There are many reasons why teaching Healing Touch is so gratifying, but more than anything, I love witnessing the profound evolution that takes place in my students over the course of just a couple of days.
One of the first concepts we emphasize is “beginner’s mind.” People come to class from a wide variety of backgrounds and experience, yet we all come to the work with an openness to curiosity and a commitment to suspend any expectations or judgements.
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”
– Shunryu Suzuki
This sets the tone for the rest of the class, in which we learn the basic theory of energy medicine, practice many healing techniques, and talk about how these methods can facilitate transformation in others and ourselves.
Through Healing Touch, we learn:
- Active listening: Students develop effective listening skills as they focus on listening with their ears and their hearts, and release the tendency to talk, analyze, and fix.
- Energy awareness: Through a simple exercise, we begin to sense energy in our hands. Pulsating, prickly, hot, cold, magnetic, empty, full are just a few of the adjectives that we use when describing energy. Developing energy awareness helps us tune in to others at an even deeper level.
- Student bonding: Relationships gradually build among the students over the course of the class, culminating with the heart-to-heart meditation. This meditation, described by Brugh Joy, M.D in his book Joy’s Way, brings pairs of students into an incredible state of open-heartedness and compassion as they prepare to exchange the Chakra Spread, a beautiful technique that supports people during times of transition.
All of these skills help us become more attuned to the people around us, which builds empathy, a key ingredient to facilitating healing in others and ourselves.
Student testimonials…
“Healing Touch is simple to do but the results are profound.”
“Katie created a safe, loving space where we could explore, be vulnerable, and experience deep learning and healing.”
“The full spectrum of healing that I experienced-physical, emotional, mental, spiritual-fed my soul.”
“Thank you for opening my mind and heart to something new.”
