Since staring my holistic healing journey in 2011, I’ve tried many things. I changed my diet, took handfuls of supplements, practiced yoga, improved my sleep, managed stress, removed toxins and made it through varying cleanses.
I felt like I was doing everything “right”, yet I still had horrible pain with my periods. That was frustrating to me.
I continued on a quest for answers. I declared out loud that I was ready to receive help. Call it prayer or intention, I made it clear that I was ready. I was open to receiving guidance about what to do next.
Shortly after declaring my openness to receive, on an afternoon late in October 2016, I received a message from one of my good friends telling me to check my email. She’d gifted me a session from a local woman that does Reiki.
Ask and you shall receive. While I’d heard of Reiki, I’d never tried it before.
What is Reiki?
Reiki is an Eastern holistic health tradition that dates back thousands of years. The word Reiki is made up of two Japanese words: Rei, which means “Universal life” and Ki, which means “energy”.
Reiki is a subtle and effective hands-on form of therapy that works to create a state of equilibrium in your life-force energy also called chi, prana, or shakti in alternative health traditions.
It’s believed that when this flow of energy is low or blocked then it can start to impact you physically.
Reiki raises the vibration in your body and clears energetic pathways or meridians.
Energy Meridians
A range of other alternative healing traditions including acupuncture, acupressure, massage and yoga were founded on the principle of energy meridians.
In ancient healing traditions, like Ayurveda, these meridian points are called nadis and make up the nervous, circulatory, digestive, respiration and lymphatic systems.
These nadis are also found in the subtle body where they carry thoughts, feelings and nerve impulses.
The Primo-Vascular System
Recently scientists at Seoul National University confirmed the existence of meridians, referred to as the “primo-vascular system”. This system is a crucial part of your cardiovascular system.
Studies in which dye was injected into the major meridian points showed a network of thin lines, that colored the meridians. This put a visual to that which had only been invisible before.
The meridian lines are not confined to your skin, but are in fact a concrete duct system through which liquid flows. This liquid combines to form stem cells.
This primo-vascular system shows the physical component of the meridian systems used in these alternative healing traditions.
The nature of meridians in their physical structure, and as vessels for your life force, show the profound connection of your body at a cellular and energetic level.
You’re made up of energy.
Your body’s electromagnetic. You’re intimately connected by the elements, energetic structure and flow of energy, to all life.
You’re made up of energy and are impacted by it.
The earth also has energetic pathways comparable to the meridians in your body. Everything’s connected.
A balanced energy flow is conductive to good health. If this energy’s disturbed or out of balance, then illness can arise. Dis-ease is believed to be a blockage in the energy flow of these channels.
Major Chakra Points
These blockages can gather in different chakra points in your body.
The word chakra comes from the Sanskrit word for wheel or vortex: a symbol of energy. There are seven different energy centers or chakras along the spinal cord of your body.
Each of these chakra centers connects on a physical basis with your endocrine and nervous systems. They connect with major glands and nerve plexus that then impact different organs in your body.
The chakra centers also relate to a unique aspect of your mental, emotional and spiritual well-being. Each chakra correlates with a different color and earthly element.
Lower “Body” Chakras
The first three lower chakras connect with your physical experience in your body here on Earth. It’s within these lower chakras that endometriosis so often shows up. It very much impacts the lower parts of your body.
Root Chakra
The first root chakra is located at the base of your spine. It’s the root of you. The root chakra’s color is red. Emotionally, the root chakra connects with feelings of support, safety and security.
I’ve recognized my own root chakra issues that are most pronounced as chronic lower back pain.
Sacral Chakra
The second or sacral chakra is located between your naval and pubic bone. The color of the sacral chakra is orange. It’s represented by the earthly element of water.
Endometriosis most readily shows up in the sacral chakra space. This ties in with emotional energy related to sexuality, sensuality, creativity and your sense of Self.
Solar Plexus Chakra
The third or solar plexus chakra is located above your navel, just below your rib cage. The color is yellow and it’s earthly element is fire, light and heat.
The third chakra is where your personal power lives. The fire in your belly, your intuition. Your connection to power plays a key role in your energy system.
Heart Chakra
The fourth chakra is the heart chakra. This is where your physical and spiritual energies intermingle.
Your heart space encompasses feelings of unconditional love, forgiveness and letting go. It’s here that you find your purpose and passion. Relationship issues show up here big time.
Your hands are an extension of your heart chakra energy, which is where the spiritual part of your being intertwines with the physical.
Higher “Spiritual” Chakras
The remaining top three “spiritual” chakras are at your crown, third eye and throat. Since this post is already long, I’ll save these beauties for another day 🙂
How does Reiki work?
The power of hands and healing comes into play with Reiki. The electromagnetic current that’s present within your hands can match frequency of the body (even another body) and vibrate in harmony.
The idea of this is seen and understood when two side by side pendulum clocks swinging at different rates, eventually come together. The sound from the energy between them causes the pendulums to move in time. In effect, the clocks communicate with each other.
That same type of energy transfer can happen between people, and the power of that’s heavily present in your hands.
Receiving Reiki energy from yourself or another allows your life-force to begin to flow again, resulting in beneficial effects that include relaxation and feelings of peace, security and well being.
While Reiki is spiritual in nature, it’s not a religion. It has no dogma and there’s nothing you must believe in order for it to work, but I do think the results are better if you’re open to receiving it.
Physical changes from energy work
After going to five Reiki sessions, and another couple of distance sessions with an amazing energy healer, I felt significant changes in my body.
After one Reiki session I woke up the next morning with super sore abs, as if I did an intense workout the day before. Except I didn’t.
All of that from energy work? Say what? The physical changes were curious to me.
Following the energy work I received, I had a mild start to my period. It was the day before Thanksgiving 2016. I remember because I was stressed about my period showing up when I was hosting Thanksgiving dinner.
I waited for the pain, for the horrible cramps and contractions to come, but they didn’t. I felt strangely fine.
Since then, the traumatic painful starts to my period haven’t returned, and it’s been over a year now. It’s as though the trauma connected with the experience finally released.
Along with that came a lot of emotions that needed to be felt. You have to feel to heal. It was time to release all of that and finally move on.
Exploring Energy & Endo
After experiencing physical changes in my body from energy work, I know that there’s more than what meets the eye. I do believe there are deeper emotional components connected to endo.
This connection has fueled in me a new curiosity and exploration of the role of emotions, energy and endo. I find this all to be quite exciting, even though I’ve been relatively quiet about it here.
My positive experience with Reiki intrigued me to want to study it. I received my Level 1, 2 and master Reiki attunements in August of 2017.
I began to practice Reiki on myself everyday and it didn’t take long for me to experience the benefits of this practice and to feel the power within my own hands.
On the Positive Side?
My intrigue with energy work and endometriosis propelled me into training with one of my spiritual mentors last summer. She taught me how to use focused breath work and visualization within the chakra system to help balance energy out… from a distance.
I’m ready to share some of this with you!
🌟 To learn more about the influence of energy, check out my new book, Energetics of Endo, and if you feel called to work one-on-one, schedule a free discovery call with me here.
