How I Came to Be a Healer
As I sit here working in my home office, my heart is full of gratitude and amazement at how surprisingly life unfolds for us. If you had asked me ten years ago what I would like to have been doing a decade from then, I would have painted a picture of a life radically different from the reality I am experiencing.
Ten years ago, I had no idea that the world of Spirit and Energy that I am immersed in and work with daily even existed. For those of you who don’t know, my focus of studies in high school and college were Chemistry and Economics. I excelled in linear/logical thinking and rational problem solving.
Because I was born in India, spiritual practices were a part of everyday life when I was growing up, but I never knew of the world of Energy and the Interconnectedness of everything. It was not until January of 2010 when I had the most profound, spontaneous healing experience that my consciousness was opened to this powerful world of Spirit and Energy.
At the time, I was taking part in a group relations leadership conference that took place at the University of San Diego where I was getting a Masters in Peace and Justice Studies. I signed up for the conference on the recommendation of a mentor. I didn’t know anything about it, and based on what he said, I believed it was going to be a meditative, spiritual experience.
So, I spent hours sitting in meditation each day of the conference. After the second day, I woke up in the middle of the night sobbing. I felt the spirit of my grandfather who had passed on about 15 years prior there with me, and I felt a black, gooey mass of guck leave my abdomen area.
I went back to sleep after a while and woke up feeling quite pronounced tingly sensations in my hands. I found myself moving my hands around and directing those sensations towards things, having no idea what I was doing. I was so full of energy and vitality that I needed little sleep (3-4 hours a night) and ate like a bird for months.
I spent hours each day walking in nature, and the whole natural world came alive to me in a way I had never experienced before. It was as if I could communicate with trees and birds and all sorts of natural elements, having an exchange of ideas and insights with them. And poetry was just flowing out of me, something I was stunned by because I had only ever written one or two poems in my whole life.
I had absolutely no exposure to any mystical paths or alternative healing ways at that time, and I had no idea what to make of my experience. So, I went to the director of the conference and asked if she knew what might be going on. She looked at my hands and said, “That’s healing energy. That’s your gift.”
Coming from the Western, linear, logical world, I just stared at her, and silently thought in my head, “What the heck is she smoking?” Totally skeptical, I asked her how I could learn what I was supposed to do with it. She referred me to a shamanism school and just looking at the website made me run. It all seemed so strange and crazy…there was no way I was going to touch it.
So, I continued to wander in nature for hours each day, write poetry in the middle of the night, and play with the energy coming out of my hands. In my meditations, I would imagine the earth and send the sensations from my hands all around the earth. Later, I was to learn this was called planetary healing. I had no conscious knowledge of what I was doing, but it all felt wonderful.
Then, I was invited to take part in a workshop at the Navajo Nation. In college, I had taken an Anthropology course and had written a paper on the medicine ways of the Navajo because I was pre-med at the time and interested in different forms of medicine. So, I jumped at the opportunity to travel there and spent time in a workshop led by a Navajo (Dine) Singer or Medicine Man on his family’s land.
There, I had the most profound experiences and learned so much in a short period of time. At one point, I was sitting in a healing ceremony moving my hands gently in front of me and sending the sensations (energy) in them to the person receiving healing. But I thought I shouldn’t be doing that because I might be interfering with what the healer was doing, so I started to return my hands to my lap.
Just then, the healer looked at me and said, “I’m glad you’re here. You’re really helping me.” I was surprised but happy, so I continued. What I witnessed during the healing ceremony stunned me. The healer did an extraction on the individual, clearing out energies that were no longer healthy for the person.
The process was exactly what I had experienced in the middle of the night during the conference that got me on this journey. Except instead of a physical healer doing the process, it had been spontaneous. The spirit of my grandfather had been there, but no human had done the procedure.
A couple of months later, I had the opportunity to see this very same medicine man again at a gathering on the East coast. I remember sitting outside of the hotel where the gathering was and asking him what I should do now to become a healer.
By then, I had gotten more comfortable with what was happening and wanted to study to learn about this strange but magical world I had unexpectedly found myself in. He looked me in the eyes, pointed to a man standing several feet from us and said, “You’re already a healer. Ask that man if he needs healing and then do what comes naturally.”
To say that I was stunned is a huge understatement. I didn’t go up to that man, but later that evening, I found myself in a park, wandering about, connecting to nature as had become my way. Then, in the distance I saw a man in an orange t-shirt and felt this strong push to go ask him if he needed any healing.
He was confused and surprised that a random stranger would come up to him and ask such a strange question. But after we chatted a bit, he said he had terrible pain in his back and would love some relief from that. Again, just following instinct, I performed a healing on him with the help of two animal spirit allies I had connected to in a meditation a month or so prior.
After I finished, I shared a prayer with him that I thought would help him. Still looking perplexed, he thanked me and we said goodbye. As I was walking away, I wondered if it had worked. This was the first healing I had consciously performed and I was curious if he felt anything. As I was wondering this, a voice inside my head said, “Don’t worry about that. If you’re meant to know, you’ll be told.”
The next day, during my morning wanderings, I was crossing a bridge in another part of this town I was visiting, and suddenly, I saw the man with the back pain walking towards me. We both did a double take when we saw each other, both totally take aback by this coincidence.
He said with total amazement, “You’re real! I thought you were an angel. What did you do yesterday? My pain is totally gone.”
I was so delighted to hear that. I told him I was so happy to hear that. I couldn’t explain what I had done because I didn’t know myself! This time, when I walked away after saying goodbye, I thought to myself, “Holy cow! This stuff really works. I have to figure out what I’m doing.”
And that’s when I started looking for teachers to study with. All sorts of amazing magical things continued to unfold, and I began to study Reiki and later Shamanism. I’ve traveled to many different places, including Peru, Mexico, Guatemala, and other states in the US, to learn and grow as a healer.
And now, I get to do this work full time, and I give thanks every single day for the blessings of this path. I don’t know what the future will hold, but for now, I cannot imagine doing anything else with my life. This path has tested me and challenged me beyond my perceived limits, and it has blessed me with the most profound healings and transformations I could ever ask for.
I feel so humbled and blessed to have opportunities to share the beauty, magic and power of these healing ways with others. There were a few times early on in this journey when I tried to walk away from this path out of fear, and I am so grateful Spirit did not let me go.
I still cannot explain how the healing works, but I’ve learned to do my best to step aside and hold space for Spirit to give each individual I get to work with the healing and the guidance that would serve their highest and best good at that time.
The whole process has taught me that Spirit Knows Best, and our job is simply to stay open, follow our hearts, and do our best to listen to the guidance that’s coming our way. As I close this chapter of the story, I send many blessings and big hugs your way. May you always be embraced in the light and love of Spirit.