Grounding and Protection in Reiki

By David Herron

Grounding is not a topic considered as part of Reiki. However, in my experience as an energy healer who has Reiki training, there are many realities of the Energy which are not covered in Reiki training. The dual concepts of grounding and protection are among these.

Let us back up a little for a quick review of Energy Healing. Generally speaking this field, Energy Healing, involves the practice of channeling an energy form commonly called "Chi" into a recipient, who is the client, and who is receiving the healing. This energy, Chi, is involved with everything in the Universe. The word translates to English as "Universal Life Force", and this is a very apt term for it appears in every thing in some form.

The energy, Chi, is not unique to the practice of Reiki, and there are many systems of energy healing other than Reiki. The energy follows various rules, which in some ways resemble the laws of electrical energy, and these rules are active regardless of which system of energy healing you follow. In fact, it is my belief that the different systems of energy healing are merely different "maps" that try to understand the territory of the activity of Chi. That there are different systems merely reflects that each individual has their own way of seeing the world, and thus each teacher of energy healing finds a different way to teach which results in a different format of practice.

Grounding

To be "grounded" is merely to be present here and now. It is to have your energy field securely present, in your body, in present time, connected clearly to your present identity at this time, and in awareness of what is happening in your vicinity at this time.

It is my experience that, when ungrounded, I am floating loose from all that. I am in some other time frame, unsure of who I am, unaware of what's happening around me, or some other similar effect.

The practice of grounding is actually a lifelong spiritual process of marrying the divine or soul into manifest form. This gets to many questions of the purpose of life, living, why is life "so rough", and whatnot. You, the reader, will have to find discussion of these ideas elsewhere for they are outside the scope of this page. It is my experience that a common life task everybody has is this bringing of the divine into manifest form. It may be real tough to see for many people, but I think it's there in all of us.

In any case, consider the frame of experience you have in giving a healing. You have your hands on their body, energy is running, you've drawn your symbols, and everything is safe, yes? The promise of Reiki is this safety, yes? Well, yes, there are safety checks that I witness in Reiki, and at the same time I witness that the rest of the rules of the universal energetic universe (e.g. Chi) are in force as well.

For example, if your mind wanders from the activity you are involved with, what happens? You still have your hands on the client, right? But if your mind wanders, in other words you become ungrounded and leave your body, what happens to the flow of Reiki? Are you sure that the flow of Reiki continues running? Are you sure that it still remains as Reiki energy and not some other frequency?

Another example, suppose that this client has an issue that triggers a reaction in you. Say you have had many car accidents (this is true for me), and that this client hurt themselves and you are giving healing to their trauma. Does the clients trauma remind you of your own trauma? How do you feel about your trauma? What happens to you if you reexperience your trauma? Often ones reaction to trauma is to run away from it, which involves leaving your body, or ungrounding. Getting back to the client you are giving healing to, are you going to be able to stay with the client in their trauma? If/when your past trauma is triggered by their trauma, can you deal with it, or will you too run away from your own retriggered trauma?

Why is this important? With Reiki it is good form to stay with the Reiki energy. There are many sources and frequencies of energy (Chi) in this universe, but as a Reiki practitioner, and to be practicing Reiki, and to have the safety checks that come with Reiki, you must stay with channeling Reiki. I like to think of this as a meditation where the anchor of the meditation is the staying with the Reiki energy source. If you were to unground and become unpresent with yourself, or otherwise lose focus with the activity of giving healing to your client, how can you gaurantee you will stay in contact with the Reiki energy source? Maybe you would instead begin channeling some other energy frequency than the Reiki energy source?

A grounding exercise

Grounding is taught in different ways by different teachers. In my experience there are two directions to ground to in order to be present with "now" in a full way.

• Grandfather Sky
• Grandmother Earth

I use the native american terms because they resonate with me. One of my teachers calls this "The Hearts of Heaven and Earth" which has a nice poetic ring to it.

Basically one can think of these as: Grandfather Sky is located above you ("the sky") and is the source of divine wisdom as well as the spaciousness of life and the world in which to play. Grandmother Earth is located below you ("the earth") and is the source of nurturance, physical life, practical wisdom, and the vitality with which to play in the world. The two go hand in hand and one is not primary over the other.

It is best to start with grounding to the earth. To ground into the earth, feel your feet, your body, your presence in now-time, and down into the ground how the ground supports and nurtures you. If you like you can reach way down and explore the molten rock far down, all the way to the crystaline core of the earth. This is obviously not to reach with your physical body down into the earth, but to bring your presence of consciousness to the earth, in the present time, and the present place. "Now-time" in other words.

To ground into the sky is somewhat similar. Start with the top of your head, reaching into higher wisdom or knowing, the guiding light if you will. As you reach to divine wisdom stay present with the earth and now-time, you can very well be communing with the divine levels while also very present and physical. Though, I recommend that you practice this at home first before trying to do this while operating heavy machinery such as your car.

If you ground into the earth, you should notice more physical sensation in your body, food should have more taste and flavor, and so forth. But that also means you will feel every ache and pain, and sometimes it is those aches or pains which might cause you to be one that often leaves your body. To be able to ground more deeply into presence with here and now will mean to heal those aches and pains, wherever they came from.

Protection

The best protection is to be grounded, actually. By being grounded the clients ills will tend to stay with them and be transformed by the client. By being grounded you will be more full of energy, and your own essence, which will naturally cause the energy flow to be from you into the client, rather than from the client into you.

As a healer one of the common things that are done is to take the clients ills within oneself. This happened vividly to me once; my client was experiencing some deep old and vivid trauma, my guidance was saying to reach inside her and touch that trauma, I did and all of a sudden there was a swoosh and my client suddenly stopped experiencing the trauma. Instead her trauma went into me. It's just energy, after all, and can go from one place to another very easily.

Many ancient traditional forms of energy healing use this practice. If you remember the Star Trek episode "The Empath", this was a great example of this style of healing. If your past lives include training in this style of healing, then you might employ it yourself in todays healings.

In those traditional empathic forms of healing, the healer is supposed to take that energy and transform it themselves. If you do not do this, because maybe you haven't remembered from those past lives this is the second half to that style of healing, then maybe you will take on the illnesses your clients have. By all means it is not good form for the healer to get sick, and maybe die, from giving healing to their clients. The world needs healers who are well, not healers who are dying