7 Things I Wish I Knew Before Becoming A Healer
By Dr. Linh | Doctor of Chinese Medicine & Acupuncture, Licensed Acupuncturist, Somatic Practitioner, Hypnotherapist
Companion Podcast Episode: https://returntoyin.substack.com/p/7-things-i-wish-i-knew-before-becoming?r=3bab18
So don't get me wrong, Chinese medicine school was life-changing. It was paradigm shifting, but I felt like something was missing.
I felt like there were things I wish I knew before becoming a healer.
I didn't know these things before I started in the health field, and I wish someone else told me them beforehand. So let's get into it.
Today I have seven different things that I wish somebody told me before I got into healing or becoming a healer.
I remember as a kid, I went to the hospital and I fell in love. I fell in love and I didn't fall in love with the procedures or the environment because… I mean, It sometimes it could be quite invasive.
But what I really fell in love with was I fell in love with helping people. I fell in love with the idea of helping people. I loved the giving, the receiving, the act of just being able to help somebody go through something and be able to support them through that. And that's what I fell in love with. And I knew that's what I really wanted to do.
Deep, deep down was to help people.
So fast forward, I decided to go to Chinese medicine school after deciding I didn't want to be a nurse. After I realized that being in the kind of conventional health field space was not for me, I didn't want to work in a conventional way.
I decided that I wanted to go into Chinese medicine. And because I am Vietnamese and Chinese and I come from the culture of Chinese medicine and remember getting treatments I remember drinking herbs as a kid and I just knew that it was the right direction.
So don't get me wrong, Chinese medicine school was life-changing, it was paradigm shifting, it taught me so much about just the foundational knowledge that I have about Chinese medicine.
But I did feel like something was missing. I felt like there were things I wish I knew before becoming a healer. so the first thing is that all things are connected.
Everything is connected
I have another story.
I'll never forget the one patient that I had who kept coming back to me. He kept coming back to me every week telling me that using western medicine — he's done everything. And still he didn't have a solution or explanation to what he felt or what he was experiencing.
And this person has stuck out to me. And I can still visualize this person. I can still remember what this person was saying to me. And what I really remembered was that this person felt scared. They felt confused, lost, afraid. They didn't know or have an explanation of what was going on until they came to Chinese medicine where I was able to give them and highlight that everything was connected, that their emotions impact the physical, that their spirit impacts the emotions, that there's no separation between mind and body. The mind-body connection is one of the biggest things that in Chinese medicine schoolI learned on a deeper level. So this was part of what he might have been experiencing. It is the somatic — the psychosomaticness of it all. What I learned was to be able to help this person understand that all things are interconnected. All things are going to be impacting each other because there's no separation.
That was the first thing I wish somebody told me before going into Chinese medicine school that it was going to be paradigm shifting. I was going to need to know and understand the language of the body in a different way that might have challenged my previous social or cultural or just overall view of the world.
Spirituality of Medicine
The last point of the story leads me to my second point, which is the spirituality of medicine.
So I kept running into a roadblock with this same person. This same person kept coming to back to me, telling me a little bit of a different story each time.he kept bringing up experiences of the past, things that he hadn't let go of, things he hadn't processed,And what he really told me was that he needed support on a spiritual level.
He needed support on a level that was missing from modern medicine. And I wish somebody had told me that before going to school that There's spirit in medicine. There's spirit in healing. There's spirit in the health, the health and wellness.
There's spirit that lives in everything, and that is a huge part of healing. my third point is that this is intense work. Health, wellness, healing work, service work is intense work because maybe it might not be as laborous as other jobs, but it is deep work. We are meeting people at the most profound andmost transformative points of people's lives. So this is deep work. We are supporting people through that.
And so sometimes it's challenging and also stimulating for our own personal growth Because honestly, people can be mirrors, right? How many of us have felt that?
Like people in our lives are mirrors for us.
Healing is a Lived Quality
The fourth thing I wish somebody told me is that healing is something that everyone has. It is a lived quality. And this is innate in each person. So each one of us, even though it might not be healing, right? Healing per se, like healing in a literal way, it might just be helping people.
It might just be in service to somebody or a certain group or demographic of people. So it is a lived quality that each one of us has.
Your Personal Experiences Inform You
Your personal experiences with illness will inform you deeper in your path of healing. So whatever you go through deepens your knowledge in this thing. It deepens your knowledge in knowing how to help others.
Self-care is Vital
Self-care is vital, especially as caregivers. You cannot give to others if you cannot give to yourself and it just becomes unsustainable.
6. Be Curious
Energetic Hygiene
Energetic hygiene is important. Energetic hygiene is one of the most important things that we need to know as people in the service field, people who are givers, practitioners.
People who are just professionals helping others, that we are energetic beings with these physical bodies, and that energy is felt, that energy is experienced.
And I've had countless times where sometimes I've come home and I felt heavy, I felt pressure, I felt down, I felt like I had this cloud over me. And when I really got clear with myself and asked myself, is this mine or is this somebody else? Usually, I was carrying something that I had experienced or heard throughout the day. So, just be mindful of your energetic hygiene and find ways to support yourself through that.
If you'd like to know more about being a healer, being a caregiver, nourishing yourself, tending to yourself, prioritizing yourself in a intentional slow, and cyclical way, feel free to join the Return To Yin Substack as a paid subscriber and tune into the podcast where I’ll be sharing more about what it means to be a caregiver — nourishing our communities and ourselves. Thank you so much for tuning in and I'll tune in with you in the next!
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Dr. Linh is a Doctor of Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture, licensed acupuncturist, hypnotherapist, and somatic practitioner. She works with women navigating psychosomatic health conditions, anxiety, burnout, and stress through a nervous system-informed, slow, gentle and nature centered approach.
