A Healer’s Experience Of A Healing Session

A client recently asked me “What do you experience during a healing session?”

That short question inspired a very long answer.

Before I begin, it might be helpful to first describe what I do as a healer, and how the energy is showing up at this time in my practice.

My job as a healer is to hold the healing space my client needs to self-heal. All healing is self-healing.

Healing and energy are also always morphing and evolving. At this time I find myself doing long, slow Chakra Connections in my sessions as taught in the Healing Touch Program. A Chakra Connection is a full-body technique that starts at the feet and ends above the head. A Chakra Connection facilitates connecting, opening, and balancing of the energy system with a series of hand placements over the major energy centers.

I am also primarily kinesthetic in my perception of energy. I feel color, energy moving and blocks in the human aura with my hands. Sometimes I also see light, as well as feel and hear vibrations, tones, and other sounds.

Every session is incredibly different; no two sessions have ever been alike. Clients I see every week have a different experience each time. Even though I have had a healing practice for over twenty years, each session is still extraordinarily interesting. Having a healing practice is never, ever boring.

When I first started healing work, I often felt energies move through me and through the room. Like a stream of grounding honey/yellow energy for one client, or a wave of cooling, clear blue hues for another person. I still perceive energy like that once in a while, but for the last eight years, there is usually a specific frequency or space that manifests for each client and fills the whole room. In this space, everything that my client needs just unfolds for them.

I am generally mentally clear and noting what I am experiencing during the treatment, as well as tracking how my client is doing. Yet, there are healing states that are so encompassing that I can’t find where “I” end and “they” begin, so I find out what they experienced afterward by asking them.

There have been times when it feels like the whole room is suddenly deep under water and my arms can only move slowly and heavily from one position to another. In this state, the energy feels like waves flowing through me and the client in this weighted, watery space; like we were deep under the ocean where everything is water and everything is connected. Even my thoughts are slow, and it feels like they take a long time to form.

Some sessions are so ethereal that I feel like I am healing a cloud, not another human body, and I can feel the bright translucent light as well as see it in the room. I do not have, or have not yet opened up to the ability to communicate with guides and angels, but I can feel other distinct healing presences in the room. These presences have always been extremely helpful. Many of my clients tell me after the healing who or what they saw, or how many sets of hands they felt.

Some sessions have a very sparkly light. In others, I am kinesthetically aware of a very low tone or vibration permeating everything. Sometimes I may suddenly feel intensely sleepy, that is an energetic frequency that may last only a few minutes in the session. When that happens I have to focus on my breath and stay balanced until it passes.

Sometimes the healing is mostly about the physical body, and I am experiencing the healing energy with my hands. I might sense the energy gently unwinding in circular patterns under my palms at each hand position. Sometimes the energy feels electric — like a pulse between my palms. Sometimes there is a magnetic pull throughout the sessions in one direction. Sometimes there is a sense of expansion – like the area between my hands is filling up like bread rising. Sometimes I feel my hands merge with the client’s body like there are no hands, and no body, just this space where my hands should be.

Sometimes I am very aware of my client’s cranial pulse, and that is the prominent guiding sensation for me during the session. Each individual healing can also move through several different energetic states in the same treatment.

Time is not linear in a healing session. I have to keep my eyes on the clock, which is right by the healing table, so I know how much time I have left in the session.  My subjective experience of time is not reliable at all.  I can’t tell you how many times I have looked at the clock after what feels like only ten minutes into the session and find thirty minutes have gone by. I still find this remarkable.

Time can also “jump.” I will just realize one moment that I wasn’t there. That maybe both the client and I were not there. I am still uncomfortable with suddenly not being in my healing session, even if only for a moment, but after a few years of this occurring I decided to just go with it. It appears when this kind of energy shift happens it is very, very beneficial for my client.

I could go on and on, but I think this gives you an idea of what I may be experiencing in a healing session. Now that I have written all this out, I find it looks a little strange on my computer screen. During a healing session, it always makes so much sense, and feels so perfect – like I knew it all beforehand, or am just remembering it. I always feel good and so grateful after the session. I can’t tell you what a joy it is to go to work every day.

If you are an energy healer and you don’t have any of the experiences I have just written about, it is not because you are not an effective healer. There are sessions when I feel nothing but stillness. Some of the most powerful and transformational healing sessions are those in which I felt nothing – no sensations or energetic movement – just presence. What I experience in a healing has nothing to do with how beneficial the treatment is for my client.

The bottom line is that my intention as a healer is to hold a space for my client to self-heal. This is very different from holding an intention to heal the client. The energy is so much smarter than I am, I completely trust that whatever needs to happen happens.

Jeri Lawson has a full-time healing practice in Oakland, California. She is available for Healing Touch, Reiki, Distance Healings and Clarity Breathwork sessions.
Monday through Friday, 10 am to 6 pm. 510-601-9632