A Healing Crisis

I was just clearing out old clients from my Reiki client notebook – time to make room for the new.

Stopping to read through my documentation notes and remembering each of them in a special way as I perused their paperwork, I was struck by several areas of interest. The first was the joy of remembering working with them. Each client and each session is unique. I was reminded of the individual nature of the experience of Reiki and how it meets individual needs. The common thread in all is that beautiful moment when the session ends and I see in them the gentle changes of their encounter with Reiki. Each set of documents told its own story. Backs feeling better, headaches gone, more engagement, creativity and self-expression. Less fear, reduced blood pressure and depression, smooth surgeries, heart to heart talks with loved ones, feeling perky and awake, feeling relaxed and centered, feeling restored and focused or empowered; sensing heaviness or lightness as the Reiki flows.

The second was reviewing those who had completed a course, accomplished a goal and moved on. It was wonderful to be part of their journey for whatever length of time they stayed.

The third was the Healing Crisis. Those who experience the beginnings of healing and leave. In my article titled Muddy Waters, the Process of Healing, I describe how Reiki sometimes stirs up mud and silt from the stream beds of our lives so it can be washed away. A healing crisis occurs when the mud is stirred. Sadly, sometimes we step out of the healing stream, leaving the things that were raised to settle back into the muck of our lives. We are not yet ready to open or trust ourselves to the inner healing process being initiated. We have all had our healing crises. When we do move into a place of personal healing and deeper awareness and wholeness in our lives, we can sometimes look back and see times and places where earlier we may have side-stepped the healing process for one reason or another.

While it is sad to see those who love and leave the Reiki healing space, it is greatly understandable. Holding these pages brings a soft sadness and a gentle sending of Reiki love and light to those who have touched the table and left before finishing the meal.

How to recognize a healing crisis and what to do to move through one?

Recognizing you are in a healing crisis is crucial to being able to deal with one. I promise as you learn to trust your way through them they get easier to deal with. (Just for today, do not worry; fear is distraction.) Our life journey is comprised of many healing places, small and large. As we successfully navigate through major or minor personal healing crises, we become more sensitive and respond more quickly with the set of healing tools we have learned on our journey. We become more adept at finding and cultivating new healing tools to work with along the way. True healing results in openness, peacefulness and often in a greater sense of service and the awareness of love for others in our lives. (Just for today, I will be kind to myself and others.)

A healing crisis can occur when we connect with a healing modality that is bringing us benefit, such as Reiki, yet we have a greater love for the stasis of the dis-ease we are experiencing than the dis-comfort the healing, changing process raises. It is our choice whether to embrace the sickness or welcome the wholeness. By the time a disease has progressed into physical illness, our choices can be more limited and sometimes urgent. Frequently, choosing physical health is a long, tiring, uncomfortable road back to wellness. But we do what we can to improve our physical condition, including suffering the rigors and discomforts of surgery and medications. Curing is not a comfy process, and often not a complete one; our physical beings can end up with physical limitations.

Spiritual healing has no such limitations. Its invitation is to complete wholeness of spirit and mind, often supporting the body in well-being as well. It takes courage and choice, researching wise healers and guides, and commitment to working through our own limitations and inner wounds.  For a while we may only see the muddy, murky waters of the unclarity of our own minds and hearts. Choosing wise guides, using consistent spiritual practices and setting an intention that does not go up and down with our feelings will aid us.  Try affirmations – they are like beacons on the shore in a foggy, stormy journey. Keep heading in their direction. The light of truth and wholeness are already shining there. Repeat affirmations out loud – they will resound like a fog horn in the gloom. And go to those who can support you in reaching your goal, even if it is uncomfortable for a while. Much better to work with our diseases of the spirit and soul before they manifest into diseases of the body.

How do you know when a light has shown on a damaged part?

You may want to run, or you may feel immediate relief. Or a still, small discomfort. Sit with your reactions for a while and let them settle. See where they show up in your body, in your dreams, in your thoughts. Ask your own spirit to show you what you are experiencing. Be willing to be uncomfortable, to see your own need. Go back to the light-bearer (repeat whatever modality raised the issue, or speak with the practitioner further) and look again.

And blessings on the journey. As a complementary, integrative form of holistic energy work, Reiki can assist you in your personal endeavors to bring light, healing and wholeness into your life in a deeper way. Whether by attending Reiki sessions or by learning Reiki as a personal spiritual practice, you will begin to create a healing space in your life and being. Reiki is a gentle, non-invasive, non-manipulative path to inner wisdom, balance and peacefulness. Namaste.

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” 
― Rumi

Reiki Light