I ditched my physical health for Reiki

Hey there!

I don't talk about this a lot (or ever) because I don't want to scare potential Reiki students away from Reiki. But I started to gain weight after I took my first Reiki class. About 40 lbs give or take.

It could be blamed on a change of diet, a hormone imbalance after giving birth, or the fact that I stopped working out. Or all of the above. But the fact is, after I became attuned to Reiki and I started to work on my spiritual health, I stopped worrying about my physical health. For years.

It was actually a relief to not worry about my weight for the first time in my life. After years of hating my body (no matter what I weighed), counting calories, and an unhealthy obsession with being physically 'attractive' to the opposite sex, I happily ate what I wanted and traded exercise for meditation and energy work. I lived in this state of being for almost a decade.

I'm sure I'm not alone in this, but unhealthy body image is a generational issue in my family. When I was 8 years old, I remember my teeny tiny great-grandmother carrying on about losing weight. This weight obsession was passed on to her son, my mother, and me. I won't get into it in this email, but I have done terribly destructive things to my body as a result of poor body image and self-esteem. I know many of you reading this email can relate. I am a different person now, but I still live with the shame of how I treated myself in the past.

In a way, working with Reiki healed that damaged and insecure part of me. It truly shifted how I thought about myself and how I utilized my body. I stopped viewing my body as a sexual object or a way to prove my self-worth. I began viewing my body as a vessel for healing energy. A powerful tool to help myself and others heal. I also intuitively felt that the extra weight helped me process the large amounts of energy moving through my body during healing sessions. I know this isn't true about every healer, but I have felt it to be true to my body and my experience as a healer.

But I feel myself shifting again. My physical health has deteriorated over the years due to poor eating choices (Umm, I lived in the Ice Cream Capital of the World) and muscle loss due to inactivity. For the first time in years, I have the desire to focus on my physical health again. I know that to be truly healthy, we need to work on our health in all aspects: mental, emotional, spiritual, AND physical.

I have to be real though, this focus on my physical health is bringing up a lot of junk. Issues and emotions I thought were long gone are bubbling to the surface. Flashes of anger and self-hate run through my mind daily. It is as if I hid my pain within my fat cells and every pound I drop (or try to drop) that pain releases and flows throughout my mind and body. At this early point, it feels daunting to go through this pain and reemergence of issues. You see, I am not at the end of my journey telling you how hard it was, but the end result is wonderful. I am in the thick of it. And it is freaking hard work. It is putting my mental health in the ringer, to be honest.

But I am not going through it without spiritual help. I'm not trading my spiritual work for physical work. I can work on both at the same time. Because I have Reiki. Reiki to help process through the blocks and pain and destructive generational patterns. Reiki to help calm my anxiety. Reiki to help me understand that I am not my destructive thoughts. I am not the pain. I am not the flashes of anger and memories of self-hate. That is all merely energy leaving my body. Every time I place my Reiki hands on my body, I send love to my body. Each cell, organ, and system is learning that it is loved. That it IS love. And that is where I am now. To be continued.

Thank you for listening. Wishing you health and love this week.

Your friend,

- Nicole