It matters not who you are or what you do. You have the ability to be a healer. In fact, you are doing the work of a healer far more often than you even realize!

To become a healer means to simply declare that you will use a portion (or all!) of your life for the benefit of others. Its really not that outrageous a concept. Neither is it an exclusive thing where to be a healer means doing certain things at certain times with certain people. To be a healer means to make yourself available as a vehicle for the good. It is all about one thing; intent.

If you take a minute to look at the people in your life you will be able to identify plenty who are doing the work of healers. You know what it feels like when youre with them, and it doesnt matter whether they are postal workers, hard hats, bakers, teachers, sanitation workers, engineers, police, housewives, environmentalists or yes, even lawyers and politicians. They are just doing the work. At some level, they have offered themselves to be of service to that which brings things together.

Opportunities to be a vehicle for healing pop up all the time. The wonderful thing about that is if you choose to see it, with every instance of applying your energy and skills for the good of others, you also get the chance to bask in the wonder of healing yourself. Healing is a force that is inclusive of you and not limited to the intended recipient. The more you allow it to flow through you, the more you can be affected by it.

There is a catch, if you choose to consider it as such. The more of your energy you apply toward developing yourself as a healer, the more life you will be called upon to live. What I mean by that is you will be drawn deeper into the flow of life. When that happens, you will be exposed to many more parts, sides, faces and even dimensions of this Great Mystery than you ever realized existed. And nothing we can see lacks a shadow.

Once again, however, your orientation will make all the difference in the world. If an experience is interpreted as a burden, then that is the downward spiral you will enter. If it is interpreted as a gift that can be applied for the good of others, then that is exactly what it will become.

In 18 Things Healers Learn my intent has been to illuminate certain ways of thinking and being that, regardless of the modality you practice, will help support you in incorporating a greater sense of connection into what you do. Connection is the gateway to healing.

The pathway to connection is complete presence in the moment. This is a muscle that can be strengthened. Strengthening it includes learning, through repetition, how to flex and relax what amounts to a muscle of choice at will. It means being able to be inside the moment without being eaten up by its trappings. It implies being an active presence rather than a passive delivery system. It also means learning the art of flowing with what is rather than forcing the situation to conform to your will.

Your training and experience are tools for healing, rather than healing itself. If there is a universal characteristic of true healers, it may be that they are the ones who use everything at their disposal in service to establishing and maintaining the flow of the force that we call healing. To this extent, it means that healers are always reaching into the box for tools, but know that the only way the tools can be effective is by liberating them from the box that confines them.

The miracle of healing is that it occurs at all. It is a shape-shifter, able to show itself in a multiplicity of guises. It happens in the most sophisticated of medical centers and it happens in the wilderness through nothing more significant than a touch.

What healers learn is that healing is all-inclusive. It encompasses and even embraces pain and suffering. There is nothing that cannot be used as a tool to affect it. Once this orientation begins to live inside you, a whole new world opens up where every moment is a moment where life is experienced. Where there is life, there is healing. In this case, healing, rather than bringing something back to what was once before, becomes a vehicle for transformation into a new creation.

Russ Reina

Russ has been involved in the healing arts since 1969. As one of the first ambulance paramedics in the country he began to explore the difference between being a healer and being what he calls a "flesh mechanic." His path has taken him through alternative modalities of healing, including working and living with a Lakota medicine family on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (SD).

His experience also has included over 20 years in performance arts, including movie writing and production, stand-up comedy, improvisation, acting and singing/songwriting. Today, he lives on the island of Maui, produces sacred art and offers counseling and workshops.

His emphasis is on working with healers. Russ has a special interest in crisis intervention and counseling having to do with serious life changes.

He supports himself and counseling through sales of his art work, which can be found at his web sites. Please take a few minutes to explore the fascinating world of the healing arts there.

"There is a most powerful gift that one person can give to another," says Russ. "It is permission and encouragement, in whatever form it takes, for the other to be as wholly themselves as they are capable of becoming. It is also the most powerful gift one can give to oneself.

We all do this at some time or another in our lives. Therefore, each of us are healers, for the act of healing is the act of assisting in bringing about wholeness. The only difference between a healer and anyone else is that the healer actively looks for opportunities to do the work. Look for opportunities; becoming a healer is that simple."