I was speaking with a dear friend of mine the other day. She, too, is involved in spiritual and healing practices. During our conversation she was asking about how I deal with people who are constantly calling me up in a crisis, sometimes daily, and demanding healing to be done for them. She has experienced this with one of her clients and, frankly, has been so stressed out by this person that her own health has been compromised, thus making her unavailable to everyone.
The short answer that I had for her was, “Well, I would fire the person as a client.” This person has been told over and over and over again that she needs to get her sh#t together and stop expecting everyone else to fix everything for her. She has been told that if she is going to dabble in occult stuff without getting the adequate training in how to do so safely, then she need not be bombarding healers with her daily crisis situations. Yet she continues to push on. And so she continues to push at my friend to “save” her and “support” her, even though there is not one iota of personal responsibility being displayed by herself.
The long answer. We all are free to explore and to “dabble” as much as we desire. We do, however, need to do so responsibly. And when we are not doing that responsibly and then expecting our healers to bail us out on a daily basis, then we are acting more like a three year old and not like a grown ass adult looking for some deeper connections on a spiritual level. So what she is doing is abusive to herself and to her healer. And the only way that she will learn is if the healer becomes completely unavailable. It is not even her healer’s responsibility to refer her to anyone else. If she were to do that, whomever she referred her to would then be the target of the same crappy abuse. And, believe me, when someone refers someone like that to me more than once, I no longer take the referrals from that person.
This is where applying some simple organizational skills would do a world of good. Instead of waiting for a crisis moment and then expecting your healer to immediately be Johnny on the Spot for you (let’s face it, we DO have office hours and days off, and we often are booked not just a day or two in advance, but sometimes a month or more in advance), try making an appointment way in advance, or several appointments way in advance, and that way they are there for you. You can always give the healer 24 hours notice of a cancellation and all would be good. But at least you would have the appointment available should you need it. Also, don’t cancel every appointment you have as it comes up just because you were not organized enough to budget for it. That is rude. Get your budgeting done in advance so that the money is available to pay the healer. And if you cancel it because you don’t need it right now, still keep that money tucked away for the next appointment.
When you organize yourself, you will also be more inclined to get organized in your spiritual explorations. That means, for example, if you are going to cast a spell of some kind, you would research way in advance of the day the spell is to be cast. You would not just willy nilly dive in and expect it all to go just swimmingly. Gather whatever supplies you will need, have the place you are performing the spell in ready to go, have a clear intent, have guidance BEFORE the spell casting instead of in a panic after it goes sideways. This also applies to rituals for holy days etc.
Organize your life so that you are not just running on fumes and getting completely panicked about your upcoming (fill in the blank here). Centre yourself and get yourself grounded. That way you are not calling up your healer for last minute support to get you through whatever your performance anxiety is about. Take some grown up responsibility for your life. And please, for the love of all that is good, if we advise you to do something that will help you to repair whatever mess you have created, DO IT. Don’t just ignore that and then call us up three times a day for “help” when you are perfectly capable of helping yourself if you would just do what we suggested. Not doing what is suggested and then whining about it later is what makes a person fit into the category of an “askhole,” the type that constantly askes for advice or assistance and does not ever take said advice and relies so heavily on others’ assistance that they never actually do anything for themselves. This is much like the three year old who is perfectly capable of walking and insists on being carried all the time.
Healers are NOT CRISIS INTERVENTION SPECIALISTS. There are crisis hotlines for that. So do not abuse your healer by pulling that BS with them. It is so important that, as healers, we also have and maintain our own boundaries, both personally and professionally. Otherwise people like this one will take advantage of our good nature until we are sucked dry, like a victim of a vampiric parasite. It is also important to remember that this one person is not the ONLY person we are here to assist. If all our time is spent and used up with one, then there are hundreds who need us that will not have that opportunity.
As a client, it is important to remember that YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY CLIENT THAT A HEALER HAS. So don’t act as though you are. That is arrogant, egotistical, codependent and narcissistic beyond belief. And, above all, please do not be an askhole.