If you’ve had a session with me, you’ve probably left hearing more about your energetic body than you knew it was possible to hear about.

I love to tell my clients about what I’m feeling… seeing… the magic that happens when our energies connect for healing. There are sensations, colors, images, even animal spirits and deities that show up and show out! But more important than that, I love to educate people on the depth and wisdom of their own, unique intelligent body. There is so much wholeness to be gained from understanding the dynamics of one’s energy body — wholeness that can translate into self-love and self-compassion. Don’t we need more of that in our world?

In my mentorship classes, students and I talk about transactional healing and foundational healing. Transactional healing is common — book an appointment of some kind, show up, get on the table, healer does stuff, get off the table, pay money, and leave. There’s a basicness to it. Money in exchange for touch, etc. It’s nice, quick, and requires no effort. No effort is nice sometimes! I like not putting forth effort!

Then there’s what I call foundational healing, where interactions with a healer are not merely this-for-that. We cultivate relationship and connection. I take the time to explain not just how Reiki works, but how it is working in your specific body. We unpack the deep energetic reasons underneath physical symptoms and pains. I spend a lot of time reminding clients that their bodies are wise, that of course they are feeling this pain or that illness, because they survived something important. We talk about how wonderfully the body and heart help us survive, how they protect us, how they deserve rest and nourishment. I don’t victim blame, but I do help clients understand how they can boost and affect their own healing going forward. We talk about how their thoughts and emotions are powerful forces, how the client themselves is Divine and worthy of a love that they may have not received to date in their lives. We laugh together… a lot. Like, a lot a lot.

Now, every healer is different and every healer has their own comfort level with client interaction. I’m not saying one is better than the other. I’m just saying that in my experience, it’s so much more valuable to take the time to educate a client about their energetic body than to merely lay hands on them and call it a day. The healing lasts longer and is more effective, because the client is empowered to see their body through a Divine lens. Understanding the dynamics and patterns of their energetic flow is valuable, giving them mantras and imagery to meditate on that comes directly from images within the session is valuable. Helping them remember how uniquely loveable and wonderful they are is valuable.

It’s kind of a crappy business model because it means clients get more healing than in a transactional exchange, which translates to less pain and more time in between sessions, but damn. That’s what I want, I want my clients empowered, not reliant on me.

Years ago I was chided by a colleague for “talking too much.” “Why do you spend so much time talking to your clients? I don’t do that.” To be honest it cut me, but not deeply enough to force me to change. The healing that comes from understanding energy dynamics is too deep, too important to leave out of a session. Yeah, it makes my sessions waaaaay longer — about 2 hours as oppose to the typical 1 hour — but still. Worth it.

Also, I’ve seen practitioners use transactional healing to their supposed advantage, to stroke their own egos — meaning, deliberately keep a client in the dark about some aspect of their own body’s healing so the client will view the practitioner as a miracle worker. The healing is coming from the client’s body, the client’s Divinity, yet the practitioner does not share that with the client. The client is confused into believing that the healing comes from the practitioner, not themselves! And then the client is robbed of knowledge, robbed of self-awareness. And the practitioner gets the “benefit” of convincing their client that they are a magician (ugh.)

It’s not illegal to practice in this way, but I find it unethical. I say to my clients, I’m just the narrator, the translator. It’s their body that is healing, shifting, changing. I have the honor of witnessing it, of giving the play-by-play analysis, but ultimately it’s their own wonderful, amazing, Divine system that is in control. Their system always been in control, always been working for healing, but I get to be the one to explain that to them. How magical.

For once, that’s all I have to say.