The Gift of Self-Healing
As can sometimes be the reality with social media, it may have looked to the outside that I had started 2019 in an exciting way, having recently launched my website at the end of 2018, and I was beginning to offer events through social platforms such as Facebook, to connect with people as a Reiki practitioner in Berlin. I did start 2019 with a bang. For the past few years I have set myself the intention to start every (Gregorian calendar) New Year by doing something significant on the 1st of January, the essence of which I wish to carry with me through the rest of the year. This year, during the first week of January, I completed my Reiki Master training [a Reiki Master is able to teach others how to use Reiki] via Skype with my dear, wonderful Reiki teacher in Mexico, Violeta. Violeta gently warned me, “this new threshold will shake out of you what may have gotten comfortable within you, but must be let go”. In all honesty I didn’t pay this advice too much heed, as I tend to be generally optimistic about most of my endeavours. However, the first few weeks of 2019 would prove to be a huge challenge for me.
It might have looked like I was doing exciting things via social media, but in reality I was struggling, with anxiety, self-doubt, insecurity and overwhelm. Following the launch of my website I was lucky enough to receive quite a lot of interest. I began by offering Astrology readings as well as Reiki treatments, however I also still work my day-job as an English teacher. The first two weeks of the year were non-stop for me and I quickly became burnt out and run down.
I planned my first workshop of 2019 for mid January, in which I wanted to introduce Reiki and Cacao practices to others. However, in the week leading up to the event I was questioning myself, stressing myself out and worrying about if I was enough and whether people would come. Working with energy in the modern age can be challenging, especially with sceptics, as the results can be more subtle, not always immediately felt, and something you can not exactly physically see. Due to my anxiety, and a few personal challenges, I ended up cancelling the event, and then felt worse in some ways, as I felt like I had let people down. This resulted in a pretty difficult headspace to be living in.
The ‘irony’ is, I am a healing arts practitioner. I work in this role to support others with the healing process around some of these same issues which I was facing. It was coming to a breaking point which reminded me that I have the gift within me to self-heal, as do we all, but sometimes we are so tangled up in our thoughts and emotions that we forget this, don’t see this, or feel stuck, and lost in the dark. Life is a process and a constant work-in-progress, for those with healing tools and those who are yet to discover them. Anyone who thinks they don’t need to work on themselves is kidding themself. So, I conducted a deep healing ritual with myself. During which I cried quite a lot, laughed a bit, and realised that another one of my gifts is the use of words and communication, and that I could connect with others and help myself by writing about this experience. My self healing experience was profound and I hope to share this information with others in the future, through trainings, treatments, workshops, and personal conversations. I have now re-thought how to structure my time, and I am currently not offering Astrology, with the intention to focus more on Reiki.
During an open question-and-answer session with my English students recently, one of the students asked me the question ‘What is your biggest dream?’ This question caught me a little off-guard. I can gratefully say that right now, as I approach my 31st birthday, I feel really content with the amount that I have travelled, experienced and the knowledge and realisations that I have had along the way. I’m actually in a position where I really want to give to, share with, and support others. The word ‘healer’ is an especially loaded word, and one I don’t feel comfortable with using as a goal for myself or a career label. As a Reiki practitioner you learn from the very beginning that we are ‘channels’ of healing energy and you must detach your ego from this. We are the sum of our experiences, and since my early twenties I have been willing and curious enough to seek out healing therapies of different kinds and put myself through what I need to experience in order to gain clarity and release. We all have this gift inside us, and I guess my biggest dream right now is for others to be able to realise this too, and I would like to share this with them.
