Challenges of Lightworkers & Healers

Join Melissa Paluzzi as she discusses some common challenges Lightworkers & Healers encounter and face.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hi, everybody. Good to see you all again. Hi, Melissa.

unknown 0:06

Hi.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

How are you?

SPEAKER_02 0:08

Good? Great. Everybody's great today.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Good. Um, I wanted to talk about a topic that has been in my experience. I've been in um bodywork for 20 years, um, but also consider myself to be a healer and a light worker. And I wanted to talk about the common challenges that light workers and healers and as hypnotherapists, hypnotherapists are also healers and light workers. So this is a great topic. It's also a great topic for our association members who might be strictly healers in that sense. And um there's just some challenges that we can encounter as we're going through our day-to-day with our clients. And so I wanted to talk about some of those. So I am interested in conversation and feedback here. So if you have something you want to say, please just speak up. I myself have suffered a great deal over my 20 years physically, and as I'm going through this spiritual process that I've been going through for a while, I'm realizing how much of that was me being an overgiver and depleting my own energy and not giving enough to myself to um give some balance. I've always had a tendency to um be a work work worker and have a pretty poor work-home balance, home life balance. So I'm getting better at that as I get older and learning more about these things. But I thought that our people and our association could probably benefit from this information or be able to help their clients that they're running into because we just talked about a few minutes ago uh new light workers and healers coming into the scene, responding to some new energy that we're dealing with here. And we welcome all of the healers and light workers, but y'all might need some help if you're just getting started. So let's talk about it. So the first thing I wanted to talk about was overgiving and a sense of energy, energy depletion. And one of the reasons that that can happen is because we feel this deep responsibility in the well-being of other people and clients. And so this could lead us to overextend ourselves. We might take on too many appointments in a day, or even feel personally responsible for if the client has the kind of healing that we think they ought to experience. Um, over time, this definitely can create some burnout. So I have experienced this. I know the burnout well. I know the frustrations of um clients not uh stepping into the experiences I wanted them to have or I knew that they could have. So I had to realize, and I know Kelly helped me through this. I I did a lot of the learning of this in my hypnotherapy training with Kelly. So I just want to say if you're dealing with these issues and challenges, that hypnotherapy can really help you. So an insight to take in here is that our role is to open the door to healing. The client still has to walk through it. We can't shove them through the door as much as me, we might want to. And uh that might be my Leo Moon speaking. I don't know. Um, so energy depletion is a serious thing. I mean, coming home at the end of the day, and there's just nothing left in the tank for anybody at home. Um, no energy to do anything fun for yourself. It's just not a really good place to be. And it took a really long time for me to figure that out because my work with my clients was the most important part of my life. The next one I want to talk about is compassion fatigue. So here we are holding space for traumas, emotional pains, deep personal processing that can be heavy. I mean, I don't know about you guys, but I tell my clients I should have invested in Kleenex because we got the waterworks going on all the time in my office. And I certainly don't mind that. I'm a Scorpio, I can hold that energy. I love it when people go to the depths, but if I don't process that or I don't hold my own space well enough, that can create emotional exhaustion for myself. It can also create a temporary loss of passion in your work. So if you're not feeling enthusiastic and really excited to go participate in your work every day, you get to go be a hypnotherapist or a healer or a light work every light worker every day. If that isn't fun anymore, you might be experiencing compassion fatigue. So it's really important for the healers and the light workers to receive their own healing support. So make sure you have a mentor or someone else to work on you. Go see your hypnotherapist, trade with somebody, go take some time for yourself to have your own healing. And I know I've had to do that many times.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Take a vacation. I listened to a client one time and I had overbooked myself, which I normally didn't do. And she's telling me her story. She's probably client number 13 for the week when my max is 12. And she told me her sad situation. And my first thought was put a sock in it. And then inside I said, I know. And then inside I thought, oh, you need a vacation. What is wrong with you? That's whoo. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

Or that's the other side, right? It can turn into like a card, uh, a hardness that just you know kind of don't go there all the way, just and then you don't have the compassion and the empathy to really be there for them in the way that they might need.

SPEAKER_02 6:15

And don't do that with doctors. They get a little callous.

SPEAKER_03 6:21

Absolutely. Yes. I've I've worked with lots of uh doctors and nurses with that kind of thing because they're dealing with life or death all the time.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

It's a means of protection.

SPEAKER_03 6:32

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Yep, compassion fatigue is a thing. Also, poor boundaries is another topic we have to talk about. Um yeah, boundary challenges, boy, they show up in some really practical ways. You can start, you can extend your sessions beyond the schedule time. I know I've done that a million million and one times. Uh responding to client messages late at night. I don't do that anymore, but that is something that I used to do. Just handle it when you read it. Giving excessive free time or emotional support. Oh Lord, don't get me started on that one. And difficulty saying no. I used to be the biggest people pleaser there was on the planet. I consider myself a reformed people pleaser now. And uh menopause helped me get those boundaries established, and that was a really pivotal time in my life. But these these boundary issues, I mean, I would get really frustrated, um, complain to other people about how the client would act. And it, you know, it wasn't them, it was me not having any boundaries. So I know how this rolls. I know how this rolls. And I think the really important thing to remember here is that boundaries don't block compassion, they protect the container. So boundaries need to be in place so that healing can happen. And it took a really long time for me to learn that.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

You know what helped me with that? I years ago, I spent seven years every week going to an Al-Anon meeting. And I probably heard this phrase I'm going to say in a moment, hundreds of times, and it never landed. And one day it landed, and the phrase was everyone has the right and the obligation to solve their own problems. You can be their cheerleader, but you can't be in the middle solving it for them. And it and it was like an epiphany one day, and I thought, oh, what a relief.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

I was a professional problem solver. So it was really hard for me to give that up. But I realized what was happening and I got it resolved for the most part. Not that it doesn't creep up on occasion here and there.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

But what's the major um issue with trying to solve other people's problems that you've discovered?

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Oh, well, first of all, I don't know what's best for everybody else. I only know that I see solutions the way that I see them. And if you know people would do it my way, they wouldn't be making any mistakes. But, you know, I love the let them theory by Mel Robbins. Everybody has to live their own existence. And I can't lean over into somebody else's existence and sweep it up and clean it up for them. They have to do their own. I have to do my own and they have to do their own. What about you, Kelly? You might have an example.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

Well, generally, when we're trying to fix it, it's usually not um asked for. Oh so it's not well received, number one. So, you know, as far as the human design that you have have educated me about thus far, you know, especially for my the type of person that I am, I'm not supposed to give it until it's asked for. That's right. You're a protector. Guarantee it's not going to be well received. So stop doing that. That's a hard no now. Um, but to your point that, you know, people, we're walking our own each individual and authentic path. We can only advise someone to the degree of what our experience has been. And that's far apart and different than someone else's. So, you know, we're better off to lay things at people's feet, lead them to their own understandings, follow your client, you know, and as far as personal life, just you know, just stay out of people's business, pay attention to your side of the street unless you're sought after for advice, and just preface it by I can only give you from what I know. Take what resonates, leave the rest. Absolutely agree.

unknown 10:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

It's been a hard lesson. I've learned that.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Oh, you too.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Yeah. Whew. Another one that us healers, light workers run into is imposter syndrome. I know when I first met Kelly, I was experiencing this, and one of the other big ones on here, too. Um, but a lot of healers and light workers doubt their abilities. They think other people are more qualified. Do we know people who just want to get certificate after certificate after certificate and they don't feel like they're doing good work if they can't be certified in some way? And that's just not that's not true, you know. So people are born with their own healing talents and abilities. And, you know, I believe everybody has their own autonomy for that. They can take whatever classes they want to lead them to their um their final outcome. But this imposter syndrome gets in the way for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

But also, don't you think that um foundationally education is meant to just be what I call like a union card? You're meant to synthesize it in your own way and figure out how what your own special brand of magic is and not be uh, you know, a parrot for someone else's teachings that never works, that always falls flat.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

So yeah, there's so many people though who just don't they don't understand that. They just feel like, who am I to do this? I I haven't had any training, I haven't had, you know, yeah, I know my hands are healing hands, but I haven't had any training, so I can't do that, I can't charge for that, I can't right.

SPEAKER_03 12:05

But the thing that I see with people who have that is it goes beyond like the practical or I don't have the training because they're still saying that after they have, like you said, uh I have this certificate already. Oh, but but I got I also gotta do Reiki, I also gotta do Polarity, I also gotta do, you know, all these different modalities. And so that's an identity thing. That's not just about do I have enough tools? It's like they don't even own the tools that they have because they don't own themselves.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

Excellent. That's an identity issue. That's a clear identity issue. And I think partly as teachers, and why I like doing these kinds of um platforms is to give people some additional information as as far as that's concerned. We all are inner resourced if we allow, if we give the space for that. Who we are and what direction we're supposed to go in is always there for us to retrieve if we just give it space to be pointed in that direction. And I don't think that that's emphasized enough to people. It's not just about the education, it's like, what am I, how am I meant to, what what is my what's my mission? And how does this dovetail into my mission? And do I feel lit up? And people are supposed to go where they're lit up, what lights them up on the inside. That's their breadcrumbs. Pointing them. And when you're lit up, you don't feel you don't have um conflicts in your identity. Right? But it's putting the two together and and figuring that through that is that can be a little bit hard, difficult.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

One day maybe we'll be teaching that to children in school, their own autonomy and how to how to get their own path information.

SPEAKER_02 13:54

Game changer starts with teaching them how to meditate.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Yeah. Well, our next topic here is absorbing client energy. We'll just this is where you might hear the word empath. It's it's a buzzword that's been going around for a while, but empath is a real thing. This is when people are feeling the energy, the emotions uh other of others. And so this can cause people to feel drained or fatigued after a session. You can have mood shift, heaviness, headaches. There can be some physical ramifications of this. So, how do you know if that's happening? Well, one of the things is you could start yawning incessantly during a session. That's a sign that you're with somebody and exchanging energy or they might be taking energy from you. Um, and a good, I picked this up from somebody, I don't remember where I'd give them credit. But one of the ways you can know if you're participating that in that is if you sit really forward and your head is trying to get closer to the other person, then you are kind of shoving your energy in there a little bit too much, probably. So, how would we tell somebody they can help themselves here? Well, grounding, grounding, grounding, grounding before and after. And there's no one way to ground yourself. There are many ways. Some people send roots out through their feet. Um, you can ground yourself with white light. There's many ways. So, whatever way feels the most natural to you, um, roots into the ground or roots from your tailbone seems to be a really good way for lots of people to do that. You want to do that before and after. Uh, intentional energetic closure. So saying something intending that this session is over. I know when I do uh Reiki, after the Reiki session is over, I say the session is complete and the Reiki's now turned off. So anything like that that you wanted to use to intentionally close that session. You can do breath work to help yourself clear things out. Uh, you can do some physical movement if you like to do yoga or a little tai chi or step outside for a minute. Um, take if it's nice outside, you can take your shoes off and go outside or hug a tree, something like that. Um the point here for this absorbing client energy is to realize that feeling everything is not the same as facilitating healing. You do not have to take on or sense the energy of someone else to help them heal.

SPEAKER_03 16:27

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

Yeah, that's so important.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

I felt so such a strong connection with one of my clients some years back that and he felt the same thing as I kept thinking of, I think he's been my kid in another lifetime. I felt like I felt like his mom. But at the end of the session, he we're out in the waiting room and he did this in front of between us. He wanted to cut those cords and he felt so uncomfortable that after a couple of sessions he quit coming. Oh he really couldn't, and his you know, his way of being in life couldn't uh justify that well, maybe it's just a past life thing, and and things are different now. But yeah, he would he was the one initiating cutting the connection between us.

SPEAKER_03 17:12

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Yeah. Well, and even you could even do that after the client leaves if you want. Just don't do it in front of them. They won't know why you're doing that. Another another big one that we really need to talk about are money blocks. Money blocks with light workers and healers. Um a lot of people believe that spiritual work should be free or they're really uncomfortable charging appropriate rates. Um there really needs to be an energetic exchange finance for the healing. That's how it works here. We are on planet Earth in this day and age, we use money as that energetic exchange. So it needs to happen. Uh, I know that I learned this a long time ago, but Kelly talked about this again. People who don't pay don't heal. If they don't have energetic skin in the game, they don't heal. So I've encountered that many, many, many times. And when the healer undervalues themselves, burnout can kick in again.

SPEAKER_03 18:29

Or if you don't value yourself, then other people pick up on that. They're not gonna value it either.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Absolutely true. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 18:37

Yeah, and I think that that's where that comes from. Because as I'm listening to Melissa say that, there are times where I have helped somebody that um didn't necessarily pay. But it was only after I cleared up my own value. So as I was still nebulous on that, as I was still kind of energetically not rooted and grounded in my worth, um, I would attract those people that I would try to help and it would fall flat. So I think it's a you're right, Patrick, it's an energy exchange. And I think what but once you are grounded and when spirit sends you someone that really does need your help and that will appreciate it, then I think there are exceptions to that rule. Maybe other people disagree. I don't know. What do you guys think about that?

SPEAKER_00 19:33

I don't disagree. Oh, I agree with that. Just can't do free every day, every all the time.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

No, definitely not.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

There are certain times when I have uh a nudge to work with somebody for a reduced rate or you know, some other circumstance, but it's not because it's not because I have a money block. You know the difference when that comes up.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Like, oh, really? Am I doing this? Okay. All right, I heed the nudge.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Our next topic to talk about is isolation. And I think all of us here know about that. You work one-on-one with people most of the time, right? And healing work can feel really solitary and oftentimes can be misunderstood by our family, by our friends. Conventional professional environments don't understand this one-on-one work. Um, we need to have community and professional connection because those are resources for restoration and growth for us. So healing definitely can feel solitary, but we are the ones who have to be responsible to get in our own communities for some support. And that's what one of the things that's so wonderful about AISH is the community and support. So we have a place for you to go if you're feeling isolated. Definitely. And then the last one I want to talk about is something called the Savior Complex. Um, yeah, I know it's a little bit confrontational to say it that way. And I'm gonna include my own example of how I have participated in the savior complex. Uh, never, ever, never did I ever feel cocky enough to assume I was someone's savior. However, the ball is often put in my court to be the savior. So um I learned how to be really responsible to fix other people's things, to solve other people's problems. And so, you know, that was always in the background, but not that long ago, than the last 10 years, I was like, all right, everybody needs to take care of their own selves. I actually said everyone needs to take care of their own damn selves. That's what I said. And so um this is I've had conversations with other people, healers and light workers, when they just I know they're resistant to this idea that they have an unconscious need to run. Rescue or fix their people. And they're like, well, yeah, but a million conversations about this. So it is most of the time probably an unconscious, unconscious experience for them. But you know, we just have to remind these healers that true healing requires readiness from the client. They have to participate, they have to have some personal responsibility there. And again, we can't heal somebody who's not ready to heal. And anyway, all healing takes place within the client, anyway. It's not even really something that we're doing to them or for them. We are facilitating a healing, whether you're putting your hands on them or you're working with them in a hypnotherapy office. So I just found that one to be interesting. Any comments about the savior complex?

SPEAKER_03 22:46

No, I think it's a good thing to talk about because, you know, there's kind of a you could say there's could potentially be sort of a little bit of a slippery slope between the reason we're all doing this is to be of assistance, partly for whatever reason. Um, usually we have our own personal reasons. Like for me, I knew I knew early on that I needed healing. So strangely, I became fascinated in learning about how healing works, right? So that there's that part of it, but the the desire to be of service in that kind of way to people, that's like on a continuum of what you're speaking about. That's that's on a more extreme end of it, but it's it's on that level of a continuum, and being mindful of that, I think, is really important. You got to be honest with yourself and self-aware.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Yeah, I think one of the phrases that we hear a little bit more often nowadays is um spiritual ego. You can kind of run into that spiritual ego in the savior complex. Um, but this is these are some things to be aware of. I'm just gonna give a really quick example. I was working with a client who was coming to me for procrastination. She just could not get anything done at home. And um it didn't take me too long, maybe a few visits in. I was like, oh, she's been a social worker for like 40 years. And it just dropped into me that she's not procrastinating. She's been an empathic individual working with social work clients for her entire adult life, and she doesn't have anything left in the tank anymore when she gets home. It wasn't a procrastination, it was completely drained. And she said to me, You need to have some group classes for social workers and nurses and anybody that works with people that they have no idea that they could be encountering anything like this. And I was like, That's a great idea. I'm still working on that.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

Great idea. Yeah. That and people also procrastinate because they fear not um because of perfection issues, too. Or fear of failure. Fear of failure. That's an even bigger one. You can't fail if you don't try. But if you don't try, you're guaranteed to fail. So it's a catch 22. But there's yeah, but that's a big thing.

SPEAKER_03 25:15

But people justify that by well, that wasn't my fault, right? That was circumstance. Whereas if you make the effort and then fail, it's all you. Yeah, it's on it's on you, right? There's yeah, there's no escape from that one.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

So that's a big one. That's a big one with people, you know, that or they just don't feel like things are aligned right to to get it perfect so they don't try because they're afraid of failing. Yeah, there's so much that goes into that. You could just have those all year round and not get to the bottom, you know, not get to the bottom of the well on on that one.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Yeah, well, every healer that we know runs into these challenges at some point or another, and it doesn't mean that they're not doing great, it doesn't mean they're failing. That's just part of the maturing in their process. So it's good for us to talk about this, and perhaps there will be some people out there who will go, oh, that's me, and they can pursue their healing then.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

The other thing, too, is that as a healer, we typically go through a lot, and that's by design to grow our compassion piece so that we can hold space for other people. So if you understand that that's just part of the game, then you have a greater awareness that, okay, so I've had some challenges that probably have set me up to or experiences in my early childhood experience that set up that I have to take care of everybody in order for me to feel safe.

SPEAKER_03 26:46

Or to feel valuable.

SPEAKER_02 26:49

Our value is is in what we do, right? Which is why we over effort, which is where you began with, right, Melissa? So if we know that there's these common themes that that that kind of show up from healer to healer to healer, and and that maybe this needs to be taught in in school too, about this, you know, because it's such a thing, and and we have such an opportunity to heal these things when we're in training, but even beyond, our clients are always gonna show up. There are energetic mirrors, gonna show up to what the next chapter in our healing is, always, always. And then as we heal, we hold space and we can mirror back for them how they too can. But it's a it's a never-ending loop, you know. But if we know that we're yoked in this way, it's helpful and we can move through these these blocks that we have as as healers, right? Definitely awareness point.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Well, that was a great conversation. Thanks, everybody. That's just what I mean, Melissa. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 27:56

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

See you next time.

unknown 27:58

Okay,