The Reluctant Healer
by Rita Milios, MSW
For those who may be interested...this is the story of my own transformative journey from unsuspecting writer to energy healer....
I started my healing journey calling myself the "Reluctant Healer" because I was reluctant at first to acknowledge my budding healing capacities. I sensed from the start that they would become both a gift and an awesome responsibility. It was not until I had my first verifiable "medical" success and realized how important my work could be to others that I finally gave in and fully accepted my role as a healer.
"Roberta," was that first early client who gave me the confidence and commitment to follow this new path. Participating in her physical healing soon became a catalyst for major psychological and spiritual growth for us both.
I first met Roberta and her husband, "Tom," at a communications workshop which I was facilitating. Roberta confided in me that for the past several months she had been experiencing an unusual weakness, and dizziness when she walked, which was progressively getting worse. Now it was affecting other areas of her life. Always an avid walker, at age seventy Roberta was still putting in about three or four miles a week. But recently she had become afraid to walk alone, for fear of falling, and now she was dependent on her husband to stabilize and reassure her as she walked. She had given up walking in the park, which was a great sacrifice because she loved being outdoors. Roberta was distraught over the thought that she might never be independently active again.
Roberta had been under doctors' care ever since the onset of her mysterious illness, but was not having any luck finding either a cause or a cure for her health problems. Having had polio as a child, Roberta's doctors first ruled out post-polio complications, then they did CAT scans and a host of blood tests and x-rays, but found no medical reason for her symptoms. Finally they concluded that they might never be able to find a physical reason for Roberta's deteriorating health. An aberrant virus or possibly a condition with psychological origins were their final guesses, but neither of these sat well with Roberta. She grew more frustrated as her symptoms continued.
Thousands of miles away in Washington state, Roberta's daughter, Laura, was getting more and more worried about her mother. Laura had spent several years living in an ashram where she learned shamanic healing techniques. Roberta had not felt comfortable with her daughter's lifestyle at the time, but she trusted her daughter and had begun to pay more attention to Laura's repeated urgings for Roberta to try to find a shamanic healer in her home town in Ohio. Roberta did not know where to turn for such a service - until she met me. "I knew there was another reason for me to be here," she said, after I confided in her that I, too, had recently been initiated into the art of shamanic healing, although I had not yet committed myself to using it with clients.
At the time, I used mostly hypnotherapy, visualization and meditation training to help my clients with problems that involved emotional healing. Yet, about sixteen months earlier I'd received the unexpected message that I was to "Heal! Heal! Heal!" while walking inside a sacred circle in the desert in Sedona, Az. I'd quickly dismissed the idea, feeling that I already had enough on my plate for one life's work. Then about a year later at a hypnotherapy training session I unexpectedly received a vision of a feather-headed healing guide who introduced himself and said," I am here to teach you about the shamanic healing energies." I figured he'd just dropped in at the wrong address, but he quickly offered to release a persistent chronic pain in my shoulder area, and in doing so captured my attention as well as my appreciation. He gave me my first "lesson" and disappeared as mysteriously as he'd come, not to reappear again until I began my work with Roberta.
In the meantime, I'd one day waken up with an unrelenting urge to go to the local new age store and buy a crystal pendulum. When I got it home I remembered a borrowed book, Hands of Light, by Barbara Brennan, which showed how to use a pendulum to check the chakras. I checked my own, then my friends' chakras and I was hooked. I soon developed my own interpretations of of the pendulum readings, which differed slightly from Brennan's, as well as a "second opinion" method of using my hands to feel the differences in the energy of both the aura and individual chakras. However, I was still reluctant to use my technique with clients, until I found myself standing face to face with Roberta, who seemed desperate and so convinced that I was the one she could trust to work with her in this unusual way. I agreed to begin working with Roberta, using my traditional techniques as well as my "chakra healing therapy," as I later came to call it. I warned her that my own healing techniques were quite new and almost untested, but I had been using and teaching some very basic healing techniques for a number of years in my Miracles of the Mind class. I told Roberta we could give all of them a try and see what happened. Little did I know at the time what a surprise we both were in store for.
Roberta came to my office and we began her treatment by discussing her current emotional state. Roberta related that recently, while going through some old letters from her husband which she'd saved from her engagement and early marriage period, she'd suddenly realized that she was still holding resentment for her husband's "not taking full responsibility" as a parent with their young children. This and other old issues were getting in the way of Tom and Roberta's relationship in their golden years and Roberta intuitively sensed that this conflict was somehow responsible for her ill health.
I, too, sensed that Roberta's emotions might be playing a role in her physical illness, so one of the first things I did was to use a hypnotic finger technique to elicit "yes" and "no" answers from her subconscious mind without interference from her logical mind. Roberta's subconscious agreed with her doctors that there was no physical cause for her health problems but that there was an emotional as well as a spiritual cause for her failing health. With this information, I pressed Roberta's subconscious for more information and discovered that the use of color therapy might be a good healing tool for Roberta. Going through the various choices of colors, Roberta's subconscious indicated that blue (a color often associated with the spiritual realm) would be the best color for Roberta to use, and that she should visualize this color washing over her and through her body during her meditations. I worked with Roberta to help her to learn to meditate in several different ways, using the meditative state as both a state of realignment and healing and also as an avenue for both requesting and receiving inner guidance. I taught Roberta specific visualizations and affirmations to use at home, and we reinforced these in our work together. One important combined visualization/affirmation was having Roberta see herself walking as she used to, outside at a park and saying to herself, "I am walking firmly and easily." We used the the spiritual blue color as well as a general white protective color to strengthen Roberta's spiritual and emotional states and I had her visualize them as a protective bubble around her whenever she thought of it.
Then I began to work with Roberta using my "hands on" healing technique. I first used my pendulum to check each of Roberta's chakras, both in front and in back. I get readings for both sides of the body except at the crown, or seventh chakra, which gives one single reading. Following Brennan's lead, I set up the intention that the front of my client's body would yield readings about how she used her chakra energies in her personal life and her back chakras would reveal information that pertained more to how she used these energies to interface with the world at large. After my basic readings I got a "second opinion" by following up my pendulum checks with a "hands on" check. Through my hands I could notice more subtle differences in Roberta's aura. My intuitive link with my healing guide returned and I sensed that it was he who was providing the interpretations for each pendulum reading, energy sensation or hand movement used in the healing process. As I continued to work with Roberta over the next few weeks, I fined tuned this process that seemed somehow similar to biofeedback. Information about subtle energy differences seemed to be "registered" in my brain and interpreted by my healing guide at the same time. Repeated patterns emerged, and I found that I could use this information later with other clients, as well. But sometimes clients presented specific individualized patterns unique to themselves, so I always waited for an intuitive confirmation about each pattern before discussing any information gained from it with my client. Over time the information I received from my pendulum readings and the differences I perceived by feeling people's auras began to register subtler, yet more distinct, differences, which gave me even more information with which to work. Today I can sense "inside" energy, present deep within the chakra vortex itself which is continuously being created by the body and reflects thinking patterns and beliefs as well as physical conditions. I can sense how these energies feel different from "outside" energy, where the chakra system interfaces with the outer aura and intermingles with other people's energy fields, and where "used" chakra energy is processed out of the client's body. My pendulum gives me a "gross" reading, and with my hands I get a more subtle and more precise reading. Hot, heavy areas indicate to me the same thing that a pendulum "pull" away from its natural, healthy, clockwise circular swing means - that the person had excess energy in that area that needs to be released and balanced with the rest of the field. Just as our blood and lymph fluids need to flow, so, I feel, does our chakra and aura energy need to flow to keep us healthy. Heavy, sluggish or blocked chakras prevent this healthy flow and eventually, I believe, lead to physical problems. As I cataloged these perceptions, I began early on to relate each chakra to a certain emotional context and by noticing which chakras had an open, closed or mixed spin, I could share with my client what her body was "saying" emotionally as well as energy-wise and give her an opportunity to think about how her emotional state was affecting her physical state.
With Roberta, I noticed that the front of her fifth (communication) chakra was closed, and I asked her if she sometimes had trouble "speaking up" for herself and her own needs. She agreed that this was a continuing problem for her. Roberta had a large amount of "stuck," old energy in her third front chakra, which I came to call the "I'm OK, You're OK" center, because it relates especially to self esteem and old childhood issues. In fact, there was a slight pull to an area slightly left of center in this chakra which I later came to refer to as the seat of old childhood emotions. Roberta consistently, for several months, showed a stubborn stagnancy of energy flow in that area. When I checked her second chakra, which I've always intuitively associated not as much with a sexual context, but as the center of the true self, core emotions and deeply held values and beliefs. Roberta's second chakra indicated that a major blockage was present, so I asked her if it was possible that she was not in touch with her true self. She immediately burst into tears. "I haven't been in touch with my true self since I was a little girl," she said. "I feel like two people, the one inside me that I squashed and the one outside that they (her parents and teachers) wanted me to be."
This marked a turning point for Roberta as we used hypnotherapy, discussion, education about the spiritual laws, and intuitive training as well as chakra healing to heal her both from the "outside in" and the "inside out." As I worked with Roberta over the next five or six months, first once a week, then once every two weeks, and finally once a month, I fine tuned my original techniques, gaining more and more intuitive information and guidance from my shamanic healing friend as I went along. Occasionally I felt that I was also being assisted by healing angels when the need was especially strong. They came to me in mental visions as tall presences who stood behind me and worked through me. Sometimes they will be there to "receive" and dispose of especially negative energy that I'm removing from a client's body.
Today, I get information about both physical, mental and emotional conditions that may be affecting a person's energy field, but mainly I pick up on the mental and emotional effects, because I am largely interested in and focused on those areas in my work. As chakra reading is, I believe, a cooperative endeavor (I get the sense that my clients' energies are "telling a story" - giving me information about the health, dysfunction, strength or depletion of life force energy in each area and my energies and intuition are "translating" the energies' messages), it just makes sense to me that a healer will be able to best discern those elements with which he or she has the most knowledge and affinity, and for me these are the emotional and spiritual elements.
When I pass on information to my clients that I intuitively receive or logically figure out by reading familiar patterns, I remind my clients that while "the body doesn't lie" these readings are, in many ways my own interpretations and intuitions, and they should be taken as such and checked against the client's own intuition to discern its truthfulness for them. However, in almost all cases, my clients nod their heads vigorously, laugh, or get a sheepish grin on their faces, saying, "I know. I know, that's exactly what I do," as I "pull out" old energy, move energy from one place on the body to another, or "connect" the energy flow of two or more chakras together, all the while sharing with the client information reflected by these patterns or intuited through my healing guide. Knowing that their bodies register actions such as holding onto past pains, not letting go of anger, over-thinking, and not being open to their inner selves can often encourage people to look at how they are choosing to live their lives. I do not suggest or advise my clients about how to live. But information is power and most clients use the information I read from their chakras to help themselves make changes that lead them in the direction that they want to go - toward more health, more balance and more peace in their lives. When clients work both "from the inside" - looking at issues and clearing up emotional blocks or leftover "baggage," and "from the outside" - getting their chakras and aura fields balanced and learning how to keep them in balance for themselves, then I find that they move very quickly toward heath and wholeness.
Over the past three years, I've found more patterns, my intuitive messages have increased, and I have developed (or more accurately "been given") many new techniques and additional, more subtle nuances have been added to my original techniques. I've discovered that stuck or sluggish chakra energy in the head area is often associated with a left brain, right brain imbalance where the person is allowing one side of the brain to "hog" the chakra energy. Logical minded people often have heavy residual chakra energy on the left side of their heads that needs to be pulled out of the field or moved over and shared with the right brain. Just as a reluctance to "speak up" for one's self can result in a closed fifth chakra in the front of the body, a closed chakra at the rear entrance indicates to me that a person's communication difficulties lie not in personal issues but in how effectively he/she is able to communicate with the world at large, and how well these communications are being "heard" by others. A fifth rear chakra reading can also tell me that the client may be holding onto an old communication, being reluctant to "let it go." Things we could have said, would have said, wish we had said, etc. linger in our auras unless we let them go. So does old emotional pain such as stagnant energy in the heart area from emotional hurts that make us reluctant to open up our hearts and let others in again. (Other people can intuitively feel this energy pushing them back and holding them at bay - yet such clients often wonder why they've been unable to start a new relationship.) Especially noticeable is the stuck or stagnant energy in the solar plexus area, where the third chakra is. I call the front third chakra center the "I?m OK, You're OK center," as this is the center where our sense of self -esteem and self-confidence shows up. It is also the area where old, unresolved emotional traumas will make their presence known. Perhaps most interesting of all is the information I get from the second chakra. I find that more often than relating to sexual issues, as I mentioned earlier, this chakra relates to a client's innermost beliefs and values, and also how a client views his/her relationship with his or her true self or "inner self." If the front of the second chakra is closed, it indicates to me that the client might not be in touch with his or her true self. But if the back is closed it indicates that the client feels unable to share his or her true self with others (as is often the case with people who hold metaphysical beliefs). The energy of the second chakra is intimately connected to the energy of the sixth (third eye) chakra, and these often want to connect together in the healing process. Also, the first and seventh chakras often want to connect their energies, almost like connecting opposite poles of a battery, with the first chakra bringing in magnetic energy from the earth and balancing it with the seventh chakra's spiritual, or electric, energy.
I have found that the head area of clients is very vulnerable to chakra imbalances. The head receives the highest electrical vibrations, and because the chakra vibrations are influenced by thoughts and emotions, which both originate in the brain, it seems reasonable to me that the head area might be easily affected. I see many clients who have "heavy" left brains, and these same people often have closed "third eye" or sixth (brow) chakra readings, sometimes both in the front (receiving intuitions) and in the back (following through on these intuitions and allowing them to influence their decisions, choices and actions).
As I worked with Roberta, my first "official" healing client, I did not realize, however, that our work would lead to these understandings and a whole new destiny for me. I did begin to realize that this step had marked a turning point in my life and work. I now knew for certain that I possessed a new talent that I could use to help others. Was I willing to commit myself to providing it? I knew that if I continued down this path, it would evolve into a Path. (The memory of the command to "Heal!" was vivid in my mind.) Once I committed myself to the journey, there would be no turning back. But like many healers, I feel that if we are given such a gift, we have an obligation to use it. I knew that I would eventually commit.
I spent a lot of time balancing Roberta's second and third chakras before they finally stabilized. In the meantime, we removed a great number of old communication issues that were cluttering up her aura on both sides of her fifth chakra, and reenergized both her third eye (front and back) chakras. (I did this by using a clockwise motion with my hand, opposite of the counterclockwise or pulling motions I use to remove old stagnant energy.) Roberta progressed well, quickly increasing both her spiritual and emotional understanding and responding increasingly positively to her chakra healing, as she shed both years of old, erroneous belief patterns and large amounts of old, stagnant energy and replaced it with new balanced energy. Once able to hold positive, healthy chakra energy patterns and no longer recreating negative ones, Roberta flourished physically as well. Her weakness subsided, she began to walk normally again and the change in her demeanor was astounding. Far from being bitter and resentful with her husband any longer, Roberta having come to understand her own part in their marital problems and her responsibility for her own happiness, now saw their marriage in a new light. She rekindled the love that she had originally felt for Tom and read about in those early letters. Tom, too, was pleased with the changes in Roberta, even though as part of her new way of "speaking up," she insisted that she could no longer live in the land bound and flat state of Ohio. She wanted to move to Washington state, to be near her daughter and to walk in the pristine woods and hear the tinkling sounds of nearby streams and tiny waterfalls. Tom, having resisted such a move for a number of years, finally said yes, adding that he thought that now, after forty years they might finally have the kind of marriage he'd always wanted. I heard from Roberta one last time about a year after they'd moved. All was going well, and both Roberta and Tom were excited about their new lives.
For me, Roberta's healing was the proof I needed to realize that I could not, and would not want to, turn my back on my calling. Today, healing clients make up a large part of of my practice, both with and without traditional therapy as an adjunct. I've continued to be amazed at how effective the healing energy is in providing relief for medical as well as emotional conditions, especially medical conditions that are related to an immune deficiency and also head related problems. (One client had seen a neurosurgeon for ten years, but to no avail, to rid her of migraine headaches, which she had every day without fail. After a few sessions where I removed immense amounts of what felt like dammed up electrical energy - it "sparked" up my arms and they ached for two days - from her left brain, she soon learned to manage her own daily "removal" process. The last time I spoke to her, six weeks later, she reported having been headache free since our first session, which she never could have imagined before.) I've come to believe that the life force energy, working through the chakra system, somehow interfaces with the limbic/hypothalamic region and the pituitary gland in the brain, increasing the potential of this "mind/body connection" area to better produce neuro-hormonal, or "messenger," molecules that then stimulate the endocrine and autonomic nervous systems. I think this is how, clinically and technically speaking, healing occurs. But from a more personal, spiritual perspective, I think it comes as a "gift of the Path."
Today I am comfortable calling myself a healer. In fact, I recently started my own healing trainings, which involve a nine or sixteen month commitment and involves as much emotional healing for the healer as it does receiving information and learning techniques. The decision to train others to be healers was not made lightly, but I now know that this, too, is a part of my Path. Being able to help people for whom traditional medical techniques have failed, or simply being able to add an extra dimension to traditional medical or psychological treatment, is a wonderful feeling. And my ability to do this started with my work with Roberta, that first early client who "just knew" I could help her - even before I knew it myself.
Rita is available for spiritual coaching and transformational dreamwork. For details and information about spiritual path coaching or dream interpretations, email her at: coach@ritamilios.com
