As a Reiki and Healing Touch Practitioner, my thoughts are a tangible part of the fluid, living intelligence that is the healing space.
Much of the time there are no thoughts during a session, yet when they appear I have learned that they can give me valuable insights into the nature of my client’s healing process.
I remember when I first realized this. Many years ago I began a healing with a new client, and as soon as I touched her leg I instantly started having thoughts about my own childhood. I started thinking about how much I had longed for a dog when I lived in a place that did not allow pets.
I was very judgemental about thoughts that came up in my sessions, especially when I first began my healing practice. Why was I thinking about myself and my childhood? Why was I not focusing on the healing session, the client, and experiencing the healing compassion of sacred space?
When the session was over, the client shared with me how much she had been longing for a relationship that had just ended. She had finally realized in the treatment that even though her heart was broken when her boyfriend broke up with her, he was not the partner she really needed in her life. She had released the longing she had been carrying for months. She told me how clear, grounded and grateful she now felt. A great weight had been lifted.
When she said the word longing, I realized that was the exact energy I had noticed when I had thoughts about not having a dog. My thoughts were obviously a part of this mysterious healing process. I was amazed.
Again I understood that if I really wanted to support people with Reiki and Healing Touch, it was time to let go of my judgments and expectations of what should happen during a healing session. I needed to just pay attention to what was actually occurring.
I would like to point out here that even though “I” was thinking personal thoughts, there was no emotional attachment to the thoughts. Even though the energy of longing was appearing in the space, I was not feeling longing. It’s difficult to describe. Kind of like a kinesthetic awareness of a cloud floating by in the sky, except I am both the cloud, and the sky, and the observer all at once.
Sometimes when I begin a session my brain starts firing off like the 4th of July. There is so much stimulating mental energy and monkey mind in the healing space that sometimes I even see little sparks around my eyes. When this happens, I know whoever I am working with is rebalancing some intense mental energy and I feel a direct connection to it. This connection makes it easier for me to hold, channel and just be present in the healing for as long as is necessary.
There have been so many sessions in which my thoughts have been greatly beneficial to the healing. This could be a very long post if I tried to write about them all. Once I let the belief go that I should not have thoughts, everything became so much easier and I could hold a much more powerful healing space for my clients.
Jeri Lawson has a full-time healing practice in Oakland, California. She is available for Healing Touch, Reiki, and Clarity Breathwork Monday through Friday. 510-601-9632