I live in magical, magnificent Glastonbury. As a pretty nosy person by nature, I do love to overhear a conversation in the cafe or in the pub – and where is a more interesting place to overhear conversations than Glastonbury??

Recently I overheard someone saying that we can’t (in the context of a spiritual healing path) “make someone wrong” – if they are following something they’ve been shown by spirit, then they can’t be wrong. Hmm. Can’t they?

If we feel guided to do something, and ascribe our spirituality to that guidance, and then we do that thing – we can’t make a mistake? When we do or say something as healers, as people who have committed ourselves to a path of spiritual service, then that thing must be right. We can’t possibly be wrong. Hmm. Can’t we??

Sometimes you’re wrong

There, I said it. It’s not because you’re a bad person or rubbish at being spiritual, it’s because you are a human being and so sometimes you will be wrong. Sometimes I have been wrong, very wrong, and I have to assume I will be wrong again in the future because I too am a human person. Spirituality, incredible gift that it is, is not a guarantee that you will always say or do the right thing. It does not mean you will always know the answer. It is not a way out of applying our grounded logic to a situation, or to avoid being responsible for our own actions. If we are really on this path then we have to own all our actions while walking it – and sometimes that will suck.

Please, my wonderful and visionary healers, enjoy this example of me doing a lovely healing, getting some beautiful spiritual guidance, and then royally fucking it up:

A new client came to see me in a clinic I was working at. I did a really deep Reiki healing, and while I was doing it a strange thing happened: I saw dead people. Being raised by mediums as I was, I was mostly unfazed by the old couple that appeared in the room – it’s the kind of thing my grandmothers wouldn’t bat an eyelid over. But I was surprised at how solidly they appeared – that wasn’t usual for me. They came with this loving, protective energy that was incredibly beautiful to witness. At the end of the session my client came around quite slowly – it was her first session but she said she loved the feeling of it. Pleased that she was happy with the treatment, I told her the lovely news that she was being watched over by this lovely old couple, who I took to be grandparents or perhaps some other ancestors.

She went white as a sheet. She looked horrified. The tension she’d released jumped back into her body and she could not get out of that room fast enough. I never heard from her again.

I had fucked up.

Where did I go wrong?

Let’s analyse the catalogue of mistakes here, shall we? I’ll bullet point them for you (you know I love a list):

• This was my client’s first session and I didn’t yet know her well enough to understand her worldview, yet I chose to impart my own to her without gently checking if she would be receptive.
• I didn’t speak to the old couple – I didn’t find out any reason for their presence or any message that might have been more calming.
• It was the client’s first ever experience of energy healing and instead of giving her quiet space to integrate it, I started talking.
• Looking at it now I can see that I was pleased with myself – pleased to be the person that introduced a new person to this system I so loved, and pleased as punch to have had such a clear vision. Telling her that was all about me, not her.
• It never once occurred to me that someone would not be deeply excited about energy healing and want to know more. Nor did it occur to me that a message of love could ever be scary, even if the loving presence was…well, dead. Once again, I saw it from my own worldview only.

What did I learn?

No one enjoys being wrong. I am a Leo, so I sit at the fairly extreme end of the spectrum of not liking being wrong. Perhaps that’s the appeal of pushing it into an unverifiable, spiritual realm where – because of how shiny we are – we can’t be wrong! As that sinking feeling of having made a mistake, and hurt or scared someone creeps over us, we reach for an answer that will make us feel better about what we just did. This is a super common pitfall on the path so we have to watch our step so carefully right here. We are tempted to reach for “well, I was shown it by spirit so I had to pass it on. I’m just the vessel.” Nope. And, “she wasn’t ready to hear that, she’s not far enough along on her spiritual journey to receive that true message.” Again, no. Here we are not only shirking responsibility for our actions, we are making the client be the one in the wrong. For not being open, for not being ready, for not receiving what we offered. Those things look like pathways out of the bad feeling, but if you have a situation like this as a healer, I encourage you to sit with being wrong.

Because then, we can learn. Here are some of the amazing things I learned from this one horrible misjudgement:

• I don’t have to say everything I see when I am doing a session. In our community, a refusal to keep quiet when we receive spiritual guidance about someone else’s situation always comes from a place of ego. My policy now is to say less, far less, sometimes nothing about what I have seen. This is especially important if what we see isn’t kindly dead grannies – often we will see something that relates to a client’s trauma. You don’t need to say it. Practice being quiet about your spiritual visions; only then can you truly know what needs to be spoken aloud and what can be let go. (Bonus points if you also remember that, in your interpretation of spiritual vision, you might be wrong.)
• My spirituality is important to me and the way I approach the work comes from my own beliefs. But those are not what need to be front and centre in a healing session, my client’s beliefs are. This is what will give the healing additional power for them. Likewise when I am teaching; my students will only be powerful if they can operate within a framework that is authentic to them, not the one I have adopted.
• I am not “just the vessel”. As an energy healer – in my shamanic and my Reiki work – I am a vessel for the source energy and the guidance of spirit to flow, that is true. But for the client, I am the solidity of the work. I am the space, the grounding and the safety. Without that, they cannot fully claim the healing they need. In this work generally, I am in service to spirit. In a session with a client, I am also in service to them.
• I am not the best healer for people at the very beginning of their path. I’m not saying I can’t do someone’s first session or first class, I can, but I’ve since learned that working with visionary healers is a much better fit for me. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to meet them at the beginning of their path and that’s awesome – I do a few things open to people without experience like Reiki 1 and the Healing Song Circle, and I love doing those. But the general public and the “spiritually curious” have the right to be with someone who is great at explaining those very first steps. People who are nervous of spirit presence and dead people are not a good fit for me and instead of feeling shit about that, I can feel great about knowing who I am best placed to serve.

How can I serve you?

In our training as healers we are so often not taught how to speak to our clients, how to set up the space for safety – for them and for us. Our training time is always limited so we focus on the big stuff, the energy work. But this is big stuff too. Who are we, as healers, and how can we be more skilful?

Train with me: I specialise in turning talented spiritual visionaries into skilful, capable powerhouses. Upcoming courses to level up your skills include Reiki 2 on 18 May and the Shamanic Approach to Reiki courses from July onwards: Reiki Block Removal, Reiki Cord Cutting and Reiki Sound Healing. I also offer one-to-one training days for healers to go over gaps in their knowledge and build their practical skills and their confidence. Get in touch to let me know what you need.

One-to-one mentoring: The Oak Programme is a 6 week personalised programme to help you discover who you are as a healer, and what you need in order to show up for that sacred work.

Book a healing session with me: I understand healers, and my healing ceremonies are collaborative and unique. Get in touch for a soul retrieval in person or at distance so you can show up as your full and powerful self. (I promise to leave your dead granny out of it.)