Feeling Heavy after Healing Others

As we gain more practice as a Reiki healer, we will come across difficult cases or people who are very ill. Energetically it can take a lot from us if we are not careful, as this case study shows. Always check-in with what your own expectations are, what you want for them is what you will give.

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?

People who are very ill do carry a heavy energy around them, there is little you can do about that and when you are with a person and open as a channel, it is unavoidable that you will be sitting in this "soup" for the time you are with them. It is common to feel this during the session and it can be quite intense, including feeling pain yourself, or dizzy, or even nauseous. This can be for certain hand positions only, or it can be throughout the session. As you open yourself to be a channel for Reiki, the intensity of the Reiki flowing through you will vary as you move around your client's body. This is totally normal and to be expected.

The concern with the experience above is the negativity did not disperse after the session. In fact the session was calm and meditative. So what may have been going on here? When we carry negativity away with us, it is usually a signal that our energy was not being a neutral channel, and that we had hopes or desires for the session. These can be very subtle, thoughts like "I hope this helps" or "I hope she feels better". These sound so innocent and normal, of course we hope someone who is very ill feels better. But unfortunately when we go into a Reiki session with this subtle energy agenda, then we unconsciously start to take that person's negative energy in an unconscious attempt to make good on what we want - for them to be helped and feel better.

If it sounds heartless or difficult to go into a session with no agenda, to simply trust the Reiki will go to the person, and the person will do whatever they want with it, then you may have hit upon a secret or hidden agenda of wanting to help. As Reiki practitioners we do not help, we simply channel. This is a big distinction and one that I would say 9/10 explains all the ails and heaviness experienced by healers over time. The idea you want to help becomes the problem, and it is not necessary. Remember Reiki is Universal life force, it is bigger than your little personal energy, and it will do the helping, not you.

A good mantra before the start of every session is to say to yourself "Thank you Reiki for helping this person, thank you to the person for being here to receive the Reiki energy to help themselves, thank me for being here as a clear channel" or something that helps you to clarify that you are simply here to open a space, and whatever happens in the space is really none of your business.