08/11/2026
One day I came across a post (in the Holistic Healers group I believe) asking:
“Would you trust a healer who has health issues?”
Yesterday, I saw a reel from a well-known "guru" with a huge platform, claiming that “Spirit’s rule” for choosing a healer is to ask one specific question: whether they have personally been where you are right now.
When big names in our industry push "rules" like this, it sets a strange and rigid standard for both practitioners and clients. So… which is it?
Do we want the "wounded healer" — someone whose own struggles have developed compassion, understanding, and wisdom?
Or do we want the "healed healer" — someone whose life and body must apparently be completely free of problems before we consider them credible?
Because those two standards quickly become contradictory—and frankly, deeply limiting.
If we follow the logic that a practitioner must have personally suffered a condition to help someone through it, the model breaks down immediately. Must an oncologist have survived cancer to effectively treat a tumor? Did the man with leprosy need to ask Jesus if he had personally experienced leprosy before accepting healing? Would we insist that only someone with a personal history of schizophrenia is qualified to support a client with schizophrenia?
Shared experience can create immediate rapport, but identical suffering is not a universal prerequisite for competence, intuition, or compassion.
I absolutely identify with the wounded-healer archetype. There are things I have personally experienced, worked through, and learned from. Those experiences deeply influence the practitioner I am today. So I suppose if you line up clients with depression, allergies, or nearsightedness, I certainly have personal experience there. Given that I'll never have personal experience with prostate issues, apparently I will have to turn those clients away! 😉 Sorry fellas.
I do not believe I need to have personally lived every struggle, condition, or life circumstance a client brings me in order to be present, listen, tune in, and facilitate real help.
Nor do I believe healers have to demonstrate perfect health, perfect lives, or an aesthetic ideal to offer genuine value.
Perhaps the better questions for any client to ask are:
Does this practitioner listen to me?
Do they respect my autonomy?
Are they honest about what they can and cannot do?
Do I feel safe being myself with them?
Are they willing to meet me where I am rather than assuming my experience must mirror theirs?
Because perhaps the question isn't "wounded healer or healed healer."
Perhaps it's simply:
"Is this a good, grounded healer for me?"