Okay, here goes: I’ve always been subtly bothered on a gut level by the whole healing community push to ‘be of service’. To serve. Hmm.
Not the intent, but the wording. I am 100% about helping others and fully support that, so why does the word ‘serve’ bother me so much? Do you feel the same? Have you thought about this? I know it’s the current healer’s parlance or popular phrase, but I don’t do trends, never have, so if it doesn’t sit right with me, I question it.
On that note, I recently had a good meditative sit-down about what exactly was bothering me with the word ‘serve’, and had some interesting realizations…
To me, service implies putting oneself ‘below’ the person being served. To be lesser-than. That bugs the bejeezus out of me. A healer should never put themselves in a position less than their client, as this means the healer is giving their own well-being less value than that of their client, which is a huge no-go for me, and a big no-no in general, I would think. Both as a healer and a client.
Putting aside your own issues of the day to make space for a client is vital, but to me, it is very different from ‘serving’ them. Maybe I have too much mental baggage about society’s massive undervaluing of the service industry in general, but I don’t think healers should think of themselves as servers, and neither should their clients. It just sets the wrong energetic space, and immediately devalues what is being offered, which is an obvious common problem in the healing community! Maybe this is why?
I’m sure you’re now asking “okay, so what’s a better term then?”.
Well, I gave that some serious thought too of course. How about ‘support’? We support those we heal on their journey. We do not serve them, or at least we shouldn’t. I know we could talk semantics about the meaning of the words serve and support for hours, but sometimes it’s just about how it feels.
We support others from our place of strength, not a subservient position of weakness. “Serve”…it just rubs me the wrong way, so you will likely never hear me use that term when speaking of any healing arts. Seriously…spend some time saying each word to yourself and see how you feel after each one. Support. Serve. To me, the distinction is huge.
This is what we do: healing, restoring, revitalizing, inspiring, SUPPORTING.
The words we use to describe our lives and the world around us are so important in creating our reality, both in meaning and in the vibrations of the sounds they make, so they are very much worth rethinking and taking the time to change and upgrade when something seems amiss. This is what I was feeling, so I went deep and wanted to share my musings on the words we use to describe what we do.
Much love to all you strong supportive healers out there. You are the future.
Keep growing, keep loving, and keep being 100% you.
To Serve vs. To Support
