I often get emails asking for help around the issue of ‘opening’. For many of us, as children, we had abilities beyond what our adult caregivers could fathom, and so we were told we were either ‘imagining’ things, or downright crazy. This was certainly my experience, and so I hid my abilities from the world, and from myself until I found Reiki in my 20’s. This opened an entire Pandora’s box that was both exhilarating and slightly terrifying. I have had to navigate my way through this opening for many years with the help of people further along the path than me, and also using simple self-inquiry and facing old childhood and social fears around ‘ghosts’, ‘negative energies’ and all kinds of superstitions that abound in our cultures (and reflected in Netflix!).
Essentially Reiki opens us to our potential. People worry that they will be opening themselves to some kind of psychic energy that will be dangerous and to this I say – impossible! But, if you were psychic/intuitive/empathic as a child, this is part of your potential, and you will most probably be called to open to it again. Reiki is an invitation to open to your inner gifts, so eventually you will be called to be a bigger, more authentic version than the ‘you’ you think you are. Trust me, we spend far too much time and energy hiding from our own brilliance, and yes, when it starts to shine through the hiding spaces it can be challenging; especially when dealing with a world still in hiding. So, if you don’t want to journey into your own inner brilliance, don’t do Reiki 😉
Now, assuming you are one of those dealing with an opening that you have been hiding from since childhood, what to do? Here are some simple tips that I found helpful in my own development:
1. Trust yourself and your potential: stop telling yourself there is something wrong with you, your feelings, dreams, intuitive insights and start to embrace them. Start to accept the information you are getting, and simply be OK with it. What is so amazing/scary about all this anyway? Just because everyone else is in hiding, many of us are not. Many of us have intuitive insights and there is also plenty of research around intuitive abilities – if we are all connected, if we are all one, then how can we not know what someone else is feeling or thinking? It actually takes a lot more energy to block other peoples’ energy and thoughts than to allow them to flow through us. Relax! There is nothing wrong with you 😉
2. Get curious: once you can relax, a curiosity starts to develop; investigate and be open to the input you are getting. Start to test it out – is the information you get accurate? A sense of awe and fun is much more empowering than fear and hiding. You start to think of someone and they message you, you notice you know who is calling you before you pick up the phone, you can sense someone’s mood before they speak, you can sense the energy of a room, you can feel into different layers of vibration and start to connect with those who may no longer be in physical form – none of this is actually difficult or unusual, we just think it is. Many of you with children will see they do this effortlessly – if we let them.
3. Expand: So, now you have relaxed, and you are curious, so now expand. You wake up and feel a presence in the room – if you are fearful, go back to step one – relax! Of course if you feel fear the sensation is fear – but that is not really what is going on, that is just your fear. So relaxing and being neutral is very important, or you will just feel fear with everything – even a light and joyful presence will feel fearful to you. There is no point expanding until you really get this point, fear is your fear, it is not the reality. The stages may take years to develop – you may be in the ‘relax’ stage for months or years until you can really feel you accept the information neutrally. Once you arrive at the ‘expand’ phase and you can be neutral and curious, the information comes in quickly and your development can be extremely rapid – when you feel a presence, or you feel someone who has passed over has come to visit, what are they here to tell you? Maybe they have information, maybe they are just happy to say ‘hello! I am here with you’.
Of course as you expand you do become more and more aware of the ‘noise’ – I often liken it to those who are very sensitive to electronic pollution, they can feel mobile phone waves and internet data, it can be very disrupting when you can feel everyone’s thoughts and emotional vibrations. Sometimes walking in crowded places and shopping in busy malls can become challenging.
4. Control: Expansion without control is chaotic and not always helpful, with heightened awareness comes more information. There is no point expanding to the point of becoming overwhelmed. Expanding to the point of no longer being able to go into busy places or interacting with people is both pointless and counter productive. When we come into our fuller potential it is to live life more fully, not to hide away from it. If you notice you are shying away from others do check in that you are not simply hiding from life but in a different way. As we relinquish one hiding method, it is remarkable how quickly we move into another hiding mechanism 😉 Remember that living to your full potential means exactly that, it means coming completely out of hiding and facing life fully, joyfully, and courageously. If you notice you are getting overwhelmed then find that part of you that is not relaxing. Some people find busy malls difficult, and yes so do I, but apart from the bombardment of stimulus, what’s the problem? Breathe, relax, stay focused on why you are there, get what you need, then out again. Of course if you are just hanging out and getting bombarded unnecessarily, then maybe start to divert your leisure activities to more conducive avenues, nature walks and intimate gatherings are much more rewarding anyway. As you expand and grow, don’t be surprised if you choose your friends and outings differently, but always check in – is this a full expression of my life? Or am I just hiding differently?
5. Transparency: this is a biggest tip I can give you, and one people find so hard to understand, but when you do, it is so liberating. When you stay transparent you allow energy to pass through you, and the key here is being relaxed. When we resist anything, it sticks. Resistance is a form of tensing and holding on and it is one of those paradoxes. We do this unconsciously, but in resisting someone/something, we inadvertently hang on to it/them. In order to let something go, we have to relax (think about letting go of any baggage – you have to relax your hand in order to drop the bag) – that’s why mindfulness is so important, are we tense and holding on to things, or are we relaxed and flowing?
This is also where self-Reiki is so important – it teaches us both to relax, and to be mindful. When we are transparent we can see clearly what is our own stuff, and what is someone else’s. If someone is full of negativity it cannot ‘stick’ unless we tense. Try it out for yourself and see. If someone is moaning or complaining and we are gently relaxed and just allowing the noise to pass through us, we can simply be present to the other person’s pain and just allow it all to be exactly as it is – the person feels heard and accepted, and we feel compassionate yet neutral. What has this person’s pain got to do with you? Even if it is about you, it’s still their stuff. Just watch and see for yourself. As soon as you tense, defend, resist, or think you have to fix it for them – then the trouble begins. So focus on being transparent and relaxed, and you will no longer feel drained or troubled by other’s energy. If you feel drained, remember it is you doing it to you – if you blame the other person or try to defend or protect yourself, you are simply adding to the tension, and adding to the resistance – and this will only drain you more.
I know I am covering a lot of topics here and they may seem unconnected. A psychic person talking to dead people and an empathy dealing with needy people may not seem to be the same issue, but in fact it is. It all stems from not trusting your own opening. When you open to gifts of greater vibrational sensitivity you will be able to sense ALL energy beyond your own mental noise, it is simply a matter of time and personal path which ones open first but in my experience empaths tend to be intuitive and psychic and vice versa. Energy and vibration, mental/emotional/physical states all come from the same universal whole – what you can feel or sense as you develop varies, but it is by no means nicely packaged into different categories – all energies flow seamlessly into different vibrations. So whatever you are personally dealing with will change as you develop’ Hopefully these tips will help to navigate all these different experiences, and remember – just relax!
All is well, and all is perfectly as it should be.
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