A true healer does not heal or teach you

I will always listen deeply to you, but I will never try to fix you, mend you, stop you feeling what you are feeling or give you second-hand, memorised answers. I will never pretend to be 'the one who knows', 'the enlightened one' or some missionary for a conceptual truth so far removed from real-time, immediate, first-hand present experience. I will not get into drama with you, I will not indulge and feed your stories and mental conclusions and fears, I will not mistake who you are for my story about you, my dream of who you are. But friend, I will meet you in the fires of hell, I will hold your hand there, I will walk with you as far as you need to walk, and not turn away, for you are myself, and in the deepest recesses of our experience we are intimately each other, and we cannot pretend otherwise..." Without even touching you, a deep man can open you to love’s divine mystery and blissful benediction—if he is totally present with you, truly seeing you, feeling you, entering you with his loving desire, touching the most vulnerable depth of your heart. A true healer does not heal you; she simply reflects back to you your innate capacity to heal. She is a reflector, or a loving transparency. A true teacher does not teach you; she does not see you as inherently separate from her. She simply reflects back your own inner knowing, and reminds you of the vastness of your being. She is a mirror, a signpost. And love is the space in which all of this is possible; love heals, and we learn best in a loving field, no threat of failure..., no punishment. - Jeff Foster