A wounded body, heart and spirit heal best in the compassionate presence of another. This book is about what it takes to be that presence with another person in the face of illness and pain—about what it takes to make the relationship itself the container for healing. If you’ve come to this book, it’s probably because you’ve also wondered about these things as you support healing and bring comfort to others in a professional healthcare practice. If your practice embraces the interconnected nature of the physical, emotional, social and spiritual aspects of health, you may be seeking a healing relationship model that fits your holistic practice. You’ve likely witnessed those magical or mystical moments where what happens between you and your client seems to matter as much or more than the technique you’re applying—situations that ask for your compassionate presence. This book is about those moments.

I thought I knew quite a bit about healing presence as I sat on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and started to write this book. I had been teaching a natural model for ethics to bodywork students for a time and had a good idea what I wanted to write. I retreated to a favorite coastal spot at Fort Ross, California, away from my usual distractions. As I settled into a ground chair, computer in my lap, the grandeur and mystery of the place expanded before my eyes. “If nature is to be your guide in being with another in healing,” the landscape seemed to say, “then look closely and listen.” I did. The mystery of relationship in nature revealed itself anew to me and thus began the healing and learning journey that this book would become.

In these chapters, I reflect on how nature inspired my work as an integrative health practitioner. I describe six principles by which the cell membrane that manages all relationships in living systems functions: containment, selective permeability, interspace, differentiation, centering and Oneness. Stories from my daily practice illustrate each of these principles.

With this model for safe and effective healing relationships, I invite your consciousness and healing responses to your patients/clients to grow and evolve as nature does – relationship-by-relationship. This inquiry into nature’s ethics may lead you beyond your assumptions of where the power lies in healing relationships and into a new model for ethics that’s as old as life on Earth. No matter what your field of practice, the cell membrane model affords you and your clients the same safety as clearly set boundaries, while also creating a space in which both of you can learn and grow. I offer a Five-step Process for Effective Practice that arises out of the cell model that can guide you through those difficult situations you encounter in everyday practice. This process can be practiced both within and outside of sessions to develop a more healing and compassionate presence. I’ll then show how the model can be applied to these common areas of ethical considerations: safe space, power, money and dual relationships. Because sexual energy carries a potent creative power to both heal and harm, the book concludes by looking at sexuality through nature’s relationship lens. Each of these chapters contains tips and guidelines of how you can respond with skill and compassion to create healing partnerships with those you serve.

The Living Cell as Your Model

Imagine yourself at the beginning of your life when you were a single cell. By expanding and contracting in cellular breathing you received nutrients through the membrane that held you together. You were protected and nurtured by a community of cells whose membranes interacted with yours as you were swept along on your way to the safe space that would be your home for nearly nine months. By the time you implanted in your mother’s womb, you had divided into two, then four, then many cells. As your cells divided, the membrane surrounding each one managed the new relationships being formed among these cells and all those that surrounded them. Your cells differentiated into various forms and functions through the collaboration of the membrane with the DNA blueprint in the center of each cell to finally become the complex, highly conscious being you are. You are still imbedded in a community of life whose relationships are managed by cell membranes.

Your healing relationships can evolve just as you have evolved—with the cell membrane guiding the way. With the cell membrane as a model, your healing relationships can become the safe space in which you and your healing partners differentiate and heal in the growing awareness of your interconnection with all life.

The cell membrane principles in Relationships that Heal can help you:

• Recognize and honor the personal and emotional space of your healing partners as you align yourself with all living systems as distinct, yet interconnected life forms in a living web.
• Make conscious choices about what you offer and receive from your clients through interspace, the relationship field that allows you to interact in clear, yet ever-changing and adaptive ways.
• Respond to a differentiating force that powers your learning and development as you work within your scope of practice.
• Find your Center, when faced with a challenging situation with your clients. Each situation demands its own resolution, often in ways that help both you and your clients come to different ways of trusting and understanding.
• Foster integrity in the healing relationship in the awareness that we’re all One.

I invite you to join me on this new kind of inquiry into professional ethics. If through this inquiry you become a more healing presence for those who come to you for help, it’s likely that you and your healing partners can achieve co-creative healing outcomes in the evolutionary dance of all life.