Healing Hands...

I had an inexplicable need for a label, something to be able "call" myself for how I feel and what I feel empowered and capable of doing.  I wanted something to be able to call this gift that I know I have been given.  The word that came to me through lightness and steam (I was after all asking this in the shower....) was "healer".  I heard that word and then said it to myself in a sentence, "I am a healer."  It felt "right" and it fit and there was a sense of belonging and acknowledgement.  That I was a helper and that I was born to help others I had known for some time and yet it seemed that it was "more" than helping.  I wanted to do more than help.  I wanted to believe that I could heal. 

There are different ways to heal.  Someone who has studied medicines whether traditional or natural has the ability to "heal" in one way which deals primarily with the physical body.  There are other ways to heal the soul, the spirit and the mind and all of these are a necessary complement to physical healing.   I am a firm believer that mind and body are connected in more than the basic ways.  There is a very deep connection between "who" we are and "what" we are.

When I was undergoing treatment for breast cancer six years ago, I went with traditional methods of medicine.  Chemotherapy to poison my body and kill the cells that had turned on me and betrayed my body.  I knew it was poison and I knew that there would be side effects and after effects but it is what I believed in and what I wanted.  I wanted an army to battle with me and for me. Chemotherapy was my main charge through the middle.  I also had radiation therapy because one lymph node had been shown to be affected.  Bring it on.  Radiation was the right flank.  No army can fight with only a middle thrust and a right flank.  What happens on the left?

On the left flank I had complementary treatments.  I believed in and used visualization.  I used a holistic approach to healing that was offered through the hospital and the local cancer centre.  I like that it is called "holistic" -- I pronounce it and always talk about it as my "whole - istic" treatment.  It gave me the sense that I was treating my "whole" body and my "whole" self.  Relaxation, meditation, a therapy like Reiki with the hands moving around the body but it was simply for relaxation.  It felt wonderful.

I have been interested in Reiki  (pronounced Ray Key) for some time and every now and then the idea to learn how to do this and become a practitioner has floated through my consciousness.  I believe that things will happen for you in their time, when you are most ready to accept and embrace.  My experience on Saturday night meeting Susannah Conway was the first stepping stone.  Also present that evening was Jodi LeBrun.  Jodi and I had never met but at least 4 times throughout the evening my friends mentioned Jodi's name.  Kath asked me if I knew her.  I did not.  When Jodi was leaving that night, we still had not met, but someone made the comment "oh Jodi's leaving" and I said "oh but I haven't met Jodi yet."

Yet.  How often do we use that word?  Yesterday I was reading through status posts on facebook and I came across Jodi "yet again".  I went to her facebook page and saw that Jodi is a Reiki practitioner and she offers a course on how to become a Reiki practitioner and the course begins this weekend.  Stop.  Full stop went my brain.  When it clicked into gear again I went straight to Jodi's blog and then to the section about the course and without pause clicked the "buy now" button. 

A new journey is beginning.  One that I am eager to embrace and to experience.  Once again, I've been able to "find the fierce".