Why Fear is Part of The Healing Journey

When I meet sensitive souls who aspire to be healers (whether for themselves, or for others), I fall in love with their deep passion for living their soul purpose.  Simultaneously, my heart breaks, because I typically hear them describing their deepest desire with ‘but I can’t be here for this, because I’m terrified - I give up’. I hear the same (innocent) fears, again and again - seeing women thinking they are not really cut out for the soul calling they came here for. Believe me, I feel your heart so deeply if this is you, because this was once me.  

  Women who were born here to be the healers, teachers, lightworkers and guides of the modern world often feel the deep call to a more meaningful, magical life - they know they were born for something more than the mundane. Yet as they begin to open to that vision, they also open to common fears that come with opening to our true, powerful potential as a healer - and their inner little girl begins to feel unsafe, bless her heart. How often have you wondered ‘who am I to do this, I should stay small?’ or ‘is this really for me?’ How many times have you thought ‘does it have to be this hard?’  Perhaps you say ‘I give up’ a lot when you hit against a difficult wound?   When we reach this point in the journey, what we aren’t taught (and what I’m here to share my point of view about) is that this is a normal part of becoming a healer. Too often, the work of ‘healing’ is portrayed as a ‘quick fix’, just like the mundane world operates. For example, perhaps we’re taught we can get a reiki certificate in two days and then be sent into the world, without any support for the integration that takes place after an activation of this medicine.   In the same way as we see people masking their pain with ‘sticky plasters’ of drugs, alcohol, or any of the mundane ways we are taught fix us, the healing world has begun to offer ‘quick fix’ routes, which aren’t what I call ‘real’ healing. These ‘quick fixes’ aren’t coming from integrity – they make the journey look ‘easy’ and ‘fast’ – and, in my experience, that’s rarely the case. It takes thee years to truly become a healer – and thee steps – healing, discovering your soul gifts, and learning how to express them in the world. So, let’s normalise the fears of becoming a healer.  Let’s normalise the journey being a becoming. Because your fears don’t mean you’re not here to be a healer – fear is a perfectly normal part of sensitive women opening to their meaningful soul purpose. It’s just that nobody talks about this part of the journey – the messy in-between where you’ve had an activation or awakening that means you’re no longer able to bear your mundane life, yet you’re also still not yet the woman you long to become.     Your initiation into becoming a healer Truth is, this is really your ‘initiation’ into being your unique healing remedy. In ancient times, medicine people wouldn’t have got certificates, they would have experienced the art and science of healing - learning to heal themselves of their own wounds, until it was embodied in their cells and they would pass that magical wisdom on.  We can’t just skip this part.  It simply means there’s more personal self-healing to do; that you’re being called to stop ‘outsourcing’ your power and learn to heal yourself. It means there’s more healing for your inner ‘wounded healer’ - the part of you which needs to learn to heal herself and her fears around being a healer, so she can step fully into her gifts. When you navigate that with an openness, you’ll become the best healer. Touching our truth feels scary - we will have doubts about reclaiming and stepping into our power and magic. And we can begin to identify when and why fear is stopping us in our tracks, and heal these fears so we can keep opening our hearts and step into our gifts. One way to start healing is to work with truthful self-illumination. The exercise below helps you get really honest about where you are, so you can begin to love yourself in the ‘normalness’ of these fears, tending your body and soul.     Three categories of fears Typically, three types of fears show up when stepping into our gifts – the fears of losing:

• Control 
• Approval 
• Security

When we lovingly identify our fears, we begin to let our bodies and nervous systems know these are normal and welcome – and learn to hold ourselves (and our inner little girl) in them.     Self-illumination exercise Rate yourself out of 10 for each category below, with 0 being ‘this doesn’t impact me at all’ and 10 being ‘I’m terrified of this’:

• Control fear - How far do you fear that living from soul will obliterate your life and you'll have to run away to the woods? How far do you feel overwhelmed and like you can’t cope? How far do you fear trusting magic and the unknown? How far do you mistrust that life has got your back? How far do you doubt you even have magic and doubt you even have a healing or medicinal gift? How far do you mistrust that you can create what you want to create magically? How far do you feel you’re not confident enough? How far do you wait for life to be ‘perfect’ before you begin? How far, if you've trained, do you seek the next training so that you can be ‘more experienced’ before you step in? How far do you fear ‘I can’t do this’ and doubt your power? 
• Approval fear - How far do you think, ‘I’m too busy juggling my children or work, and I can’t put my needs first’? How far do you think, ‘I can’t love myself’? How far do you fear you’re too sensitive or your needs are ‘too much’? How far do you think, ‘What would my husband think, what would my kids, mum, sisters, brothers, best friends, people at my office or workplace think of me stepping into being a healer, teacher or guide?’ How far do you avoid asking for your needs to be met? How far do you fear using your voice to share what you really think? How far do you fear people will judge you as a charlatan? How far are you scared of being judged and rejected for your point of view?  
• Security fear - How far do you think ‘this vision is too big’? How far do you fear failing? How far do you resent feeling stuck in your mundane job because that’s your security? How far do you fear not being able to make any money from your gifts? How far do you fear losing your home, your possessions, your lifestyle? How far do you think, ‘however will I do this?’ How far do you think, ‘I need someone else to provide for me’? How far do you constantly check your money or ignore your money because it’s too scary to look at, feeling the fear of not being able to create more? 

This is the first step – and the important thing here is to begin to be deeply honest with yourself about where you are – because from there, we can begin lovingly meeting ourselves and heal our inner wounded healer. Love is the alchemist – the more we can bring love to these scared aspects of ourselves, the more deeply we are able to open to our healing gifts. It isn’t an easy journey – I feel your heart. I often say: if living from soul was easy, everyone would be doing it. I honour your courage, healing one – keep going. The world needs your gifts. If you’d like to go a bit deeper with this, I recently hosted a free ritual experience for Kindred Spirit that takes you on a ceremonial journey with Archetypal Rosa, which would be a beautiful opening for you – you can find it here. If you enjoyed this article by Nicole, you may also like her piece, Is it in your soul’s plan to be a healer? 3 unexpected signs it might be