I am often asked by people (even other health care providers) about "taking on" other people's "stuff" through my work. It has almost never been an issue for me in my own practice. I'm not sure how to account for this exactly, but here are my impressions so far*:
1- I'm simultaneously completely open to knowing each client's absolute perfection in every moment and holding them in a place of unconditional love, AND my boundaries are clear. I am present, I listen, I sympathize, empathize, and then work to support their innate potential in being fully expressed. It's your experience, your life, your perfection, not mine. Your inner brilliance only comes from the inside out, as you know.
2- I also believe that every experience we encounter provides an opportunity to integrate a new bit of life experience into the wholeness and richness of who we are as individuals. For those in a role such as mine (health care providers), we have the opportunity to integrate not only our life experiences, but by the act of genuine witnessing, we also may receive the gift of being able to additionally integrate experiences shared with us. For me, the only way we can "take on" their "stuff" in a negative way would be if we are unable to integrate it. This could then cause an overload to our own system, and we might experience it in an unpleasant way until we are able to process the information/experience. Otherwise, once processed, we simply benefit from it.
I'm sure some of you can relate to that from your own work. So, while beneficial and useful for everyone, I think it is of ultimate importance for health care providers to practice the things (meditiation, t'ai chi, journalling, time in nature, etc), or receive the types of care (chiropractic, acupuncture, other talk or body work therapies, etc), that help them "keep their channel open". By avoiding a backlog of unprocessed life experiences of any kind (physical, emotional, chemical, mental, spiritual) in our beings and systems, we are all much less likely to become overloaded in the moment. That's exactly what we help people do here at Inner Brilliance Chiropractic! The results can impact every aspect of our personal and professional lives, including our interactions with our clients, colleagues, and loved ones.
For more information, see Inner Brilliance Chiropractic, the office of Dr. Holly Hochstadt, a Seattle chiropractor.
*With thanks to Dr. Sue Brown for her influence, ideas and her thesis: "Subluxation and Human Evolution: A Philosophical Model of Subluxation" published by Palmer College of Chiropractic.
