Why Sensitive Healers Avoid Groups — And Why That Might Be Your Deepest Healing Work

If you've ever had the confusing double experience of on the one hand really longing to be part of a a group, a community, to be seen and celebrated for exactly who you are while you get to receive the gifts of the other people around you while simultaneously avoiding groups like the plague, this episode is for you. I want to bring it specifically to healers to some energetic propensities that we many of us have and let's see if we can change this. This is the healer's journey. I'm your host, Inge Broer, and I would like to approach this episode in a way that is maybe a little bit unusual.

Name this block in ways that I've never heard it named. And that starts by just honoring and naming that I really feel this in my chest deeply. The block of I want to be who I am, but I also want to make sure everybody is okay to receive that can really freeze us in our tracks. And yet, and it's a really big one. So how I used to exist in groups the way my sensitivity works the work way my I don't know good girlish softness default patterning works is that when I show up in a group and I don't feel a really either certain of what the rules are if I don't feel like it's held by an emotionally intelligent leader If the energetics of what we're doing in that group are unclear, that is a recipe for pure anxiety for me.

Because what I used to do unconsciously and I do now much more consciously is I would um sort of dissolve my energy and that would allow me to disappear. My edges would blur. And so that would make me actually forget my individuality. I wouldn't know who I was when I was doing that. And it would kind of lead me to tending the energetic atmosphere of the group. I would um try to make sure everybody's safe, feeling safe, if everybody's okay. So it would present very in a like really soft, quiet, non-judgmental kind of way.

And it is truly when I think about it, it's a really beautiful quality that I think a lot of healers share by default. I have Pisces rising in my chart and this describes something that the Pisces energy does. Except the drawback is that me, who I am, my individuality would not shine in those environments. It would disappear completely. I wouldn't know who I was anymore. So, I remember one time there was a um sort of a a friend I had in a ringette team. She asked me once, "Are you so quiet because you don't have anything to say or because you're afraid to say it?" And then I stayed quiet trying to figure out which one was the right answer and then my quietness letter to say.

But because if you if you don't have anything to say, you're boring. But if you don't want to say cuz you're afraid, okay, I get that. And I was like, oops. Because I didn't feel like I had anything to say in that group. Now, as I grew older, I started experimenting with being a little bit more my quirky self. I would thrive on like I don't know if you all remember like the word awkward was really big if you're an elder millennial like I am. I would really thrive on that and experiment on that. And I would um have a period where I really didn't do groups in high school.

I went to an all girls school and I really avoided being part of it click. I had of course the girls that I had lunch with cuz that was somehow set in stone but other than that I had individual friendships with a lot of people. I was friendly with a lot of people. I was very popular as one might say but I didn't do group dynamics except for sports. And in sports, how I would show up in the group was vastly different based on the leadership we had. And I promise there was a point to this. And then as I rolled into CJP, which for those not in Quebec or Canada, CJEP is usually well, if you're going on the university track, it's two years between high school and university.

We have like um in between program. And the program I went into was a dream for me. It was the three pre-un university programs rolled into one. It you needed to have an average of 85% and more to get in. So it had the most smart, open-minded kids. Um, and man did I love it. I loved it so much. I our program is just 40 kids and I there I found a group that I felt like I could be completely my individual self in that I felt that was sort of held well that was it was beautiful and it was everything I could ever hope for.

Eventually that filled it up. But that time, you maybe hear the emotion in my voice. It responded to a longing I'd had my whole entire life to be around people that were like me in some way that had I guess an ease around intellectual things and a curiosity and a hunger for them and an sort of like creative lust for putting two things that are desperate together. And so this was like a feeling of like fe meeting my people. And in that group, I didn't dissolve. I wasn't tending to everybody. I was really being myself in community.

So through those experiences, I I learned a lot about group dynamics and how who's in the group, how it's held, what the leadership is, all mattered tremendously and how I show up, how I get to exist within it. Had you asked me am I a group person, I would oh no way, no way I am not. And so when it was time for my healing journey to really start in earnest, the way it was set up at the school I worked at and went to is that it was different courses. And those courses had, I don't know, anywhere between six and 21 people in them.

And these were courses that invited you to go deep to go digging into some real selfwork. So I'm talking my Reiki 1 2 and three, my energy medicine 1, two, and three. My chakra journeys, um my clairvoyant trainings 1 2 3. My sound healing 1 2 3. So it is courses that force you to be vulnerable. And even if I'd found like quote unquote my tribe, if you will, I'd also found out how not to be too vulnerable, right? Like that was like the cost of it and not be too too vulnerable to live in community.

But now I was asked to be in a group and vulnerable and my impulse was just to like fade into the background, observe, sort of almost like silently judge in the background. But the problem was the way those spaces were held is that there was no option to hide. Each person was brought forward, not put on the spot, but given a situation to really be seen. And that was the most healing ingredient of all of it for me. What I learned about the chakras and raiki, like yes, all of that was healing. But being held in a group by some exquisite teachers, that was the most the biggest healing ingredient for me.

So if you've ever said in a discovery call with me or with anybody else, h you know what, I'm really not so much a group person or I'm not good in groups. I'd rather do one-on-one or anything like that. I get it. Because when the group isn't held well, when you're in spaces where the leader isn't either strong and clear and assuming their position is leader or when the leader is too controlling or when the leader is not very emotionally attuned, you will start compensating that compensating for that.

So, let's say the leadership is weak and you've got all these people and they're like wanting to do something together and there's a leadership but it's weak. What's going to happen is you're going to have all sorts of people trying to fill in the gap, fill in the hole. And so, one of the things I know I start doing is I start either feeling really unsafe in that area because it feels tense or I start I just take the leadership position. I take it over and that is not particularly kind to the leader of that group.

Um but yeah, there's an overfunctioning that starts happening when the leader is too controlling and there's too many rules etc. What happens in my energy is my good girl kicks in and I start being very worried about doing things properly and right. And when I don't do them properly and right, my cap my my tendency to self-punish and self flagagulate really kicks in. And when the leader is not too controlling, is strong and present but not very attuned to the people it's leading. What I will tend to do is I will I will um dissolve and tend and care for the people in the group.

I will do that emotionally attuning. Those are things I've done automatically. That's why I'm telling you my history of being in groups and I've really grappled with those things and I've really struggled with them in some ways. And now at 37 years old, I'm starting to see like they were all crafting me into the leader that I am meant to be or that I I've been called to be, want to be. And what I invite you to do is to have a think about your own history in groups. What do you do tend to do and how is that in response to the leadership?

But when the leadership has been attuned, clear and present when I'm in a space like that and it's a quality space and it's quite rare to find a space like that. What happens for me is I sharpen. I channel. I like I land. My gifts land. My appreciation for other people land. My ability to learn from each person lands. And what I've seen so often is that when in the discovery call somebody says, "Oh, I'm really more of a one-on-one person, or I'm like really shy in groups, or I'm really uh unsure about that part." and they go for it anyway.

Those have been some of my favorite clients and they've gotten so much out of being part of my groups. What happened to me is that every time the spotlight would be turned on me in one of those groups that was really well held is I would cry. I would um my voice would shake and I would force the words through anyway, pretending like my it eyes weren't welling up with tears. And it wasn't exactly what I said. It it was just the pure vulnerability of saying something that was true to me in public. It was the vulnerability of being seen.

And yet that is what healed me more than anything. So, if you came in with like saying like, "Oh, yeah. I really I can I can sense this block like groups are not for me. I don't like groups." Maybe you're saying, "I'm too much for groups." Or, "I'm too little for groups. I'm too quiet for groups. I'm too shy for groups. I'm too whatever it is is I want to invite you to imagine what if that wasn't true but you simply haven't been in a space yet that hasn't asked you to shrink or take up more space.

Maybe you haven't been in a space that's cured and created and crafted that for you to feel that sense of belonging without losing yourself. And it's that duality, belonging and being individual that is just this incredible combination. If you are somebody who's looking for her voice, if you are someone who's looking for bringing your song out into the world, if you are someone who knows there's a certain latent leadership in you, something you want to create, those two ingredients are what you need.

The sense of belonging, the sense of safety gives your nervous system that kind of relaxation to be who you are and to say the quirky weird thing. And the uniqueness allows you in turn to lead what you've come to lead. And so this is the healer's journey. So what you're meant to lead might be in the healing sphere. You may be meant to heal to help people heal, to lead them into their healing. But here's where I want to leave us with some invitations. I want to think of um you to think of perhaps good leadership as spaces where you yourself are invited to come as you are and to start leading in your own ways.

So to ground this because it's heady stuff and it's also very heart longing stuff. Some questions to reflect on. What is it that you believe about yourself in a group? What is the label? What are the roles you like to take on? Listener, caretaker, the spaceholder without you yourself being held. Are you the one who cracks jokes? Are you the one like what gap in leadership are you particularly sensitive to and do you bring? And I'd love for you to imagine Get into your heart with me. What would it be like to be in a space or do you know any spaces where you don't have to overfunction?

You don't have to overperform. You don't have to lead anything you don't want to lead. And you don't have to hide. You don't have to disappear. You don't have to dissolve. What it be like to be held in a container that brings you into focus that kind of enliven everything that lights up your whole system. A circle where you get to belong without being blurry and you get to be fully you but held in community. So I know you can feel this. There's a pitch coming my friend. Um, I take my group programs really seriously.

I'm very clear in curating who gets to come in. Whenever I miss make a mistake, I treat it as a portal for healing. I take my leadership of them quite seriously and I invite you into them. Not because I want to scale my work and give it to more people at more affordable rates. No, because the group element is actually an element of the healing. I've taught Reiki many times in group and many times in one-on-one format, and I charge more for the one-on-one format, but do you know who gets the most value?

That's the people in the group because of the other people in the group. And that has been so consistent throughout my 15-year career already. So, if you've ever said, "I'm more of a one-on-one person," I I hear you. And maybe that is exactly what you need right now. And if you're more of a one-on-one person and you are longing for sisterhood, you're longing for finding your people, your tribe, you're longing for um being held, you're longing for community, you're longing to become the truest version of yourself.

I hate to break it to you, but I think the one-on-one person thing is a facade to hide under. I think you are craving a group space and I invite you to not write off the magic of a well-held group. This has been the healer's journey. I'm your host, Inge Broer. And if this touched something in you, Healer Embodied is enrolling now. It is a six-month group program and I want to tell you a little bit about what's happening in the current group. It's my first group ever. There's four incredible women in it.

And what's happening is that they are seeing each other's gifts and there's part of themselves that's like, "Oh my god, this woman's so gifted and talented and powerful. I'm not like that at all." And yes, there's a moment of insecurity or like, oh man, I wish I could do that and then there's a but for me it works like this and this is what I can do and it sharpens it's sharpening them and they are starting to create healing containers, healing journeys for the people they are meant to work with that honors their actually actual gifts that places their gifts, their knowhow, their energetic mastery at the center.

And so this program is built for anybody who's already done Reiki 1 and is on the path of the healer. Those are my two real requirements. Other than that, healer embodied is for you if you are called to let energy work become real in your life. If you are called to lead others on the path of healing, it is for you. If you know you have some gifts inside of you and you're ready to let them out, it's for you. If you're ready to grow your confidence and you're ready to um become a skilled, grounded, competent healer, somebody who does healing work without shaking away or shrinking away from it.

6 months, it's 3,000 US or 4,000 Canadian. And your next step is simply to reach out. There's myriad of ways. And to come tell me you want to talk with me. And that conversation, the only goal of it is to empower you to make the right next step for you. I don't let anybody into this program who isn't actually ready for it. So you're safe with me and