What your hands already know

CHAKRASHOLISTIC HEALTH

When someone you love is upset, you do not think about it. Your hand goes to their back, or their arm, or the top of their head. Nobody taught you that. No one has ever had to explain which bit of a crying child to put a hand on.

We are quite happy to call that instinct when a person does it, and quite suspicious of it the moment anyone gives it a name.

I want to talk about the heart this week, and about hands, because in my experience you cannot really separate them.

The centre that gives more easily than it receives

The heart chakra sits in the middle of the seven, three above and three below, and that position is not accidental. It is the hinge between the grounded, bodily centres and the wider ones above. Everything passing between them goes through it.

Its concern is connection, and connection runs in two directions. Giving and receiving.

Almost everyone I work with is fluent in one and clumsy in the other. They will drive across the country for a friend and then apologise for taking up ten minutes of anyone's time. They will listen for an hour and deflect the first question asked back. Offered help, they say they are fine, out of reflex, before they have checked whether they are.

If you recognise that, your heart centre is not closed. It is working hard with the outflow valve open and the inflow one stuck.

That is a real imbalance and it exhausts people. Constant giving without receiving is not generosity, it is a slow leak.

The centres in your palms

The seven main centres are not the whole map. There are smaller ones, and the ones in the palms of the hands are the ones you are most likely to have felt without naming.

Rub your palms together briskly for fifteen seconds. Then hold them a few centimetres apart, facing each other, and stop moving.

Most people feel something. Heat, usually. Sometimes a pressure or a fullness, sometimes a slight pull, like weak magnets.

You do not have to decide tonight what that is. I would only ask you to notice that you felt it, and that you did not have to believe anything in advance for it to happen.

The palm centres are how the heart reaches out into the world. Which is why your hand goes to someone without being asked.

So what is Reiki

I am a Reiki Master, and I am aware that the word arrives loaded for a lot of people. So, plainly.

Reiki is a Japanese practice, formalised in the early twentieth century, in which a practitioner rests their hands on or just above the body and holds attention there. The person receiving stays clothed. There is no manipulation, no pressure, no massage. Very often there is no talking.

What people report afterwards is fairly consistent. Heat, a deep drop into rest, sometimes emotion that arrives without an obvious cause. Many fall asleep, which practitioners take as a good sign rather than a rude one.

What I will not tell you is that it treats disease. It does not, and anyone claiming otherwise should worry you. It sits alongside medical care and never in place of it.

What I will say is that most people are touched with intention and full attention almost never as adults, and that an hour of it does something. If you would rather describe that in terms of the nervous system rather than energy, I have no argument with you. The person on the table feels the same thing either way.

April, and why the heart waits

The heart month in Chakra Garden's first year is April, with a second at the harvest in August. It is deliberately not first.

Opening the heart before there is ground underneath is how people get hurt. Root comes in September and again in January. By the time April arrives there is something to stand on, and then the softening is safe.

When it comes, the four are marshmallow root, lavender, holly and chrysoprase. Holly in particular is the least comfortable of the heart essences, because it is for anger and envy and the feelings we would rather not admit to having. Naming them is most of the work.

Bo grounding barefoot on the red desert sand of Wadi Rum, Jordan

Something to do this week

Put a hand on your own chest, flat, and leave it there for a minute. Breathe normally.

It will feel strange, and if you are someone who gives more easily than you receive it may feel worse than strange. Notice that, and leave the hand there anyway.

You are allowed to be the recipient of your own care. That is the entire lesson and most of us need it more than once.

Next time, breath, and the space it makes.

Chakra Garden opens this autumn.

Join the waitlist for Chakra Garden and I will let you know when it does.

If you would rather work with me directly, I offer herbal consultations and distance Reiki. You can find both here.

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Chakra Garden is offered for educational and spiritual purposes. It is not medical advice and is not a substitute for care from a qualified practitioner. If you are pregnant, taking medication, or managing a health condition, please speak to your doctor or a qualified herbalist before using herbs or essential oils.

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