Protecting Yourself During a Reiki or Energy Healing Session

One of the great things about Reiki is it flows through you and not from you. However, many people drawn to Reiki and other forms of energy healing are empaths. Empathy is a form of psychic ability in which you feel the physical sensations and/or emotions of others as if they are your own. In general, empaths may have difficulty differentiating between a physical sensation or emotion from another person and one that is his or her own. This can be confusing, so it’s important you begin to recognize and acknowledge your empathy and work with it as you do energy healing.
 
Empathy is a gift for an energy healer or Reiki practitioner because it allows you to be more tuned into your healing partner and provide a more intuitive and personalized session. However, if you don’t manage it carefully, you may wind up taking on any negative energy from your healing partner while transferring some of your positive energy to them. This is one reason grounding and breaking the connection following an energy healing session is so important for both you and your healing partner. If you've received energy from your healing partner, you don't want to carry it with you throughout the day or into your next session. 
 
In my First Degree Reiki classes, I teach my students to run their hands under cold water and touch the floor after a session to release the energetic ties between practitioner and healing partner and for grounding. This is an effective practice. However, as you begin to work more intuitively and allow the energy from your healing partner into your own energetic space in order to create a more focused and personalized healing session, it becomes even more essential to practice good energy hygiene in order to maintain your own energetic boundaries and well-being.
 
Learn to Differentiate Your Energy from Theirs
First on your agenda is discerning what physical or emotional sensations are yours and which are your healing partners’. Some techniques for doing this:

• Notice if this has come on suddenly. If it has, and it has nothing to do with you, chances are it’s theirs.
• Ask in your mind, “Is this my feeling?” You may hear yes or no, you may feel yes or no, or you may get some other signal to tell you whether the sensation you’re experiencing belongs to the other person.
• Briefly remove your hands from your healing partner and mentally put up a shield by pushing a bubble from your core to surround you completely. If the feeling goes away, it belongs to them. Remove the shield and return your hands to your healing partner.

 
Ground or Push Out the Energy
Once you have read your healing partner's energy and understand what it is telling you, there’s no need to hold onto it for even a second longer. Therefore, once you’ve acted on the information you’ve received from your healing partner, you should ground it or push it away from you. Because you receive lots of information during a healing session, you may need to do this multiple times throughout. To do this:

1. While still working, notice your feet firmly planted on the floor. See roots growing from your feet deep into the center of the Earth and spreading under the ground.
2. Now push the energy or the feeling down your body and legs, out through your feet, down the roots you've planted, and into the Earth where it is grounded and neutralized.
3. Alternatively, visualize the energy as dark shadows and watch it drift out of your body and away from you and your healing partner into the air, where the energy in the room neutralizes it. 

 
Step Under an Energy Waterfall
Likewise, especially if you’re empathic, you will always need to ground and clear energy after a session, so you don’t carry the energy of your healing partner’s dis-ease with you into later sessions or as you go about your day. To do this, after your healing partner leaves and before your next session, use the exercise above. Then, visualize a Reiki or energy waterfall pouring down from above and filling your aura, chakras, meridians, and entire body with beautiful, pure, life force energy. This will remove any energy you've taken on and replenish any you've inadvertently given away.

If after this, the energy still feels connected or strong, consider a more powerful personal energy clearing, such as a salt bath or crystals. 

Image by graceie from Pixabay ​