A decision
A toddler shudders when startled.
A child winces in pain as they fall and scrape their knee.
A person wails with abandon over the loss of a loved one.
What I didn’t understand then that I understand now, is our ability to discharge1 (expressing and letting go of tension or hurt) is innate; a prerequisite to deep healing.
Healing through giving attention to our hurts, then letting go of our attachment to them.
For some of us at a point in our lives we’ve stopped discharging. The hurts have piled up a little too much leaving our processing to be delayed, pushed down, or forgotten.
For myself, the manner at which we (ex and I) split, re-stimulated my abandonment insecurities, an outcome of my underlying frozen need2 for attention. As a child, I remember days coming home from elementary overwhelmed with homework often feeling alone, discouraged, and stressed about falling behind in class which happened eventually.
Mom had her hands full raising three boys and working full time, while dad doing what he could, found himself tangled in the prison system; they tried but weren’t equipped with the depth of presence that I needed. Eventually asking for help was accompanied by fear of rejection (revoked attention or abandonment), which turned into false messages solidifying into false beliefs. When I did receive attention, I wouldn’t know how to handle it so I’d dismiss it or take advantage of it. Fucking inner-work ya’ll. That memory amongst others, filled a basket of childhood needs frozen in time, that i’d lug around into my adult relationships.
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. - Victor Frankl
I strove to keep my mind occupied, far far away from my breakup. For the first time, I tried filling my cup exclusively with my own attention, starting with self love.3
Part of my self love effort included opening myself up to things i’ve never before tried. Queue long hair vibes, guttural mantras, and waving smoking palo santo sticks like an airplane marshal.
My first reiki session put me on a path to face my hurts, to feel them all. To face things, well, that I didn't feel I needed to face if they weren’t all that visible in my day-to-day. During that first sesh, I shared with my reiki teacher how I've cried here and there since my breakup. She patiently nodded, telling me that she’d have herself a cry nearly every morning. Making it sound as casual as eating a bagel.
“Really? Every morning?”
I smiled that uncomfortable smile you give when someone says something you don't quite understand but aim to continue conversation.
She’d just given me express permission to open the floodgates.
The Crucible
It was post reiki session.
With no forewarning, I fell into the deep end of inner-healing and spiritual development.
My days changed dramatically from never praying, let alone not knowing how to pray, to praying religiously daily.
From meditating only when I felt like it, to sitting in meditation longer and consistently.
From reciting affirmations daily: in the mirror, on morning jogs, on the drive into work, at work, before bed.
From counting the times i’ve cried in the past two years on one hand, to constant tears everyday for over two months (I was basically a Kleenex mascot) as my teacher had previously shared.
We’re human beings, not human doings - Anon
My rediscovered ability to feel my feelings brought on a deep liberation i’ve lived dissociated from far too long.
Far too long due to my lack of self awareness, lack of self-acceptance and rigidity.
Far too long due to my being reactive versus proactive whenever the inevitable life event called for inner-work. Far too long due to societal pressures.
Pressures to tirelessly pick myself up and press on.
Part due to being a man with few, if no safe spaces to really go there and open up.
Part due to growing up in oppressive situations only a black/brown person experiences. Not only must I press on, whether in isolation or not, I'm expected to do it in record time and with grace.
Spiritual reps
I asked her how’d I know when i’m ready. With an oracle like air my reiki teacher said, “you’ll know when you’re ready [to practice reiki].”
Being ready was surrendering to the path.
What a loaded word, surrender.
And yet surrendering had been the key that fit the lock to my healing.
One step further down this invisible road.
I started noticing.
I felt awake.
Each exhale, a little longer, each step forward a little more grounded. This presence—maybe awareness—was refreshing.
I could possibly control how deep I went, but there was no turning back no matter how dark it got.
Spiritual counselor and writer Aletheia Luna keeps it all the way one hundred:
You aren’t playing with crystals and singing cute mantras while doing inner work (although those things can be complementary and help in their own way). Inner work isn’t Instagram-worthy or something you can wear as an egotistical badge of superiority.
It’s ugly, it’s isolating, it’s humiliating, it’s necessary. Who the hell in their right mind would sign-up for this kind of ride? And that’s the empowering part. When you’ve carried pain—and absolutely refuse to carry it one step further—there’s not much else in life that’ll scare you, let alone the intensity of inner-work.
So thats where I was. With complete surrender, I signed up for this hell of a ride, to go there and be in it.
21 days of shit
After about a month of contemplating and asking myself if I was really going through with this, the day came to prepare for my reiki attunement.
Without going too far into what prepping looked like, my teacher sent me specific instructions on what to do and not to do before attunement day.
Some of the things i did to prep:
- Water & veggie juice fast, 71 hours prior (didn’t quite make it to 72 hrs, it was taco night)
- No caffeine or sweets for at least 7 days prior
- Meditated daily for 30 min for at least 7 days prior
- Restricted media consumption (netflix, social media, etc.)
What’s attunement anyway?
One way it’s described is being initiated to a high vibrational frequency of energy. The healing ability, in the form of reiki energy is passed through an attuned master into their student. And you now have access to an infinite source of healing energy.
You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. - Morpheus, The Matrix
Pre experience
Eyes closed and relaxed, I lie on my back atop the massage table. My arms rested at my sides with my palms downward similar to my previous session.
But this time, at some point my palms had turned upwards and began to get really warm. Something visceral happened that even after processing, isn’t all that easy to explain.
This first attunement(I later received a second which was similar) left me with an oddly familiar sense of duty and compassion. I got off the massage table in silence, with an understanding that this life had been riddled with clues leading up to that moment of sanctity, and i’m where I needed to be not for me but for a whole. Very much a divine download.
Post-experience was an entire thing
This is called the 21 day cleanse. A calibration period after the attunement process, coined by the reiki community.
Of course, as with most things in life, I found out about this cleansing after I was already knee deep in the shits.
And this cleanse was no joke.
Even as the logical and even-tempered person I usually am, all that shit was tossed out the window. My emotions were man-handled into the most powerful washer machine ever made and put on extreme cycle.
More bouts of spontaneous crying. Flashbacks I long forgotten about popping up. Periods of waking up drenched in cold sweat coupled with vivid dreams for days at a time.
And then it ended.
It was all so bizarre.
How could something invisible and so subtle, bare such a very real effect?
What did this all mean?
I was shook and frustrated since I couldn’t really share with the outside world without the chance of sounding like a loon.
On the flipside: the [few] moments I wasn’t being spiritually rinsed & rung, my being was light, easy-going, and even quite relaxed. My seeming chaos was contrasted by brief serenity. A deeper spiritual trust that this is part of a process I didn't need to fully understand at the moment.
What a trial.
Unless you have the luxury of completely focusing on yourself, (i.e. taking time off from work, the kids, any and all responsibilities) the added challenge of navigating life as you normally would is a major balancing act.
I struggled to fit back into the groove of things.
Conversations, habits, relationship dynamics that didn’t serve me had to be let go. It’s what I asked for and it’s what I got, change.
My inner hippie—ignored and back-seated for years—now moved up to the drivers seat with his long hair, guttural mantras, and smoky palo santo. Lots of palo santo.
Driving to the sun.