Meeting People Where THEY Are ©
In addition to doing past-life regression and a number of other healing modalities, I also do a great deal of intuitive counseling and teaching. In fact, I probably spend almost 95% of my practitioner time counseling and teaching my clients, often in conjunction with a particular healing modality they have requested. I do this work a couple of days each week at a local bookstore where there is a lot of “walk-in” traffic in addition to scheduled appointments. The rest of the time I work at my home office. For scheduled appointments, I usually have some idea of what a client wants, but after a few minutes of conversation we often both realize that what they really need is something quite different.
The “walk-in” clients, however, are always an interesting challenge because I never know what is coming next. Often, when someone shows up in the doorway to my room, I ask, “And what brings you here today?” It is not at all unusual to get a reply something to the effect of “I don’t know, I was just driving by and felt I needed to come into the bookstore. I saw your business card out front, and . . .” I typically respond with something like, “Well, what’s going on in your life?” and the conversation proceeds from there. Welcome to my world. So here are a few examples from just the last month of what I deal with almost every day, often one right after another:
• Healing for a pedestrian run over by a car, hospitalized in a coma with brain injuries and doubtful recovery.
• Eight-year old child with raging anger issues.
• Mother repeatedly told she was no good by her adolescent children.
• Following her Near Death Experience (NDE), abused woman divorced by her husband for another woman after 32 years of marriage; her ex-husband now wants to reconcile.
• Businessman wondering whether to take on a particular person as a business partner.
• Woman wanting to understand why her relationships never seem to “work out” and who wants a husband who respects the “Divine Goddess” in women.
• Mother worried about her “wayward” adult daughter.
• Woman obsessed with longing for a particular man.
• Man wanting to break a spell (by his mother) that has “ruined his life.”
The details of each of these individual situations are often quite fascinating, but not really relevant to my purpose here. So what is that purpose?
I am sometimes asked, “How do you deal with such diverse people and situations every day?” My answer to this question is really quite simple: “Meet them where THEY are.” Their situations are so diverse. Their beliefs and experiences are so different. Their symptoms are so varied. Their desires are so unique. Their energy (level of consciousness) is so different. Etc., etc., etc. But, their underlying needs are so similar as to appear, at times, indistinguishable. And while their needs are indeed often quite similar, assisting them with their specific issues is identical. In my truth, we—whatever “we” do to assist and however “we” interact with people—need to meet them where they are to assist them with their issues. What does that mean? Well,
• For the pedestrian run over by a car: providing energy healing within the confines of his spiritual belief system so that, subconsciously, he would be more receptive to the healing. (he has subsequently recovered)
• For the eight-year old child with raging anger issues: keeping the concepts and language simple enough for an 8-year old to understand; helping him to feel good and to feel good about himself; helping his immigrant parents to understand the power of past-life energy and its basis as the cause of their son’s behavior.
• For the mother repeatedly told she was no good by her adolescent children: understanding her pain and helping her to understand her life lesson that she is worthy (“God don’t make no junk!” as my dear teacher, Margaret McElroy, often counseled) regardless of what others say.
• For the businessman wondering whether to take on a particular individual as a business partner: helping him to understand how much that individual would or would not add to his business and the quality of his life; what his lessons and karma with this individual entail.
• For the abused woman whose ex-husband now wants to reconcile: helping her to understand from her own NDE the life lesson that she is worthy of her own respect on her terms; her life is about her, not him. He has his own lessons to learn.
• For the woman wanting to understand why her relationships never seem to “work out” and who wants a husband who respects the “Divine Goddess”: helping her to understand the life lesson that defining her own value in terms of a man’s opinion only leads to the wrong kind of men in her life; that she will attract the “right” kind of man when she sees herself as the “Divine Goddess,” worthy of respect in her own right.
• For the mother worried about her “wayward” adult daughter: helping her to understand that she is neither responsible for nor the cause of her adult daughter’s behavior and that the best thing she can do for her daughter is simply to be the best version of herself; how her own happiness and self-worth might eventually become a living example of a happy life—if, and when, her daughter is ready to see it.
• For the woman obsessed with longing for a particular man: experiencing (in past-life regression) all the times she has been rejected by that same soul; helping her to understand the life lesson that her own happiness and growth depend on her, not him or anyone else.
• For the man wanting to break a spell (by his mother) that has “ruined his life:” trying to help him understand that his thoughts and beliefs have created his life; that her power over him is only the power that he gives her. (Well, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink! Sometimes the truth hurts, but at least he got another perspective on his life to perhaps think about at some point in the future. OK, maybe I didn’t meet him all the way where he is, but I will not prostitute truth just for the sake of feeding a client’s pet beliefs. Perhaps that is only my Self—judgment—something I’m still working on.)
Do you see the common threads in these examples? Human beings are so much more alike than they are different, despite any cultural and social attempts to deny it. And to me, the common denominator across all of these individuals is the need for acceptance, for unconditional love that I wrote about in the last two newsletters. This need is at the core of the human experience, and it is the ultimate subject of almost all major religious teachings across time and cultures. In my truth, “we” who offer our assistance for healing and transformation need to meet our clients at this most basic of all places, where THEY are.
Sometimes that means taking their beliefs into account to assist them, and sometimes it means trying to help them see things from a different perspective. Sometimes it means helping the client to respect others, and sometimes it means helping them to respect themselves. Sometimes it means explaining quantum physics without “dumbing it down” (yes, even 8-year olds can understand that), and sometimes it means focusing on the simplest of concepts such as “love” to the old and weary. Sometimes it means helping people to understand their past in order to deal with the present, and sometimes it means helping them to understand the present in order to create a better future. But it always means trying to help them to raise their vibration. It never means lowering your own vibration in order to “meet” them where they are.
Yes, there are nuances in each case that sometimes complicate things a bit for the healing practitioner, but offering a receptive ear to listen to their stories and their needs is the most positive place to start that I can think of. Margaret McElroy always counseled that “we” need to leave “our” clients uplifted if at all possible. But when it came to telling the truth, she (and often Maitreya, himself, in the middle of a consultation) always did so. “Our” responsibility is not always to be successful in uplifting “our” clients, but to try to do “our” best to do so.
I believe that the ultimate lesson of all souls is that of unconditional love. That is who and what we are, but we have to grow into that state of being. One way to do this is by trying to uplift “our” clients whenever “we” can. Short of that ultimate goal of unconditional love (I, for one, am still working on that), I’d like to share a quote I came across recently that is, at the very least, a good beginning point that deals with the practicalities of doing:
• “Always be kind when possible. And it is always possible.” ~ H. H. Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
And even if you can’t always completely meet people where THEY are, I believe that this is really good advice.
Have a great month!
Dennis