I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately: If energy medicine is so good, then why aren’t all the practitioners in perfect condition?

For instance, tonight I attended a small social gathering where someone asked, “what do you do?”  I replied with my usual description, “I am a graphic designer and a holistic wellness practitioner.” People tend to get graphic design is but not holistic wellness (the industry has some PR to do . . .) . So I gave a generic answer, “I am a Reiki practitioner.” Someone asked, “What is that?” I replied, “Reiki. It’s universal life energy” which is vague and doesn’t tell a person much – an idiotic and lazy answer.  Luckily, a friend of mine who practices Healing Touch combined with massage says, “she does what I do, healing touch.” That led us into a discussion about Reiki and what it does for people. I felt tired talking about it, like I really did not know what to say and am not a Reiki sales person.

So maybe next time I’ll just tell people that I am a healing touch practitioner, even though that is not what I am certified in.  I makes me feel very vulnerable, stupid and lacking in self confidence trying to educate people what Reiki is. But I can handle a challenge. Maybe I’ll make up a little card to give people. I don’t want to sound like a used car sales person who has some kind of fake sales pitch. It needs to be real.

Anyway, back to the why the title is what it is.

Someone from the group looks at my hands and says, “so, if you practice healing touch, then why do you have bandages on your fingers?” I look down and tell her that my cuticles are cracked from the long winter, so I am treating them. Someone else comments, “Well, wouldn’t you have healthy hands and fingers if you practice healing touch?” You’d think so . . . but I don’t send healing touch to my fingers. I channel the energy to my clients. Plus, I am a real person and learning that being a holistic wellness practitioner does not cure anything. It helps restore physical and emotional well being.

For me, being there with a group of very nice people on a perfect evening was my emotional well being for the week. My fingers aren’t perfect but my emotional state at that moment was good.

I went on to tell them that the past year for me has been amazing and I love, love, love what I do. Studying Reiki and energy medicine has been absolutely wonderful. I’ve read so many books, taken so many classes and met so many wonderful people. It’s filled many of my days with light. I can say that a much higher percentage of my days are rated an 8 or 9 on a scale of 1 to 10 – in the past 6 months. A little over a year ago, most of my days were rated more in the 4 to 6 range. I felt lost and sad most days.

Many of the days now are filled with a sense of purpose and meaning thanks to my teachers and guides. People like Caroline Myss, Norm Shealy, Jean Formo, Cyndi Dale and Anne Brady who spend many, many hours teaching what they believe in. They are all normal, real people as well. For as many books as Caroline and Cyndi have written – which are all amazing – you’d think they would be exemplary and flawless, just like the words on so many of the pages. But they are not flawless. Caroline seems like a very angry person when I saw her at one of her conferences. Cyndi repeatedly tells people of her tortured childhood and how her son has ADHD. I am still a bit disappointed that they aren’t more perfect. Like, I want Caroline to be a saint of a person who never gets angry. But I’m sure the true saints got angry all the time. And I want Cyndi’s children to be perfect. I want her to be able to heal her child’s ailments.

We are real. We are ALL real here on this earth. We have emotions, feelings, memories. We have ups and downs. We have zits and bad gas. There are days when we dislike our spouses and children and parents and siblings. There are days when everyone drives us crazy. But then there are also the days when we are thankful for every single little thing and look at it all with wonder and joy.