The Healing Space and How to Create It

To create a healing space is to create the conditions for the possibility of healing to occur. In other words, healing is a state of being, of consciousness, that enables the client to access and engage their own “inner healer” and move towards wholeness, a dynamic state of balance, equanimity and poise.

To create this kind of healing space is to create the conditions that Trust can inhabit – trust in the healer, in the healing context and trust in the universe. It is the healer, through her presence, who facilitates this possibility.

And it is in developing this capacity “to create and hold space consciously”, that the healer develops their personal  leadership skills.

Creating the healing space is only the first step in the healing process. The way in which this is done sets the tone for what is to follow: building rapport and asking and receiving permission to engage in a healing interaction – getting to “yes”.

So what’s involved?

Healing is s a subtle, transformational process that works on multiple interconnected dimensions of the healer’s being and inter-being with the healee. Through her healing presence and compassionate intentionality the healer becomes an Instrument of Healing, and as such, she modifies her own inner being to “be the change she want to see” in her client.

A relaxation response, often within the first 2 – 4 minutes of a session, is a good indication that the healing space has been created and rapport has been achieved.

 

8 Things to be mindful of when Creating the Healing Space

1. Invite your client to give herself permission to trust her mind-body perceptions and set her own boundaries.

   Intuitively, when unafraid, the client will always know what feels right for her. By empowering the client to trust in her perceptions of her own experience, she will gain self awareness and confidence which, over time, will help her relax into and open to the healing experience in a deep and satisfying way.

2. Establish Agreement – Imparting knowledge and information, at the beginning of a session, gives your client a sense of autonomy.

   Setting the context and expectations of the healing session, i.e. expected length of the session, what you will be doing, why and how, establishing permission to touch or not (where, why and how), this is best demonstrated on yourself, and what the client can expect from the session helps the client accept the situation and surrender her “need for control” for she has been empowered.Introducing something new to someone requires active listening. What do they want to know? How much information will satisfy their need to know? What can you say and how can you say it that will allow your client to relax and be open to the experience?

3. Empower your Client – This is all about her and she’s in charge!

   Informing your client at the outset that they can stop the session at any time they wish for whatever reason, no explanation required, is empowering and positions the healer’s role in a service capacity, where it belongs. As healer, you are familiar with the precautions to be aware of; your client may not be. However, knowing that you have empowered the client to let you know if and when she is uncomfortable can help her AND you relax and will allow you to focus all your attention on the session itself – where it needs to be.

4. Practice Non-attachment – The Outcome is Always Beyond Your Control

   For many practitioners, this is a big one. Many of us have grown up in a culture of “fixing” and “doing” and discover, in healing, that we have to let go of that paradigm.Knowing and accepting that the outcome of the healing session or healing journey is always beyond your control, the healer focuses on creating and holding the space in which healing can occur, and helps her client relax into that healing space, trust the process and give herself permission to release what she no longer wants or needs to “open herself to the healing experience.”

   Healing is all about “letting be”, creating the conditions for being and FLOW….so the primary focus of the work of the healer-in-training is inner work. This includes recognizing how the role of healer is an immense honour and privilege – a sacred trust; learning how to become an effective Instrument of Healing in service to the Universal Healing Field which underlies all things; and recognizing and honouring the dynamic triad of Universal Healing Field, healer and healee.

   Being unattached to the outcome is to be mindful, aware of the underlying interconnectedness that enables us, as healers, to transcend our own personal need for recognition, approval, fear of failure or success; and be service.

   To truly support our client’s healing process and our own personal growth, we need to keep our ego out of the process. Staying grounded and centered in compassion for the duration of the healing session, are two fundamental practices embedded in the practice and teaching of Therapeutic Touch ^®

5. Respect the Client’s Intention

   Whether your client is seeking to enhance wellness, energy flow and balance; relief from stress, anxiety and depression; comfort and pain relief at end of life or through a cancer journey, seeks healing support with acute or chronic conditions she is bound to feel overwhelmed, confused, frustrated and discouraged, at some points along the way.When we, as healers, create a non-judgmental healing space for our clients, whatever self-judgment, shame, guilt and/or blame. they may harbour is quickly released, to be replaced with self-compassion, forgiveness and self-acceptance – the preconditions for healing to occur; that is, IF the conditions and the healing partnership are right – are resonant.

   The co-creative healing partnership we foster creates the opportunity for the client to open up to themselves, allow past judgments, thoughts, feelings and assumptions to surface, be seen for the conditioned patterns of thought and behaviour that they are, and release or transcend them.

   The beauty of the healing process is that it often happens at a subconscious level, deepened by regular healing interactions and catalyzed through the healing partnership. What is critical to this process is the rest period that follows the active healing intervention, for it is in the rest period where the client integrates her experience. Reflective practice can enhance and deepen this integrative process.

   Please note that both rest and reflective process engage the intuitive mind or spiritual dimension rather than the rational, intellectual mind.

6. Respect the Mystery

   A wise healer knows when to give and when to withhold guidance or information perceived during the healing session. The key to developing this wisdom may lie in how you establish the agreement – the shared understanding of roles and relationships in the healing partnership that clarifies the healer’s and the healee’s intention for the healing process.When the client asks you, the healer, about what you perceived, what, in fact, are they asking for? What do they want to know and why? How you respond to their questions will reflect how you see the power dynamic at play in your partnership.

   It is a careful dance that we all must do when we create and hold healing space for our clients. You cannot do the inner work that the healing process requires of your client. That is her work. Your work is to keep your own ego needs out of the way. If not, you can easily fall into the trap of answering as if you are the expert on your client’s health, when, in truth, as an Instrument of Healing, you know that your client’s human energy field is dynamic and always changing. The intention of the healing session is always the same: to facilitate the client’s movement them towards balance and wholeness.

   How might you ascertain if their questions of you, their healer, could be a misdirected request for information to their own inner self?

7. Be Open, Compassionate, Intentional and Connected

   The open and non-judgmental healing space you create may catch your client off-guard – no one ever in her life has accepted her so unconditionally. This can happen, and if it does, it can catalyze release and expression of long denied and repressed complex emotions, fear, pain or past trauma.Knowing that this may happen, the practiced healer prepares for it. Grounding herself here now, she chooses to become an Instrument of Healing and connects to the Universal Healing Field and then opens and directs her compassionate intent for healing to her client.

   It is the sense of stability transmitted to the client by the healer’s stable and deep connectedness that can open the client’s emotional floodgates unhampered by the everyday fear that the emotional release will leave them feeling broken or vulnerable. The client trusts in the healing space and the healer who’s created it and allows herself free flow of emotional expression.

   While this may not be easy for a healer to deal with, it is fairly straightforward. While the beginning healer may feel overwhelmed and knocked over by the rush of emotion, the seasoned healer will know how to ground, centre and direct the dense expression of often ragged emotional energy with gentleness, compassion, and confidence.

   Holding the space and remaining unattached, heart-centered, open and responsive to whatever may arise enables the healer to trust her own inner judgment in those challenging moments.

8. Create awareness

   Creating and holding space for healing, transformation and empowerment is about recognizing and respecting that each client is on their own, very unique, life journey.Facilitating awareness, compassion, forgiveness and self-acceptance is the inner experience of the healing process which a shift in the perception achieves. Reduction in the experience and/or perception of pain, anxiety, depression, stress, enhanced sense of wellness, improved circulation, balance and wholeness experienced in a myriad of ways are measurable outcomes.

   Helping your client reflect on “what’s different now”, after the rest period, will help them create awareness and own their experience which, in and of itself, can be an empowering event for awareness is the greatest agent of choice.

   As healers, coaches and facilitators, we create and hold space with intentionality. It is a dynamic and creative process. The space we create and hold for our clients is our creative response to what we perceive and directed by our compassionate intention to facilitate healing, what we want to see realized.

   To create a healing space is to create the conditions for transcendence and transformation. How we do that is unique to us and the situations we find ourselves in. While we can learn and develop this competency through training, coaching, mentoring and peer support, we can only make it our own through practice.

The wonderful thing is that this knowledge and skill is transferable to many domains in your life. It is one of the many reasons Therapeutic Touch is known, by practitioners, as a “life skill”, profoundly simple and simply profound! Learn more

As a life and leadership coach, contemplative end of life professional, teacher and practitioner of Therapeutic Touch, I’ve discovered the transformative healing power of creating and holding space for myself, as an individual, for my coaching clients, for students of Therapeutic Touch and advanced practitioners and members of the Kaizen Healers’ Circle.

I would love to hear your thoughts on what it means to you to create a healing space and how you do it. I welcome your comments to this article below or, if you prefer, you may send them, and any questions you may have, to me directly.