“There is no greater expert on your healing than you.”
So when did healing become a product?
I’ve been reflecting lately on the amount of gatekeeping that happens in the world of healing.
Take tapping, for example — a simple, natural tool. No one owns it. No one invented the act of tapping on their body or calming themselves with rhythm. It’s free. It’s intuitive. It belongs to everyone.
And yet, I see fear-based messaging creeping in — warnings that it’s “unsafe” to use without certain certificates or affiliations. That it’s somehow dangerous to support people unless you’re signed up to the right organisation. That survivors of trauma need protecting from tools they themselves choose to use.
As a survivor of complex trauma — including a life-threatening domestic violence attack — I can tell you this:
The hurt is already in us.
What heals is compassion.
What helps is presence.
What’s harmful? Being tiptoed around. Being silenced. Being told that our lived experience isn’t valid unless it’s been “approved.”
That’s not trauma-informed.
That’s control. That’s ego-driven elitism.
Being trauma-informed isn’t just about what you say — it’s how you show up. It’s about recognising when you are dysregulated, and not passing that onto others. Trying to control people, or deciding what’s right for them without consent, is a sign of dysregulation — not professionalism.
A trauma-informed approach is grounded in safety, choice, and collaboration. Not fear. Not superiority. Not control.
When I collaborate with others, it has to be for the right reasons. I’m not interested in labels, status, or hierarchy — I care about ideas, and the purpose behind them. I support and uplift people who, like I once did, haven’t felt heard, haven’t felt worthy, haven’t been valued. Alignment matters. Integrity runs through us like a thread. Is it heart-led? Is it purposeful, fair, kind? Does it help people? If so — let’s do it for those reasons. That’s why our organisation exists. And for those who look down on us, or who don’t speak well of us in rooms we’re not in because who we are or are not affiliated with — that’s their journey to understand, not ours.
I’ve had organisations reject my work — including my book When I’m Gone, which charts my survival, collapse, and healing — simply because it wasn’t “approved” by the right authority. As if surviving something isn’t enough. As if I have to pay someone who wasn’t there, who knows nothing about me, for it to be of value.
We need to stop pretending people’s wellbeing depends on subscriptions and affiliations.
We need to stop treating healing like a product.
We need to stop assuming people can’t be trusted to know what’s right for themselves.
Because here’s the truth:
All humans are made up of energy.
So healing energy — like breath, like love, like water — belongs to everyone and no one.
Let’s start acting like it.
And just to be clear — this doesn’t mean I believe all support should be free. Healing itself is innate, but the space-holding, the time, the guidance, the listening — that’s a sacred offering. I charge for my time as a counsellor and consultant when appropriate, because like many others, I need to sustain the work I do. But I will never gatekeep healing tools or lived experience. I will always believe that people are the experts of their own journey.
“We don’t heal in sanitised silence. We heal in truth, in presence, in connection.”
So, When Did Healing Become a Product?
It’s a question that sits heavy with me lately. When did compassion and care become things we had to buy? When did healing become a branded product—certified, monetised, and locked behind paywalls?
The truth is, this shift has been happening for over a century. In the UK, healthcare was once offered freely through voluntary hospitals, funded by charitable donations and delivered by doctors who gave their time without charge. In 1921, hospitals in cities like Bristol began charging patients for beds and treatment—a direct response to financial pressures, not a measure of value. Then in 1948, the NHS was born, offering hope: health care, free at the point of need. But within just a few years, even that model began to crack under financial strain, reintroducing prescription charges and fees for certain services.
So the idea of healing as a transaction isn’t new. But that doesn’t make it right.
Especially when it comes to lived experience and emotional support. Healing from trauma is not a product. Energy belongs to all of us. Tools like tapping, breathing, grounding—they are part of our birthright as human beings. Kindness, presence, empathy—none of these require a subscription.
All this disapproving, measuring, and gatekeeping only reinforces the very core wounds many of us carry—that we’re not good enough. But here’s the truth: you are good enough, exactly as you are.
When someone tells you your healing doesn’t count unless it’s approved or accredited by them, what they’re really saying is: your lived experience isn’t enough. As if surviving trauma wasn’t hard enough, now we must also purchase permission to speak about it?
No.