When do you prepare your client for death?

QUESTION: Masters, I am a healer with 30 years’ experience in spiritual healing. I was trained in the UK by Harry Edwards and to my wonder and joy he appeared in a séance and stated he would work with me at my church. My question is – when working with a terminal recipient who wants to fight to the very end and does not want one word of negativity, where the medical Doctors will no longer give treatment, when can we as healers begin to work with the transition? My patient died quietly and peacefully and I feel I failed to prepare her. ~Lisa, USA

ANSWER: As spiritual healers you have to be sensitive to the wishes and desires of your clients. While some may come to you to assist them with their illness, disability, or pain, they may not want you to share your beliefs concerning transition and the afterlife. During the initial treatment, you may gently let them know what your feelings are, but take the cue from them about how much they want to hear.

Just as a person who smokes does not want to hear your ideas about the hazards resulting from smoking, some people like to revisit their childhood religious beliefs for comfort near the time of their passing. Since your patient died quietly and peacefully, without trauma or fear, she was in the place she needed to be. Anything you may have wanted to say that questioned her thoughts on transition might have interfered with her easy leaving.

Certainly those who are in fear of death and dying need assistance in understanding what they are facing. You have a lot of knowledge and beliefs that are right for you and may easily aid another, but freedom of choice dictates it is the individual’s decision, not yours. As we always say, you cannot change others unless they cooperate and choose to change.

Continue doing the fantastic work you chose. Be prepared to help spiritually if the client seeks your help, but never force yourself onto another even if everything you see speaks to the service you are capable of providing. It is still the client’s choice. Your positive, peaceful presence and what you do put all into unconditional love. Whether they grab it, or even acknowledge it, is up to them.