The Healing Crisis

Emotions are felt and processed by the body/mind and then released. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to flow. Often, emotions stemming from distress and pain can be so strong they don’t get fully processed. When this happens, it is held in the body or in the auric field around the body. This isn’t a modern belief: it dates back to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), which teaches us that the emotions and body are intimately related and each emotion is related to a point or organ in the body.

We learn by watching others and often in our western culture, we aren’t taught how to process our emotions in a healthy way. I watched a lot of TV growing up. I was exposed to role-models who drank or ran away when something difficult happened. They found distractions, lashed out at others, sought revenge, and harmed themselves. The messages were clear: emotions are painful, uncomfortable. We can deal with them by just wanting them to go away or by building up barriers so we don’t have to feel.

TCM teaches us that stuck emotions stored in the body and energy field begin to block the flow of chi, or life-force energy. It theorizes that emotions are a major cause of disease within the body. Luckily, they are also the most easily influenced. With the right attention and treatment, emotions and their corresponding ailments can change.

During a Reiki session, high-vibrational source energy is channeled into the body. This re-aligns the energy flowing through the body and naturally clears out low-vibrational energy (like stuck emotions).

What does release look like? It varies, but can involve getting a cold, feeling more emotional, crying, wanting to yell, etc. We tend to think of getting sick as nothing more than annoyance; it’s uncomfortable and gets in the way of what we’d planned on doing. Yet the beauty of healing is that our mind-set has a big effect on the way our body handles it.
When I was first attuned to Reiki, I got sick and my nose wouldn’t stop running! Because I’d been forewarned that I might have this type of experience, I attempted to surrender to it. Each time I blew my nose, I would imagine that the energetic gunk stuck in my body since my childhood was finally coming out. I treated myself as if I was caring for a child – warm fuzzy blankets, tea, kitty snuggles, compassionate words, and enough days off to actually rest and fully heal. When it was over, I felt like an enormous weight had been lifted – a weight that I didn’t even know I was carrying! I had more energy afterwards and felt clearer about who I am.

If we view the illness as something “bad,” something to get rid of, or repress with drugs, it drives the energy that is trying to be released down deeper within us. On the contrary, if we view it as a healing process and see that the energies that no longer serve us are being released, it makes it easier to surrender to the experience. This is incredibly healing! After the healing crisis you will feel lighter and may even feel new energies rooting in and filling the space of what’s been released.

We can assist this purging process by eating good food, doing a cleanse, giving ourselves a safe space to cry, and being very loving and gentle with ourselves.

Be mindful when you schedule a healing session that you may want to take the rest of the day off. And after the session, drink lots of water. Water moves energy and helps our body flush toxins.
Keep in mind that we almost always release stuck, stagnant energies after a healing session, but not everyone has a healing crisis. It’s different for everyone. If you don’t go through a big purge, it doesn’t mean you didn’t have a profound healing. And just because you have or have not gone through a healing crisis, it doesn’t mean that will be the same way the next time. Things get released when you’re ready.