Of all the spiritual callings out there, one calling I find resonates with my clients the most is a healer. Even people who aren't inherently spiritual feel a pull towards helping their fellow man and many of them become doctors, nurses, and physical therapists in order to do so. But natural born healers feel the calling to heal so deeply that they often don't even do it for an income, but simply because they need to help others heal. So how do you know if you're a natural healer? Let's break down the 14 signs you're a healer on this planet.

You have extreme empathy and feel others pain.

There's a difference between having empathy and being an empath. Having empathy is a human trait that's normal for most everyone except for a select collective like sociopaths, psychopaths, or narcissists. Being an empath takes empathy a step further where the empath feels other people's emotions in their own body and sometimes even experiences other's physical pain within their body. Empaths struggle with this because from a young age they're overloaded by everyone's emotional input but have no idea it's not their own. This leads to a lot of empaths learning to people-please to keep the peace, as well as trying to fix other's so they don't feel their stress and pain. Natural-born healers are almost exclusively all empaths.

You notice strangers open up to you easily.

Ever go grocery shopping and the cashier tells you their life story while checking out your items? Or maybe you go out to eat and the server trauma dumps on you? Natural healers have a calming quality about them that strangers feel immediately, making them feel comfortable enough to open up and be vulnerable more quickly than they would to the average person. I've had people describe being in my presence as feeling like they can breathe for the first time in a long time. I give off an energy of peace and calm. I've learned to use this ability strategically and strengthen it so my clients can release trauma and heal more quickly, but I've also had to create boundaries so I'm not inadvertently drained by overextending this gift with people.

You tend to have vivid dreams.

Mnay healers also have access to their psychic gifts and receive a lot of information about people intuitively, whether they recognize this or not. This gift also translates into receiving information through vivid dreams. When we sleep, our conscious mind is taken offline and our subconscious mind runs the show, allowing all sorts of intuitive messages to come through. You may receive insights about people you met woven into your dreams so you can better help them. Dream journaling can be an effective tool for remembering, and later decoding, your dreams.

You need to help people.

For some people, like myself, you don't feel satisfied in life unless you're helping people. It's an innate need built into us that can't be ignored. A lot of natural healers have been through extremely difficult situations in life that have shaped and grown us. We emerge from the flames of refinement determined to help other people through the same struggles we just conquered. We become the support we wish we'd had during our own times of struggle, and it gives us a sense of purpose to be a helper and a support to those around us.

You can't stand crowds and feel overwhelmed by them.

Healers, being empaths, never really learn how to shield against swarms of people. While we can find ways to manage the energy drain of feeling so many emotions, our shields aren't impenetrable. They eventually wear down as our energy does and we have to retire and recharge. Because of this, most natural healers are also introverts.

You consider yourself highly sensitive and overly emotional.

From a young age, natural healers struggle to manage their emotions. What they don't realize is that it's not just their emotions they're feeling! They're trying to manage emotions that don't belong to them, emotions of which they might not even be able to pin down the source. It can be maddening to feel emotions that don't belong to you, but seemingly do. This makes healers highly sensitive to stimulating environments that contain crowds, flashing lights, loud sounds and other stimuli. Many healers often receive diagnoses like sensory processing disorder, ADHD, and autism.

You know you're a spiritual person.

Maybe you identify with believing in God for as long as you can remember. Or you feel an immense love for other souls because you can feel their true soul deep inside them. Natural born healers typically have a deep faith in a higher power, connect with nature on a level that's beyond appreciation, and are drawn to creating spiritual practice that help them feel grounded and centered. Once we open the doors to our spirituality, it becomes an obsession and a way of life for us.

You struggle with anxiety and have experienced depression.

Not one single healer I've met hasn't struggled with their mental health in some way. For many of us, before we learn real emotional regulation and how to block out other's emotions, we tend to minimize ourselves and our own needs to accomodate others as a way of limiting the emotional turmoil we feel. This can lead to overextending ourselves and building lives that don't satisfy us with people who drain our energy. The combination of emotional overwhelm coupled with a less than satisfactory life creates anxiety and depression. Natural healers have to eventually journey through a self-love path at some point to prioritize their needs and create a life that brings them joy or else they'll become burnt out and experience mental and physical issues.

You can feel other's energy, especially if it's negative.

Beyond just feeling emotions, natural healers can feel energy. Energy is the frequency at which a person vibrates through their auric field. This energy is how many healers read people and innately know what they need to feel better. However, when a healer connects with a negative person like a narcissist, they can usually feel something wrong even if the person "fronts" or acts opposite of who they truly are. Even though the narcissist acts charismatic and fun-loving, they'll feel something is off or even experience anxiety they can't shake. They're actually feeling through the defensive energetic layer the negative indiviudal has placed out front and into the core energy of the person.

You're the "therapist" friend.

If you find that you're the friend everyone turns to when they need support, advice, or comfort; congrats, you're a natural healer. I used to joke that I was going to get a psychology degree so I could charge for my services as the therapist friend because I was the one who always had solutions, ideas, and a listening ear. I was the one friend who knew everyone's situations because I created a safe haven they felt comfortable opening up to. Word of advice: if you're this friend, I highly suggest that you protect people's privacy. Don't become the town gossip just because you're privy to information other's aren't. We have a responsibility as natural healers to operate out of a place of integrity and keep what's shared with us confidential. It's an honor to be trusted, so carry that title well.

You love crystals and experience their healing properties.

You probably walk into a crystal shop and just feel drawn to certain crystals and take them home. Natural healers pick up the vibrations of certain crystals based off what they're lacking. If you're struggling with anxiety, for example, you'll probably be drawn to celestite which calms the mind and body and releases anxiety. The reason healers love crystals so much is they help bring balance to us by both absorbing negative energy and giving off specific types of positive energy for us to take in.

You often act as a mediator and try to "fix" other's issues.

From a young age, natural healers learn to be peacekeepers because we feel everyone's emotions. We are the ones who want everyone to get along and we will become the go-between to try and create a solution so that things can feel better for us.

Yes, one of the hardest pills for a healer to swallow is that a lot of the things we do for others are actually also so we can feel better. Oof. That ones hits hard, huh? Sure, we do love helping others, but the main reason we interject ourselves into drama and conflict is so we can resolve it and no longer feel the turmoil.

This is why learning emotional regulation and creating boundaries is an essential part of being a healer. Mediating is fine as long as we create strong boundaries and allow other's to solve their own issues from time to time. Remember, if we always solve everyone's problems, we're stealing their lessons from them and then they can't grow.

You often feel exhausted after social events, especially around strangers. Again, we feel energy intensely. Being inundated with energy as we go about our daily lives takes a physical, mental, and emotional toll on us. I have so many clients come to me telling me that they're exhausted all the time and can't seem to get off the couch. After I do some energy healing, they feel immensely better. Why? Because I pulled all that excess energy they haven't figured out how to release out of their bodies! A healer needs to learn how to self-heal in order to be effective at what we do. This means we learn to regulate our emotions and our nervous system, we develop a shielding and protection practice, and we find ways to offload excess energy as needed. You're no good to anyone if you don't take care of yourself.

You've experienced some form of trauma that was life-changing.

Hate to break it you, loves, but the road of a natural healer is almost never an easy one. Why? Because in order for us to help other's heal, we unfortunately have to have an understanding of the pain they're experiencing. Doctors spend nearly a decade in medical school reading all about symptoms and disorders and diagnoses. But natural healers learn through experience. For grief healers, we experience loss. For emotional healers, we experience mental illnesses and mood disorders. For trauma coaches, we experience struggle and how to overcome it. In order to lead, you must have gone on the journey and overcome it in some capacity. Trauma, while horrible to experience, becomes a powerful tool once you've processed and integrated it. It allows us to connect to each other on a deep level during this tumultuous human experience and remember that deep down we're all souls going through variations of the same pain.

A healer is rarely ever a healer for any reason other than to help. We come from all walks of life with every experience imaginable, but what sets us apart is we choose to create purpose from our pain, wearing it like a badge of honor. As a healer who's built her business around her passion to help others heal, looking back at all the souls I've helped so far through my own experience with pain, I can confidently say that my role as a healer has made all of the pain I've experienced worth it. I'd rather use my struggles to change lives, than allow them to take me down. It's all perspective.