What is Healing?
Ten months ago, at the beginning of an incredible journey with some of the world’s leading pioneers in Classical Daoist Medicine, our class was posed a deceptively simple question:
What is healing?
The room went silent. We were a diverse group of both established practitioners and freshly graduated acupuncturists, all devoted to the art of healing. Yet in that moment, none of us spoke. Shouldn't we, of all people, know what healing means?
One might respond that healing is simply an improvement in health—a sense of “feeling better.” But this answer raises further questions. Can someone still be healing while experiencing pain? Can one be sick and healing simultaneously? Is it possible to be facing death and yet feel healed? So, what truly is the essence of healing? To explore this, perhaps we first need to consider: What is disease?
In Classical Daoist Medicine, disease is viewed as an absence of health. Symptoms are seen not as mere problems to be suppressed but as compassionate signposts—guides pointing to where life’s natural flow has been impeded. When these signals are acknowledged and understood for what they are, the underlying disruption in the flow of life force can be addressed, and symptoms gently resolve.
In this view, the underlying imbalance (whether it be stagnation, deficiency, or excess) becomes a call for attention. When recognised and lovingly attended to through healing modalities such as acupuncture, herbs, massage, Reiki, or movement, the body is supported in its natural process of returning to equilibrium.
Life, in its essence, always seeks balance. Day and night, birth and death, hot and cold, yin and yang—these cycles reflect a harmony that the body too strives to mirror. The practitioner’s role is simply to facilitate the body’s innate tendency to heal, to gently support it through areas of blockage and help guide it back into balance.
So then, what is healing, if not this natural tendency, rooted within the body, that flourishes when the right conditions are present? Among these conditions, perhaps the most essential is presence.
To be present is to be fully aware of life’s unfolding in the here and now, to be entirely embodied in each moment. It is to exist within one’s body, aware of the senses, the mind’s chatter, yet unattached to it—seeing beyond the noise. Presence allows for an awareness of the subtle interconnection that weaves through all life, a flow that is ever in motion. When we awaken to this, we step beyond the illusion of who we think we are, and instead experience the true essence of life itself.
Healing is this awakening. It is a return to alignment with our true nature, a connection to something beyond our separate sense of self. It is the recognition of life’s continuous rhythm, and a gentle surrender to it. It is the remembering of wholeness, even in moments of challenge, where we come to understand that healing is less about changing our circumstances and more about deepening our connection with life itself.
If this calls to you, I welcome you to book a session, where together we can explore what healing means for you.
With warm love and thanks,
Liberty x
