How Reiki transformed my anxiety – Liz’s healing story.

“High strung, anxious, nervous”

“High strung, anxious, nervous”: These were the labels given to me as far as I can remember. They were true, mind you. Anxiety and fear were part of my daily life for as far as I can remember. Of course when you’re a child, you don’t understand why you’re different. You just know you are, and that was my first exposure to emotional pain. Being different. I went through many treatments for the physical aspect of this anxiety as of that very young age: doctors for the stomach aches and the eczema. The spiritual and emotional aspect of it was addressed, although very little (do I remember my parents taking me to rebirth?)… but all in all, I kept a lot of those things to myself. The more common fears, like school and fitting in, to the harder ones to explain, like fear of apparitions at night that would keep me up, and horrible anxiety about terrible things happening. I knew that was different; I knew that was off putting to people. I grew, I came out of my shell, but with that, my anxiety grew, like a monster in a child’s dream. It took every step with me, shaped every feeling I had about myself and every decision I made.

This sounds like a bleak story, but it’s not.

There were some things that made a difference. Some therapies that worked a bit more then others. But therapy works with logic and I am a person of feelings, of the soul. So we are not necessarily the greatest match. I was not talking their language and they were not talking mine. One day, as things have a tendency to magically appear at the right time, a book called the Power of Now appeared into my life . Finally, somebody was talking my language: this made sense to me. This was the first time I was explained that I am not my thoughts. That I am not my fears; I am the entity in there observing them.

So reiki: what about it?

The pandemic was difficult for many of us, and I was no different. By then, I feel like I had just given up on the prospect of being happy. Another failed relationship, no passions, constant worry. I had come to the conclusion that I stayed alive to make sure my daughter could be happy, that she would not lose her mom. Had it not been for her, well, who knows… I like to think I would never do something desperate… Like many others I was listening to relaxation videos on you tube, ASMR, more precisely. The word Reiki kept coming up… it intrigued me. Why? I don’t work with logic, I work with intuition and feeling. I googled it and found a page describing its benefits, written by a lovely fascinating woman called Inge. So I reached out, what did i have to lose? And she reached back out, with compassion and a clear passion for people who are searching for their why. A beacon of light for those of us that speak from the heart and the soul. Inge had just given birth but she suggested I contact one of her former student’s , Liron.. She thought we might be a good fit. Boy, was she ever right. As soon as I reached out to Liron, i knew she would be trustworthy; If kindness and love comes in human form, it’s in this lovely elven called Liron.

We made our first appointment, and off I went , to what I expected to be as relaxing as a massage.

We spoke, I told her about the latest failed relationship, we set intentions, and I got my first reiki session. What started out as lovely and relaxing, soon turned to what I can only describe as the following: for me, it was like looking in to my insides and seeing pain, seeing fear. It was painful and it was exposing. I left crying, and sure of one thing:

this is it, this is the real stuff. I need to come back.

And I did, for what is now over a year, Liron and I have been working together, with reiki, with guided meditation (reiki often leads to other healing methods). Reiki does what reiki will do: some treatments are lovely and comforting, some are challenging and emotionally draining. A bit like, life, really.

What has reiki done for me?

If I had to give quantitative results for the logic driven people out there, here it is:

• I don’t get anxiety attacks anymore. Sure, I get anxious, but reiki has given me the tools to detach from the physical and mental aspect of it, which allows me to de-escalate.
• I no longer need the ativan, that was an important part of my life for so long. It’s been about 8 months since I’ve taken one.
• It had made me a more effective parent.

My beautiful teenager suffers from a condition, and though it doesn’t threaten her physical health, it is extremely psychologically and emotionally challenging. It’s her story, so I won’t say more on this, but when it first happened, in 2019, I was scarcely able to function. I put on a brave face for her, but my anxiety was palpable. I remember telling Liron sometime after we first met, that I knew I needed to detangle myself from my daughter. It was as if I was parenting her as a part of myself.

Reiki allowed me to see myself as my own entity, and my child as her own.

Being human means she will suffer sometimes, and will need to find her own way. Though I need to remind myself often, I can now comfort her , without falling apart inside. I can now be more of an anchor, in a sometimes painful world. She benefits from this, she opens up to me more, because she doesn’t receive all my fear and anxiety; you don’t have to tell a child you are fearful for them to feel it. Reiki has allowed me to parent as a guide and not as ego driven owner of this other person.

In 2022, I started the newest aspect of my reiki journey: I took classes to give reiki, taught by Inge.

This was a challenge since my resistance, my fear of not being good enough, of not being as advanced or « the same » as the others in the class was picked up on. Luckily, Inge is a beautiful mix of truth and acceptance. Inge guided me, she and Liron still do , and I continue with my journey. It’s not a straight path forward, but one that has reconnected me to myself and that has finally given me a passion that fills me with joy. And purpose.

I, Elizabeth Marion, have a purpose. And that is just fucking awesome.

And so I’ll leave you with this little bit of a song that just keeps playing over and over in my head , ever since reiki came in to my life:

My hands are small, I know, but they’re not yours, they are my own…

– Jewel, somewhere in the 2000’s And my hands are of service now, part of the movement. With love, Liz