What’s the difference between curing, treating, and healing? This is a common topic when we talk about health coaching.
The first two- curing and treating– are medical terms. Here in the USA, these words are protected by law. If you don’t have a license, you’re not allowed to use these words when you describe the services or products you offer.
What about healing?
Well, let’s say you fall and hurt your knee: do you go straight to the doctor? In cases of mild injury, the answer is usually “no”, right? Your knee will heal on its own. There’s no need for outside help.
And that’s the difference: Curing and treating are services (specifically, services performed by licensed professionals). Healing is a natural phenomenon.
So…What deeper insights can we take from this?
1) Cures and treatments can help your body heal
For example, surgery to remove a foreign object can allow a wound to heal. Setting a bone can help it fuse more quickly & properly than it would have otherwise.
2) No cure or treatment is complete without healing
For example, after a surgery, your body must mend incisions, replace blood, and rebuild other tissue. After a bone is set, it must regrow.
3) You can only heal yourself
This is one of the hardest lessons we learn as healers: No healer can actually heal anyone. Each person must heal themselves. Some of you may be thinking, “What about Jesus”? Yeah okay, maybe. But he cheats.
Even when doing Reiki, I’m not healing anyone (except perhaps myself). I’m just facilitating someone else’s natural healing process. They get out of it what they put into it. It’s a lot like having a fitness coach at the gym: very helpful, sure, but you only get stronger because you lift the weights.
4) Only the willing can be healed
This is the flip side of #3.
Healing can’t occur without a true desire and intention. If you know someone who is in the process of healing, give them the space to do it at their own pace, in their own way, and only if & when they’re ready.
Remember this, as well: there’s more to healing than our physical body. There’s mental, emotional, and spiritual healing. For someone near the end of their life, physical healing may not be their top priority. What appears to be physical wasting (or even death) to an observer may actually be a healing process for the one experiencing it.
To every medical professional who has ever lost a patient: you can choose whether to view that experience as a success or failure. Please trust that healing happened– for everyone involved- in the exact manner it was intended.
Wishing you the best along your own path.
– Brandon
life coach, science consultant, Reiki practitioner
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