On Healing and Healers
It’s June 2025 and I just quit my first full time job as a physical therapist. Luckily, I already found an opportunity at another clinic in the same town. The experience of working two weeks in what I thought would be a space of learning and giving healing to others was awful. The owner of the physical therapy center aka my ex boss was so caught up with her ego, image and sadly money that the delivery of the therapy, the care and even the treatment and communication with the staff was completely backwards. Throughout my studies and in different universities, I had seen things such as the healer ego, the greed of the doctor and all the in between, but had never lived it fully. Thankfully, I was able to get out and tomorrow I will start with the correct foot in place.
I am 34 years old and was free lancing massages for the past year, was a health and wellness coach for four years, and in general have been a good friend, lover and daughter allowing me to heal people through conversation. Now, I have the knowledge and the power in my hands (literally) to heal even more. It’s very complicated with the word ‘wellness’ becoming trendy. It’s hard because in the end, it’s up to the patient to heal. It’s his or her attitude, desire that will lead to change. It’s the day that he or she wakes up and feels motivated.
It took me a few full rounds of this circle of helping and empowering, several toxic and co dependent lesbian relationships, a fuck ton of my own personal healings (with amazing healers all around Costa Rica and online), three Burning Mans, attempts to surf big waves, a lot of introspection and writing, amazing available and emotionally mature friends who support me daily through Whatsapp, and my own motivation to realize that I can’t change a person, only myself. By changing myself, my attitude, my positive energy, I can offer really powerful therapy sessions and educate my patients into working their bodies, their nutrition, their posture and so forth.
It’s not easy, but can be easy, being a good therapist or healer. Once you did your basic healing, found your inner voice, and have a decent amout of peace inside you daily, helping others, holding space, and motivating is very simple. It’s a matter of listening, reading the situation, understanding the person and what they are going through, and offering the words (or silence) that are necessary in that given moment. Because we are temporary beings and everything is constantly changing, it’s very important that you are present for the other person.
Two things that have really helped me the past few months are based on the word and practice of presence. My mom gifted me a book based on Eckart Tolle’s the Power of Now that reviews his ideas and suggests how to practice being present. It explains how the brain is obsessed and constantly clicking us into the past or the future. Pretty much, if we don’t create the intention or if we don’t want to change, we are trapped in this loop all freaking day and night. I drink a lot of caffeine and can be very repetitive with my thoughts, both about the past or the future. I make an effort to meditate daily in the mornings and constantly remind myself to breathe.
The second thing tied to presence is ‘holding space’, something I was craving from my partner as I changed jobs and upon not receiving it feeling very triggered and alone. I can hold space for her and for many people at the same time, including myself, but during that transition it felt very chaotic to ask for space and not receive it. I have friends online that hold space for me weekly and I have therapist (psychology) that I can also book if needed, but a present partner is such a rare and happy thing to have. As I untangled my situation, where I was working for that narcissist with up to 8 patients per day, Saturdays and Sundays too, feeling drained but somehow still connected to Universe, I realized that demanding presence is stupid and egotistic.
People come from different backgrounds and the way people hold space, listen, love or even navigate life is different for each and every single person in the world. Being humble is the bottom line for this moment of my life. Listening to my self, my reflections on my current partner, my reflections in my conversations with my friends, my gift to the patients I could see these weeks, the evolution of my relationships with my different family members, and the feeling I currently and presently have on my chest can only be summarized by a phrase my dad once repeated: ‘reality is perspective’.
Again, I can’t reiterate the word ‘humble’ enough. I want to maintain humble as I navigate this crazy world and I want to be able to respect the perspective of those I encounter, whether briefly or in my whole lifetime. I am working on bringing healing to people without being invasive, disrespectful or pushy. Sometimes I feel like advising or promoting health is tricky because communicating to someone ‘you have to lose weight’, ‘you have to change your posture’ linked to a possible diagnose in the future can trigger all sorts of emotions and feelings.
Healing is an art, being a healer is a gift. Today I feel very grateful. I am excited to start my new matrix tomorrow and continue helping people with their posture and pain, learn from a respectful person, and continue growing my practice as a physical therapist.
Tuesday June 3rd, 2025
The beginning of ‘Pride’
A year of change
Ciruelas, Alajuela