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audio reading of the blogs posted on Feathermane
Soul.
Blogs are read by Kit Kaelstow, spiritual storyteller.
For links or additional information associated with the
blog, please visit feathermanesoul.com slash blog and
click on the title you're interested in.
Enjoy this blog post.
Rethinking What Healing Means, a Feathermane Soul Blog
for October 20th, 2026.
I've talked a lot about why I don't
use the word healing, and in the changes
it's making to the guidelines, Yoga Alliance has
been extremely clear that they don't want yoga
teachers to use the word healing or anything
that would relate directly to therapy, therapeutic work,
medicine, or any diagnosis in order to allow
yoga teachers to remain within their scope of
practice.
I admit I'm a bit on the fence
about the changes at Yoga Alliance, how it
further silos yoga teachers and yoga practitioners and
even yoga teachers with different interests and credentials,
but what it really has done is made
me think about my use of the word
healing and my relationship to it.
I think the problem lies in how we
think about healing.
When most people talk about healing anything, whether
that's a paper cut, a broken bone, or
a chronic medical condition, they think of it
as well like a superficial injury.
You wash the wound, treat it, put a
bandage on it, and eventually it goes away.
I was reminded of this both when I
realized a wound that I'd received from a
well-intentioned but bit too rambunctious cat had
healed nicely, the scab falling off to reveal
unblemished skin beneath this morning, and when I
expressed to somebody recently just how deeply I'd
been hurt by their actions, and their response
was, I hope you heal soon.
Healing used in that context puts the responsibility
on the person injured and doesn't do anything
to address any other person's role in the
injury or any societal or cultural factors that
may have contributed to it.
And as I have long professed, healing doesn't
work like that, at least not the kind
of healing I have undertaken as a late
diagnosed neurodivergent person with a long history of
trauma leading to complex PTSD.
Except by denying myself the use of the
word or concept of healing, I've also been
denying myself the appreciation of just how far
I have come in my personal work.
Healing is a very nuanced conversation.
It's also a conversation best suited to platforms
off of social media, in places where you
can take the time to explain yourself, even
in one-on-one conversations, as each individual
works through what healing means to them.
Healing is not meant to be a singularly
defined word.
I'm changing how I talk about healing.
What this means is that I will be
changing how I talk about healing, in what
context, and in what it means for me.
Healing goes through many stages.
It can be an extremely long road to
get from wound to no trace of it.
And in the case of larger injuries, such
as to bones or muscles or the mind,
those injuries may never go completely away.
I know my tailbone reminds me when the
barometric pressure changes, and I broke it and
knitted that bone back together four-ish years
ago.
Healing doesn't necessarily mean moving toward wellness or
wholeness either, because there is grief in healing.
There is loss in healing.
In the person we were before, in what
happened before, and the different changes our lives
may have gone through because of what happened.
The thing is, each one of us gets
to define healing for ourselves in a way
that feels meaningful and in a way that
feels authentic to our own lived experience.
So I encourage you to think about how
you perceive healing and what it means for
you.
Let's talk about it, because finding out those
meanings for you mean that you can then
move forward on your own terms and in
your own way.
If you'd like to learn more about having
the conversation of what healing means for you,
or to find out more about my work
for Wild Spirit Storytelling, please visit feathermanesoul.com
and book a discovery call with me.
You'll find the link to this blog post
and my calendar in the show notes.
Thank you so much for listening.
Thank you for listening to this episode of
Feathermanesoul Wisdom Extra, an audio recording of a
blog post hosted on Feathermanesoul.
All blogs are copyright 2025, all rights reserved,
by Kit Kaelstow and Feathermanesoul.
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Text for each blog can be found at
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