“Reiki is a universal energy which flows through the practitioners’ hands to promote healing”. This is all that I was told when I learnt Reiki. Nobody told me that while we draw the energy from the Universe for healing some aspect of our self or somebody else, we are also displacing an equal proportion of energy from the recipient. It is like first ploughing the land before enriching the field with fertilizer. So, where does this ploughed soil (displaced energy) go? Common sense says, it has to either go back to the field (recipient) or it has to be removed from the field and dumped somewhere else (healer’s aura?). The displaced energy usually manifests as an imbalance in the healers energetic system or goes back to the recipient. This is a lesson which many of us have learnt the hard way – through experience!
I ran into this happenstance through sheer serendipity. After healing a client at a distance who had complained of feeling low and having a depressive tendency, I realized my body was feeling numb and was going into a paralytic shock. I could not hear or feel anything in my surrounding and my body was freezing. This had never occurred to me before; however, I knew what I had to do next. I found myself lying on the floor with my hands on my Crown chakra calling for Reiki. I was intuitively guided to lie down wherever I was and place my hands on my body and it worked. I saw white light enveloping my body and I came out of the shock within minutes. I did not know what had happened to me all of a sudden but I knew it had something to do with the healing that I had passed on to the client a few minutes earlier. My curiosity made me talk to some of my friends in the healing circle and they had similar stories of taking up the client’s energy and exhibiting symptoms similar to that of the client. I researched furthermore to find out the reason; why do healers take up the clients energies at times, even when they had followed the basic hygiene of protecting their and the clients aura?
After many more healing sessions and as I kept researching on the metaphysics of energy, I discovered that the answer lies in the fundamental law of energy – The Law of Conservation of Energy! Herein, I found the answer to my and most of my healer friend’s quandary. If protecting one’s aura is important, managing the displaced energy is even more crucial! Before I explain the why and the how of handling energy aptly, let us first understand this basic Universal Law.
Law of Conservation of Energy
“…there is a certain quantity, which we call energy, that does not change in manifold changes which nature undergoes… it is just a strange fact that we can calculate some number and when we finish watching nature go through her tricks and calculate the number again, it is the same”.
— The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1961)
The law of conservation of energy, also known as the first law of thermodynamics is an absolute law, which states that “energy can neither be created nor be destroyed; it can be converted from one form to another and that the energy of a closed system must remain constant – it can neither increase nor decrease without interference from outside”. Universe itself is a closed system, so the total amount of energy in existence has always been the same, although, the forms that energy takes are constantly changing. The conservation of energy in time is a well defined concept in quantum mechanics as well. Even the seemingly paradoxical ‘dark energy’ causing the universe’s expansion to accelerate, obeys this rule.
We know that Reiki heals our energetic blocks, traumas and stuck energies by releasing the old stagnant energy and replacing it with life force energy afresh from the Universe. When we take up the Universal energy to heal, we are displacing similar proportion of energy from our bodies. So what happens to the energy that has been dislodged or dismantled? It is definitely not annihilated as this will go against the Law; remember, energy can neither be created nor be destroyed? What might be the outcome when energy is left unattended then? For us to understand the consequences of our energy work, we will have to consider ourselves as a catalyst first. Let’s see how healers as catalysts exert an influence (if we really do) on our clients.
Healers as Catalysts
Catalysts are compounds that accelerate the progress of a reaction without being consumed in the process. Healers are like catalysts too; they speed up the healing process without getting affected in the process – so they can be of help over and over!
But what we tend to ignore in this process is the ‘transition state’. Transition state is when the substrate electrostatically interacts with the catalyst before forming the product. What this means is that the catalyst (healer) has to interact with the substrate (clients energy), albeit temporarily, before the product (healing) takes shape. Pay attention, this process is a reversible one!
This is akin to the concept of ‘tangled hierarchy’ in quantum physics, wherein the healer is inextricably entangled with the healee in the healing process. However, whether the transition state will culminate in a product (healed state) or instead go back and re-form the substrates (original unhealed version) will depend on a lot of factors including the relative energy between the healer and the healee. This is the reason why healing doesn’t work at times. This in itself is an independent subject of discussion, so I won’t delve more into it here. Coming back to the transition state, for healing to complete, the displaced energy needs to be dealt with by the healer in a responsible manner.
Closing the Loop
When we talk about the energy that is displaced from the healee, we are bespeaking of their distorted thoughts, emotions, words, actions, decisions, choices etc. which had stayed stuck in the individual’s aura and bodies in the form of physical, mental, emotional or spiritual block, misrepresentation, discomfort, ailment, affliction or entity. Most likely, the energy returns to the client when he/she goes back to the old zone of negativity or it may be taken up by the healer or may even remain in space as unresolved or imbalanced residual energy to be absorbed by some vulnerable being. Usually the healer is only in a temporary transition state (provided he/she engages in regular self healing and personal energy hygiene) before the energy finds its place in the Universe. However, being responsible for our energy work, we don’t want any spillages of our acts to be left to sort on its own.
Like Ouroborus, the allegorical symbol in alchemy that represents the concept of eternity and endless return, these distorted energy forms should be distilled back to a place of rest or sent back to the Source from where it originated. Many of us have learnt it the hard way to never leave energy dismantled or lingering in space. When we start a process, let us also ensure to complete the process.
Managing the Displaced Energy
Most of us healers cleanse our space and aura with different elements as an act of hygiene. But what about the displaced energy post-healing that is waiting to find a place of rest? How do we make sure that this energy finds its way back to an appropriate place? The most important thing about managing the displaced energy is TRANSMUTATION – from lower to higher frequency, from negative to positive quality, and from disequilibrium to harmony. You can employ any method that you are in possession of or simply use intention. I personally use the Violet Flame to cleanse and transmute the energy before I visualize sending it back to Source in a Chi Ball. Many of my healer friends send the energy to Mother Earth for transmutation. Well, it’s all a matter of intention! Yes you read it right. Simply affirming and visualizing the lower vibration energy getting transmuted and going back to Light is all that is required.
I know what you might be thinking by now… we are just conduits and not doing any healing. Absolutely, we all would like to operate from a space of non-ego and let Reiki do its work. However, there’s no denying the fact that ego is an inbuilt apparatus of the human psyche and for all the good reasons. We engage in healing by choice, which means we have reasoned it out and used our common sense to come to this decision. Having used our ego for the right motive, we cannot simply dislocate energy from a place and consider the task complete.
Being sensitive to energy and energetic work requires us to be responsible as well. It’s our onus to not just release and clear the distorted energy, but transmute it back to the highest frequency and light. The yearning to take ownership of our actions is the Universe’s nudge to balance our debts in the macrocosm of our soul’s journey!
Article by Reiki Master Supriya Nair
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Dr. Supriya Nair, IMD, PhD has been a Reiki and Kriya Yoga practitioner since 2008. A conduit between the scientific and spiritual worlds, Dr. Supriya has a profound fascination for the healing arts. Apart from holding the title of Usui Reiki Master Teacher, Dr. Supriya is a certified Health Coach and proficient in various integrative medicine modalities. She is also the author of "Train Your Brain to Unchain Your Pain."
To get in touch with Dr. Supriya, you can reach out via email at [email protected] or connect with her on Facebook at facebook.com/supriyanair111 and on Instagram at instagram.com/proconscious.cafe.
Fantastic and too deep understanding…. as alwayss!!
Informative 🙌
This is an interesting concept, to add another one to ponder – intention is everything in energy work and the idea that there is energy that is ‘displaced’ will leave you in this quandary. Personally I find the Reiki transmutes the energy directly in the client’s body so there is no displacement. The only time I have been affected by a client’s energy is when I have inadvertently intended to take it – this may be as simple a mistake as thinking “I hope this makes them feel better” – then the gates open and my intention and egoic “I” becomes a big problem! Ultimately it is interesting to play with different techniques and see which works for you x
Great. This article cast light on one of the important aspect of healing, this is one of most significant information for me… Thanks for guidance.