It all started with some concentrated treatment. Over the course of the past few weeks I’ve had a variety of different energy and bodywork treatments. It wasn’t really planned this way, so I can only presume it was on the cards. Letting GoTalking about cards, Death keeps popping up his head in my Rider Waite deck, so I feel I’m in the process of change and transformation and energy work and body work certainly do that. Synchronicity resulted in me having about nine energy and bodywork treatments in the space of eleven days! I ran several Reiki classes during that time with odd numbers and when this happens, I willingly step in to partner up with one of the students so that they can get practical experience. Coupled with some osteopathy, reflexology, Reiki Drumming, massage and acupuncture, the treatments started to mount up. By about treatment seven I was feeling it! It can get quite intense doing so much energy work. I wouldn’t recommend it on the whole, but having been in this field for so long now, I know what to expect and when it comes, although it can be unpleasant on both mental/emotional and physical levels, I tend to ride with the punches as I know I’m going to come out the other side in a much better space. So the Herxheimer reaction started after receiving Reiki from one of the Shoden students. I had flu symptoms that night and just had to retire to bed, although I didn’t sleep, just going over and over the old stuff of the past year or so… that’s what a healing crisis will do. It allows you to evaluate all the old mental/emotional clutter which has been weighing you down, and let it go.

When one has any energy work done, there is obviously a clearing of the energy body, chakra system and meridians.   Normally, I would recommend to my own clients to space out such work, so that they may adjust to the things that come up and physical reactions are less severe.  What has happened to me is that the work has been intensive and really done some major clearance of all the energetic sludge which had accumulated over the last year or so.  On a physical, emotional and mental level I’m feeling clearer than I have done in a long time.  It’s also kick started me to do some body detoxification.

Introducing Reiki Drum to the UK has had many challenges over the last few years.  They’ve been wonderful challenges, but challenges none the less, coupled with long hours and late nights, and as a result I’m definitely not as chipper and physically healthy as I was three years ago.  But as I’m training more and more Reiki Drum Master Teachers, it has allowed me to let go a little from the intensity of it.  So here I am today not in my optimum physical condition and it’s time to practise some of what I preach to my clients on a regular basis and make use of the many detox techniques I think are so effective.

I’ve been a huge proponent of naturopathic techniques for many years. For those of you who think only energetically you might start to switch off now when I talk about body cleansing, but we have to remember the mind body connection which is a fundamental thing with detoxification. As a therapist and practitioner of the healing arts, I have seen in the last twelve years of clinical practise how important it is for a client to take responsibility for their healing on all levels. Energy and body work tends to give them the impetus to make the necessary changes for their own healing processes, but it’s nothing more than fire fighting if someone receives a treatment but repeats all of the old negatives patterns and lifestyle choices on a physical level as well as their stubborn toxic thoughts and emotions.  It has to be a combined effort. I believe given the kick start on an energetic level and with bodywork, a person can then make the necessary changes to other areas of their life. Right nutrition/diet, supplementation, exercise, drinking enough water, having enough rest, meditation, detoxification techniques, spiritual/mind/body discipline such as yoga/tai chi/chi gung, counselling, and a healthy dose of fun, all of these factors can bring about optimum health  in someone, but there often needs to be a combination of several of them at the same time.

In the past I have tried many detoxification techniques. This is often my first stepping stone to wellness when I have any problems myself.  In Japan, the practise of misogi or purification is a very important part of the Shinto religion.  We adopt some of the misogi techniques in our Reiki practise. The Kenyoku Ho technique (dry bathing) which involves clearing the meridians prior to commencing attunements or any other spiritual work is a misogi technique on an energetic level.

When I started detoxing about twelve years ago, I soon realised that as I cleansed my body on a physical level, so my mind and emotions would change.  Over the years I have come to know that certain body organs hold on to different types of emotions and as such clearing congested organs clears congested thought forms. I’m currently cleaning up my diet and as such have also embarked on a Bowel Cleanse.  There are lots of different ways of doing this. I’m presently following the Bentonite Clay and Psyllium Husk Shake cleanse, which involves drinking liquid Bentonite and Psyllium over a period of time which gently, but powerfully clears out the whole of the digestive tract, in particular the small and large intestine. We hold so much energetic rubbish in our large intestine. It’s amazing the old thought forms and emotions which come to the surface during such a cleanse. Normally it is things you haven’t let go of and can often present itself in very old issues from the past. As you clear the waste on a physical level, you let go of these old resentments, cluttered thinking and concerns and make way for clarity and a new, more positive way of thinking.

Already I have made some big life changes.To add a free day to my life, I have “let go” of one of my clinic days, which is probably about a year overdue and will allow me to concentrate on things that are important to me on a non work level.  I know that if I pursue the physical detoxification over the next few months more opportunities, new experiences and a more positive way of thinking and feeling will once more be a part of my life. Over the next few weeks and months I will document the different methods I will be using and how they have an effect on the mind and emotions, not just the physical. So if you are interested in clearing out the old and making way for new in your life, watch this space!