I honestly don’t know.

What I do know is that I am not the one handing out permission slips. And equally I’m never questioning someone’s right to call themself a healer. 

It seems to me that it must be something that you bestow on yourself. 

An Artist has a similar dilemma. Who gets to call themselves an artist? A painter - yes, probably. But do you only qualify as an artist if you sell your art? If art is how you make a living? What if your accountant also happens to be an amazingly talented painter but he doesn’t sell his art, he doesn’t need to, he only paints for his own creative outlet? Is he still an artist? 

There is a line of thinking that we need to vet and validate one another. How do you validate or vet an artist? Is someone still an artist if you do not like their art? If their work makes you feel something you do not like, or nothing at all? Is that person still considered an artist? 

In a world full of scammers, AI, bots, and fakeness, I guess it makes sense to desire some sort of validation process that provides us with some feeling of certainty and security. Reduces the perceived risk. 

However, even within a place of systems and structures, we each apply ourselves in different and unique ways. For example, we have building codes in the building industry, rigorously detailed and defined. And yet if you watched each builder, they would apply their craft differently. In many cases not necessarily better or worse, just different. 

LightStack is a different kind of place, where we are asking for people to bring their unique talents and gifts and share them with others. We do not vet practitioners or their practice. That might sound irresponsible or cavalier but we don’t believe it is, we feel it is the only option, and possibly even the best option for you.

One of the risks of running LightStack with this approach is that someone might have a bad experience. We hope to enable people to get the support they are looking for to become their most unified and conscious self. Should someone have an experience that takes them in a different direction, while we hope this does not happen, the potential does still exist. 

One of the throughlines of my own journey was taking responsibility for myself, leaving tendencies for victimhood or blaming external factors and forces in my life. 

Another realisation which I discovered early in my spiritually awakened journey is the one of discernment. Discernment is the practice of determining for yourself if something or someone is right for you.

I want to say the next part carefully, it could be misconstrued. Sometimes we can have a “negative” experience with someone which also contains the lesson we needed. It does not mean that they are a “bad” person (or shall be removed of their “healing” title). 

Consider being “cut off” driving, the experience for the driver being cut off is scary and unsettling and could be the cause of an entire range of emotions and mental distress. 

The driver who did the “cutting off”, was having their own experience, perhaps distracted with their own challenges, having made a genuine mistake as a result of a brief unintended distraction. I mean, who has not made a mistake or drifted off a bit while driving when they heard the angry horn in response, it sent them off in yet another emotional state. 

The universe has placed these two people on a path that brought them together. 

They have a negative interaction, and yet we could imagine that there are potential lessons for both parties. 

“Driving deserves more of my attention.” 

“I can make mistakes, that doesn’t make me a bad person.” 

“I respond to fear with anger, I wonder when that first happened?”

My hunch is that gatekeeping healers in the name of safety removes the responsibility of clients and practitioners to use their own discernment. It places someone, perhaps us as the platform, in the role of judging if someone is right for you. My experience with a practitioner has no bearing on your experience with a practitioner. Any sense of security that I might be able to provide would be a false one, encouraging you to abdicate your role in refining your own discernment. 

The universe will weave our lives together, sometimes to be the unintended Heel in someone else's life. 

I have made mistakes, I have hurt others, not intentionally, but on reflection to grant me the opportunity to learn something important. This isn’t to blame the victim or remove my own responsibility from it but a recognition that it couldn’t have happened any other way (because it didn’t ;)). 

If you are reading this right now and you are having a strong reaction, the weaving has brought you here with me, with nothing but love in my heart and yet my words are landing differently.

Finally, if you do have an experience that for you sits beyond all reasonable practice, let me know. I don’t know where the weaving will lead us, but I trust that I will know should the time arise.

In service, 

Mark