When I became certified in Healing Touch, I learned to diagnose a client’s energy field and perform very specific techniques to rebalance their energy physically, emotionally and mentally. Learning these techniques was like learning a language that enabled me to communicate with a whole healing community. We can convey to each other what we did in a session by listing the techniques we used and why we used them. This language is fundamental in building community and integrating energy work into our mainstream medical culture. As I have written hundreds of times in my blog: Community is a huge support for me.
My extensive Healing Touch training, as well as all the other healing workshops and classes I attended, gave me the foundation, confidence and the courage to start my healing practice. In my Reiki, Healing Touch and Breathwork sessions, the energy continues to teach me the evolving nature of itself.
There was one client I worked with over ten years ago that opened me up to a whole new level of awareness and understanding. I will never forget working with Jane, who was referred to me through her hospice nurse. She had stage four stomach cancer and was told by her nurse that I could help her with the edema in her legs. Jane wanted to to be able to keep going up and down the stairs in her condo as long as possible.
In the Healing Touch Program, we are taught a technique called Lymphatic Drain, in which I assist the client in clearing their lymphatic system and reduce swelling. It is a more complicated, yet very powerful technique that I had only used a few times before. I reviewed it the day before I was to see Jane, excited to be able to help her walk in her last days.
I arrived at Jane’s condo and carried my table upstairs. Jane was originally from Brooklyn, New York, loved art, was an atheist and was a woman who had all her ducks in a row. She was upbeat, busy organizing piles of papers all over her bed, and very full of life. She told me exactly where she wanted me to put my massage table and how the visit would progress. I liked her immediately.
Her husband, whom she had obviously loved dearly, had died about nine months earlier. Now that she was in hospice she was getting her finances in order so the art charities that meant so much to her would receive her money. Jane was very excited about her donations. Once I was set up, she left her paperwork and got on my table.
I had set my intention to help Jane physically with the swelling in her legs. As soon as I put my hands on her body, I swear to God all hell broke loose in the room. It was the craziest thing I had ever witnessed up to that point. I felt like I was on a roller coaster – the place was rocking and rolling. The whirling and spinning lasted the whole session. It was all I could do to stay upright and hold the space. The Lymphatic Drain did not happen.
When the session finished and the party was over, Jane was still in a trance state. I stood back and waited for her to open her eyes. I had no idea what I was going to say to her.
Lucky for me she did all the talking. She told me how her husband had come to visit her during the healing; she was so happy and excited to connect with him again. I can’t remember how this impacted her view on life after death, but it was apparent she was very pleased with the session.
I still felt strangely guilty about not focusing on the edema and not doing the Lymphatic Drain technique. I did not feel like a well trained and responsible healer, and I went over the healing in my head for a long time afterward but concluded there was nothing else I could have done. I had not been in charge of this session; I was just along for the ride.
I saw Jane two weeks later. In between my visits she had a massage. After both the massage and the healing, she could walk up and down her stairs by herself for the next three or four days, just as she wanted. I could drop the guilt.
I didn’t give Jane a lymphatic drain during the next treatment either, but that didn’t seem to matter. The swelling subsided again after our session, just like it did after her massage the following week. The room did break out in energetic fireworks as soon as I touched her body for a Chakra Connection and she and her late husband had another visit.
One week, as we were talking before she got on the table, she asked rather sharply:
“Why does my husband only come to visit me when you are here?”
I was a little taken back; My mouth blurted out “Because this is the only time you aren’t busy.”
She appeared satisfied with the answer, and we began the session.
The last week I was there, the wounds in her abdomen were getting pretty advanced. You could smell them. She was tired and not as energetic as before, but still in good spirits. We had a peaceful, physically grounding healing session: no fireworks, no visitors, no roller coaster.
She peacefully died the following week.
This was one of the first sessions in which I learned just how not in control I am as an energetic practitioner, and I had to trust that whatever happens in the healing space is perfect. It took many lessons, yet I did achieve this trust. I believe my greatest strength as a healer is my complete trust in the energy, the present moment, and the healing space.