Grace in the Process: How my Health Fears Transformed me into the Confident Healer I am Today

I had always been curious about spirituality, internally questioning things taken for granted in the Christian church where I was raised. I had quietly begun to explore other perspectives by the time I was 12 or 13, more actively as time went on.

I was also desperately fascinated by magic and all things supernatural from a very early age (although I was terrified of ghosts. Also skeletons.) I read nothing but fantasy novels throughout my teens, as I loosely explored the works of earth-based spirituality leaders such as Starhawk and Luisah Teish. I went to an alternative high school where I learned about Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. I devoured anything to do with the archetypal world, and the mythic.

So it was no real surprise that when, toward the end of 2005 I started having some minor but persistent health issues, I chose to try acupuncture, energy work, and a host of other alternative and “woo-woo” measures to address them. I had already been fairly well dismissed as a hypochondriac by my Western docs, so I engaged this other realm with relish.

At the beginning I was terrified of what underlying issues might be causing imbalance in my body, which made me particularly complacent with my practitioners’ instructions. When one of them insisted that I go get a Reiki attunement, I immediately set out to go have that. Whatever that was.

I looked up the recommended healer and her services, budgeted out what I thought this “attunement” might cost, even though I couldn’t find it on her list of services. I figured I was in for another kind of healing treatment.

Only after my appointment was scheduled, did I discover that I had actually just signed up to become a healer.

(You mean I’m going to HOGWARTS?!)

For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, Reiki is a Japanese modality involving a specific healing frequency of Universal Life Force Energy (as per it’s originator, Dr. Mikao Usui) which flows through a Reiki practitioner as its conduit. It is a benevolent, organizing energy that has its own intelligence, and heals at all levels, including mental, emotional, and spiritual as well as physical.

A Reiki attunement is given as part of a class or period of instruction about the nature and use of the energy. It’s a ritual transmission that gives the ability to perform Reiki healing.

Well, I was beside myself. I didn’t realize that I had even desired to be a healer, and I hadn’t even considered that I could pursue this sort of thing. I thought you had to be born with it, or…well, I don’t even know what I thought. Just that all the healing stuff was WAY more awesome than I was.

But here I was. About to become magical.

What that attunement truly did for me was open me up to my own possibility. It opened my energy system up to remember what I was designed to do.

Since then I have taught Reiki, learned (and attuned to) many other modalities, became certified in channeling, life coaching, and always seem to be adding something to the tool kit, even when I’m not actively looking for it. What I need to learn (or learn from) next always seems to find me, whether it’s a book or a practitioner or a synthesis of different elements of the work I’m already adept at.

And did my health stuff magically clear up? No!

I don’t think I would have followed this life-learning thread the way I have, or become who I am now if it had.

And while I’m learning more and more about my own body and how it works (and how it doesn’t), I’m constantly growing as a healer and as a human. My physical body still gives me challenges, but the sheer volume of personal growth and inner healing I’ve undergone in the past 15 years while attempting to solve its riddle is truly mind-boggling.

I didn’t realize what I was saying “yes” to when I started down this road.

When we do say yes to something, when we really commit, we’re going to get challenged. Almost every time, it gets harder before it gets easier.

And when we say YES to becoming Who We Really Are, the gloves really come off, because it means we have to change. It means letting go of the layers of all the things we think we are, and all of our subconscious defenses come out to prevent that from happening.

Which is why I’ve been so grateful for my health challenges. If I wasn’t uncomfortable there wouldn’t have been the impetus to keep going. Because this road has been uphill, downhill, through uncharted waters, and deep, deep underground. It has been miraculous, exhausting, and everything in between.

And yet I don’t think I would keep going the way I do if I didn’t know that the capacity for health is our birthright. If that carrot of conviction wasn’t out there in front of me it might be really easy to go back to western medicine and just let them drug me to death.

Instead I’ve learned so much about how to adjust, manage, release, redirect…and how to accept. I know when something needs a tool for emotional release, and when the feeling just needs to be felt. When my fears and triggers have hijacked my nervous system and how to get back in control. I know when my organs are telling me something, and how to find out what they’re saying. When something is blocked, and how to release it. I know when I need help, and when I just need patience.

I trust my process now, and the road it leads me down. I’m not terrified anymore. (Or if I am, I know I’ve gone “spleeny” and can adjust as needed.) After all, this road has led me to uncover my gifts, my mission, and my passion, and it continues to bless and guide me.

For a while I’ve suspected that my work is meant to help others with similar health issues to my own, and so I will be speaking more about inner work and healing as it pertains to the body.

To be clear, our work isn’t about “fixing” the body. It’s about allowing the body to lead us on a long-term journey of discovery that leads us, layer by layer, to remember Who We Really Are, and hopefully to find increased physical wellbeing along the way.

Of course I’m glad you’re here, even if you’re feeling great. We all need support sometimes, and if you suspect I have what you need I’m here for you.

Thank you for being a part of my journey.