feeling too scared to shine
in this article, we’ll look at 3 reasons healers and teachers might feel too scared to shine, and do our work in the world:
• fear of being targeted or cancelled online
• lived experience, where attention was unsafe
• past life persecution memories (‘the witch wound’)
what a courageous thing, to find a meaningful dream in your heart, and step into service…
and then do it.
what bravery!
most of us who hold space professionally are gentle creatures who genuinely wish to help what calls out for mending and tending here earthside. we are kindred spirits, highly sensitive folks, starseeds, old souls, and empaths – what a marvel to have come to this beautiful (and tumultuous) planet in the first place, much less to sing our songs of hope and healing in the world.
even if we had those legendary skins we sensitives have heard all our lives about – the ones we’re supposed to ‘just toughen up’ into – it would still be an enormously heroic, epic thing to hang a shingle and do what we’re called to as healers and teachers, especially in our volatile times.
let’s normalize and name: it can feel scary to be hold space in our world right now. especially if you’re a sensitive soul.
you are not alone
I’ve witnessed magnificent, tender, gifted healers experience public and private initiations that rock our souls to the core, and can leave us fearful around doing our work.
fielding the impact of wounded humans trying to handle unresolved hurt in unskillful ways, lived experience where attention was unsafe, ancient echoes from times when gifted ones were hurt or hunted, or funky spiritual contracts that help us grow and still hurt like hell to walk through can stop us in our tracks.
I’ve navigated every one of the experiences above. if you have too and are still hurting, may this writing be a gentle healing balm for you.
note: being targeted, manipulated, censured, cancelled, bullied, or hurt for shining your light and trying to help planetside is painful. these experiences are shocking, and traumatic. fearing them can be agonizing. if that’s happened or happening to you, far in the past or recently, my heart wants to send you a big heart-hug.
I hope you’re okay.
any of the topics below could easily be full-blown dissertations – there is real complexity here – and even so, here are 3 ways I see healers showing up for healing these days, around what we do:
professional bullying
we’re living in an era where our technology allows bullying, criticizing, and attacking anyone at any time, from the cowardly anonymity of the glowing screen. these days, online hate happens so much we have words for it – ‘trolls’ and ‘cancel attack’ are everyday parlance.
the unkindness we see so much these days online usually comes from unwell people with unhealed wounds, or folks tangled up in massive transpersonal fields who feed on feeling ‘righteous’ or ‘powerful.’
for both groups, topics occur in black and white, volatility is high, emotions are fever-pitch, and the algorithm seems to add fuel to the fire by rewarding drama.
the folks doing all the yelling, shaming, blaming, bullying, abusing, or directing mean-spirited comments (for whatever reason) can do real harm before moving to the next target to rinse and repeat – you might have seen professional colleagues or beloveds navigate being cancelled or criticized publicly, or survived it on your own. as a result, you might find yourself frozen in inaction at the exact time when your heart wants to deliver your gifts to a world in urgent need of them.
but there’s more complexity for tender-hearted folks who hold space than just surviving online bullying or censure, or feeling paralyzed by that possibility…
when attention = pain
looking deeper, you might have painful lived experiences outside of your professional work that taught you – in slightly-rugged or totally-devastating ways – that having attention paid to you comes with a steep price tag. perhaps that looked like being singled out when you were young (or as an adult), and you learned that attention = pain.
perhaps your gifts or age or inexperience made you a target for harmful or unwell ones working out their hurt on you…and you learned that attention is to be avoided at all costs, no matter how much your larger self wants you to shine here, and fulfill your mission planetside.
that’s a tricky puzzle, and sensitive souls really struggle in it.
are there deeper layers for healers and helpers, beyond dealing with in-vogue behaviors like bullying or abusing, or valid lived experiences? you bet.
the witch wound
enter past lives. many healers and teachers are here planetside who have worn an earthsuit hundreds or thousands of times, and have been persecuted for being wise women, hedge witches, medicine carriers, gifted ones, sighted elders, visionaries, or simply pure of heart in a world that sometimes seeks to hurt for amusement, or to shut down the song of light at all costs.
I’m speaking of ‘the witch wound.’
I’ve navigated my own very, very strong version of it, and can’t count the number of people I’ve worked with who know in their flesh and blood and bone that they’ve been here before, and their soul-stuff shudders to think of ‘being seen’ (and possibly deeply hurt again) in this world.
of course. if you have soul memory of being burned, hunted, crucified, ostracized, shunned, or injured for bringing your gifts, it would take all the courage in creation to draw the deep breath, and put yourself in a position to field all of that again by shining your sacred gifts.
complexity & tenderness
blessings, blessings. none of the dynamics mentioned here are simple, or easy to be with.
sometimes, you might feel like no matter how much personal work you’ve done, no matter how many healings or therapy sessions you’ve received, no matter how many pillows you’ve pummeled, or how many tearful nights you’ve lain awake ruminating over those old (or current) ‘being seen, hunted, and hurt’ fears, that these wounds will ever leave you.
that’s totally normal. you are not alone in your experience.
this doesn’t get talked about enough. in a professional context, I know many, many healers and teachers who have survived painful initiations like the ones mentioned here, who don’t talk or write about it. more and more, I see colleagues decline to have their names or images online, and that’s heartbreaking because their work is so worthy, valuable, and needed.
at the same time, I honor and understand being too scared to shine.
it took me a long time to be able to write after my own experiences surviving persecution – years and years of dedicated healing work, in fact – and some tender part of my heart still feels afraid that speaking will invite it all again. even so, it’s important to speak about these tangly, tender topics, and bring them from the shadows into the light where healing can happen.
may you feel held
if you’re identifying with your own version of some of the experiences named here, and you wish to receive it, here is a blessing for you:
may you feel comfort. may you remember kindness. may you find rest and healing to help you. may you feel how very much love there is for you, and may you be well.
we’re all working out our wounds, here in earth-school. I offer to you that one way to bring salve to the heart that’s been targeted, cancelled, bullied, or otherwise persecuted in this life or others, is to connect with others who understand, after giving yourself the time and space you need to begin healing.
if the wounds are active for you, there may be a time when you humpty-dumpty yourself back together enough that you consider fulfilling your planetside mission and doing what you came here to, or helping others heal similar wounds and stand in their power in a strong, new way.
you’ll know when is right for you.
things that help
there are other things that can help – receiving healing of course (reiki, soul retrieval, trauma release, power restoration, ceremony) and exploring your current and past-life spiritual contracts. spiritual contract work can help you consciously understand what kind of high-level curriculum your soul might be working at that brought you ugly teachings in the first place, to learn how to alchemize poison into gift.
note about ‘spiritual contracts:’ I am NOT saying that some high-falootin’ spiritual contract that may (or may not) be at work for you negates or justifies how cruelly you may have been treated. I’m saying that when you’re ready in your healing, it may bear fruit to explore spiritual contracts as a way to access a larger picture, when and only when the heart and nervous system feel ready. when you do, you can release or rewrite any contracts you find, an extraordinary balm to the soul.
it might help you to write – publicly or privately – to your beloveds here planetside, who came like you did in response to earth’s call for help, even with battered or bruised or reluctant souls, to help one more time here. it might help to find other folks with similar experiences who have done enough healing work to be able to listen with compassion to you, and offer genuine love without condition, so you can feel seen in a safe way, and so your heart can truly mend.
one last offering…
you can shine again
no matter how much you may have been hurt here planetside – in this or other lives – I believe in you.
if you came here to help, to mend, to tend, to hang your shingle and do what only your irreplaceable, unique, wondrous self can do – I know you can find your way back into the center of your power and shine again.
in a funny, twisted kind of way, it’s sometimes an honor to be cancelled, bullied, persecuted, or otherwise hunted as you may have been, for bringing light and grace here. if you weren’t powerful, radiant, and needed to help balance things here planetside back towards the good…the unwell people who came at you wouldn’t have bothered in the first place.
note: you get to choose the beloveds whose opinions and thoughts are allowed to affect you, and where you put your power.
truth
I wish to name that any of these ideas – my best understanding in the moment I’m writing from – may feel tender to consider, and what is true for me may not be for you. I honor you.
either way, here’s an inalienable truth…
you are powerful, capable of healing, and strong.
if you need help healing your own experiences around these topics, I’m here for you and we can work together to help you. if you’ve got this on your own, right on. I honor you.
above all, thanks for being brave enough to come back to this complicated planet to help in our topsy-turvy, evolutionary times. you may never know just how much your light and gifts are needed here planetside, especially if you struggle to deliver them, but know this…
we need you, we love you, and we thank you.
love,
anna
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