Healer vs Fixer: Which are You?

Christmas 2014 was a huge wake-up call on many levels. My husband, Kumara, woke me at 3am with chest pains. This was not his first heart attack so we knew to take it seriously and move quickly. While my sister drove us to the ER (quicker than waiting for an ambulance) I applied Reiki from the backseat. It was so packed that we had to wait about 20 minutes in the ER waiting room while he is having a heart attack, so we gave more Reiki , which helped us all enormously stay calm and ease his chest pain significantly… and I will share more on how Reiki helped in a future article.

On top of his having two stints in his arteries, he also has many more that are blocked and he is now officially diabetic. So, not only was he not getting better after his last stint was put in about 5 years ago, he is markedly getting worse. To top it off, the cardiac surgeon, while showing me the before and after x-rays, told me that his “disease” was quite advanced for his age.

I tend to be pretty level headed in crisis situations so throughout his two day hospital stay and surgery I managed to remain incredibly centered and positive. But, it was the following weeks that I really came undone.

Once home, I frantically tried to research new health care physicians, diets, holistic alternatives and health coaches, while Kumara struggled with a dozen new meds, hours each day with the new insurance company that he just switched to that week and the looming $97,000 price tag.

I Can’t Save Him!

After many attempts to influence massive changes in diet , health care and lifestyle in a short time were rebuffed, I started unraveling. It got so bad that just opening my mouth seemed to elicit an angry or even yelling response. I went into silence more than once to allow us both to regroup.

I knew I was feeling very afraid of losing Kumara… and it didn’t escape me that my father had died at the same age. The fear would turn to anger when he didn’t listen to me or others and take better care of himself. And I felt really out of control as the diabetes added a whole other layer to assimilate into our meal planning and preparations.

And finally, when he shut me down from speaking to him about the suggestions I was making, I felt even worse… that even with all my skills and knowledge about energy healing and natural health , I can’t help him!

Healer v. Fixer

I recalled how when a woman gets pregnant, the husband says that “we are having a baby.” Similarly, I realized that “we had a heart attack.”

So, I dove into my own healing and it occurred to me that I still had some unresolved guilt and pain that I also couldn’t “save” my father. It didn’t matter that I had no medical or energy healing training then; it clearly wasn’t rational. It was a deep sense of helplessness that we all feel when our world seems out of control, and when we lose loved ones.

I began to see how my fear of losing him, was quickly turning into a zealous attempt to get into action… which Kumara was understandably resisting at the moment because a) it was tinged with fear-based frenzy and b) he was overwhelmed and not able to process things either yet.

This is the shadow side of many healers — we can stray into the “FIXER” mode where we are pushing or forcing our agenda, our beliefs or modalities onto someone, because we inherently believe that they are not capable of helping themselves, that they are somehow “broken” and need us to “fix” them. We lose our trust in their divine process, and try to manage or control outcomes that we would like.

We lose our center, our alignment, and begin to overwhelm them with our energy, our intentions (however well-meaning they may be) and the underlying energy is meddling, desperate and manipulative, rather than trusting, empowering and allowing. If I look at someone’s energy in that state, it is hovering over and around the other person. Very smothering. And, it takes us out of our central energy alignment, out of our power. We become off-balance and either clingy or pushy.

When I looked deeper inside about what was really scaring me, I felt that if I stopped trying to help him, that I was, in effect, letting him die. Wow. I knew I had to release that one before anything would open up for us.

I applied one of the really precise energy tools I teach, the Rays of Creation, to release the painful feeling of “I can’t save him” and that I had somehow “failed”. I reset my energy and emotions to “trust” and “allowing the process.”

When I successfully cleared some of my own fear and understood I had to stop being the “fixer”, I told Kumara that I was pulling back from making any more suggestions, and that I trusted that he would find his own way. And, I meant it in the most loving and detached way.

Do you know what he said after weeks of resisting everything I was offering? “That is not what I want; you are BRILLIANT and I need your insights; but I get overwhelmed with how fast you process information.” I am not certain, but I don’t think he ever said that. Afterward, everything shifted and we are both taking responsibility for what is ours to take, with so much more trust and love!