Heallist Podcast
A space to explore the many paths of holistic healing. Hosted by Heallist founder Yuli Ziv, each episode dives into powerful conversations with practitioners, teachers, and thought leaders across a wide range of healing modalities — from energy work and herbalism to trauma-informed care and quantum healing. Whether you’re a healer, a seeker, or simply curious about alternative approaches to wellness, tune in every other Wednesday to learn, expand, and reconnect with what it means to truly heal.
Heallist Podcast
The art of selecting the right holistic practitioner
Choosing a holistic practitioner isn’t like picking a doctor from a list—it’s a deeply personal process rooted in intuition, energy, and trust. In this solo episode, Yuli unpacks the subtle art of finding the right healer for your unique journey.
She explores why word-of-mouth referrals often lead to the most powerful healing relationships, and why it’s important to listen not just to credentials—but to resonance. You'll learn how to approach the search with curiosity, patience, and openness to synchronicity, and why true healing often begins with the right connection.
Whether you’re just beginning your search or re-evaluating your path, this episode will help you trust your inner compass as you navigate the world of holistic care.
Visit Heallist.com - your portal to holistic healing, connecting seekers and thousands of practitioners across the globe.
Follow @heal_list on Instagram.
Welcome to the Healist Podcast, where we unpack the many layers of holistic health. I'm Yuli, founder of Healist, your portal to holistic healers worldwide. Now let's go deep. Hello, dear friends, and welcome to another insightful episode of the Healist Podcast. Really excited to share with you today a topic that is dear to my heart, and it's the topic of finding and choosing the right holistic practitioner for you, for your healing journey. It's something that is really coming up a lot in my work at Healist. We recently opened up our platform to clients who are seeking holistic healing help, as well as practitioners that we've been serving so far with our software tools and practice management tools, so we're learning a lot of great lessons about how people are finding practitioners, how they choosing somebody who's right to guide them on their very important path of holistic healing and their journey of transformation.
Yuli:The first thing that I want to say, that sometimes people like to forget or maybe ignore, is that most people are finding their guides, their healers, their practitioners, their teachers, through referral and word of mouth, and this is just the reality of this practice. A lot of it is driven by the transformational experiences that you, my dear healers, provide to your clients, and what happens is. Those experiences create stories, and this is something that really every practitioner should strive for create those stories of transformation. Whether you record them, hopefully, for your testimonials and reviews, or not, those stories travel. They travel among friends, among circles of families and in all kinds of magical ways, and this is how most people really come to holistic healing. They see a friend, and often it's not something that even people volunteer, right. But how many times it happens to you that you meet a friend that you haven't seen, maybe in a couple of years, and you see them completely as a different person, right? And you start asking questions what caused that transformation? How have they done it? And that's how you uncover some of the work maybe they've done healing their traumas, working through their limiting beliefs or different modalities with different guides and practitioners whether it's, you know, working through with a breath work or energy healer or whatever. Whoever guide them on that know working through with a breath work or energy healer or whatever whoever guide them on that path, or maybe even a personal coach. Maybe it's somebody who looks just like younger and more vital, and you want to know what their secrets are. And then that's how you discover they working maybe with a herbalist or or a Chinese medicine practitioner, whoever that is, and and those are really the best ways to find and to lead to those practitioners.
Yuli:And in other ways, you know, when we have family or friends who are going through health challenges, of course this is the path that usually, or unfortunately, most people find holistic healing through. When they come to that point when they really really there's no other help or there's no other solutions, and they end up finding holistic practices, right? So in those cases, usually their immediate family and their friends they're involved in their journey and they're really close, and then that's how they hear those stories of transformation. If a practitioner let's say, again, a functional medicine doctor or somebody who is a more integrative practitioner, or again, even energy healing, whatever that is, whatever modality or practitioner brings them through that complete health and well-being, usually those stories are very powerful, right, when you see a close to family member or friend being completely cured of their condition and back to their vitality and health, that's usually extremely powerful. This is how, again, the word travels and usually people find and get referred. So this is something that really should be an ultimate goal for any practitioner, right? But also if you're somebody who is starting your healing journey or curious to explore any of those modalities and work with practitioners and kind of lost right in the space because there's so much Asking a friend or a family member about what their experience is like with wellness, holistic healing.
Yuli:It's something that often people don't volunteer. This is something, again, you might have to prompt or ask more specific questions and it might be too personal for people to share. I think some people, if they feel close enough, they will volunteer this information. But a lot of people they will see a holistic practitioner or a wellness coach or learn from different teachers, but they don't necessarily volunteer that information. So the best way to go about it is ask your immediate circle, your family, friends, your colleagues have they had any experience in holistic healing? Right?
Yuli:Or if you're going through a particular condition or something that you're trying to resolve let's say you're dealing with trauma or PTSD and you're looking for holistic ways to address that is, connecting with those communities that are on a similar path, right People. And hopefully, if you're dealing with something that you are part of, a community that supports you and helps you but asking those peers what have they done on their healing journey? What have they explored, what practices they explored and what practices have they explored and what teachers led them to those practices? Because often you know, when it comes to meditation or breath work or any of those modalities, usually you discover them through a guide or a practitioner who introduced them to you, taught you some of the basic techniques and then you continue to practice on your own. The same with, you know, maybe, holistic healers, maybe some of them using, let's say, if it's a PTSD, maybe they worked with a hypnotherapist or somebody who guided them through that healing process of trauma. So, again, there's so many different modalities that help with different conditions and things from physical to mental to spiritual conditions that some of us have as well. So it's really important to ask the right questions and I think some of you might be surprised by, when you ask those questions, what kind of information people volunteer, and you will be probably more surprised that how many people have used the help of Holistic Healer and they probably don't talk about it. So I think that would be the best place to start right, Start with your circle and, especially if you have people going through similar challenges that you are hoping to address, this would be a really amazing place to start, because the personal recommendation is always really a wonderful way to find somebody.
Yuli:And again, in Holistic Healing it's all about trust, right? This is really part of the game. When you find somebody who you feel that you can trust, this is where the healing begins. We can't heal people without that trust component, because trust creates also belief. If you trust a practitioner, you trust your teacher, your guide. It creates a belief in you that through your work together you will achieve that healing that you desire. And they're here really to guide you through our process and show you the path to healing, which ultimately, it's you and your body that create the healing. But again, that trust and belief is really important. So when you get recommended by a friend or a family member, it automatically creates that trust that you're looking for and that solves the step number one in that process.
Yuli:But another important thing to remember is, when it comes to holistic healing, I see some people approach it as a doctor search, almost right. So they're looking for specific conditions that the person has worked with and maybe a specialty, and all those things are important. And don't get me wrong, certificates can tell you a lot about a person's specialty and their experience and what again you're looking to be helped with. But more important than anything in this particular area is really to trust your intuition and to find somebody that you truly resonate with, and I think this is a mistake we often do in a traditional healthcare right. We just find a doctor with all the certificates. We hear that they're the best in their field. Maybe they live near you and they're convenient, their hours are convenient. You automatically trust them because they have that medical degree and they have that particular specialty looking for and go kind of blindly for the treatment and you don't take the time to do your kind of due diligence right. You don't get to the doctor office and then decide, okay, do I resonate with this person, Do we share the same values or not? You're kind of in for the journey.
Yuli:I know some people explore and get second opinions, especially with some of the larger, more serious conditions, but most of us just kind of blindly trust the doctor, unfortunately. So in case of holistic healing, I think it's really important to find somebody you trust but also take your time to do to get to know the person, the practitioner, because more often it will be a journey that you'll be taking together. It's not just going to be one session that's going to fix whatever you're going through. It's going to be a journey that you'll be taking together. It's not just going to be one session that's going to fix whatever you're going through. It's going to be a series of sessions, or maybe it's going to be a course or a package of services, or maybe it's going to be somebody who's going to really lead you through your next chapter of your life. And you know there's so many practitioners I've been working with for years now and they really support me on my life journey in many different ways. So take your time to really get to know who are you letting into your field right? Who is going to be helping you on this healing journey?
Yuli:Because that decision is really important, and I do encourage people not to trust blindly and use your intuition and just even a gut feeling. You know, if a person triggers you, for example, or they push your buttons or they create a sense of, maybe, discomfort sit with that and understand. Is it something that is just caused by your eternal resistance, or is it maybe something legit that you need to explore? Maybe this person is not right for you for this journey. Maybe their approach is a little too aggressive for where you are right now in your life and maybe it's too transformational or maybe it's too gentle. Maybe you need somebody who is really going to kind of show you the way and get you there quickly. So it could be a million reasons and this is why I think it's really important when you are reasons, and this is why I think it's really important when you are planning to work with somebody in more of a long-term capacity. I'm not talking about just a massage session, let's say, that you take for your pleasure or a specific pain, but if it's somebody that you really plan to work with in the long term and make part of your healing team, take the time to get to know their values, their energy.
Yuli:So many practitioners offer that free discovery call or a quick discovery session. Maybe they're offering a teaching, a group teaching, that you can attend easily and explore. Maybe they have some prerecorded materials online that you can find and really connect with them just watching them on camera, on video. It's so telling right when we, when we see a person on on video just speaking on the subject of their expertise, you can learn so much about what they represent, what their style of um are they the right person for you? Because that's really the most important question here. They can be the biggest experts in their field, but again, if their approach is not right for you right now, where you are in your condition, it might not be the best decision. So I highly recommend do your own due diligence and I encourage also our amazing practitioners who we work with to step up and share as much as possible as they're comfortable online, especially share their content.
Yuli:Get more comfortable on camera, because I think it's really important for clients, and it especially becomes important when we're talking about remote and virtual sessions right when we book practitioners without meeting them in person first and so many modalities now are practiced virtually. So how can we help people make that decision? How can we make them feel comfortable? The best way to do it is to produce content, whether it's on Instagram or YouTube. Most practitioners have those channels these days and really, again, it's a message for two sides for practitioners to get more comfortable in those channels and really see it as a way for their clients to get to know them better, and then for clients to also explore and get to know the practitioners beforehand to really get you more comfortable. So when you come to that healing session, when you finally book it, you already have that trust right, that initial foundational trust that is so important. But you also believe that they're the right for you and you kind of signed a silent contract of allowing them into your field and allowing for healing to happen through this partnership together. So those are my main tips for looking and searching for practitioner.
Yuli:And, of course, another big question is how do you know who's right for what condition, what modality? As you know, in holistic healing it's not directly correlated. We don't have specialties like you have in traditional medicine, that there's the food doctor, the eye doctor, so it's very easy to kind of connect the dots right. In most cases, when you have a specific pain, you know where to go based on that specialty. However, in the beautiful world of holistic healing, this is what happens Sometimes. We think we have an eye problem, right, but there's no such thing as a holistic eye doctor, right, there's many beautiful modalities that might work on your nervous system, right, Because you might find out that that eye issue you're having is actually caused by stress that you've experienced over the past few months, and then again, instead of just treating the symptom, like traditional healthcare would. The proper holistic healing approach would look at the root cause and of the problem that you experience and treat that so you might end up working with a meditation teacher or a neurofeedback or, again, hypnotherapist. There's just so many beautiful modalities that will work with you and straighten that nervous system that eventually are going to fix that eye issue that you're having. But again, when it comes to holistic healing, we can't approach it from a symptom perspective. We can't approach it from the specialty and organ-based search. So you have to be really attuned to your body and this is what great practitioners will help you with and they're often in their intake questionnaire or in their initial session with you. They will ask all those questions about your lifestyle because they're extremely important.
Yuli:How many times it happened that you come with one condition but it completely related to something else that you've been going through? It happened to me with some of my traumas and stress, for example, where suddenly I got a frozen shoulder and I thought it was just like a physical result of maybe too intense workout that I've done, or bad posture or whatever it is. And then, as I work with incredible practitioners that know to connect mind, body and spirit. I've uncovered that there is some teenage trauma that was sitting in my upper back for many, many years and once I worked on resolving some of those traumas and issues, all of a sudden, you know, the frozen shoulder started to disappear and feel better and it actually never came back. It's something that used to come back for me once in a while, but once I really treated the root of the problem, which was completely emotional and completely trauma related, the frozen shoulders disappeared.
Yuli:So that's the beauty of holistic healing and again, you want to work with practitioners that understand that, that understand that full mind, body, spirit connection and they can help you uncover what is the exactly the cause of what you're going through. So I think, asking those questions right when you're talking to practitioner or reviewing their practice or trying to decide if they're the right for you, also asking those questions right and and making sure that they're aligned, that they know that you're open to go there, but also that they're able to take you to those deeper places to explore maybe some past experiences that influence you, maybe your lifestyle right now that is causing some of these pains or conditions. So again, it's really, I see this process of searching for the right healer really a process of self-discovery. You're going to discover so many things on the way and so many things about yourself by just exploring different practitioners, and each of them is going to uncover different sides of you, different sides of your personality, your past, your life journey, that you probably haven't even thought about it. And this is the beauty of also working with many practitioners and different in different modalities that you can uncover those things. But it's really important again to find people that can support you on the journey. You are today right, and they're not going to push you too much. They're not going to trigger you too much. They're not going to trigger you, but yet they're going to provide that transformation that you're looking for. And they also going to do it from the entire mind, body, spirit, perspective. They're going to work on all those deeper layers and not on just the symptoms that you're seeing today. So that's really crucial and holistic healing and again, it can be working with a coach. There's incredible coaches that are able to solve by just coaching you and re-examining and reflecting on your life. They might be able to heal you from different conditions, and the same for so many other incredible modalities I think you have to come to it open-minded and again, once you find that person who truly resonates with you and you have that trust, let the healing happen.
Yuli:This is another very important part is you know at some point you have to surrender to the process. It's not something you can push. We don't do quick fixes. There is no magic pill when it comes to holistic healing. When you step on this journey, on this path, you have to be open to the experience and let it unfold whatever way it wants to unfold, and it can take years, it can be much quicker, it can take multiple modalities, it can take exploration with different practitioners just to understand what works for you and what doesn't For me. This experience of working with so many practitioners today I can just say, by looking at a person I can say, yes, this person is for me, I want to work with them, I have things that I want to learn from them. They know something about me that they can help me uncover and they're very knowledgeable in their field, Right so? But it takes, it takes practice to really seeing this, to start seeing those people and to start kind of differentiating, Right, Because of course, there's people also in a space that you know that is.
Yuli:It is an unregulated space, Right? So there's people that got a weekend certificate and they opened their practice, and you know that's beautiful too. That's one of the beautiful qualities of this space that it's so accessible on both ends. Right To become a holistic practitioner or a guide or, you know, a breathwork or a coach it's pretty relatively easy these days or a Reiki master All those courses are accessible online. Some of them you can do even over the weekend, right?
Yuli:But we, as, as receivers of the healing gifts, we need to be able to do our own due diligence a little bit. In this unregulated but beautiful space of holistic healing, we need to be able to do our own due diligence. That, again, is not often driven by traditional metrics like just degrees and certification. We have to use our own intuition and sometimes experience. Sometimes, you know, I give a shot to a practitioner just to see what they bring, and you know if they. Sometimes they deliver, sometimes they don't, and I just move on, and that's okay as well, right? Not everyone's going to resonate with you, Not everyone's going to have that key to your body or mind and spirit, and that's okay as well.
Yuli:You have to realize that this is all part of the journey. We're not here to do again quick fixes. We're here to uncover parts about ourselves that are stopping us from fulfilling our full potential, from living life to the fullest, from having the well-being and vitality. So we have to be open to experience and work with different people who step on our path, whether they're referred to us by friends and family or somebody we find online pretty randomly or we see on Instagram. We see their reels and we feel really, you know, attached or attracted to what they're delivering. Whatever way those people come to our lives, there's probably a reason right. There's probably some synchronicity that brought us together. So if you're to kind of surrendering to that path right, and surrendering to that healing and opening the door for that person to come to your life and really come with positive intentions for to receive that healing, I think that's where the magic can can really happen.
Yuli:And when, when that alignment happens, when you find the right person that you're completely in alignment with, that they're right here for you at the right time in your life for all the right reasons, and they hold some codes that, again, it's not theirs, they're universal, but they help you see them and cover them. This is where magic happens. This is what we call healing, and sometimes it could be instantaneous healing, because they're able to help you bring your body to full coherence and suddenly healing happens right. Or it could be again that maybe it's somebody who's meant to be in your life for a long period of time and guide you through that journey and be that support system that you need right now and again. That's a beautiful thing as well. To find those people can they can support you.
Yuli:I think a lot of time we're looking for those things in our friends and family or our spouses things in our friends and family or our spouses but I think some really powerful and gifted healers are able to be those support systems for us that we need in our lives and we can't expect to offend from our immediate family to be so.
Yuli:I think those are like really beautiful relationships that you have potential to create. So just remember that when you search for your healer or practitioner, whether you're going through a personal challenge or you're just ready to kind of step up to your next chapter of your life and embrace life to the fullest just know that those magical moments exist, that there's beautiful guides out there that are able to show you the light, show you some of those codes that can take you to true transformation, and it can happen very quickly and it can be extremely powerful. So I wish you really an incredible journey and your holistic healing, whatever you're going through, and I hope this session was inspiring for you to again look for the right guides and really embrace that process of search as well and look at it as part of the adventure and know that there's this opportunity to uncover new guides that can really open a lot of doors for you into the magical universe we live in. Thank you,
