2018.
A year of transformation. My dad had just passed on after a long fight with colon cancer, and in the throes of my grief, my partner of four years decided to end our relationship. I wasn’t happy at work, constantly feeling undermined, invisible and lost, wondering about my purpose in the grand scheme of things. I rescued a baby bird that was dying and nursed it back to health, only for it to die of aspiration pneumonia just three days later. Then someone whom I trusted and took care of betrayed and broke my trust.
It was like life was trying to test me all at once and show me something— “Here, take it. This IS life. Loss, grief, death, endings. Deal with it.”
The days that followed became a blur as I string along each day like a puppet, completely defeated and feeling like a walking dead. If this is what turning 40 means, then my life is done.
As it transpired, the Universe always has a way to swerve us back to our intended path when we get lost. I started to meditate (read the full story here), and in the process of meditating, I begin to see certain aspects of my life and the person that I was in a more vivid way. A lot of reflections, a lot more tears shed, but it was the beginning of my healing, even though I didn’t realise it then.
Then one day, at a usual breakfast sitting, something happened. Physically, I was feeling better than before as I now exercise more regularly (that’s probably the only bonus coming out of a failed relationship—you actually have more time to do what you want!). Mentally and emotionally, I thought I was coping pretty well too. I wasn’t crying as much, and I was enthusiastic to learn new skills that could complement my Balinese Massage. For some reasons, I found myself googling ‘HEALING’. One page led to another, and soon, this word jumped out at me :
‘REIKI’.
I remembered seeing this word in one of the spas in Thailand many years ago and thinking then it was a fancy word and a marketing gimmick used to extort more money from customers. Intrigued but penny pinching, I just let it slide.
Yet as I sat there that morning staring at the same word, something drove me to delve further into this energy healing technique.
Universal life force? Energy transfer? Healing just by laying of hands? Anyone can heal themselves?
It all sounded too woowoo and new age to the cynic in me but again, something told me to let go of my cynicism and preconception, and just try it out for myself.
First Healing Experience
When I first met Janice in the small studio apartment, I was a little nervous as I didn’t know what to expect out of the session. We chatted and Janice explained briefly what Reiki is, and what it’s not. It works on the simple notion that during the healing session, she is merely facilitating the flow of the universal life force to my body and it is my own innate body intelligence that dictates what needs to be healed and how much is needed. She ended off our pre-consultation with a very reassuring, “Just relax and enjoy.”
By the end of the session, I was blown away by what I had experienced.
At the beginning of the session, I felt immediately a sense of relief and calm and soon drifted into a state of relaxation. I was relaxed but conscious, so you can imagine my surprise when I started to feel waves of warm currents gushing through my left leg (I developed Lymphedema in my left leg in 2008, a chronic condition that causes swelling as the lymphatic fluids in my body get stuck due to a deficiency in my lymphatic system)! Moments later, I felt as if there were ‘multiple hands’ on my ankles AND kneecaps and opened my eyes only to see Janice holding JUST my ankles.
What really capped it for me was when Janice was hovering her hands near my heart chakra and I suddenly felt this overwhelming rush of emotions that came from nowhere. Everything that I thought I was over and done with came flooding back—the grief that I felt over my dad’s death, the loss and anger that I felt towards my partner’s abandonment—the floodgate just opened up and I started to tear uncontrollably…
I thought I had recovered from all those, yet the healing session brought up what I had subconsciously buried in my heart’s recess to the surface. In that moment I saw how much I had blocked out just to appear fine on the outside, and I saw how I was always going to be one trigger away from an emotional breakdown had I continued to build those blocks.
That first Reiki healing session shifted something in me.
To Be A Healer
I had the capacity to feel and empathise with people since I was a child and I was naturally always sensitive to people’s moods or vibes, but never have I imagined that I might one day answer the call to be a healer. Yet, now as I looked back at my life and the events that transpired, I realised it was something that was always calling out for my attention.
Developing primary Lymphedema in the leg before I even turned thirty was a sudden and big blow, but it got me to learn lymphatic drainage massage. Towards the end of his life, I was able to use that same knowledge to soothe my dad’s edema and offer him what little comfort he still had. The look on his face, an appreciative one that acknowledged the eternal bond we would always have, left an indelible mark on me. I took up Balinese Massage after he passed on, not knowing what I will do with it other than I wanted to give comfort to people the same way I gave comfort to him.
3 weeks after that first Reiki healing experience, I went for a silent retreat in Bali and experienced an epiphany which would become a mantra that continues to remind and guide me till today :
“Heal yourself, then heal others.”
In hindsight, the few trials and setbacks I had experienced in my life were all lessons that were actually preparing me to go on this path of healing. By going through the same hurt that everyone else had, I could be with them from a place of common suffering. By recovering from the same wounds that they too were afflicted with, I could show strength and inspire them to go on their own healing journeys. The more I practise Reiki, the more I understood what Reiki really meant.
I used to think that a healer is someone who heals people, and that healing is one-sided—that only one gives and the other receives. I now know better. Every time I help someone, I learn something about myself. When I give Reiki to others, I receive Reiki too. When I heal myself, I could heal others. When others heal, I heal too.
So, to answer the question on this blog title, I don’t know if I found Reiki or did Reiki find me instead. But I guess it’s not that important anymore. After all, if I touch you with my hands—did I touch you, or did you touch my hand?
Fun fact : I would, just a few hours after experiencing the epiphany, see the same exact words reappear as a sentence in a book I was reading! Nothing to see here then... ;p
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