My lama once told me, when he handed over the Tibetan singing bowl I’d just bought, that compassion is healing. And I never understood that. I just smiled and thanked him and took my bowl to play at home.
But during an intensive meditation retreat, my Reiki guides got me to really think about compassion as healing. And, as I'm a counsellor, I thought about it from the mental health aspect. Counsellors, psychologists etc, use compassion (or empathy as it's called in the industry) to help others. They use it every day, knowing that sometimes people just need a friendly ear to listen and really hear their worries.
And empathy or compassion works. It helps many people on the mental level. However, what if it's more than just mental, but on an emotional, spiritual, physical level? They talk about doctors with no bedside manner and how many people dislike this sort of doctor. And I get it.
Usui Mikao said that to be a Reiki Master, you need to know how to counsel others. I believe that's because compassion heals.
But you need to be able to differentiate between compassion and over-empathising with another. Compassion is a love energy that flows freely, but you will get Burnout if you over empathise with someone, and that's because you're putting too much of yourself into this compassion. There is a fine line that I struggled to differentiate. Compassion is a sort of love energy that is ever present in your heart. The way I ended up being able to access it was going into my heart and finding a white light that shone out of it. This was compassion. I put my hands into the light and said the person's name and that was enough to send this healing energy towards that person.
Compassion is ever present in your heart. It flows freely.
The other thing I learned during this week was about trust. Trust allows the energy to flow and as it flows, it removes blocks. Trust in the universe, trust in yourself, trust in Reiki. All of it allows the energy to flow. And when you're in the flow, synchronicities happen too.