I tried it: Energy Healing

Energy Healing

The note taking and incessant typing were taking a debilitating toll on my right hand. At first, I could tolerate the pain, but when the base of my thumb started aching while I was lounging on the couch, I knew I needed help.

I bypassed physical therapy and went straight to ‘energy healer’ Donna Fremon-Powell. Energy healing is a centuries-old technique similar to acupuncture in using the body’s meridians/energetic pathways, but without needles. Healers scan your body for blockages, lay their hands on (or above) your body, and coax the energy to resume its natural flow.

My session began on a massage table that felt like a plush bed. “Just relax”, Fremon-Powell said as she placed a gigantic feather pillow under my head. Even though my eyes were closed, I could sense her standing over me rubbing her hands together to create friction and heat. She began at my feet, her strong fingers sandwiching the top and bottom of my soles. Her touch was firm and confident.

By gripping my feet, Fremon-Powell said she could feel where the energy was moving through my body, and where it was stagnant. She gradually worked her way up to my head, her breath deepening as she approached areas of tension, like my hips. Her hands bore into my body like she was kneading dough, alternately tugging, pulling, and digging her knuckles, fingers, and palms into my muscles. When the energy was extremely blocked (like in my hand), she grumbled and made sounds, while I struggled not to laugh.

“That ought to scare my energy into flowing”, I thought. In between the knead-fests, she held her hands still on my body as my breath deepened. I felt her energy encapsulating me, like she was holding my body in the palm of her hand. But later I learned that she had already left the room. I was feeling the residual effects of the energy pulsating through me.

Fremon-Powell said the effects I experienced immediately after rising from the table, “wooziness, relaxed and tingly muscles” were normal and that I may feel a slight vibration in my body as the energy continued to balance over the next seventy-two hours.

Sure enough, three days later my hands were flying across the keyboard as I typed a new story. And my hand has remained pain-free. As a born skeptic, I struggle to make sense of how this happened. Was it the energy flowing through her hands that healed me? Was it a placebo effect? Perhaps it doesn’t matter. My hand is operating at full capacity, and that’s enough to make me a believer in the healing power of energy.