Dear Elaine,
I would like to seek your advice on a recent issue and hope you will be able to shed some light on this.
I was asked to begin Reiki treatments for a person with terminal stage cancer. The Reiki treatments did her well – session after session she slept better, more colour came back and she started getting a bit more spring in her step – and this was from a third person who noticed this.
I took the necessary precautions for myself (SHK on belly, CKR on feet, clearing room energy), and during treatment things were calm and meditative and I focused on being the channel. However I realised that after a few sessions I started to feel this heavy, vortex of negative energy after I left the session and that was somehow not discharged even with showering or smudging.
Due to various reasons, the sessions were stopped after a while, and it took a couple of weeks before I managed to clear off and recover.
My question is – is there something else or additional precautions I could have taken to protect myself while supporting this client in the Reiki treatment? I understand this is not an easy treatment, I even brought essential oils with me – I’m just wondering if something similar comes along again, what needs to be done differently?
Great you are getting some healing practice in! The key thing to remember when healing others is that every client is actually for your learning. We often think we are out ‘doing good’ for others, but really all is for us, its all for our own learning.
Most often in the beginning the lessons are to do with letting go of expectations, of how we feel the session ‘should be going’ and that includes the uncomfortable feelings – especially the uncomfortable feelings actually! We have an image of how peaceful and lovely everything will be, and how unaffected we will be – yet when you are dealing with someone with a life threatening illness, the fact is they carry a lot of heavy energy with them.
The lesson is can you be with the heaviness and be totally accepting that it is around? does it matter? Energy only persists when we feed it – that goes for what feels good, as well as what feels bad, essentially energy does not judge, only we do that. It seems perfectly logical and normal that when you do healing for someone in a critical condition that you are going to feel it. The key to continuing as a healer is whether or not you can fully let it in, be with the heaviness and embrace it – let it go through you completely, and then fully release it. This is not the same as resisting it or trying to protect yourself. If you try to do this you are rejecting that part of you that resonates with the fear/heaviness or whatever it is – and the more you reject the energy, the more you feed it 😉
Its a funny thing, in order to release something, you have to acknowledge it completely, surrender to it completely. does that make sense? The saying ‘what you resist, persists’ is an old truth, deeply profound – and accurate! This is what I mean when I talk about becoming a clear channel – everything is allowed in, and everything is acknowledged. Your ability to hold the space, even when the other is in deep despair or terror, is what makes you a clear channel, and a great healer.
But it takes time to build this kind of resilience, and in the meantime you will get these lovely clients to teach you how to do it. Next time will be easier 😉
