Inside the Treatment Room

I’m constantly learning from my clients. In fact, every time that a client walks in my door I’m prepared to learn something new. Since I took a two-month break to care for my mother and grieve her passing, I’m particularly grateful for all the lessons that I’m gleaning upon the return to my healing arts practice. I’ve chosen three stories to share from this week that I hope will inspire you as much as they have inspired me. (All stories are shared with permission and no real names are used.)
Recently a client told me that over the weekend, on a whim, she took herself out for coffee. I'll call her Anna. At the café she wrote a letter to herself from a self that is in the future. In the letter Anna provided consolation and comfort and assured her self that all the things that were bothering her were not as important as this beautiful moment where she was able to enjoy her own company. She also wrote down a list of old regrets that were troubling her and she patiently went down the list and examined each item, challenging her old perspective and looking for a new way to see each situation. I love that!
Another client, David, was deep in process in my treatment room and experienced a vision of a fierce, dark grey wolf with glowing, reddish, menacing eyes. The wolf prowled in the shadows on the outskirts of an illuminated cave in the center of which David was standing. He sensed that the wolf was lonely. When David invited the wolf to enter his space, the wolf stepped forward and transformed into a wolf with pure white fur and eyes of light colored gold. Soon the white wolf was accompanying David everywhere, keeping him safe. The wolf became the size of an elephant and sat under a tree where David could lean against him as if in a comfortable chair. After the process, when David was on the treatment table receiving a short Reiki treatment, I placed my hand over David’s heart chakra and, to my amazement, I saw and felt the white wolf. The wolf told me that he lives here now, in David’s heart. Days later when I reached out for permission to share this story, David told me: "That vision continues to stay with me."
My last story comes from a client I will call Victoria, who came to me for a card reading. I proposed my new favorite three-card layout from the Phoenix Game. I fanned the cards out in front of her and told her that the first card was to represent what she is being invited to pay attention to. She drew the Labrynth. Because she is focused on developing her spiritual Self, she interprets the Labrynth as representing limitations and obstacles of illusion that she encounters in her human form in the material world. I invited her to pull card number two, which addresses how best to approach card number one. She pulled the Community card. I explained that the cards want her to know that the best way to approach the labrynth of the human experience is in oneness and community with others. We both waited in anticipation to see card number three, which illuminates the take-away or insight that results from cards one and two. Victoria pulled the Tower card: separation and isolation. We both stared, stunned and puzzled. How can the outcome be separation when the approach is community? We did what I always do when I don’t immediately understand a card’s meaning. We sat with it. Then we talked about it. Then Victoria had a flash of understanding. “As long as I am in my human body, I will be separate and isolated, no matter how much community I have. The only way to escape the tower of isolation is to identify with my spiritual Self, which dwells in a higher dimension than my human form. There I will find oneness and connection.” The cards taught Victoria (and me) a lesson about the nature of being human. Victoria left feeling more motivated than ever to cultivate her identity to her Divine Self.
These three stories illustrate the creative and fun ways that my clients and I learn and grow as we embark together on the sacred path of healing.