Master Class

Day 16,068. Although I haven’t talked about it much since then, I attended Shinpiden (Reiki Master Teacher class) exactly six months ago. Anyone who has been through anything like this knows that the learning goes well beyond the time in the physical classroom. The teaching (and testing) can go on for weeks, months, a lifetime. Our homework is to treat ourselves ... heal what needs healing within us. No small feat. But we can be of no assistance to anyone else if our heads, hearts, and hands are full of our own baggage.

Working at the Master level has deepened my compassion for our human-beingness, but at the same time I can see more clearly than ever before just how powerful, magnificent and, well, WELL that we really are at our core. Our well-being truly abounds, although our circumstances can sometimes make it difficult to see it that way. Like the sun behind the clouds, the light is always there. The truth of our inherent well-being has taken root within me as a knowing over these months of practice and contemplation. Which isn’t to say that I don’t forget sometimes in my day-to-day life. As a recovering dramaholic, I do. But it is getting easier to bounce back and remember in a (gentle) thump-on-the-head, could-have-had-a-V8 kind of way.

To the frustration of some around me, there are some things that I can’t do anymore, now that I know what I know. “I won’t go there with you.” I said these words recently and I could tell that they wounded the one who received them. The only thing that I am sorry about is that my point was misunderstood. This is my truth. I won't go there. I won’t to go to those dark places with those who have forgotten ... the ones who tell themselves scary stories that I know aren’t or don’t have to be true. I won’t pretend that they are or could be real, even for the sake of comfort. I don't do pity. Ever. The two of us in that abyss can be of no help to each other at all.

I would much rather have you believe that I have abandoned you in your time of need than to be anything less than grounded in my powerful vision of you as healthy, strong and blessed. My role as a healing “facilitator” is to hold that space for and picture of you so that maybe, hopefully, you can (at the very least) muster the hope to see yourself and/or your situation that way. From that hope can be borne willingness and from that willingness is borne belief. Once you reach belief, you will (re)discover the truth that I knew about you all along.

Now I know full well that my positive attitude in the face of your anguish is going to seem cruel and piss you off. That’s fine. I can take it. Please be angry with me rather than repeat that story again ... the scary one that makes you sad ... the sad one that makes you scared. I know that someday, when you discover that you are back to living happily ever after, you will realize that quiet in the background, I was not only on your team all along but also your biggest supporter of all.