It wasn’t until I studied holistic therapies that I became aware of the word ‘practitioner’. For me, this meant someone that had trained in something specific, such as massage, physiotherapy, counselling or aromatherapy. If I am really honest, once I got my qualification in Reflexology and holistic therapies and started practising, there was definitely an element of “Here I am – I have finally got somewhere in my life,” even though I knew I was kidding myself and it was only the beginning and there was a lot more to learn.
Indeed, there was a lot more to learn! Even though I was a ‘practitioner’, I was not looking after my health and wellbeing, or taking care of myself. I was not eating well, I was eating on the go, and not listening to or honouring my body, which eventually led to an illness that forced me to stop being a ‘practitioner’ and go back to work in an office environment while looking at my health.
It wasn’t until a few years later that I heard the term ‘practitioner’ being used in the office workplace. People were calling themselves practitioners and at the time I felt this was really strange. Why would you do that? A practitioner was someone that had a qualification and worked in the bodywork / therapy industry, not a team Manager!
Through Universal Medicine, what I have come to realise is that actually we are all practitioners, no matter what our age, qualifications or job role; that each and every one of us has something to bring or reflect to another person.
This was made really clear to me while I was on a recent training course, where the room was set up with the person at the front of the room as the trainer ‘teacher’, and the people listening as the ‘students’.
It was a long and painful day and it wasn’t until the end of the day, when we did a group exercise, that everyone in the room came alive. The ‘students’ were talking about the young people they were working with, sharing their experiences until eventually at one point everyone in the room was helping each other with the cases they were working on.
For me this was gold and very valuable, far more valuable than everyone sitting facing one person listening to them talk. It emphasised that we are all practitioners, that is, we all have our lived experiences and know if these have truly supported ourselves and others, or not. We all have access to the same innate wisdom within us, whether young or old. It is just a case of whether we know how to connect to this or not. Being a practitioner is not a title, it is a way of living – how we live and what we learn from choices, either good or bad, that we have made. It is a forever learning and evolving.
I am continually inspired by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine who consistently reflect to me that we are all practitioners of life.
By Vicky Cooke, London
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I agree with you Vicky when you say
“Being a practitioner is not a title, it is a way of living – how we live and what we learn from choices, either good or bad, that we have made. It is a forever learning and evolving.”
What life is showing me is that every day is the same day repeated over and over again, it is what we do with the day that matters. We have an opportunity to imprint each day and build on the day before, to look at what happened and to then go forward knowing that we can change how we are. Every day is a fresh start a new potential. This changes everything, as how can we find life dull or boring if every day we have the possibility of starting afresh.
Our Livingness will keep us practicing life and all the things that as a practitioner are required for us to reflect the Love of God to everyone we meet.
When we consider ourselves practitioners within our workplaces it makes us aware of the responsibility we have in sharing our wisdom – so we all keep learning and growing alongside each other.
So, in a way we are practitioners and students all at the same time.
I totally agree that we are ‘practitioners of life’ and age is not a factor, wisdom is within us all. This is removing this old belief that our young ones voice isn’t important, they are just as wise and their presence is just as equal as our elders.
So true – we are already an authority, of our own life – whatever that is we are living and that doesn’t need a qualification, and that is what we practice, through our skills and expertise. It’s the communication and exchange of vibrations.
It’s wonderful to redefine the word practitioner… In the same way that so many words… Commitment, purpose, religion and love are being redefined
It is becoming so obvious to me that, yes, I am a practitioner of life, but that starts with being my own practitioner first, in the way I care for myself and the choices I make every day. If I chose not to look after me in the most loving way then what quality of livingness do I bring to another, whether it is at work, at home or simply being out in life? Being a practitioner of life comes with the responsibility of living a life that is truly loving, for self and for all.
I recently had a moment where I could feel something changing within me and it had to do with religion, in that many religions teach us to look outside of ourselves to worship God. This is the lie the majority of us have fallen for. When we stop looking outside of ourselves and turn inwards, then we will find the treasure we have all been looking for; it is our connection to God and heaven. When we connect to this pot of gold, then we can share this with all others so that they can find their pot of gold within themselves too.
If we don’t care for, or love ourselves first, then how can we bring an unknown to another, ‘ If I chose not to look after me in the most loving way then what quality of livingness do I bring to another’.
‘Practitioner’ someone who practices, so as we are all practicing how to evolve each lifetime we are all practitioners of life.
Again the corruption of words interferes with us embracing the power of our livingness, and in this case with the misunderstanding of what a practitioner means. For a true practitioner is one that reflects the quality of our Soul, in which a healing room, workplace, at home or in every aspect of our lives, all hold equal value. We all are born fully qualified to practice such a way of living, which we all can activate whenever we are willing to connect to our Soul.
What I love about what you have shared here Carola is ‘we are all born fully qualified to practice such a way of living’. Currently I do not feel that we, humanity, as a whole get that life is a lesson for us to heal and change old ways, to practice something different, to make more loving choices, therefore being a practitioner of our own life which is very empowering.
That is correct we all have a place in this world and how awesome will it be when we realise this and can benefit from each others expertise.
I too held this belief that ‘practitioners’ were people who came under the umbrella of health or healing modalities. But what’s been shared here is so true and confirming, we are all practitioners of life and we could offer this to others.
I currently have a work colleague who is showing me that it is possible to keep changing and not get stuck in a comfortable life. This person has had to make many changes in their life which they found very challenging at first, but now they are reaping the benefits by putting all the doubts and struggles that they had to one side and come out of their comfort zone and embrace life. If they can do this then surely I can too.
Same here, ‘practitioner’ was for someone who was trained in and practiced some health modality; I guess words and their meaning changes over time.
Simply reconnecting to our bodies, allowing ourselves to go through those doorways within, we all do become practitioners, integrity, honesty and clear living.
It is definitely not about knowledge; it is about being able to connect to a deeper wisdom and start walking it.
Yes and in walking our truth, impulsed by our connection to our Soul we reflect the vibration that we all are in essence, one that offers evolution.
The walking in our truth that you speak of Carola Woods comes from a stillness in our bodies, which I feel is the connection to our soul. The stillness is always there, we are not always aware of it because of the raciness or motion we accept as our ‘normal’ way of life. Our spirit has set up the raciness deliberately so we do not have the connection to the stillness. When we do finally reconnect back to the stillness it’s learning how to move in and with the stillness especially when we are driven by our spirit, who rejects any form of stillness and is the perpetrator of keeping us all in motion as in stillness it feels the pull of the one soul.
What a wonderful connection… Practitioner and integrity… Imagine them becoming synonymous with each other.
I was recently at an Esoteric Women’s Health event called Wellbeing for Women, it was local to my area and attended by 30-40 women. We had two hosts presenting but they really just initiated the conversation and women in the audience were adding to it, and then we spilt into small groups of 4 to workshop a topic together. It was so supper supportive because every women added to and expanded the conversation. Every women’s voice was needed for everyone to come to a place of greater healing. We are definitely all practitioners of life with much to offer.
Melinda it feels that what you are sharing was something that was practiced many years ago; that women gathered as a way of supporting themselves and the community, that women played a greater role in society than they do today. To me it feels as though it is the women who are the glue of society and if they are out of alignment to themselves then the rest of society is out of alignment, which I feel is what we are witnessing today.
We are all practitioners of life, but first and foremost, we are partitioners of ourselves.
When I have considered myself a practitioner in the mechanical field of work I am in, it has brought a whole new level of personal responsibility to everything I do, as I consider it the same as if I was doing direct body work on a client, whether I am interacting with my co-workers, at home making dinner, or talking on the phone with a friend. Every movement we make has an effect on our bodies and thus with not only everyone we are in direct contact with, but carries over to other people later on. So if I decide to just check out at night and watch a YouTube video on airplanes (speaking from experience here) because I don’t want to feel something that happened at work that day, when I go into work the next day I might carry over that same disconnected state of being and not be able to connect and work with other people as effectively, and am more likely to make mistakes.
It makes sense that the word ‘practtioner’ comes from the word ‘practice’ and we are all practicing how to live and when we work together to support each other we are all practitioners of life.
We have so much wisdom inside that we can connect to, it makes us all practitioners of life because when we allow it, the wisdom comes through us and everyone can access it.