In all honesty, I don’t remember signing up for “Self Care for Healers Online Masterclass Series: Empowering the Healer Within”. I don’t remember where I came across it or why I put my email in. I have a few subscriptions to different weekly emails and at best they are speed-read to the bottom where lies the ender, usually a sales pitch. Which, some of you get email notifications for this blog, so you know where I’m coming from.
Anyway, point is, maybe it was a sign of Peter Van Twuyver’s successful reminder email campaign, or maybe it was something else entirely, but I found myself noting down the dates of the Healing Summit in my calendar.
And, I should add here, I’m still not sure whether I call myself a “healer” in conventional terms, though I’m dipping my fingers in that path; I like to follow this definition from Lesley Phillips:
So, the online series went like this: every day this week I was emailed six videos that were available for 24 hours. The videos were interviews with different kinds of healers from all over the world, sharing their stories and knowledge, under the theme of self-healing.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, I half-imagined I’d watch one video and be done with it, but I actually ended up committing to putting aside a couple of hours a day to listen to the speakers. I couldn’t watch them all, all the way through (I don’t know anyone who’d have time for that) but as I found myself taking notes, I thought, why not make this into a blog post? So here it is, a summary of my week’s experience.
(I should add here somewhere: I believe you can choose to pay to have unlimited access to all of the talks so I’ll put a link in here but this isn’t a sponsored post or anything, this is just for fun. EDIT: Since publishing this post I’ve been informed there is a special 48-hour replay coming up this weekend in which all the talks will be available for free—use this link.)
Five Lessons From A Healing Summit
1. Persevere with self-care
Self care, self healing, self love—whatever you want to call it—can be really hard. It means showing up for yourself, every day, over and over again, even when life is busy or life is tough; making that time to breathe, to do yoga, or just to be present in your day. I imagine most of us know a few ways to look after ourselves: basic hygiene, exercise, and nutrition, but this summit was about caring on a deeper level and methods for actually healing ourselves psychologically and spiritually. And perhaps even though we know that’s important, but we don’t always acknowledge that the journey towards self-healing can be very difficult. So I’m writing this as a reminder for myself as well as anyone else. I find it hard. Impossible, sometimes, in those times that anger overwhelms me, or I’m too tired to stretch before going to sleep. “If self care was easy, we wouldn’t have this summit”, said Peter Van Twuyver, organiser of the event.
What I learned is that if you keep going, keep taking action, you will see and feel a difference.
2. Astrology is cool… Really cool.
One of my favourite speakers was with Grace Murdoch, an astrologer. At some point teenage magazines ruined horoscopes for me—but I learned from Murdoch that a single vague sentence for everyone born in a 4-week period is nowhere near reflective of the real power of astrology.
Our birth chart is actually totally personal; it’s made up of the position of the planets at the exact time of our birth. It’s this, along with the current positions of the planets and their positional relationships, that astrologers use to create horoscopes. Astrology is, in other words, super complicated, and the deeper I go the more I realise there is to learn. There are big things that affect everyone, like the new moon in Aquarius tomorrow, which will bring fresh starts all over. Then there are little things, like the moon today being in the same position as my natal Pluto, so I have the perfect excuse for being so grumpy today.
And hey, look, I know all the arguments against astrology. I know there is no “scientific evidence” that astrology “works”. Like I said, I used to be sceptical myself, like the chap that wrote this piece: “The reason why such superstitious beliefs take root, even among the so called educated, is due to a fear of an uncertain and insecure future. And this fear makes one forsake evidence and meaning as a guiding principle of our thinking. This, among other reasons, makes one vulnerable to astrology.” To which I say: you got me. But also, if exploring my birth chart makes me feel more aligned with the planets and in turn makes me feel more at one with the universe—that’s an amazing feeling that produces compassion for myself and for the planet. And wouldn’t we all be better with a little bit more of that?
3. We all have intuition
Like astrology, I think many people (including myself) harbour many mistaken beliefs about intuition. We know what it is—we’ve all heard the story of someone that decides to drive a different way home and later finds out there was an accident on their usual route. But how do you access intuition? How do you know when you’re feeling it?
Mari Cartagenova is a Psychic Medium and Animal Communicator; she starts her talk off by saying “What I can do, anyone can do”. How? “Because everyone has intuition, it’s just a matter of being able to connect to it”.
Cartagenova says that intuition is in the body, not the brain, so quietening the mind is essential. What’s the best way to do that? The classic options: meditation, yoga, walking in nature—anything that gets you into a centered space. “You have a tool, you just need to get out of your own way”.
Intuition comes as a feeling, a knowingness. It will be unemotional, and once you feel it, you gotta go with it. “Whenever you start judging, and saying “oh, I made that up” or “that was just a guess”, you’re going from your heart space (your soul) to your head space (your human-ness/your ego).” And like anyone who has done any spiritual work will know, your head space is not your true self. Don’t re-think. Don’t analyse. Act.
Not only do we all have intuition, we can actually practice using and listening to it. The more we practice, the clearer it gets. Speaking from my own experience I find this to be true. The last few months I’ve been allowing my gut to make more decisions and I am beginning to recognise when my intuition is talking to me. I mean, take this summit. As I said before, I didn’t have time to watch all of every talk. I let my intuition pick. I trusted my gut to point me in the right direction, and I believe that the videos I chose were probably the videos with the information I needed for my current place in my healing journey. That is pretty cool. And time-saving.
4. Forgive yourself
This reminder came from a powerful talk by Deborah Knight, which was all about self-love. We all know we should love ourselves, but it’s not always clear how. I think she put it best. “You all hear you’ve got to love yourself, you hear it over and over again, love yourself, love yourself! But, you say, I don’t know how! I don’t know how, I don’t know what I need to do.”
I have been trying to put all of her wisdom into words, but honestly, I can’t. You might just have to go and watch this one. If I had to give a brief and inadequate summary: forgive yourself and you will forgive others, be grateful for who you are, ban negative self talk, and believe you have the power to manifest everything you desire.
5. Trees can be sources of healing
I have long-since felt an affinity with nature but I suppose I have always overlooked trees as a vital part of the natural world. But as Carley Mattimore said in her talk: “Trees are our brothers and sisters. They are just like us: they are mostly water, they are familial, they have communities.”
I knew that science had recently provided evidence that trees communicate with each other but I didn’t realise many cultures and religions had known this for years; most religions include a tree in some of their imagery. Trees have a frequency, like we do. Not to mention we share oxygen and carbon dioxide.
The fact is, I have a brand new appreciation for the tree that stands just outside my house; for all the hundreds and thousands of trees around me. I find it funny that I was always drawn to living in a forest but I hadn’t thought about why—I now know it might have something to do with the fantastic healing energy they can offer us. “Forest bathing” is actually prescribed in Japan to avoid burnout.
Mattimore also breathes some positivity in her omens for the planet. “We’re moving into a new paradigm. It seems like everything is falling apart, but really things have to fall apart for them to be reset. Looking at trees is a way to support us during these chaotic times and connecting with nature will help support this change.”
There was more to it than that, but again, I’ll refrain from squeezing the soul of the message into my own inferior words.
I’ll finish this post with a thanks to Peter Van Twuyver and all the people that selflessly shared their expertise. There were 30 speakers total and I’ve barely scratched the surface with this post. I’ve learned new techniques and meditations, gathered knowledge, been awakened to perspectives. It’s given me a little more faith in the power of the universe after a hard few weeks. I know that when it gets hard, you have to persevere, keep going with your meditations and your practices, do it every day, like you know you should, and you will heal. It might take a really long time, but you are growing, you are learning, and all will be well.
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