Don’t call me a healer

I read a poem this week entitled, “The Medicine Woman’s Prayer,” which was written by Cherie Bliss Tilsley: 

“I will not rescue you, for you are not powerless.
I will not fix you, for you are not broken. 
I will not heal you, for I see you in your wholeness. 
I will walk with you through the darkness as you remember your light.”

The poem really spoke to me, because I don’t refer to myself as a healer. I’m not the one healing you. You are.

Jacob Moreno, the creator of Psychodrama, believed that inside all of us, we have what he called an Autonomous Healing Center. Therefore, the job of any practitioner, from my perspective – whether they’re a psychodramatist, a therapist, a counselor, – is to help you clear away whatever is getting in the way of you being able to heal yourself. Finding that healing center – that knowing deep inside that can believe that you are good enough – can be challenging, especially if it’s been clouded over by decades of trauma, and shame, and a slew of negative messages.

You are not broken and you don’t need fixing. You need safe places where you can find those parts of yourself that you have pushed down in order to protect yourself; those parts of yourself that you were taught weren’t good enough; that you were taught were shameful; that you were taught were less than.  They’re not and you’re not.

Befriending Defenses

Your utter brilliance resulted in incredibly effective defensive strategies that allowed you to survive, and without that brilliance and those defenses, you wouldn’t have made it. After having all the feelings about what caused those defenses to emerge in the first place, the work is to befriend those defenses, and to thank them for getting you this far.

The next layer of the work is sorting through when you need them, and in what environments, and with what people, to be appropriately boundaried, and then to practice how to be more vulnerable with safe people. 

It’s not work that happens overnight. The wounds and the harm were inflicted over time, and it takes time and a willingness to come out of freeze, and back into your body – to feel what was too dangerous to feel then; what was too dangerous to say then; to believe and know what was too dangerous to believe and know then.

All of that needs to be done with safe people, and at a pace that won’t overwhelm your system. When I work with people, my job is to help them warm up to possibilities.And by using modalities like Psychodrama and Sociometry and Somatic Experiencing and Transforming Touch, I help them create a roadmap back to being able to access all they need to, to come back into their full selves. 

Revealing The Real You

When I do this work with someone, I often think of the brilliant artist Michelangelo. He used to say that when he saw a huge block of marble – just this big chunk of marble – he could see the sculpture living inside of it, and his job was to chip away at the marble until that beautiful sculpture revealed itself. And in our work together, we can use action to chip away at the messages, and the beliefs that you were given, that aren’t yours and don’t serve you. We can chip away to reveal the real you that might have been trapped inside a chunk of marble for years, or even decades.

I have a chisel. I have tools that we can use together to chip away at what isn’t yours, and reveal the beautiful sculpture that is you. 

That has certainly been my journey.

There were many parts of me that were covered over with marble for years. Because of my history of neglect and abandonment, I learned to never ask for help because I was afraid that if I asked, no one would be there, or no one would even care. And so I have had to do the work – with my safe people – to chip away at those beliefs, which have been passed down in my family for generations.

And I have to continue to chip away and do that work so it doesn’t creep back in again. I’ve had to learn how to lean on other people in reciprocal relationships – which is some of the hardest work I do on a regular basis. I have cultivated relationships with people who will remind me that it’s okay to ask for help, and who will show up for me when I need them, and allow me to support them when they need to lean.

Calling Everyone Doctor

Moreno believed that we are the therapeutic agents of each other, and when he opened Beacon Hospital in New York in 1936 – an institution he created to treat patients with psychosis – he called everyone in the facility doctor. Every person in that hospital, including the patients, was called doctor, because he believed that each of us has their own chisel, to help others to chip away, and reveal their beauty.

We are harmed in relationship, and we are healed in relationship, but I’m not your healer. I sometimes call myself a spiritual midwife or a somatic renovator™️, but mostly I’m someone who has the honor of helping people to chip away at that marble, so they can step into their best self.

An Invitation

So the invitation for this post is to think about what are the messages, or the beliefs, or the behaviors that are the chunks of marble that are getting in the way of the real you being revealed? And who are the safe people in your life who have chisels, who can help you by seeing that sculpture that is you, despite all the marble that might be blocking it, and who can help you chip away to fully reveal you in all your glory?

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_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________About Jean:

Jean Campbell, LCSW, SEP, TTP, TEP has been bringing together groups of people to heal for over 30 years. She blends her extensive experience in psychodrama, sociometry, group psychotherapy, somatic healing and trauma resolution to offer training for helping professionals, personalized intensives, clinical consultation, and trial preparation consultation. You can find her at theactioninstitute.com, on Instagram at @actioninstitute, and on Facebook at @actioninstituteofcalifornia.