10 Lessons From 10 Years of Healing
“There's a level of deep devotion required to navigate the ups and downs of becoming the Self-Healer and Magical Guide you truly came here to be.”
~ Nicole Barton
I have been embodying and teaching 'healing' for over a decade (woah, as I share that my Archetypal Luna remedy - my inner magical wise woman - is like "yes, I'm being owned! 🔥"). You see, healing is something I've lived and breathed the lessons of. It's something, as I often say, that I've "lived into" - over my whole lifetime, actually - and it's been the place where I've had my deepest wounds (which also means as I've alchemised it, it has become my medicine for others).
So, as I'm now in the potent portal of making healing *magical* again (because let's be honest, many magical ones have become disenchanted with healing), it feels just right to share the lessons I've learned as I've journeyed myself. My work is transforming ‘healing’ from an unconscious paradigm of ‘fixing sickness’ into a modality which helps women consciously reclaim their self-healing power and unapologetically magical healing soul gifts - via the ‘Archetypal Apothecary Mystery School’ philosophy and method.
With that in mind, here's a lesson from each "phase" of healing that Secret Witches tend to journey though as they realise the *deepest* meaning of all of it is actually not self-fixing but soul-healing... And it helps to realise that *all* of it is perfect and needed (and still, there's *more*)...
(Note: these aren't necessarily 'linear' phases, and may be journeyed in a different order)
🔥 1. At first, your descent - your crash (burn out, job loss, illness or health crisis, death, birth into motherhood) - will look like it's the *worst* thing that's ever happened to you. It possibly even *is*, too. AND, one day you'll look back on it and see it for the initiation it was to magic and you becoming who you were born here to be
🔥2. The mundane fixes you try (distractions like TV, food, alcohol, sex, work, mainstream meds and therapy) might feel like they help for a while, but really they are a sticky plaster over the fact that you're here to learn to self-heal and become who your soul is calling you to be (which is the deep work you'll eventually learn to choose instead)
🔥3. You'll dabble in self-care for a while (possibly focusing here longer than is good for you because it'll likely have you swing to the opposite end of the pole of feeling resentful that your needs aren't being met and demanding for them to be) but that's not the answer in isolation. It'll help - and there's a missing magical piece that most self-care alone doesn't acknowledge. But do it anyway, because self-care is an important step along the path.
🔥 4. You'll possibly have yet another descent, especially if you've ignored or not integrated the first one, but this is ok - it's your awakening to 'woo'. You'll journey with all sorts of magical 'Woo Lite' (which isn't intrinsically 'lite' - it is real, it is just how it is related to). This is our definition for the version of magic (such as the real magical technologies of reiki, aromatherapy, homeopathy, manifestation, law of attraction, tarot, shamanism, crystal healing, yoga and meditation etc) that is fit into a mundane box, taught by the unconscious mainstream, and outsources your healing to someone else to be 'fixed' - which is really like a magical sticking plaster over the deeper truth. It's all the most perfect part of the journey, and yet something will still be missing - you'll still be hiding your self-expression and giving your healing power away (innocently, you just don't know it yet)
🔥5. You may also train in all these 'Woo Lite' healing therapies as you've found them helpful for yourself (to an extent) - and the truth is, you'll likely struggle, as a Secret Witch, to bring them into the world as medicine for others until later, when you've healed your inner witch's self expression wounding and alchemised "woo deep" (this is also part of the journey, so don't worry - it's all needed).
🔥6. You'll possibly have an 'awakening' somewhere along the way, which will have you float around for a little while 'trusting the universe'. Given how exhausted you were from micromanaging your life before (including your healing), this swing to the other end of the shadow pole will feel like a *huge* relief. (Spoiler alert: It's still not the answer; there's a whole missing journey to soul in which you'll learn how to powerfully create, but this is still all part of the path, so allow yourself to do nothing for as long as is serving - which is likely less time than you think )
🔥7. You may become a bit of a 'Self-Help Rebel' at this point - exploring self-help, rebelling against the 'Masculine' and riding the 'Goddess Queen' Feminine embodiment tiger (playing 'Goddess' dress up). This will be another innocent distraction to avoid looking at your core, deep inner wounds. And, of course, this is needed too - we usually have to swing to the opposite end of the 'Good Girl' shadow pole and experience the 50 shades of grey along the pole (though it won't be conscious that that's what you're doing) - one day you'll see that the pole doesn't even exist, and you can just express who you truly are
🔥8. At some point you'll enter a deeper initiation into your power and magic - and you'll begin to feel a call to the deep work of real magic - the conscious work to reclaim your true soul expression. It's likely you'll spend some time distracting away from it, though, because it's scary. 'Love and light' alone isn't going to cut it at this point, but it'll be a nice distraction. If you have a deep burning soul longing to being a healer, you'll probably notice this here as a bit of a dull call, but feel a bit lost and disconnected to your deep desires
🔥9. You'll begin to get nudges to listening to your soul and you'll spend some time focused on *choosing yourself* over pleasing others and living up to your perfectionist standards. This is the most important path to healing (though not in the rebellious "these are my needs, you'll damn well meet them" way mentioned above - and yes, you'll likely journey there too, anyway), but in a way that comes from complete love and nourishes everyone. It's possible you won't see this as an available option for you at first, so you might carry on with some more "woo lite" for a while.
🔥10. The last step is that you'll possibly get fed up at this point and become a 'disenchanted' healer - you may reach a point where you're exhausted by all of this trying to fix yourself (and maybe others too) - and you'll feel like nothing works and like a failure. This is when you'll be the closest to you've ever been to finding the REAL gold. At this point you'll either unconsciously choose to close over your heart fully and guard against the world in defense - OR you'll consciously choose to open your heart to *real* magic.
The outcome of all of this is that if you DO choose to courageously and vulnerably open your heart, you'll find what your soul was hoping you'd find all along; you'll choose to honour your soul's gold and become your Unique Remedy - for yourself and others.
This is the hardest part of the healing journey -and it's why the journey to becoming your medicine in the world requires the deepest of Phosphoric Fire. There's a level of deep devotion required to navigate the ups and downs of becoming the Self-Healer and Magical Guide you truly came here to be.
If there's one thing I've learned from the last 10 years of this, though, is that it's *worth it* - for who you will become along the way. Healed, whole and sharing your soul gifts.
Which phase are you in?
If you want to take the tender first steps into becoming your own self-healer and becoming a magical guide I'll be leading women into discovering their own healing gifts in Invoke Your Wild Apothecary in February. Link in comments.
❤️🔥✨
Art by: Brooke Shaden Photography
if you've any questions, send me an email.
Nicole x
