How to Be a Healer

I have started writing a new book called How to Be a Healer, which I will publish in 2027. Here is the introduction.

How to Be a Healer: Introduction

This book is not about healing techniques, although it does include some technique. It is about being the kind of person whose presence heals. 

We all have the ability to help other people heal, grow, see more clearly, and reconnect with themselves. Some people do this as psychologists, medical personnel, or complementary therapists. Others do it as parents, teachers, artists, or as kind human beings. In essence, healing is not a profession. It is a way of being.

If you are drawn to this book, you must already know, at some level, that you are a healer. You might not have used that word about yourself before or considered turning it into a profession, but you want to ease suffering and bring more peace into the world. You care.

The Time Of Healers

When I was growing up, I didn’t know that being a healer was something a person could do. But even as a child, I did my best to help people. By the time I was a young adult, I certainly knew what a healer was because I had searched for and found healing communities, but most other people still didn’t. It definitely wasn’t regarded as a proper profession.

Several decades later, in 2005, I started my own healing and counselling practice. But even by then, it was still an unusual path. Many people would stop and stare at the sign outside my house — some with curiosity, some with nervousness, and some with disgust.

Today the world is different. There is a growing understanding that healing can and is happening in many ways. The word healer no longer sounds as strange as it once did. 

These days, I no longer run my healing and counselling practice because I write full-time, have family responsibilities, and happily devote many hours each week to ballroom dancing. But I don’t feel that I have stopped being a healer. It flows through my books, my relationships, my dancing, and my life. Being a healer was never about having a practice first. It was always about being a certain kind of person, a certain kind of presence.

Physician, Heal Thyself

At the heart of this book is an idea that has been expressed for thousands of years. “Physician, heal thyself,” appears in the Gospel of Luke, although it was probably a well-known proverb before then. Its meaning is obvious. 

Every fear we face, every old belief we release, every difficulty we understand, and every step we take towards becoming more authentic makes us more able to help someone else do the same.

As we help others, we continue healing ourselves. It’s never-ending, in the best and most exciting sense of the word. Sometimes we don’t even realise we possess certain abilities until we begin sharing them. 

Healing Environment

One person doesn’t heal another person. A healer creates an environment in which healing becomes possible. The recipient can, if they wish, choose to connect with a more healed version of themselves. They can tune into a state of greater peace, clarity, and wholeness. 

The healer’s role is not to rescue people or fix them. It is to embody the qualities that allow another person to feel who they are themselves. 

Who you are is the greatest influence you will ever have on anyone else.

How to Be a Healer is divided into four parts:

1. Identity: You are a healer.
2. Context: The world is ready for healers.
3. Foundation: A healer heals themself.
4. Expression: A healer creates a healing environment.