Who is Healing Who?
““I couldn’t believe it. I had used the very language that contradicted the philosophy to which I subscribed. Here’s why the term ‘healer’ doesn’t make sense.””
Mama Medicine, Deborah Hanekamp
A few years ago, I discovered the Instagram profile of a woman called “Mama Medicine.” She was touted in the influencer circles of New York City and Los Angeles as “fashion’s favorite healer,” but I can’t remember what lead me to her profile that day. As I browsed her grid, I quickly realized that “Mama Medicine” was Deborah Hanekamp.
When I lived in Brooklyn in 2010-2011, Deborah’s first yoga studio and healing center was on my block—Grand and Havemeyer—just below the open-style loft I shared with a married couple. (That’s another story for another day.)
I was often at Deborah’s studio after work. It was hard to refuse a practice when all it required was walking two doors past the door to my building to wind down and connect to myself for 90 minutes before heading home.
The studio was tiny. Absolutely tiny, where mat-to-mat we fit 12 people, max. But it was full of magic. Deborah, and other formative teachers in my study like Rebecca and Nami, offered insightful, challenging practices and their guidance still rings in my body in certain asanas.
There was a giant mural hand-painted on one wall, I think it was an Om symbol. The teachers held moon ceremonies and women’s circles in the garden behind the studio, which I never attended. But I had a skylight over my bed in the loft, and I would look up at the full moon and picture them downstairs dancing like fairies in a garden. Looking back, I wonder, “Why didn’t I go?” It sounds so dreamy now.
After every yoga class, we would sip Deborah’s handmade hot herbal tea blends in a circle while getting to know our classmates for a moment before we scattered back to our hustles. That practice always struck me as moving; such a beautiful moment of humanity in a city that finds it hard to pause, let alone connect with strangers.
At Deborah’s offering, I began volunteering to take care of the studio on occasion in exchange for free classes. I lovingly burned sage in the little studio between classes and mopped the floors, showers and treatment room with gratitude and Deborah’s handmade essential oil cleaners.
I learned so much from her, but more was observed and absorbed than taught. I began to take at least one yoga class a day and my practice quickly deepened. The experience of simultaneously caring for the studio and dedicating myself to incremental progress through daily practice had profound effects on me. It cracked me open and I soon left New York City to put everything I owned in storage and travel the world on my own for a year. That was the year that my Saturn Return began, so I dubbed the journey, “The Saturn Return Project.” I interviewed advertising executives and “Pretty Big Deals” in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Toronto, Los Angeles, Montréal, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Shanghai and more. I was in the flow of my purpose and life was grand.
When I returned to New York in 2012 to take on a huge opportunity as the Director of Content + Communications for ADC Global (The Art Directors Club), I soon found out that I had a little surprise in my uterus. Deborah was pregnant at the same time, and her daughter Munay was born just a few months before my daughter, Amalia. I was in awe of her home birth as I struggled to process the trauma of my difficult ‘take a number’ (and these drugs) hospital birth. The last time I saw Deborah was back in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for a mama-and-me yoga class with our babies.
So, to see her randomly on Instagram after so long, receiving such abundance in return for her gifts, was wonderful. But I was most curious that despite the accolades of the rich and famous, Deborah doesn’t identify as a “healer.” In fact, she founded and grounds her practice in the moniker “#BYOH” or “Be Your Own Healer” to empower people to heal themselves through a healing modality she transmits called Medicine Readings.
In Deborah’s own words, “I feel we are all healers, we can heal the old wounds carried in the collective consciousness that keep us weakened and divided. My work is open to anyone who is ready to be their own healer and by doing so, humbly inspire others to do the same.”
All the hell yes. Deborah’s encouragement often rings in my ears, reminding me that we have everything we need to heal ourselves, within ourselves. Which is why it was funny when one of my friends and a Sága Circle member asked me if she could share a bit of feedback soon after I launched.
“Of course!” I said.
She was all in on the premise of Sága, she said, but did not dig the word “healer.” At the time I was using the language, “healers and wellness practitioners” in most of Sága’s promotion.
“None of us actually heal anyone,” she pointed out. “We facilitate healing.”
I couldn’t believe it. After subscribing to Deborah’s philosophy for years now, I had used the very language within my own community that contradicted the philosophy to which I subscribed.
Here’s why she is right and the term “healer,” when directed toward others, doesn’t make sense:
Wellness is a trillion dollar industry. The Global Wellness Institute (GWI), which releases an annual Global Wellness Economy Monitor Report on industry data and trends—most recently in 2018—reported that the global wellness economy is a $4.5 trillion industry that represents 5.3% of global economic output. The industry grew 6.4% between 2015-2017, which the GWI reports is twice as fast as global economic growth according to IMF (International Monetary Fund) data.
The commodification of anything means selling something to you. In this case, your own well-being. Most, if not all, of us need support along our healing paths. There is no doubt about that, and that is the reason that Sága exists – to make it easier to find the resources and support you need, when you need them. But there is a difference between the perception that another person is going to fix you, and the understanding that another person is going to offer you the tools to heal yourself because you’re not actually broken.
That offering may come in the way of physical or energetic release, the chance to still your mind or body, a way to move qi through your body, or help to unearth hard truths your conscious mind has sought to avoid touching. There are numerous ancient traditions and modalities that facilitate the answers we need, but usually with no explanations of exactly how it works. They are often experiences that cannot be described or understood using logic and reason. But they work for those who have faith and trust in the healing capacity of their own bodies, and respect and gratitude for those who can offer support and facilitate transformation along that path.
So, I switched the language I was using to realign with what I, and our practitioners, believe. Now I say, “healing and wellness practitioners” when referring to the members of our network. Or sometimes, just “wellness practitioners.”
Either way, Sága is a community of practitioners who embody Mama Medicine’s philosophy right here in the Monadnock Region. We comprise individuals who, with reverence over decades, have studied modalities that facilitate healing in ourselves and others. And, by engaging the experience and wisdom of these practitioners, anybody can initiate their own healing. That means you.
I invite you to take in our messaging through that filter.
We are not trying to ‘sell’ you wellness, nor are we trying to commoditize your well-being.
As a group, by our request, the Sága Circle members agree to live by a shared understanding, or a code (see right). This agreement is rooted in respect for Mother Earth, our communities, our clients, solid ethics, the law of abundance and the power of collaboration. We expect each other to root for, and celebrate, our collective success.
We believe in the potency of these ancient modalities, the pull of magical Mt. Monadnock and the potential of all of the practitioners who reside at the foot of this peak.
We also believe that we are living in a time of collective healing, the Age of Aquarius, and that the time to compete and climb on the backs of each other is over. It may feel sometimes like we are living in a time of collective pain and brutality. But that’s the thing about healing: it requires dredging up everything that does not serve us in order to face it and remove (or heal) it.
When we are doing this kind of deep internal work, the support of practitioners who have studied and practiced modalities that can help us learn to guard, nurture and protect our energy, and our emotional and physical bodies, helps us to weather these times of massive transition.
Lastly, we believe that knowledge is power and that by increasing awareness about what these healing modalities are, and who practices them in our own backyard, we can inspire others right here at home to Be Their Own Healer.
We hope, at some point, to be able to serve you or someone you love by making it easier for you to tap in to the resources you need.
That is what drives this movement. Because ultimately, if each of us heals ourself, we heal the world.