Healing the Past with Reiki

As we progress through life we gain a wealth of knowledge and experience. We also gain a collection of memories and these can be good memories that bring us joy or they can be negative memories that place a scar on our mental and emotional wellbeing that we may want to seek healing from.

Depending on the experiences and the way we were taught to cope with difficulties, how negative memories impact us can be different for everyone. For some people a bad experience can simply be a bad memory that may make us feel uncomfortable while we recollect the experience, however, we can sometimes recover quickly from those memories and resume our day without too much impact.

For others, some memories represent trauma and when we recollect those memories they can create distress and disrupt our day. There are negative experiences that occur in our life that may not be present in our conscious mind, however, they impact our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in our daily life. Examples of this include fears we may have that we are unable to understand.

Below are some signs that may indicate you are impacted by your past in the present moment:

• Ruminating over past events, conversations, and experiences
• Finding yourself in relationships with people who have the same negative behavioral patterns
• Bringing up the past repeatedly in current arguments
• Avoiding future opportunities by focusing on past regrets
• Sabotaging your success
• Being triggered by witnessing situations
• Seeking approval or acceptance by everyone
• Expecting bad things to happen to you despite best efforts
• Not embracing your successes and positive attributes
• Constantly feeling a sense of dread or anxiety
• Avoiding new experiences

If you have had bad experiences in the past, these can affect your life in the present. Our past can have a serious impact on the enjoyment and satisfaction that you feel in your life.

For many of us, we can find ways to cope with negative experiences from the past. We may exclude toxic people from our lives, we may engage in activities that help distract us from negative thoughts and emotions such as meditation, exercise, and talking.

HOW TO HEAL

Healing from your past is an important process that helps you move from the limitations that negative experiences may place on you, to moving forward in your life where you feel engaged and positive about your future.

Coping with the past enables you to function in your daily life which is an essential skill for everyone to have. Coping can sometimes be the highest level of self-care that we can provide ourselves.

To move beyond coping involves embracing the idea of healing. Healing from your past involves:

• Acceptance – that difficulties in life are a part of life
• Release – letting go of held
• Changing beliefs
• Forgiveness – others, yourself, and that the situation occurred

To become engaged in this process means you are willing to heal.

The first step in healing from the past is recognizing how it affects the present. If you are not aware that your current thoughts, beliefs, and emotions are in some way influenced by the past, then you are navigating this area without an understanding of the foundations of your life.

Understanding how our past impacts our present helps to identify the most impactful moments of the past that may have influenced our present worldview.

EMOTIONAL HEALING

Two main components are affected by our past:

• Cognitive – how we think about experiences
• Emotions – how we feel about experiences

The cognitive aspects can often be the easiest component for us to understand. In many cases, it requires curiosity and an inquisitive mind to understanding our past. For many people, remaining in the cognitive realm is easier because it means being logical and applying intellect and logic to experiences.

For example, it may mean understanding that our parents being distant from us affected how we connect with others. Logically, we understand that human connection develops more human connection. We understand that and we acknowledge the link. However, the next step is to process this experience emotionally.

Emotionally, we are left hurt because we feel our parents didn’t love us. We may feel angry that our parent’s actions have impacted our present and future ability to connect with others.

Emotionally, processing this information can be more difficult than understanding the cognitive aspects of it because emotionally we question our self-worth against these experiences.

In this sense, healing our emotions is the most difficult part of this process, however, our cognitive parts can help inform us and encourage us to change our beliefs about the truer sense of what our emotions mean.

Once you have explored the cognitive aspects of your past experiences and identified the emotions that you are experiencing, you can begin to work on healing.

The healing process is always unique to our perspective and our learning styles. No single method applies to everyone as we all bring different experiences and abilities to our life.

With this in mind, it may take you some time to work through a healing process as you identify different techniques and methods that work for you.

Reiki can play a complementary part in an overall approach to healing. Along with Reiki, other healing methods include personal self-education, self-care, support from friends and family, and professional help through therapy.

Some ways in which Reiki can help include:

• Developing a routine of Reiki self-care to care for ourselves
• Using the rituals of Reiki to develop a sense of safety and certainty
• Using Reiki to process difficult emotions and bring a sense of calm
• Using Reiki to clear confusion and provide a sense of clarity to complex thoughts
• Reiki connects with the universal energy in life that reminds us that we are part of a connected human experience
• Reiki history reminds us of our human ability to overcome difficult life experiences
• Reiki reminds us to embrace knowledge, learning and finding a deeper understanding of ourselves

Using the Reiki symbol Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen On can be beneficial in your quest to heal your past. This symbol is often connected with physical distance healing, however, it is also connected with time healing and therefore is beneficial for healing the past.

As a Reiki practitioner, it can also help you deliver Reiki by distance to a client who is not physically present with you.

You can meditate on the Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen symbol and draw it over your chakra system as a methodical process of Reiki treatment. You can also focus the Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen symbol over your heart (emotional center) and mind (cognitive center).

As you use the Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen symbol, be clear about your intentions and your desire to seek healing and develop a hopeful approach to the present and future.

You may want to focus on a specific experience or person that has caused you emotional upset.

Remind yourself that you are focusing on your healing. You may want to state the following statements through your Reiki session as you engage in deep breathing, remaining mindful, and meditating on the Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen symbol.

I am here to heal.

I accept my past.

I release my past.

I forgive my past.

I am here to grow.

Working on your past using Reiki can be an emotional experience itself and therefore it’s a good idea to have self-care practices and support available to you after your Reiki sessions.

For client work, it’s important to convey to your client that your Reiki approach should be viewed as a complementary aspect to their healing and that they should also keep in mind self-care and utilizing appropriate support services when difficult emotions arise.

Below are some previous blog posts that provide additional resources for the topic of healing from the past:

• Can Reiki Help with People Pleasing
• Can Reiki Help with Perfectionism
• Create a Soothing Spiritual Practice
• Creating a Reiki Practice
• Empower Yourself with Reiki
• How Reiki Can Help Your Relationships
• Managing Stress with Reiki
• Use Reiki to Deal with Difficult People
• Using Reiki for a Client Going Through a Divorce
• Using Reiki for a Client Who Is Grieving
• Using Reiki for a Client with Anxiety
• Using Reiki For Your Own Self-Care
• Using Reiki to Become more Mindful
• Using Reiki to Deal with Anger