teaching/healing as a profession.

[Guest guest]

Hello All,

While I recognize and accept that others may have a different

perspective, I would like to offer my thoughts and feelings and what I

find works for me.

I feel uncomfortable when I hear messages espousing the view that that

the teaching/healer/guide is not a vaild profession or be accepted as

such, with compensation, just like any profession.

Like many highly compensated professions, it may take years of study,

investment in expensive trainings and other education...and it

provides a meaningful, often deeply life-changing value to the client.

The practitoner has rent or house payments, and other expenses like

any other person. And if they are investing their whole time in this

profession, rather than doing it part time, that commitment and

investment, as well as expertise, needs to be valued.

I think that it is evidence that the still-male-dominated society, the

Old Paradigm, if you will, that values traditionally male-domiated

professions and pays them well, while traditionally female professions-

the helping and healing professions, both in-the-grid (teachers,

social workers, counselors) and off it (Energy Workers, Massage

Therapists, Hypnotherapists, Spiritual Guides, Intuitives, and all

manner of Aletrnative Modalities)...are expected to provide their

services at a lower rate of pay or free. It is time we valued the

gifts Feminine part of ourselves with appropropriate compensation, as

a culture.

I am a Hypnotherapist and Spiritual Life Coach. I do intense, time

consuming work. Lots of planning, research and writing. I meditate on

the client. I do Intuitive and Healing work. I highly personalize. And

the work is, I am told over and over, profoundly life changing.

I have a sliding scale. I charge for my planning time only. I call it

a " curriclum design fee " because that's what it is. The sessions

themselves are Love-Offering based. This means, whatever the client

wants to give, from the heart. Some who are CEOs or doctors or

lawyers, add a significant amount to their check, so that they get

close to the actual marketplace value of my time, which is way more

than my curriculum design fee. Some, who have a more modest incme,

give me a gift that is meaningful to them or something from my

wishlist on Amazon. This way, everyone, even students, can afford me

AND my time and energy is fairly compensated. I trust that it will

always balance out and it does.

A profession is both a business and ideally, a calling. If the

business part is not respected, it's not sustainable. I do believe in

titheing. Giving a percent of one's time, talent and treasure to the

source of one's spiritual nourishment and also in social service. I

was blessed to experience lots of love, prayer and Reiki when I was

sick and unable to work or pay for anyone's services. I am profoundly

grateful for this. And I do my share of this as well.

AND in my professional life with telephone, internet and in office

clients...I expect and receive energy exchange. I have read the

studies that have shown that when the client pays, s/he gets a better

outcome. That's one reasons I think alternative modalities, who don't

take insurance have an advantage. The client has a stake in it, an

investment. It's better. And, I've found from experience in my

practice that the client who readily and gratefully pays me and gives

me a love offering that expresses his or her appreciation...is a

client who really gets the work and uses it well and wisely.

In Aloha

Kanta