My first encounters with the world of wellness go way back to my teens when I first started thinking about my health due to messy hormones and irregular periods. I got into yoga when I was about 17 but back then yoga still wasn’t “a thing” so I had to dig out the one yoga practitioner in the whole of Guatemala City and convince my parents, neighbours and boyfriend to form a group with me so that I could have a class. Before I was 20 I had already finished my first energy healing course. Not long after I left my home to go volunteer in India looking for a spiritual teacher and following my dream of becoming some sort of modern day St Francis (I know ..🤪 ) I then got into permaculture and went to live in a farm in Spain. Got into ancestral midwifery and went back to Colombia to become a doula. Got into sound healing and ended up in the UK becoming a voice therapist and high priestess. I have trained in various techniques and met many wise medicine men and women. I’ve fed my soul with myriads of thinkers, poets and mystics. I’ve purged, fastened, prayed, retreated, contemplated, journeyed, journaled, envisioned, dreamt and lucid dreamt. I’ve tried and learnt how to do many a wondrous thing.
Why am I telling you this? so that you know I'm talking about an industry that I know well, that I make part of and that I've helped built. So that you know that I'm writing from within. Because still, after all these years, I sit a bit uneasy amongst psychics, readers, shamans and the lot, and the “healer” tag makes my skin crawl.
Is it because I don’t believe in what I do? Absolutely not. I believe in things most people don’t and I’m confident that they help. But when you spend too long in between realms, it’s easy and quite common to lose grip on reality, or even on your own humanity. Add to this the vulnerability of an increasingly anxious public and the growing pressure to turn your service into a profitable business and you have a recipe for new age disaster.
My issues with the “healing” industry
I recently wrote on my facebook page in relation to this image, that if we truly want to feel happier, more peaceful, more alive, we need to step away from the “fix my life” narrative. To begin with, this idea implies there’s something inherently wrong with us, with being here, with being human. All the “ascension” narrative of the new age doesn’t really fall too far from religious dogma. Saying that you need to stop vibrating on a low frequency might sound a bit more hip but is as shit a concept as the one of original sin. Calling it the fifth dimension instead of heaven does not challenge the idea that your humanity is inherently flawed; that there’s always a better place to be, a better way to be than this one, here. And how do you know if you’re on your way to this magical state of being? Well, there comes the most messed up bit: the unmistakable proof that you’re on your way to the highest of spiritual stages is that you’re “manifesting” all your desires on this plane, and if this is not happening, well my dear, it’s simply because you’re not trying hard enough. And this is some fucked up cocktail: using the very mundane concepts of wealth and power as a means to prove to yourself and others that you’re more spiritually advanced. Wait … where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, medieval church.
As it happens with all of our vulnerabilities, the desire to feel whole has been noticed by the market forces and once again it’s spun its terrible wheels, spitting miracle cures left and right and whoring out practitioners of every origin and orientation. So now (or should I say, again) we believe that healing is something that can be purchased; that if only we could find the right practitioner, the perfect retreat, or that one crystal that totally “aligns with my sign” or whatever, then we’ll be just fine.
But these are just tools. It doesn’t matter which one you go for: dream interpretation, yoga, ecstatic dancing, meditation, sound baths... they are all practices to foster well-being. And as any other physical, mental or spiritual practice, they must be observed with certain regularity in order to work. Healing is not an event. It is a path that we walk slowly and for the entirety of our lives. It’s a way of feeling. A way of making sense of the things we experience. It also evolves in direct relation with the circumstances we live in (despite what the market will have us believe) and so, we should approach this process with caution, being fully aware of the personal, cultural, social and financial structures that we have in place to support the process. This doesn’t mean that we aren’t capable of having a standalone, profound healing experience. Of course we are! But the problem is that at the moment, these experiences are taking place in a vacuum and so they are not sustainable or long-lasting.
Here’s the thing, well-being tools cannot replace fairer societies, equality, job security, healthy relationship patterns, environmental balance, transparent political systems or tightly weaved communities. And that’s how they’re being sold to us. As fillers for all that is wrong in the world.
And who does this really serve? Is it us, the common people whose resources are already stretched thinly enough trying to make a living? No. It’s the establishment, because as long as we feel that it is us who’ve got it all wrong, as long as we’re jumping through hoops to attend all these webinars and retreats and courses, we are working hard and spending more, and feeling more unworthy than ever.
Think of it this way: for a multimillion dollar business it’s cheaper and easier to give its employees a one-day mindfulness seminar than rearranging the entire financial structure to have them receive better wages and improve working conditions.
For the obsolete education system it is easier to introduce a mandatory hour of yoga to the schedule than acknowledging the entire system is broken and reimagining an education that is not trauma based.
This doesn’t mean that said seminar or the yoga class are pointless. It just means they're not fixing the real problem and proposing them as an isolated solution is helping to point fingers in the wrong direction. In a broken world, making people individually responsible for their mental health is far easier and more profitable than introducing the changes that are actually needed for people to thrive.
The healer persona is a slippery slope
If healing tools on their own cannot create sustainable change, neither can healers. Indeed I’ve met many amazing medicine people but before I could really start learning I had to move past disenchantment. As I was saying, I was only 20 years old when I went across the world to meet one of my inspirations. A man whose devotion to God and dedication to others I deeply admired. I went almost with blind faith, willing to renounce the world and all my earthly belongings (you know, because of the St Francis thing and that). The problem was that I was looking for a guru, for a hearder, for a healer, for a saint... as we all are at some point in our lives. And instead I found a man. A man I could not relate to on a personal level. A man I didn’t even really like that much in the end! That was my first disenchantment with the healer persona and this had to happen a few more times before I finally understood that people are exactly that: People. They may have a vocation, a passion, a dream, a skill. They may have done wonderful things. And we may coincide in some beliefs and share our effort, our vision for a while. But at the end of the day, they’re as human as I am. They can be as saintly, as magical, as healing, as I can be. And also as ignorant, as foolish and as obnoxious as I can be. And that is ok.
Why am I saying this? Because in our vulnerability, in our deep desire to feel better, to do better, we may easily get blinded by the person in front of us. We may think they know something that we don’t. That they’re something that we’re not. We will put our sanity in their hands, and even if they are good hands (and they mostly are) this will not help us out of the hole. We need to grow up. We need to stop looking for saviours and remember that our health is ours and that it is an individual process, as much as a collective one. But what is definitely not, is a one way interaction between someone that "has" and someone that "doesn't". And yes, alternative practitioners have skill, they’ve cultivated their craft but they can only point us to what we have inside. They can only suggest the healing path; Mirror our resistance; Question our beliefs; Recommend us a tool. But it is us who have to figure it out. They can not make us whole. And most importantly, they can’t do anything that we cannot do.
Many healers I know, as loving as their intentions can be, can get wrapped up in their own grandeur, blinded by visions of their own magic, even if momentarily. And it’s alright. That is also part of the healing path. The risk is that we get so deep in it that we can’t come back out. Easily done as well, because in this time of “deconstructed spirituality” everything runs unchecked and of experience; there’s no protocols or rules to abide by; there’s no absolutes and everyone is entitled to their own truth. And so, it’s very easy to end up being (or following) some mystical yet slightly unhinged being with a very appealing Insta feed.
And I understand. The world is a dark and dense place and it’s easy to want to dissociate. But we must do our best to stay real, to stay grounded, to stay how they’d say: “3D”. Because otherwise we’re doing a disservice to humanity. How can we heal our existence by outright denying it? Not everything can be relative, and the way back from this mass delusion is to weave healing back into the community. If we’re just dancing to the beat of our own drum (literally and figuratively) we’re in danger of slipping into an egotistical path to destruction. People get tired of me saying this because it’s not what they want to hear, but this is exactly what has happened for example with the ayahuasca madness. When questioning people’s motives for wandering into the jungle uninvited, knowing that the communities there are basically now fighting for their very lives and spiritual tourism is putting them in danger, I always get the same disengaged response; something along the lines of : “my guides told me I needed this and plant medicine belongs to everyone”. Sure it does but are you aware of the impact of your actions? Is your “spiritual awakening” more important than the plea of these people to be heard, to be respected? Anyway, that’s a whole other blog post I reckon, but if you’re interested on what the Amazonian communities have to say about this you can read their declaration here
I understand how talking about these matters might turn people away from my offer. I know I’m probably the worst marketer for what I do. I’m also aware of the fact that it is very hard to stay coherent at all times because I myself am a product of intercultural learning and intuition based practices. Who am I to say what is right and what is wrong? But this is exactly why I try to keep myself on my toes. This is why I’m constantly questioning everything even if it loses me clients and wins me reproaches. This is why I do my best to be community informed. Because the minute I stop doing this I risk becoming dogmatic. So here’s a few things I try to keep in place:
- I’m not going to say the tools I use are indispensable. Not because I don’t believe in them but because I’ve tried enough stuff in my life to know there’s different times for different tools and what doesn’t work today may as well work wonders tomorrow, or never. If you resonate with what I do, I’ll teach you how to use it. If not, you can move along knowing there’s a lot more to experience out there.
- I deeply believe there’s more to healing than science, and more to well-being than what can be seen, touched, counted and measured. I mean, I run an experience-informed priestess course, I do card readings, energy healing and stuff. But I’ll always start a process from what’s reasonable and explainable because our mind needs to be on board; it needs to be clear on what’s happening, how it’s happening, what are the possibilities and the limitations. Otherwise there would be a deep level of deception involved.
- There’s no magical cure. No ultimate frequency, crystal, ointment, posture, mantra or therapist that will "fix your life". If you want to do some work I’ll be there for you but I am not going to “heal” you.
- We are not islands. Yes, we need to be in charge of our individual processes but always bearing in mind they can only go as far or as deep as the collective healing goes. Or to put it plainly, it's very hard to be all "enlightened" when you don't know if your children are going to be able to eat tonight.
- I’m not special… “magical”? Sure but also, so are you.
And yet, that’s not the most important thing. What's most important really, is that we are both part of this world! And here in this very short and limited life of ours we have the potential to become whole, and to make the Earth whole because there’s no separation between us. We are our territories, we are the land we walk upon. We are the people and every creature that surrounds us. We are one soul happening… That’s what we have to make work: Life as a human in this world! Here, now, in this body, in this dimension. Don’t ever forget that. Anything other than that is as we say back in Colombia, a mental wank ;)
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