DO YOU NEED AN APPRENTICESHIP TO BE A HEALER?
In my two decades working in the healing world, I noticed many of my clients want guidance on how to develop their own healing practice, their intuition, understanding of dreams, and most of all, their healing gifts. There are many simple self-led practices I recommend, in particular, the powerful practices of sitting in total silence and stillness or spending time listening in nature. But sometimes, when a client feels really called to work professionally as a healer in some capacity, they want something deeper and are curious about apprenticing as a healer.
As someone who believes in taking my time to learn a craft deeply, I had this same question in my early twenties when I began my work as a Seeress. While being able to see auras was a gift I was born with, I wanted to refine my work so I could truly understand my energy and how to hold a healing space for others. So I looked for teachers while working multiple jobs at once so I could travel back and forth to faraway places to learn from elders, practitioners, and the plants all over the earth. During this time, I tried on more modalities, techniques, and pathways to healing than I can list.
My spirit has a funny way of teaching me lessons, and because I have always been one who learns best from experience, it took me twenty years to learn that when we really want to grow as healers, it is not so necessary to find a very specific lineage or modality to mold ourselves into, but instead, to be supported in feeling and trusting our Original Essence, which is as unique and vast as each of the stars in the sky. In fact, there is a kind of naive (but well-meaning) ignorance present when we are so sure that what heals one will heal all, or that how one creates healing is how all create healing. I know but don’t judge, because I once believed this too.
It took me eight years of apprenticing to facilitate plant medicine ceremonies and twenty years of apprenticing my own Original Essence to realize that I was never meant to offer people something outside themselves. It was a painful lesson in many ways, but one I am grateful for, because it helped me become very clear and honest about how I want to mentor other growing healers - I know I must hold this same truth for them, while still offering guidance.
What If I am Drawn to Healing but I Don’t Want to Be A Healer?
Healing can come from art, from the way you create a business, from the words you write or the music you make. Once you have received a call to explore healing, it makes sense to follow your passions and interests as far as you can so you can really get to know your Original Essence: Maybe you notice animals always gather around you, or that you can’t help but get your hands in the dirt, or that you have a way of making people lighten up with your sense of humor.
When Am I Ready for a Spiritual Apprenticeship?
There may come a time when you have received sign after sign that your work in the healing world is needed. When that inner spark within you is lit, you may have a strong desire to deepen your work or inner calling to help more people. It is at this moment that many of my clients start to feel stuck, because the apprenticeships they see aren’t quite the right fit, but evolving their gifts on their own feels a little daunting. At this point, they may be activating a wound within that they didn’t even know they had, the unconscious (or conscious) fear that if they share their healing light, they will be persecuted in some way. I call this the Witch Wound, and most of those born with a healing light can transform this wound into wisdom if they persevere.
How Long Does It Take to Become A Healer?
I do not believe that every single healer is meant to develop in the same way or in the same timeline, but I also know that one of the great illusions of our time is that we have to do everything very quickly, as if we are racing towards some finish line. Another illusion of this time is that we have to do everything alone, and yet another is believing that anyone outside of us knows better than us who we are and what we are here to do. And yet, there is the very subtle and nuanced space that needs to be carved out when we know we need support, but we don’t want to be molded into someone else. I believe that any worthwhile apprenticeship must know how to hold that subtle space and respect who we already are while also providing us with real skills. Because of this, I believe that it takes each person a different amount of time to develop as a healer, but I do recommend deeply practicing and integrating what you want to offer to others within yourself for quite some time before you offer it to others.
What Kind of Real Skills Might We Need As Healers?
While I believe we all have unique natural talents, there is a lot about holding space and healing that is universal. I do believe we benefit from the wisdom of the experience of others - and that an apprenticeship can be extremely useful for helping us to develop skills so we can trust our natural talents. As a young healer, I wanted to know how to share my offerings, how to take care of myself energetically as a spaceholder, and how I could create spiritual pilgrimages that were well-held and sustainable for me energetically and financially. These are practical skills that I learned from doing this work for so long that just make sense to share with those who are in the same position I was twenty years ago.
How Do We Develop Confidence and Courage as Healers?
Another thing apprenticeships offer us is the opportunity to practice our work while we are still learning, and in many ways this is the most valuable part of any spiritual apprenticeship. This is how we develop confidence.
On a deeper level, a spiritual apprenticeship can help us understand how to take off what is getting in the way of our true healing light so we can unearth the courage to see the bigness in us. Ah, this is such an important moment in the hero’s journey of the healer - to truly face lies the ego tells us. I see so many gifted healers succumbing to the ego’s subtle tricks by overcomplicating their lives, draining themselves by giving so much of their energy away, or keeping themselves hidden, which is also another way of draining themselves.
An apprenticeship can help a healer in this position to see how truly worthy they are of holding and sharing the gifts they steward. And ultimately, this is the greatest purpose of any spiritual apprenticeship - to allow those with a true healing light to overcome the illusion of unworthiness. This is what unlocks the treasure that lies within, the elixir of our Original Essence, and while we work with it to help others heal, it heals us, too.
Apprentice of Original Essence™ is an Advanced Apprenticeship Program with Deborah that offers a combination of 1:1 and intimate group work.
This Program is designed for a select few folks who feel their Original Essence wants to be expressed through a healing/creative offering and would like to cultivate their gifts with the guidance of Deborah’s approachable depth of wisdom.