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Hello everyone.
This post is inspired by Gerli's post (located here http://www.reikilearninglounge.com/t1572-hello#15754).
Learning how to heal with and through the emotional experiences of others has been one of the more interesting experiences the practice of Reiki has allowed me to gain a greater understanding of in my life.
One of the more transformative lessons I've learned is that it's not my role to change the way another feels. I learned that I can serve as an active participant who helps the client gain a greater sense of self-awareness that consequentially allows them to change the way they feel, but in hindsight I've never really been able to directly change a persons emotional state of mind.
During treatment sessions, there were many times when clients would experience powerful emotions. While holding my hands in any number of Reiki placement positions, sometimes directly on the client's body, sometimes a few inches above the client's body, I would suddenly experience an emotion that no thoughts running through my mind or that nothing in my environment would give reason to evoke.
Those emotions usually were troubled emotions as the client was seeking healing from a traumatic issue in their life, or other times simply an escape from their daily stress.
Through the process of several years of trial and error (call it "practice"), I learned that the best way for me to help another change their emotions and find emotional peace in their past was to give them the assurance that I was there to help. I did so in many ways by describing my perceptions of their aura and present state-of-mind energies, describing the process of grounding the negative energies temporarily present in their energy field, and perhaps most importantly, giving them the confidence that I cared for their present and future well being.
Some years ago (2006? 2007?) the skills that I gained through all of my practice in the past were realized through an incident in my personal life.
My personal life was quite stable, but still wrought with an average to fair amount of disharmony (at least that's my opinion based on the problems others have shared with me about their lives).
I was helping a friend out by letting him stay with me for a temporary period of time, time enough for him to get onto his feet--or so I thought. Not long after I allowed him to begin sleeping over, I began to notice some oddities in his behavior, and because of my emotional level of comfort and trust in him, consoled myself by saying "nah, if it is a drug problem, he'll be able to overcome it."
Strange smudge-marks continued to appear on bathroom towels (he was smoking something with a wet towel to reduce the smoke residue and scent), and things progressed to a point where he was placing food that he had just taken out of the refrigerator underneath the kitchen sink.
One afternoon when I was preparing a meal for us, I told him that he would need to find a new place to live as soon as possible, and his response was pure anger.
"What?" he exclaimed, "Are you serious?"
"Yes," I replied, "it's been a few months, this is a very small living space for two grown men, and I'd like you to find a new place to live as soon as possible."
He made an abrupt bolt to the bathroom, emerging about twenty minutes later, greeting me with very angry, very strong language.
The result was a 5 hour altercation. He accused me of stealing his drugs, first by using them, then by flushing them down the toilet, and then demanded I immediately pay him $900.
I said no.
He became aggressively intimidating, approaching close, shouting while standing at my shoulder, making fists and punching them towards the ground.
I didn't ground his energies, but my own, and as I did so, I began to notice something important.
As the negative energies gathered in his system, some clung to my own, but as my grounding increased and became more stable, his energies began to simply pass through my energy field rather than attach to it.
When I tried to reach for the phone to call for help, he approached in a way that suggested my actions would provoke a physical attack, and demonstrated his seriousness by slapping one of my laptops off of a desk and onto the floor. When I attempted to move towards the door to the apartment, his body language suggested that he would attack.
I chose to remain passive, and remained standing throughout the entire 5 hours of our altercation, each moment attempting to ground myself more than the last.
During that experience, I tried to change his feelings through my skills as an energy-worker, but realized that I simply couldn't. I could easily sense his emotions (one would not need to be an empath to do so given his state of mind), but what I believed I could do was quite different when tested in the reality of this situation... so I grounded.
Initially I believed that I could ground his energies, but that belief proved itself to be only a belief. I tried to ground his energies, but they remained constant with his state of mind. As I grounded myself more and more, I noticed that the energies of his state of mind that were attaching themselves to my energy field lessened, and began to pass through it, traveling elsewhere.
Eventually he began to fall asleep deeply enough at a time when I heard a group of neighbors passing the apartment in the hallway, so I ran to the door and requested help. My friend awoke during that process, believed that the police would be on their way in a moment, and fled the apartment.
Things worked out. Later, I learned that he was in trouble with the law (beyond what a typical drug addiction might invite), and had some healthy discussions with a detective at the police station. I was told that he would probably be back, and unless I wanted to go through that experience again, to simply not open the door.
"What if he calls," I asked the detective.
"Don't answer, don't return his calls, or change your telephone number," he answered.
Not even ten days later, my former friend called, first accusing me of stealing from him in one voicemail, and then in a voicemail that followed shortly thereafter apologized accompanied with praise of my friendship.
I called my telephone service provider and changed the telephone number.
Some 6 months later on October 31st (Halloween, a serious party night here in San Francisco), there was a knock on my door and I was not expecting any guests. I remembered the experience with my friend, the conversations with the detective, and a dark foreboding sense of trouble overwhelmed me.
"Who is it," I asked from behind the locked door.
"Hey, it's me," he said with a tremendous amount of enthusiasm, as if a long lost friend had suddenly appeared at my door to catch up on life's activities and renew a friendship.
"Go away," I replied.
And then the begging began. I heard him press his body to the door, apologizing, begging to be let in because he needed a place to say.
"Please, help me," he begged.
I wanted to. I cared for someone who had been my friend for quite a long time, and I wanted to believe that if I let him return in my life, that he would overcome his addiction and our friendship would survive--and I also remembered the conversation with the detective.
"He will probably return," were his words, and "don't open the door."
Even more I wanted to help my friend heal through his troubles, but I also realized that I needed to protect myself.
"No," I said, feeling a pain grow inside my heart, "go away."
I heard him pull away from the door and say "Wha?"
I walked away from the door, picked up the phone, and called the police.
He fled, and did not return.
I began to change, gradually allowing new energies to integrate into my life. The change did not happen over night, and in fact, I had one more similar experience to go through a few years later before my system balanced to a degree that the right person was eventually attracted into my life (we are now happily partnered and have a great relationship with his mother and brother), but learning that I couldn't change another person wasn't easy.
Today, I simply allow the energies of other to pass through me while I "radiate" Reiki. I like to imagine myself as a sun that constantly radiates its energies outward unconditionally, not expecting anything in return. I realize that it's not my role to directly change a person, but that my presence in their life can help them realize more about their life, and become someone new, someone more than who they were before.
This post is inspired by Gerli's post (located here http://www.reikilearninglounge.com/t1572-hello#15754).
Learning how to heal with and through the emotional experiences of others has been one of the more interesting experiences the practice of Reiki has allowed me to gain a greater understanding of in my life.
One of the more transformative lessons I've learned is that it's not my role to change the way another feels. I learned that I can serve as an active participant who helps the client gain a greater sense of self-awareness that consequentially allows them to change the way they feel, but in hindsight I've never really been able to directly change a persons emotional state of mind.
During treatment sessions, there were many times when clients would experience powerful emotions. While holding my hands in any number of Reiki placement positions, sometimes directly on the client's body, sometimes a few inches above the client's body, I would suddenly experience an emotion that no thoughts running through my mind or that nothing in my environment would give reason to evoke.
Those emotions usually were troubled emotions as the client was seeking healing from a traumatic issue in their life, or other times simply an escape from their daily stress.
Through the process of several years of trial and error (call it "practice"), I learned that the best way for me to help another change their emotions and find emotional peace in their past was to give them the assurance that I was there to help. I did so in many ways by describing my perceptions of their aura and present state-of-mind energies, describing the process of grounding the negative energies temporarily present in their energy field, and perhaps most importantly, giving them the confidence that I cared for their present and future well being.
Some years ago (2006? 2007?) the skills that I gained through all of my practice in the past were realized through an incident in my personal life.
My personal life was quite stable, but still wrought with an average to fair amount of disharmony (at least that's my opinion based on the problems others have shared with me about their lives).
I was helping a friend out by letting him stay with me for a temporary period of time, time enough for him to get onto his feet--or so I thought. Not long after I allowed him to begin sleeping over, I began to notice some oddities in his behavior, and because of my emotional level of comfort and trust in him, consoled myself by saying "nah, if it is a drug problem, he'll be able to overcome it."
Strange smudge-marks continued to appear on bathroom towels (he was smoking something with a wet towel to reduce the smoke residue and scent), and things progressed to a point where he was placing food that he had just taken out of the refrigerator underneath the kitchen sink.
One afternoon when I was preparing a meal for us, I told him that he would need to find a new place to live as soon as possible, and his response was pure anger.
"What?" he exclaimed, "Are you serious?"
"Yes," I replied, "it's been a few months, this is a very small living space for two grown men, and I'd like you to find a new place to live as soon as possible."
He made an abrupt bolt to the bathroom, emerging about twenty minutes later, greeting me with very angry, very strong language.
The result was a 5 hour altercation. He accused me of stealing his drugs, first by using them, then by flushing them down the toilet, and then demanded I immediately pay him $900.
I said no.
He became aggressively intimidating, approaching close, shouting while standing at my shoulder, making fists and punching them towards the ground.
I didn't ground his energies, but my own, and as I did so, I began to notice something important.
As the negative energies gathered in his system, some clung to my own, but as my grounding increased and became more stable, his energies began to simply pass through my energy field rather than attach to it.
When I tried to reach for the phone to call for help, he approached in a way that suggested my actions would provoke a physical attack, and demonstrated his seriousness by slapping one of my laptops off of a desk and onto the floor. When I attempted to move towards the door to the apartment, his body language suggested that he would attack.
I chose to remain passive, and remained standing throughout the entire 5 hours of our altercation, each moment attempting to ground myself more than the last.
During that experience, I tried to change his feelings through my skills as an energy-worker, but realized that I simply couldn't. I could easily sense his emotions (one would not need to be an empath to do so given his state of mind), but what I believed I could do was quite different when tested in the reality of this situation... so I grounded.
Initially I believed that I could ground his energies, but that belief proved itself to be only a belief. I tried to ground his energies, but they remained constant with his state of mind. As I grounded myself more and more, I noticed that the energies of his state of mind that were attaching themselves to my energy field lessened, and began to pass through it, traveling elsewhere.
Eventually he began to fall asleep deeply enough at a time when I heard a group of neighbors passing the apartment in the hallway, so I ran to the door and requested help. My friend awoke during that process, believed that the police would be on their way in a moment, and fled the apartment.
Things worked out. Later, I learned that he was in trouble with the law (beyond what a typical drug addiction might invite), and had some healthy discussions with a detective at the police station. I was told that he would probably be back, and unless I wanted to go through that experience again, to simply not open the door.
"What if he calls," I asked the detective.
"Don't answer, don't return his calls, or change your telephone number," he answered.
Not even ten days later, my former friend called, first accusing me of stealing from him in one voicemail, and then in a voicemail that followed shortly thereafter apologized accompanied with praise of my friendship.
I called my telephone service provider and changed the telephone number.
Some 6 months later on October 31st (Halloween, a serious party night here in San Francisco), there was a knock on my door and I was not expecting any guests. I remembered the experience with my friend, the conversations with the detective, and a dark foreboding sense of trouble overwhelmed me.
"Who is it," I asked from behind the locked door.
"Hey, it's me," he said with a tremendous amount of enthusiasm, as if a long lost friend had suddenly appeared at my door to catch up on life's activities and renew a friendship.
"Go away," I replied.
And then the begging began. I heard him press his body to the door, apologizing, begging to be let in because he needed a place to say.
"Please, help me," he begged.
I wanted to. I cared for someone who had been my friend for quite a long time, and I wanted to believe that if I let him return in my life, that he would overcome his addiction and our friendship would survive--and I also remembered the conversation with the detective.
"He will probably return," were his words, and "don't open the door."
Even more I wanted to help my friend heal through his troubles, but I also realized that I needed to protect myself.
"No," I said, feeling a pain grow inside my heart, "go away."
I heard him pull away from the door and say "Wha?"
I walked away from the door, picked up the phone, and called the police.
He fled, and did not return.
I began to change, gradually allowing new energies to integrate into my life. The change did not happen over night, and in fact, I had one more similar experience to go through a few years later before my system balanced to a degree that the right person was eventually attracted into my life (we are now happily partnered and have a great relationship with his mother and brother), but learning that I couldn't change another person wasn't easy.
Today, I simply allow the energies of other to pass through me while I "radiate" Reiki. I like to imagine myself as a sun that constantly radiates its energies outward unconditionally, not expecting anything in return. I realize that it's not my role to directly change a person, but that my presence in their life can help them realize more about their life, and become someone new, someone more than who they were before.
and thanks for sharing this personal story.
