'The woo woo stuff' - Reiki and energy healing

A few years after becoming a Bowen therapist and being part of the ‘complementary/alternative health’ community, I would often hear about Reiki and other forms of energy healing. All this talk of invisible auras and chakras sounded a bit farfetched to me and if they couldn’t be observed scientifically, I thought, then how could it be legit?

After hearing of various amazing experiences over the years, I finally decided to try a treatment myself to see what all the fuss was about. Surely you have to be easily suggestible for it to ‘work' I thought at the time, and because I was sceptical about 'the woo woo stuff’, I was curious about what it was that was having such an apparent profound effect on these people I’d spoken to. 

I chose someone who had great online reviews but whose methods were way 'out there' for me. She explained she worked with auras and as such did not physically touch her clients much, if at all, during the treatment. I took the plunge and booked in for a treatment and figured that with lying down and having a rest there might at least be a nice relaxing placebo effect coming my way. 

At the start of my treatment the energy healer asked me to lie down and my eyes were covered with a strip of material. Soon after she started, I wondered about her having mentioned that she rarely physically touches her clients because all I could feel were her hands on me, which did feel quite warm and comforting. Until…it didn’t. I felt her hand pushing firmly down on my chest, which started to feel increasingly uncomfortable and my breathing had become a bit more laboured as a result. I instinctively opened my eyes beneath the material covering them and realised that because of my rather prominent nose (I am half-Greek after all!), I could sneak a peek out from under the material.

To my shock her hands were nowhere near my body - a good 30cm away by my estimation. But the pressure felt on my chest (which I could see was completely physically unobstructed) was intense. Sounding a little bewildered, I called out to ask about the pressure and was informed that ‘that’s just your heart chakra opening up’. I didn’t really know how to reply...all I knew was that it was definitely not the relaxing/nothing experience I thought it would be!

I kept my eyes opened, peeking out from under the covering, for the duration of the treatment. I watched perplexed as I felt these physical sensations on my body wherever her hands were, even though they were nowhere near my physical body. When she hovered around my feet I felt little electrical zaps into the ball of my right foot where I had been experiencing a bit of pain in the preceding few weeks whenever I went for a jog. ‘Mmmm…there’s bit of inflammation here!’ she mused. 

After she was done, I sat up and asked her about the pressure I felt pushing down on my chest which was very much still present and was starting to alarm me. I was reassured that the sensation would soon fade (and it did, at some point while I was walking back to my car). I asked her how it was possible that I was feeling all these very strong physical sensations despite her not physically touching me and she went on to describe the different layers of each person’s aura, which are the energy fields which surround our physical body. My logical/rational mind had no way of explaining what had happened during my treatment so I just nodded and thanked her for her time.

And that was the start of my journey down the energy healing path. 

I started studying Reiki (perhaps one of the best known forms of energy healing), in an attempt to get some answers to what I had experienced on the treatment table. I couldn’t believe how warm my hands felt when I was performing the Reiki, right from my first treatment, and how the person receiving the Reiki felt it too! 

At first I offered Reiki healing and Bowen therapy treatments separately but combined the two treatments for a client one day and have never looked back - and no previous “Bowen only” client who has tried the combination has ever wanted to stick to just Bowen therapy again. The physical treatment of the Bowen therapy seems to just go hand in hand with the emotional/mental/spiritual element of the energy healing. Through years of ongoing learning, I now offer Bowen therapy & Reiki healing as well as energy healing treatments which involve chakra balancing and aura clearing. 

I smile when I think that these are all of the things that I would have rolled my eyes at many years ago. The idea that there is this universal energy around us and that an energy healer can channel this energy through their hands to the recipient has no logical or rational basis in fact and yet I can’t deny that something happens during a treatment/healing that is felt by both myself and my clients. 

Many people describe feeling my hands as very warm and comforting but some experience stronger or inexplicable sensations too. Some things that have been shared with me by my clients have echoed my first ever energy healing experience - feeling little zaps like a low electrical current on certain parts of their body, feeling the sensation of my hands when I'm not physically touching them (or my favourite - feeling the warmth of three or four hands on their body despite me only having the usual two!) And other things, like seeing an explosion of vivid colours behind closed eyes, I have never personally experienced but always love hearing about when it happens during my treatments. 

Sometimes I wonder if the me from a decade ago would recognise the me now as it has been quite the journey! I absolutely love being able to provide a variety of treatments to help people from all walks of life with a range of issues/concerns/conditions and am so grateful to have come across Bowen therapy and energy healing - even if they were both accidental discoveries.

If you are new and thinking about booking a Bowen therapy treatment and may be sceptical about energy healing but have a curious nature, I would encourage you to book yourself in for the combination Bowen/Reiki as you might be pleasantly surprised! And of course the Bowen therapy only treatments will always be available for those who prefer it. If you are feeling a little drained energetically or emotionally out of sorts, the energy healing (chakra balancing and aura clearing) might be the one for you. Please feel free to get in touch if you’re not sure or if you have any questions! 

Next up, I briefly discuss how I got into Bowen therapy for animals…and then that’ll be enough about me, and time for some health tips and insights!