Dig the Nonsense

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This past week, I went to see a new Reiki healer. If you’re not familiar with Reiki, it’s basically a type of energetic healing. Late night comic Craig Ferguson has a bit about getting his aura massaged that makes light of the practice. Whatever you might think about it, I’ve actually had some really great experiences with it, both as the practitioner and the client. My Reiki guide and master moved to San Diego some time ago and since then I had been searching for someone new that I could form that connection with. I’d seen two practitioners who brought me through a session that I felt was fine, but we never really made that deeper connection that can open the body up to some deeper healing.

Then there was Hannah. Now I think I came across her page on Instagram at one time or another, but I can’t exactly pin down when or what it was. Seemed just like another pretty, spiritual yoga priestess doing some marketing on the Gram. No harm there, but no real interest either. I peruse the Gram in my down time mostly looking at shamanic stuff, anime artwork, my friends pages and, of course, good looking women. So I basically figured that she fell into the latter category and didn’t give it too much more thought.

But she kept coming up on my page at interesting moments.

By now we all know that our phones are listening to us every second so maybe the algorithm just had me by the cajones, but it seemed like when I was thinking about this, she would share a post about that. If my day was zigging, her post would come up and show her zagging. It happened enough times that I was curious about the connection. I did a little more research on her page, looked at what type of offerings she had and thought that I was just one good old fashioned universal sign away from pulling the trigger and reaching out to set up a consultation.

One of my favorite people that I give the posthumous title of “teacher” to is Alan Watts. He grew up in the typical Judeo-Christain teachings of the West and in finding and breaking down Buddhism, is remembered as introducing Western society to a whole new outlook on life. My favorite line of his sits below.

The trick was to dig the nonsense, for as Tibetans say, you can tell the true yogi by his laugh.

Alan Watts

On a random day of the week I came across this quote that I have heard and seen a million times. As I had been working pretty hard on my career and some other side projects at the time, I decided to sit with it for a little while. It’s funny how if you can commit to marinating in a thought or an intention, then the universe rushes to meet you where you are.

I had been worrying about fitting everyone into the schedule that week, when three of my regulars called up to cancel, leaving me with more time than I knew what to do with. I encountered a particularly angry motorist, who had some choice four-letter words for me thinking that I had run a stop sign in front of them. The next day when I was driving the same route, it was confirmed that I did not have a stop sign.

I just had to laugh.

And then who should pull up on my screen as I get a quick moment to kill on Instagram but Hannah herself. Now Hannah has these big beautiful eyes and gorgeous smile of pearly whites and she posts videos of herself looking directly into the camera and addressing her audience about whatever she happens to be doing and at least once per monologue she has to stop and let out this big happy incredible laugh. As always, I try to listen to the universe when it speaks to me, especially when it’s laughing right in my face.

I reached out to set up a call which led to setting up a session where I would go to her temple and we would work on some things through Reiki and maybe some breathwork. I had told her that I was working on trying to balance my self-owned physical therapy business with my new deep dive into becoming more of a serious writer. I wanted to get myself balanced in that sweet spot in between, without feeling like I had to go one hundred percent into one and forget about the other. We chatted about what that could possibly look like and then we got on with the session.

I laid down on my stomach on a nice little warmed mat that had some crystals in it to align the chakras and she went to work. I didn’t feel much going on in that position, but it was nice to lay down and be still for a while. When I flipped onto my back, I started to become more aware of the energy moving in me. I had a facemask on so I couldn’t really see what she was doing but I could feel her hands hovering over different areas and feel the action and movement below them in my body.

Then she got to my heart. I could feel her hand right over my chest.

I could feel it hovering there just waiting for the energy to start swirling, but there was nothing. No movement. No vibration. Just silence. Well, what felt to me like silence. A stillness that was, in it’s own way, peaceful, but also felt like it shouldn’t be there. It felt like it was a forced peace, maybe.

She then patted a soft hand on my chest, “Who’s sitting here?’

“She is,” I answered.

“Looks like we’ve got to let go of that.” She giggled.

“We've been trying to!” At this point I couldn’t help but laugh as I said it.

The truth is that I’ve actually felt fairly balanced wearing my two separate hats as writer and physical therapist. Work is going well and I am on the verge of releasing my first book in the next month or so. (More to come on that soon!) For whatever reason though some of my old stuff was showing up again recently when it hadn’t been in some time.

This is why I don’t like to think in terms of ‘recovery’ or ‘healing.’

I’m not sure that you really fully heal from a traumatic scar dealt to you, in the same way that my shattered wrist from high school football will never be totally the same. Scars will be there and you’ll notice them once in a while. You just sort of learn how to deal with them when they pop up. But I wasn’t going to just openly share my wounds with someone that I didn’t know just because she made me some tea and put on some calming music. I’m a little more protective than that.

After wrapping the session with some breathwork and movement practices, we sat together and I opened up a little more about what I would like to work on together. I said that while I hadn’t been trying to hide anything from her or be less than honest, I had to see if she was the real deal. I had to see if she could feel what I was feeling rather than just commenting on what I had told her. To that she let out another big magnificent laugh.

So now we’ve scheduled a couple of sessions together where she will help me move my energy around through very light touch, breathwork and movement patterns. She’s commented that I’ve got to loosen up and get a little more vulnerable because I look too pretty and stoic sitting on my side of the mat in lotus posture. I had to laugh at that as well. This all seems so incredibly ridiculous.

But as Dustin Hoffman’s character in the film Stranger than Fiction suggests to Will Ferrell when he objects to a bizarre and ridiculous line of questioning,

“Let's start at ridiculous and work backwards.”

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