Across healing modalities, one aspect remains common: one is not allowed to heal another without consent. And yet, this is probably the most flagrantly violated one too, as we give in to desires to ‘fix’ another person. Not only is this a violation of their free will, but it also brings with it consequences that could affect us physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
To understand the need for permission from all angles, let us start with ourselves.
Why Do We Want to Help?
A desire to help others is seen as a virtue, but a desire to help others when they haven’t yet asked for it is another ballgame altogether. If we look inwards carefully enough, we realise that a desire to help others comes from a desire to feel good about ourselves. Think about a situation where you helped someone and there was absolutely no acknowledgement or gratitude in return, just complete indifference. If indifference in response to help hurts, that means there was an ulterior motive – the desire to feel superior in some way.
Another common factor which brings about a desire to help others is much darker: a complete unacceptance of another’s flaws. Most of the time we feel quite justified in wanting another to change, like trying to get a friend or brother to quit smoking against his will, for instance. We might want this person to change, we think ‘for his own good’. But all we’re really doing here is rejecting this person as he is, and thus bringing down his potential for healing: for through rejection of his current state we take away any supportive energy we provide. Such help is also a complete violation of free will and brings with it serious karmic/ energetic consequences.
Why Do People Reject Help?
There are various reasons why people reject your help. For one, you might not be helping at all, you might actually be interfering. A typical sign that we’re interfering and not helping is when a person rejects all our suggestions. It is a clear sign we need to back off.
Even when we are being genuinely helpful, the other person might not be ready yet to receive help. All of us go through a period of ‘shock’ when faced with a problem, and we need a little time to acknowledge the gravity of the situation and find enough stability to take action. If someone tries to help before this stage is reached, they will be met with rejection – much like a person who has fallen and hasn’t yet reached out to a helping hand because of pain or shock. Just like pulling a person up before they’re ready can cause greater damage to their bodies, forcefully helping people ‘cope’ with their problems can create damage – to their mental/ emotional state as well as our relationship with them. When we embrace their rejection of our offer to help gracefully, we subconsciously convey that we respect their space, trust their strength, and are available the moment they seek our assistance.
Permission is Important
I’ve seen many healers work around this by ‘taking permission from the higher self’ and sending healing subject to the other person’s desire to receive. This still is a violation if there is no conscious consent. Imagine that you are going through a very rough patch and someone offers to bring you food. You say no, only to have them leave food at your doorstep every morning saying ‘you can take it or throw it away.’ How would you feel towards such a person?
Many of us choose difficult challenges in our lives to learn some tough lessons. One has to sometimes hit rock bottom in many ways – financially, in relationships, breaking down physically or mentally, experiencing complete isolation, etc. Until a person has reached this stage, they will reject all help because they know at a deeper level that things are not yet as bad as they were supposed to get. By forcing our way through to help, we not only violate the choices of their higher self, but we also make it clear that we aren’t really there for them because we are judging their journey. So when this person will really needs our help, they will not reach out.
Are There Exceptions?
Permission is not required if a person is unconscious or comatose. Those with serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar are incapable of realizing that something is wrong with them, so it is alright to send them Reiki healing without permission and they respond quite beautifully to healing. Obviously, healing a suicidal person does not warrant consent. Ditto for animals, plants and objects.
Healing children below the age of 5 is fine as long as there is consent from parents, although in almost all cases I have worked with, sick children indicate parents need healing. It is not as powerful healing a sick child as it is healing his or her parents because children pick up negative energy from parents and healing the parents heals the problem at its source.
Article by Ashwita Goel, Reiki Master
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Having learned Meditation as a child, Ashwita incorporated Reiki into her life during her early teens. After a decade of witnessing the magic Reiki, she felt compelled to take up Reiki professionally, and ended her corporate career in 2007, taking up Reiki full-time. She eventually incorporated EFT, hypnotherapy and past life therapy into her work. Apart from her healing work, she teaches Reiki and meditation, and her book ‘Healing Through Reiki’ is available on Amazon. She holds regular full moon and new moon meditations at @AshwitaGoel. Her website is www.reiki-bangalore.com and her blog www.ashwita.com
Ashwita, this is a lovely and helpful article that explains this very well. Anyone who is capable of giving their permission should be given the opportunity and thier wishes respected. I agree with you entirely, aside from not requiring permission with animals. Animals actually indicate their consent very readily and also indicate when they don’t wish to receive. Just as you made the point about children and the healing connection with their parents, the same is typically true with pets and their caregivers. Because of this, I feel it is important to have permission from the caregivers in pet situations on order to fully heal the entire situation. That has been my experience with animal Reiki. Thank you for writing this and many blessings.
very very excellent , full of knowledge and complete meaningful explanation
I am always sending reiki to my kids, husband, siblings. do I have to take their consent always.
Jaya I think once you have gotten their permission once, it is OK. Ask again if you feel something may have changed 🙂
Very well written, Ashwita. Beautiful article.
Makes a lot of sense. Do you think the same applies to prayer?
Hi. You can pray for anyone and anything, but, you must state that you pray “in the law of grace and for the highest good” to avoid any karmic backfire. It allows universe/angels to do as much as can be done while respecting the free will of all involved. You can learn more from “Angel Prayers ” book by Kyle Gray. Gina
This was so informative!
No, I don’t agree! I have seen people are already getting better without asking permission. The consent comes from the soul itself. It won’t help anyways if the soul rejects the healing energy! So no don’t limit this awesome energy to this 3D world. And what about animals? They can never give permission!
What if they are affecting us? Like family, because of their issues we are getting directly affected and they dont want to accept help..
Eg My family has lots of issues but they dont believe in Reiki and their issues directly affect me. What would be the best step in this case
Can you expand on unconscious people please. How can we be sure that they would have connected? Thank you
Great article but I would have to disagree with some of the points on consent. In Reiki I believe it can be used without consent and I think healing in theory is similar to a prayer or intention for someone or a group of people to get better or receive healing. Where focus/intention/attention goes energy flows. In Reiki (please also see the manual) You can send healing to someone else or a group – for example those in Ukraine or those suffering from the recent weather/fire disasters. It is not possible to get the consent of everyone in a large group in theory, but we would pray for them with good intention and we can also send healing. Ideally you need their consent but if you don’t have their (or all of the members of a groups) consent you can use the overrider and ask if it is only sent if it’s for the higher good of the client/group or if not it will go to another (person, situation animal etc) or to the ground. When you pray for others you don’t need their consent but if it is for healing – then consent or for the overridden for their higher good is what I use x