(Originally posted Aug 5, 2018)
As an energy practitioner, I am often asked why I do this work, and why a session would be beneficial for someone. There are a myriad reasons why a person may seek a session and there are just as many amazing results to experience. Here is my own story about the effect energy healing has had on my life.
As someone who has experienced the challenges of anxiety and depression at times, energy sessions have helped me to feel calm and refreshed, and helped me reframe my view of the world. I was always seeking something, not sure what it was, but was always looking outside of myself for it. On the outside I likely appeared happy, but I never felt fully accepted and my sense of self worth hung completely in the balance – good or bad depending on what I thought other people thought of me.
I recall many years ago finding a book about happiness on the shelf in my parents’ home, and was keen to read it and borrow it. This was probably my first self-help book, and I was hopeful that this book would have the answer to feeling happy – which I wasn’t. It actually didn’t have all the answers (i.e. I didn’t suddenly and remarkably feel happy after reading it), but it gave me some ideas and I just felt better reading it. Actually, I don’t remember much about the book; I just thought it was worth highlighting how desperate I was to find a way to be happy. I won’t dwell on this older version of me and give it any more energy other than to simply have described it to provide a baseline of where I was at, years ago.
Around the same time I met several energy practitioners. I knew nothing about energy work at the time, nothing about reiki; in fact, didn’t even know that reiki was a form of energy healing – or that there were other kinds, but I was open to it and curious if this form of healing would help me feel happier and less anxious. What I found was that I felt so incredibly relaxed by the end of a session – a sort of relaxation that I had never felt before. It was as though I had been asleep, yet was aware of where I was and what was happening during the whole session. My mind was not analyzing, I was just being – there on the massage table, under the blanket, just so relaxed I could hardly feel where my fingers were, just down at my sides.
For me it’s more than being relaxed, it’s more than feeling peaceful. It’s about a heart connection. How I felt (and still feel) after each session was as though I’d reset myself. Over these years, thanks to energy work along with courses on related modalities, many books, time spent in meditation, and so on – I have been able to establish a greater connection with my heart, my inner voice, my intuition. Actually it might be more accurate to say establish a connection, instead of a greater connection, because in fact, I don’t think I had ever differentiated between head and heart previously; but I’m now able to distinguish between the chatter and analysis in my head – that voice guiding me with fear, talking me out of things that I’m passionate about, or feel inclined to do, thinking of all the “what ifs” – while my heart guides me to decisions from of a calm loving place of openness and gratitude. I can feel the difference now, and it’s lovely.
I have visited counsellors many time over the years. Not allowing the stigma that some feel about going to counselling to impact me, I have always looked at it very pragmatically: who wouldn’t want a neutral person to talk to – someone paid to listen to your problems, and sometimes offer feedback and suggestions? I’ve had some great experiences with counsellors, some not so great. Talking things through with a therapist has its place. But sometimes there is just no more you can talk about an issue that’s getting you down, or causing you anxiety or to feel scattered and unfocused – yet the feeling is still there. Maybe you don’t even know what’s causing you to feel the way you do, so you wonder: how can I talk about it when I don’t even know what I need to talk about? At least that was the case for me. Without trying to analyze and figure out any solution consciously in any session (nor even knowing the source issue in most cases), I would feel rejuvenated and clear afterward. I would leave with the ability to reframe my view of the issue (whatever it may have been, if I knew what it was), and/or just a different brighter outlook on the day. This clarity didn’t come from what the practitioner said (though sometimes beautiful a-ha moments do arise in conversation with the practitioner before or after a session) but rather from simply allowing myself to be present, and allowing the energy to flow.
Often images, ideas and messages and come through for me during a session, and I have almost dream-like experiences – while still being very much aware and in the space, not asleep, during the session. Messages are often relayed through practitioners as well, having come intuitively from their spirit guides, or mine; many of these messages have resonated for me as the recipient. These types of experiences I personally find so exciting and intriguing. For me, it’s a window into the spiritual world, a greater connection with the universe and a knowing that there is so much more to life – more to this world, to our existence – than what we can see in front of us, in 3-dimensions. At least this is what I have come to know, based on my experience.
While my primary reason for seeking out energy work, and the key benefit I have found, has been for mental wellness reasons, this piece would be incomplete without mentioning the physical healing I have experienced. Whenever I have a stomach ache, my hands go to my stomach and the reiki energy flows, and I feel relief within minutes. I have had knee pain dissipate after just one energy session, and my stiff neck has felt relief after a session. My partner experiences migraines and finds energy work on his head to be soothing. A reminder that in an energy session the practitioner is not healing you, per se. The term energy healer is somewhat of a misnomer and can be misleading; this is why I prefer practitioner. During the session the energy is intuitively guided by the practitioner through the body and it influences the cells, your whole body itself, to heal, clearing any blockages in the energy centres in your body (chakras) to allow energy to flow freely through you. It is believed that disease can be caused and/or exacerbated by energy blockages or stagnant energy in the body.
All of the experiences above have propelled me forward, continuing to seek energy sessions as a client, and also learning the practice to become a practitioner to help others. As I think back to that unhappy person I was years ago, I note that not only energy work but books, experiences, people, courses, and mentors along the way have helped nudge me in the right direction of how to find my own happiness within. I no longer look to the mall for retail therapy to distract me from an issue that’s bothering me. More often I look within, and to energy based healing practices which I have found more effective, and much more fun.