When Healers Perform the Disappearing Act… on Themselves

Have you ever ghosted your own healing, your meditation practice, your boundaries, stating your opinions, all that stuff. You're still showing up for other people, reading the room, holding space, looking like a perfectly graceful, magical human, but on the inside, you have disappeared. If so, this episode is for you and me. This is a healer's journey. I'm your host, Inge Broer. And today we are unpacking that sneaky moment when your sensitivity, the very thing that makes you incredible at holding space, that makes people like you, become so overstretched that the only way to cope feels like first ghosting yourself, disappearing on yourself, and second disappearing on everybody else as well.

So the block the way it works is basically when your antenna and I think we all I think this is a very useful metaphor or image for anybody who's sensitive and into energy work is in every interaction our attention is turned in different directions and we have antenna that send out like a little bit of love and receive a lot of information. And the people I tend to work with are people who are really sensitive and really caring and want to see a more beautiful world and want to help build it. And one of the ways they do that is turning their antenna outwards and getting really good at reading energy, tracking people's feelings, at keeping the peace, at communicating, at harmonizing, at um becoming who the systems need you to be that you're a part of so that everything can run smoothly.

You're an energetic chameleon shape shifter and this is truly a gift and you are incredible for being able to do this. But when your attention is stuck on out. So these are times when you're giving a lot times where you're tracking a lot. Um where you're very vigilant about what is happening and you don't have the capacity. you lose the capacity or or you don't have the skill to begin with to call your energy back home to yourself to turn at least some of those antenna back to yourself to shower yourself with your own healing presence.

What happens is that you disappear. If somebody asks you what you want, you have no clue because you're so tapped in to what's around you, to what everything everybody needs from you that tapping into your own core, into your own solar plexus of who you are or tapping into your sacral chakra of what you want, what you're here to create, just seems way too foreign, way too impossible because you've perfected so much being floaty. And this is truly a protection mechanism. Okay? Except when you want to become a more effective healer.

Not a healer by default. Not a healer because I've had to be to survive my childhood, which a lot of us have been. You short circuit. You disappear. you find it really hard to stick with your practices, with um your nutrition, your exercise, working on your business because it feels like the outside world deserves more of your attention than your inner world. So, if this resonates, I just want you to know um it can probably be a lot to hear me put words on these things, and it's only because I'm exactly the thing.

I've really done this times infinity. I didn't have that volatile an environment in my family. But my story is that when I was a kid, I changed schools four years in a row and changed cultures as well. So I was born in the Netherlands, then we moved to British Columbia in the western part of Canada, the English-sp speakaking part of Canada. And then when I was in grade two, we moved to French Canada. So grade one I did in BC. Grade two I did in Canada but in a class that which is like a welcome class where you learn the French language.

Suddenly you can't speak English anymore. I just learned uh I had to learn French. No hard feelings about that. I'm so happy I'm fluent in French. But that was a change. Then I went to the local big neighborhood school with a lot of structure and a lot of kids. And then I went to an alternative school which was much smaller and was very project-based. And so every school had totally different culture. And of course, Western Canada from French Canada, very different culture as well. So what did little me do?

Little intelligent, magical me. I turned my antenna outwards. I really learned how the culture works. How did people work in this new place? I read the energy. I tracked people's feelings. I tracked every cultural rule. And this is what I needed to survive. I did really, really great. The first half of the year, I was usually tracking and learning everything. And then the second half of the year, I would apply all of that and I would become sort of the quote unquote perfect creature for that environment.

And what would happen is that every kid wanted to be my friend. And I'm I'm I'm not kidding about that. Like I really remember there's some moments where there was one kid pulling me on one arm, the other kid pulling me on the other arm. Like literally fighting over who got to play with me. But did I have a say? No. And that is the perfect image for what this is. Your energy is pulled in so many directions because so many people want a piece of you. They want a part of that healing presence, part of that magical space holding, that sort of perfect attunement that you have cultivated that there's sort of no space left for you.

So the coping mechanism that I found when I was a kid for all of this is that sometimes when it all got too much, I my nervous system would give me a headache and my mom is also prone to headaches and her mom made her to go to school when she had them forcing her to sort, you know, toughen up. So she decided, I'm going to do the opposite with my daughter. When my daughter has a headache, I'm going to, you know, let her stay at home. So that meant I got to stay at home sometimes for weeks at a time and I would read and I would retreat from all of that stress and I would just be in my own little dreamy world.

Having a headache, sure, but having a break from that environment. And what I learned, what my system learned was there's relief from ghosting everybody. There's relief in that. And so this taught me to survive. It taught me to disappear when it got too much. And it has taken many, many years, and I'm still working on this to um work on this pattern. and not to uh just disappear in my bed and sherk off everything I've said to do because these days and most of what I say yes to is things that I really want to do at a soul level or at least at a really deeply relational committed level.

So, I love to talk about how this kind of a pattern getting so invested in what everybody else needs from us and like let's say it let's be clear a lot of women have been socialized in in this way and we are praised for it. Selfish is one of the most terrible insults to say to a woman. I used to be terrified of being called selfish. know when I'm in a fight with my husband, he sometimes uses that word. And last time it happened, I was secretly proud. I was like, "Wow, have I made it?" And realizing that if I am selfish, it's because there is a self and that itself is a massive victory for where I came from.

Sure, I have a Pisces ascendant and part of my energy likes to like spread out and be everywhere and be loving and make peace and all that beautiful hippie ideal stuff that really resonate with me deeply. I feel like I want to cry a little bit when I say that. But without me having learned how to call my energy back, how to calm myself home, how to turn those antenna back towards me as well. I get a little bit worried about what might have become of me had I not learned that skill. There was a time I was in a healing session with uh one of my mentors.

Um, we worked on my solar plexus and it was completely dark in there for me. It was the most foreign place ever. And I really remember this because I was frightened. I was frightened of my solar plexus. And all I could really find there was other people. And she had said something. I don't remember the exact words, but essentially she said, "Yeah, this is your sense of self. No wonder it's so dark in there." Probably because I'd been talking about feeling spread thin. Uh feeling like everyone wants a piece of me.

Feeling like, you know, like even the messy things in my house were yelling at me. And it feels like that to me, you know, just too energetically um outward. My antenna were outward and to her it made sense, but to me I was like, "What? What do you mean it makes sense that there's no me in my solar plexus?" And I think that changed my life. her saying that so matterof factly and me being baffled and we stayed with the darkness and I think some scary things moved through. I have a memory of a lion somehow roaring and eventually I could find my way in.

Like it felt like I was able to nestle in to myself into my solar plexus and there's been a lot of shame to uncover because shame says I am bad. Shame says I am not worthy of truly existing. And it says, "Do always what is expected of you and you will be safe. Fit in. Be nice. Tune in." So, there's been a lot of shame to uncover because why do we ultimately ghost other people? And yes, I do mean. Why do we not respond to texts? Why do we not call people back? Why do we spend weeks if not months sometimes responding?

I believe that part of the reason is that we have this inner story, inner narrative that if you cannot show up and be what the other person wants you to be, you shouldn't show up at all. It's a story of shame that if you can't show up in your most beautiful um healing self fantasy that people won't want you. But I've learned the opposite is actually true. Not that you should go and, you know, be your most suffering woe is me self with people all the time, but that when you let people in to actually support you and actually know you in your messiness and in your discomfort of existing.

And when there is an actual you to know, because for me there was al also for a long time there wasn't an actual me to know. There was just a puppet show that I was good at performing. But somebody really wanted to get to know me. They really gave me attention. What they would be met with is actually tears. For a long time, whenever someone would really give me their attention, I would cry. So there's an a whole undoing here, an unscripting of who we think we need to be to be safe, to be in relationship.

It's beautiful to be adaptable. It's beautiful to be able to read a room, to read energy so accurately and well, but there is a cost to it and that is you feeling real to you. And if you don't feel real to you, why would you take care of yourself? If you don't feel like you actually matter because most of your energy is wrapped up in making sure things outside of you go smoothly, other people are taken care of, and that you don't matter. If we're operating from that system, why would we show up for our meditation practice?

Why would we eat clean and exercise? Why would we take time to make art just because it feels good to us? Why would we dance on a song if it has no external profit for anybody else? That's the deeper deeper aspect here. When disappearing is your favorite coping mechanism, the only way to get through that, the only way to move that block is to learn one special skill, and that is to learn to hold space for yourself as if you matter. Because guess what? There's not a single person on this planet that doesn't matter.

Are you a human on this planet? Then you matter. Learning to turn those antenna, the ones that are out, the ones that are tracking the energy, the ones that are keeping the peace, the ones that are figuring it out and strategizing and sending out a ton of love. Turn at least some of them back to yourself. get to know what this power is that you have that runs you. And when you become the one who runs the power, who holds the keys to those antenna, when you are the one who gets to decide and when you give them out and when you hold yourself in your own healing love, that's power.

That's when everything begins to change in your life. That's when you become able to charge for your healing work and you're not doing it by default because it's what you've always done and not doing it makes you feel completely unsafe. No, it becomes a choice. It becomes something of value you offer. It allows you to become discerning with who you offer it to. Who will um find it valuable? who will receive it and go do things with it in an empowered way and allowing your default to become holding yourself in your own healing presence knowing that you matter.

Being here, staying with yourself no matter what happens in your life. And that foundational skill is what will allow you to advocate for your needs, to know what your needs are. That foundational skill will allow you to stand your ground. Fight for the things you actually believe in. Make choices that might make you unpopular. This skill of being able to hold yourself, bringing your own healing presence to yourself, your own healing antenna to yourself is the one skill that you need to make the healing impact in the world that you are here to make.

Because you know then that you matter and what you do matters and you get to advocate for what you need. You get to create the conditions so that what you have to give to the world can come out and be given in a big way in a beautiful way in a strong way. So let's finish this and do it. I invite you to close your eyes if you can if you're not driving. Take a conscious breath and imagine it. If you haven't been imagining it already, imagine that at the edge of your energy field, you have these little antennas, these little flowers, if you will.

And these flowers are giving out this gorgeous love and this attention. Just notice where you're giving them out to to which situations. You might not feel them as loving. You might feel them as an anxietyprovoking. They might be directed to people you worry about, people you're scared of, people you're managing, people you're trying to control so you feel safe. And now let their energy go. Let them be and turn those little antenna to yourself. Imagine it and shower yourself with that attention. What is the quality of it?

For me, the first time I did this, I cried and I cried and I cried because I realized for the first time that the energy I give out is really deeply loving. And I had been feeling depleted from love. I I thought I was just anxious and useless. I could tell people liked my attention, but I didn't know what it felt like. And I gave it back to myself and I realized it felt really grounding and really safe and so non-judgmental, like whatever was there was allowed. That energy that my healing presence makes when I receive it myself, it makes me feel like I'm real, like I matter, like I'm worth considering.

And so I would love to hear what your own healing presence felt like to you. What happened when your antenna turned towards you? So I invite you to come on Instagram and tell me at Ning G H E A Ls at the moment of this recording. I promise you I'm not bombarded by messages. I will really be happy to receive your insight. And if you would like, I'll also send two recorded meditations that are exactly around this calling your energy home and receiving your own healing presence. It would be an honor to send that to you because I truly believe that it's the sensitive women, the loving sensitive women that are if they are able to call themselves back, if they're able to get discerning with how they use that energy will probably create the structures and offer the leadership that we actually need right now.

If this resonates with you like very deeply, I need you to know that healer awakened is the course where we explore all of these dynamics. Our first week is calling ourselves home. Our second week is letting ourselves be held by the earth in our actual vulnerability, believing that we're actually worthy of love no matter what. That's how we start out. That's what's most important. I would love to see you in there. Same thing. You can DM me on Instagram or get in touch with me any which way and we'll have a conversation to see if it's a good fit for you.

This has been the healer's journey. I'm your host, Inge Broer. The music has been by Alana Shakra. I really thank you for taking the time to tune in to this episode and to doing the work of tasting your own healing presence. I'll see you in the next episode.