What is a Light Worker?
What does it mean to be a Light Worker?
The elevator definition might be:
“A lightworker is a person who serves other people and the planet. People from all walks of life could be lightworkers, from nurses to life coaches. Lightworkers are rumored to transform others and change their way of thinking. If you're sensitive and eager to help others, you might even be a lightworker.”
We’ve all met them in one form or another. It’s the schoolteacher that helped us through a difficult time in the seventh grade, it’s the firefighter who assisted your family member when you needed help the most, it’s the camp director that brought the type of summer magic that causes you to return to camp each and every year.
What are lightworkers?
The term lightworker was first used by American spiritual mentor Michael Mirdad back in the 1980’s. He used it to describe those who grow into a higher level of consciousness and encourage love and light in others’ lives. There is now a growing interest in lightwork.
Why do we need to be careful of self-proclaimed
Light Workers?
I mean, I myself have seen the dark side of yoga instructors; teaching one philosophy and living another. Initially, this was a harsh reality, and made me very sad. At one time it even stopped me from teaching yoga for eight years. I decided to only keep up with my practice to see if it was worth the investment of time, energy, and money.
In the end it was, and I’m grateful that I have returned to teaching. Many yoga instructors are light workers, but they are not the only ones.
What determines a lightworker is an ethical authenticity.
So how do you know?
The truth is, you’ve probably been around them your entire life! They come in the form of real people. They may be your doctor, or the clerk in the grocery store, the neighbor that always watches your house when you’re away and collects your mail at your request. I suppose a lightworker is simply someone who helps you make negotiating life just a little bit easier.
But he asked me, “Are all children lightworkers?”
(I realize I’m taking a risk at answering this question)
This is coming from a schoolteacher who worked 34 years in a variety of systems, under a variety of hats, and who has worked with a variety of children.
I’ve worked with a four-year-old who initially required a classroom void of equipment and desks. The good news was, she didn’t remain that way. She simply needed to express herself in the way she knew how, and once she did, modification of behavior was able to take place. But what she taught me was that she had an incredible in-depth understanding of how she felt. Her description of her feelings exceeded the number of her calendar years. If I had her today, she may be described as a highly sensitive child but as I taught her in 1990, those identifying markers were not yet commonly used. All I had was what she could express. Our entire relationship consisted of me listening to her needs and she expressing them to me. Once we got through that we were on our way!
What she taught me in a semester’s time was more than I had learned in my five years of formal education prior to my work with her.
Did she ‘lightwork’ me or did I ‘lightwork’ her?
(perhaps there was an even exchange)
As Brene Brown discovered in her research into vulnerability and shame, when you ask people about belonging, they'll tell you their most excruciating experiences of being excluded. When you ask people about connection, the stories they tell are about disconnection.
This is how it is in Lightworker land. In fact, it's the first lesson in the mystery school curriculum: There is only light. Everything else, all that appears to be 'not light' is light hidden behind the shadow of remembered pain. Put simply: shadow (or darkness) is a symptom of hidden pain, defended hurt, blocked light.
Whoa! That’s saying a lot!
What I know is this: a lightworker’s job is to hold the space for light—no matter what.
It’s what every camp counselor did for me and what I try to do for my campers. It’s what my fourth grade teacher did for a whole entire class, and by the way, her name was Mrs. Loveday. It’s what our school bus driver did when I was in the eighth grade—we called him Leo although that was not his name but his astrological sign. And that was good enough for all of us.
You see, sometimes lightworkers are everyday people who may or may not have special skills, and who may or may not have psychic abilities or be empathic or be able to read tarot cards.
But sometimes they are.
…and sometimes they do.
So when the world gets difficult, and you need a bit of light and love sent your way, my advice to you is to be calm within your mind and in your body and send out a little light and a little love to the universe. The chances are, it will respond back. And ... the form that it takes may be a simple one. The one thing I know for sure is that your request will be heard.
I leave you with one of my favorite holiday movies.
