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Healers need to keep all their chakras clear and energized in order for the work they do to be healthy for themselves and clients. I have taken a number of energy initiations, and I consistently work very hard to clear, energize, and balance my chakras, so that I neither absorb too much from clients nor become drained by them. Most particularly, I work diligently to keep my heart chakra in the best possible shape, since so much of my work comes from there. However, activating the Thymus Chakra, which some call High Heart, would be a key to keeping the motivation for healing pure and not co-dependent, and thus for there to be less burnout. Since finding out about it in the mid-1980s, I have worked to open and nurture the Thymus Chakra -- which is located above the heart and to your right -- in order to love unconditionally and without attachment. I cannot say that I have succeeded, for it still seems puny, like a tiny daisy rather than the large, many-petalled rose it ought to be. Of late, I have felt extremely burnt out in my work as a healer, after some 40 years in various branches and bypaths of the field. In fact, it's way past time for me to retire, but finances don't permit. For my clients' sake as well as my own, I turned to healing myself in the best ways I knew how, with help from my various guides. Naturally, the first resort was to look over my vast collection of flower remedies and concoct one of those killer mixes where you throw in everything but the kitchen sink. Then, to my chagrin, my guides oh-so-casually suggested I add Vine. VINE? Me, a control freak? My mother was such a control freak I still shudder to think about it. My sister is head of her local chapter of CFUREW (Control Freaks United to Rule the Entire World). Me, I've spent my entire adult life trying NOT to be a control freak!!! I'm much too evolved for that. Still, I am nothing if not receptive to spiritual guidance, plus when you put an incorrect essence into a mixture, that essence remains inert, so I figured, what can I lose, I'll do it. Aha. Oh, sure, lots and lots of issues came up -- your basic healing crisis set in. I went on strike for a couple of weeks, and my phone was conveniently silent. (The Universe knows when a healer has had enough and, whether or not said healer can afford time off, diverts the flow of clients until there has been enough of a break.) But in the midst of the usual purging and catharsis, it became clear that indeed a Vine stream of consciousness was emerging. Even when a mixture has many different components, I can often tease out what an individual remedy is contributing. Vine seemed to be dominating the mix -- perhaps because I'd taken the other essences several times in the past but had never taken Vine. (I call that a virgin remedy.) Lest you accuse me of being in denial about my motives, let me say that I have worked very hard throughout life to heal the wounding that comes from my alcoholic family background so that it does not taint my healing work. I must have read everything ever written on the subject. I have taken essences and homeopathic remedies for more than 20 years, and participated in many different kinds of bodywork, talk therapies, and self-help groups. 
But, no, I had never taken Vine, and so the insights that emerged were surprising and not a little embarrassing. I was fed up with trying to motivate people who had no real motivation to change the issues they complained about so tearfully. Over the long haul, having goals and aspirations for others that exceeds their own commitment to change has created disappointment after disappointment, leading to disillusionment and, eventually, to cynicism. Upon reflection, I had to admit that it was controlling of me to want growth and accomplishment for people that they didn't sincerely want for themselves. Oh, sure, I did it with the best of motives -- or did I? Wasn't it controlling to set goals for other people rather than supporting the goals they set for themselves -- especially when I set the bar so doggone high? Where did I get off, setting goals for them? Oh, Vine was making itself heard, all right, and the picture wasn't pretty. With the synchronicity that so often plays a part in essence healing, a family crisis erupted in another part of the country. Immediately, I was immersed in the familiar rescuer pattern that my seriously dysfunctional family background evokes, and that basically underlies my choice of career. Relieved not to be directly on the scene, I nonetheless went into full Lightworker/Rescuer mode. For days, I was up in the middle of the night, bombarding various family members with Light and various kinds of energy work, all with their permission, of course.
I watched my sister -- whose descendants were at the heart of the crisis -- move into Control Freak Overdrive. I watched her become mordantly bitter when they refused -- nay, flat out subverted -- her strenuous efforts to save them from some very ugly and imminent consequences. Trying to save her children, grandchildren, and an endless stream of waifs had been a lifelong pattern with my sister. Over the past six months, it has played itself out with peculiar intensity in several different situations, while my sister becomes more and more consumed with a corrosive black anger that is polluting her environment and her health. "Maybe now she will learn," I thought. "Maybe she will finally see the light. God, I wish SHE would take Vine!" And no, of course she won't use remedies. For her even to allow me send light and energy was a measure of how dire the situation was. (So often, healers are disregarded in their own families.) The issue of Vibration published just then had a most illuminating article about the surprising changes that can occur when you yourself take the essence you most want someone else to take but they refuse. And here I was, frustrated because my sister wouldn't take Vine so she could get over the controlling behavior that I could clearly see was undercutting her adult children's ability to become responsible grown-ups. And here I was -- by the sheerest coincidence, you understand -- taking Vine myself. Interesting. With a little prompting from my guides and a lot more Vine, I began to see how my life as a single, childless healer paralleled my sister's adult life as the matriarch of a terminally dysfunctional branch of my withered, gnarled family tree. She was a far more hands-on control freak than I was, yet my current career burnout on trying to heal clients had some of the same roots as her mordant bitterness about her descendants. So while I was busy trying to devise a way to teach my sister to let go of the need to control, she was actually teaching me very much the same lesson.
I will keep taking Vine, and I suspect that when I go back to healing work, it will be different -- less frustrating and draining because my motivation will have shifted and I will be less attached to the outcome. Perhaps now, at last, my Thymus Chakra will open and I will love clients unconditionally, whether they do what I say or not! Healers, if you yourself have never taken Vine, try it as an experiment. (In fact, if there is ANY remedy that you are flat out certain you don't need but often suggest to your clients, it might be very productive to try it!) ABOUT THE AUTHOR: In order to feel free to be so admirably honest about her process, this veteran healer asked that we use a pseudonym, and we have respected her wish. DESIGN CREDITS: Art from Clipart.com. This page is a creation of Donna Cunningham's Word of Mouth Web Design, a service that specializes in creating beautiful and unique sites to showcase the gifts of lightworkers, artists, astrologers, and practitioners of the healing arts. Graphic images from Photos.com.
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