work through, I am called to check within myself,” she says. “I work hard to keep my emotions and experiences transparent and clear within myself so that I can keep my motives and channels open and compassionate.” Ursula turns to journaling, stretching, and meditation as often as she can, as well as regularly checking in with her network of fellow healers, with whom she exchanges services and shares experiences and ideas. “My self-healing work led me to work with others, and every session I have with a client teaches me something new about my boundaries and needs and how I establish and fulfill them,” she notes. “Often, the evolution of my healing is in step with my work in helping others heal.”
“Every session I have with a client teaches me something new about my boundaries and needs.”
Jamila Reddy, a writer and transformational coach, also sees self-healing as an important part of the professional journey: “For me, healing looks like self-awareness. Mindfulness. Consciousness. Healing is an ongoing process of me tending to my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual wounds, which requires that I first be aware of what they are and how they manifest,” she explains. “These days, in my life, healing looks like daily journaling, practicing Nichiren Buddhism, meditating, eating nourishing foods, doing yoga, dancing, resting, grieving, laughing, spending time with nature, connecting with friends and families. What healing looks like changes day-to-day, but these are all of the things that support me feeling my best.”
By recognizing that her healing and the healing of her communities are two sides of the…
