When I was 27 I had what is often referred to as a healing crisis. I had been diagnosed with sarcoidosis, a lung-lymph disease that made the joints of my legs swell up and ache terribly. Because none of the more obvious symptoms were directly related to my lungs, it took nearly three months before a seasoned arthritis doctor sent me off for a chest X-ray to have the diagnosis confirmed.
At the time, I had two young children, aged 5 months and 22 months, who were completely dependent on me as I was the stay at home parent. I also had no social network to speak of so I found myself having to cope more or less on my own. I should add that my marriage was also falling apart at the time. As my world started falling apart, and I literally had no leg left to stand on, I was forced to do what I should have done much sooner, I finally asked for help…
I found myself in a place so dark that I wish none of you will ever have to go there, yet I know that many of you will and also that hitting rock bottom is necessary for many of us to start the process of self-healing. I hasten to add that this happened 20 years ago and it has in no way been a linear process of progression along the healing path for me. I have had more dark nights of the soul along the journey, which is more like the kind of spiral you get when you start peeling the layers off something – in this case the layers of ‘protection’ the ego had encased my soul in.
So, barely able to walk, I dragged myself off to the emergency psychiatric ER and told them that I had a feeling of falling and dying and simply couldn’t cope any more – all of it 100% true. When I told the psychiatric nurse who did my initial assessment about the abuse and abandonment I had endured as a child, a sense of relief came over me when I was told – for the first time – that nobody would be expected to cope or function normally with that kind of background.
As I began group therapy and a course of antidepressants, I started having strange supernatural experiences. One of them included a dream of dancing with dolphins which was extremely healing. When I shared this dream in the group, it turned out that another woman had the exact same dream that week. The other thing I have vivid memories of is that the palms of my hands started heating up and I had a strong urge to place them on people who were in need of healing.
The latter was something I decided to seek pastoral counselling for since I still had ties with the church at the time. The pastor I went to see was also a prophet and seer. As soon as I sat down and before I even told the pastor what was ‘wrong’ with me, he told me straight away that I had the gift of healing but he also said ‘You are not ready to use this gift yet.’
Not until much later did I realise why I wasn’t ready…
You have to a) trust in God and b) trust in yourself to use the gift of healing.
Because I wasn’t ready, I started looking for answers in all the wrong places – answers that satisfied my ego rather than my soul. It couldn’t be as simple as having faith, placing my hands on someone and asking God to heal them, surely? I discovered a world of energy healing and vibrational medicine. They all demanded learning different systems or methods and using certain symbols. There, that was better. I could trust in the system because I had paid to learn it from an expert.
Yet, there was a nagging doubt in the back of my mind that wouldn’t go away and I realise now that this doubt was the still small voice of Spirit within me:
A Healing Miracle
Have you not experienced a healing miracle that could not be denied right before your eyes? And did it not happen simply because you had faith and asked?
Yes. It happened when I was 20. I bought an Interrail ticket to travel across Europe on my own. It was one of the hottest summers I can remember. I was on the train with the window open and it felt like having my face blasted with a hairdryer as I journeyed through the south of Sweden and crossed over to Denmark. It wasn’t long after leaving Copenhagen that I realised that the combination of walking lots of miles with insufficient footwear with a heavy backpack in the heat had caused my left big toe to blister very badly. My feet were swollen and barely fit in my shoes.
The top of my left big toe was completely covered by the blister and I felt utterly defeated, not sure how to keep moving in the direction of the Med which is where I was hoping to get eventually. Then it occurred to me that I could pray and ask for healing. Maybe it was because the heat was so intense but my ego didn’t put up much resistance to the suggestion and before long I found myself with my foot on my lap, on another hot train somewhere between Copenhagen and Hamburg.
I started praying wordlessly with my hands over my foot. I think I ended up in a light trance state because I remember feeling light and ’empty.’ When I removed my hands the blister was completely gone. All glory be to the Lord.
And then I figuratively fell back asleep. Or I wouldn’t have found myself where I was at age 27, with a complete lack of faith in my ability to heal myself or anyone else for that matter… Heaven got out its 2×4 and tried to knock some sense into me…
Another Healing Miracle
Fast forward another 3½ years and my next healing miracle which occurred at a birthday party. I found myself at a party of female friends who like me all had young children (mine were 3 and 4 at the time), except the hostess whose birthday it was. We soon settled into the rhythm of young mothers and started chatting about kids, pregnancies and breastfeeding. I sat directly opposite our hostess and I could see her getting increasingly upset but doing all she could to hide it.
I asked her if she was OK. ‘Yes, I’m fine… It’s just that I can’t conceive…’ and she went on to briefly share the medical reasons for it. What happened next was that I found my mouth opening and the words that came out were ‘Would you like some healing?’
My friend gratefully accepted and took me to a different room in her flat so we could have some privacy. I remember thinking to myself while we got up to leave the dinner table, ‘OK, God, you’d better show me what to do next because I have no idea and this was YOUR idea in the first place.’
We sat down next to each other on a sofa in a small sitting room. I put my right hand on her left shoulder and my left hand up in the air and started praying for the Holy Spirit to come. I can’t remember the full prayer but I remember the feeling of an enormous wave of energy going through us both and seemingly filling the whole room with heat and light. Tears started streaming down both our faces.
Five weeks later, my friend phoned me up. ‘Lisa, you’ll never believe what happened – I’m pregnant!’ So was I. I had only found out two days before my friend phoned up. I could hear Heaven giggling. Two Earth Angels had come in on that healing wave! Don’t worry… I’m not claiming a Virgin birth or anything… but it was completely not planned in my case 🙂
I remember going for a walk in the forest after my friend phoned me and not being quite able to feel the ground under my feet. It felt as if I was floating… A miracle had happened and I was just a mouthpiece and channel. I had flowed with Spirit that night and the result was a healing of an underlying medical condition as well as a much wished-for pregnancy.
In short: I trusted.
I wish I could tell you my Misfit Healer story ended with ‘…and she lived happily ever after, sprinkling healing miracles wherever she went.’ What happened instead was me moving from being almost irretrievably lost and broken to gradually finding the missing pieces that blocked me from trusting and putting myself back together via many detours that often increased my knowledge but not my wisdom. And by that, I mean that the ego loves knowledge more than wisdom because wisdom is found in simple things. I have been a magpie for all kinds of metaphysical knowledge… and sure, some of the things I learned have served me well but for the most part, they covered up my true gift.
As an example, I’ve been down the Reiki trail, not once but three times… only to realise it’s simply not meant to be for me. I started with Western Reiki, commonly known as Usui Reiki Ryoho… experimented with Dragon Reiki… got rid of all Reiki Symbols… found Jikiden Reiki and thought ‘Aha, this must be the original and true Reiki.’
Dragon Reiki scared the shit out of me but my ego loved Jikiden Reiki. It fit so well with its ideals of status, and recognition of acceptance by society, with the added edge of elitism since it hadn’t been ‘polluted’ by Western philosophy. Yes, the ego can be that much of a twat. But luckily, it didn’t attract much attention locally or online, no matter what I did to promote myself as a healer and deep down I know this is because I didn’t believe in it. The foreign symbols I had once deprogrammed myself of and once again been ‘attuned’ to looked slightly different (supposedly more authentic) with this system but were still not only foreign but completely unnecessary to the healing work I had come here to do.
I know that now because I trust myself and I am so very grateful for the glimmers of the kinds of miracles that become possible when we trust our Higher Selves, sidestep the ego and allow God to work through us.
So bearing all this in mind, I have created a Tarot spread for Misfits, called the Misfit Natural Healer Tarot Spread, to help you uncover the gift of healing and clear any blocks to you using it.
The Misfit Healer Tarot Spread
1. Main block to my healing gift – Shows longstanding beliefs or habits that are blocking you from being the healer your Higher Self wants you to be
2. Main challenge to fully using my gift – What must be done about the block
3. A lie I tell myself about my gift – Something on your mind as soon as you think of yourself as a healer that prevents you from fully owning your gift
4. How to support myself as a healer – How to better care for yourself so that you can start trusting your inner guidance and offer healing to those who need it without hesitation
5. What I need to walk away from – A circumstance or habit that is holding you back
6. How to trust God/Higher Self better – A new habit to replace the old habit or circumstance
I’d like to end this post with how I initially intended to begin it, with the story of why I’m sharing all of this with you today. I had been receiving strong messages about how I was now ready to start my healing ministry but I knew there were some final blocks to clear. Writing this post is part of healing those blocks. Another part of is removing the Reiki Healing services from the list of services I offer. Last night, I prayed to God and asked the Angel of Divine Service to watch over my dreams. I woke up with absolute certainty and the spiritual guidance draw I did this morning confirmed it further…
This is the message that came with these two cards: Have faith in your ability to heal yourself and others. You are a natural healer. Just like water heals by being water, you heal by being you. Trust and ask for healing and it will be so. Your ego would have you believe it’s more complicated than that – it’s not. Complicating it would be like adding colouring to make water more healing.
So much love!
Lisa Frideborg
Decks used: Angels of Abundance Oracle and Gaian Tarot (Amazon affiliate links)
Comments
Lovely article – I really appreciated reading it. So much resonated with me! Thank you for sharing! <3
My pleasure, Ioleen – so glad you enjoyed the article! <3
Thank you so much for sharing this message/post. I can relate on so many levels and it was such a great help. I’m new to your site and am loving all of the wisdom given.
Thank you, Tara! <3