RECIPE FOR HEALING
Yesterday a new client came in for her second reiki visit. Her foot had been hurting for a long time and she couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Acupuncture had helped with other pain, but this foot pain just wouldn’t go away! It was bothering her at work, but also stopping her from doing recreational activities like hiking and biking.
After her first session, she’d felt so much relief that she came back a week later, eager for even more improvement! She wanted to try eft/tapping, too, so she’d have a tool to use at home. She said since her last session her foot hurt less, but also she’d had a burst of energy that was helping her feel better.
This client was on board with energy work. She’s learned reiki, but wanted the comfort of having someone else do it. She was curious about the eft/tapping.
She was ready to truly hear from her body itself what was going on with the foot.
I have found curiousity and openness to be important ingredients when we want to heal from chronic pain. Even with those key components, getting it right can seem impossible. But if you stay with it, one day a switch will flip. Everything will come together and you will wonder why it was so hard before.
On the other hand, sometimes the learning curve is quick, as with this client. She arrived ready to allow healing.
Allow healing. That sounds funny, doesn’ it? Who wouldn’t allow healing?
Me. I didn’t allow it for a long time. I felt the answers were outside. I didn’t open my heart.
This heart opening, what a simple and difficult thing. You can perform, for example, heart-opening asanas in yoga for 20 years. Just because you point your heart to the sky, though, doesn’t mean that heart is open.
It's ironic. You have to have to maintain the intention to heal, yet you can't control when it will actually occur. You have to find a way to enjoy each of those heart-opening yoga poses, even when the outcome of the class isn't that complete dissolution of pain you've been hoping for.
On the day your heart DOES decide the optimal conditions for opening are in place, though, the power of that shy uncurling true self-love can knock your socks off.
With this client I saw it. As we did the tapping, she didn’t look away. She began to glimpse it, the amazement that was her foot. And the foot lifting its head, like a houseless person waking to a fellow human who would sit down beside them and share a coffee, instead of tossing a five into their cup and calling it generous.
We all seek that no-fail recipe for healing. That recipe, though, is like the one for your grandma's pie crust. It's just a few simple ingredients, but to get it right takes a deep mindful intention, a quiet love for the practice, and the determination to savor the not-so-perfect crusts with the same joy and satisfaction you would for your grandmother’s masterpiece.