Energy Healing Leaves Me Mystified (But Feeling Like I Might Be Onto Something Big)

I bid on and won a two-hour Energy Healing session at a charity event that I attended recently. Contrary to my regular habit of buying gift certificates at charitable auctions and then allowing them to languish in a drawer for years until I pull them out only to find they've expired, I actually called the woman promptly and set a time to meet. I consciously decided not to google "energy healing" so I could go in to her with a clean slate and no expectations. Or I just forgot to look it up. You decide.

After a some juggling of appointments on her end, I showed up at her house Wednesday morning, not really knowing anything about her, energy healing, or much of anything except that is was freaking' cold and I couldn't believe it was snowing again.

The healer, a lovely woman whose face looked younger than her long gray hair would have a person think she was, radiated a calm and serenity that I would be hard pressed to summon at any time, under any circumstance. It was the kind of calmness that beckons you in and makes you wish you could emulate it. Or that you could duck out, go through an hour of yoga at the gym, and them come back to, so you were more on the same page.

She asked me what I was expecting from the session and I told her, "Well, I don't really know anything about energy healing, but I'm hopeful it will be help me as I have a lot of stress in my life right now. I mean, I'm not expecting it to be like a séance, or anything." She laughed, relieved, because she seemed to have the expectation that I had bid on the session more as a party trick than as a legitimate grab at a possible lifeline.

Energy healing (aura and chakra healing) is one of the most profound and fundamental alternative therapies in the field of alternative medicine and holistic health. It employs spiritual healing methods which expand the awareness of the energy healer and uses energy, color and light healing techniques to catalyze healing in the patient’s energy field (aura and chakra system)—helping the patient break free from afflictions and limitations of body, mind and spirit. It may provide enhanced quality of life for the patient, and facilitate spiritual growth. Energy healing is often a powerful spiritual path for the practitioner, as well. -per an alternative therapy site.

(fyi: Supposedly, not crying is extremely disruptive to your chi. Thankfully, since I cry at the drop of a hat, my chi is not in danger of being stopped up, but I have a feeling that choking back my fears, thoughts, and words might be wreaking havoc on my chakra.)

There were several components that were familiar: the initial therapy part, where I explain what is going on in my life that I would like to work on making better (guess what those were: the move, the kids, the marriage). I start crying, like I always do when speaking of parenting issues and how I constantly feel like I am letting my kids down by not being as involved (or interested in, even) with their every aspect of school and home life. Like a therapist, she affirms the positives and tries to lesses the hurt of the negatives with a variation of "we all do the best we can with what we've got." She then asks me about my religious background.... the tears begin to roll again as I explain that I go to church and like the community that it provides for me and the religious education and foundation that it is laying for the kids, but that I am missing a spiritual connection. A spirituality that I am feeling the lack of more and more every year. I think it is this spiritual disconnect in my life that makes me fearful of the move to England and so anxious about the many supposed "adventures" that lie ahead for me and my family.

Will an energy healing help me get this back? We set an "intention" for the session of feeling less stressed about the move and more connected to the activities of my life and a higher power.

Bear with me and listen to this.

The healing part of the session started with the healer placing a "singing bowl" on my body and ringing it. (That is what the sound was in the above audio link. Hit that link one more time now.) While the vibrations are moving from the singing bowl, we are both lengthening and deepening our breath. Just like yoga. Or meditation. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Creating some heat and making space in the chest. The sensation of the breathing with the singing bowl vibrating on my abdomen is disconcerting and makes me a little tense. But I am over it as soon as the bowl stops singing.

She asks permission to touch me, asking if there are any areas in particular that she should avoid. I don't, so she proceeds. The singing bowl is stowed away under the table I am lying on (like a massage table), snug and warm under a blanket. I close my eyes and concentrate on my breathing as she lays her hands on my feet, my knees, my abdomen, my shoulders, and my forhead, where -without touching me- I can feel the heat radiate off her hands right at the part in my hairline on my forehead. I found myself drifting in and out of sleep for much of this period. Not sure if it was sleep or some other altered state of consciousness. But I sat up feeling refreshed when she was done.

We finished the session with some meditation and a homework assignment to meditate for a few moments every day to help me remain connected and to bring a calm time into my days.

I am not sure if it "worked" but feel like this might be the way to get my spiritual mojo back. I am making another appointment to see her again before we head to Disney. I will need all the spiritual help I can get to confront this den of materialism and the many golden gods that will be on display there.

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In a brazen move, I invited myself over for coffee with a blogging and twitter acquaintance that I knew lived nearby. I like to think that my blog is similar to hers in content and intent, but don't fool myself with thoughts of a real comparison. Okay.Fine.Dammit. seems, to my newly blogging eyes, a venerable institution of the women-blogging circle I have become part of. She is successful in a way I aspire to, so I was a little intimidated, but mightily curious about what kind of advice or wisdom I could glean from this seasoned blogging writer. I already felt a connection with her because her writing captures truths that are easily turned from hers to yours when you read them. It is a gift she possesses.... go read her blog, if you don't believe me.

What I found was a thoroughly charming and intelligent woman who is making her way through life and blogging with many of the same questions, ideas, concerns, and fears that I ponder. Only she expresses them more thoughtfully and delivers them in a fashion that makes you feel like you are really in on something with her. Not a spectacle to merely be observed, which is how I am afraid I present myself some days.

It was a wonderful morning as we sat in our comfy chairs, sipping coffee, and sharing stories and laughter like better friends than it would seem we have a right to be on such short notice. And did I mention that she is even more impossibly, adorably dimpled than her fabulous blog picture indicates?

This world of blogging just gets better and better, as I have another confirmation that on-line life is really just a phone call away from real life. :)

P.S. Comments are back on! Don't be shy now that I showed you my udder. ;)