The Ripple Effect of Healing
Now and again, someone will tell me about their current hardship and reminisce about a time when they were meditating or practising Reiki every day. During this time, life was good, they felt happier as a result and things were generally going well for them. Then gradually, their daily practice faded to once a week and eventually disappeared altogether.
What’s interesting is that, even though they can clearly see the correlation between their consistent practice and their sense of wellbeing, they often struggle to rekindle the same commitment, focus or determination to return to what once brought them so many benefits.
THE QUICK FIX
We’ve become so uncomfortable with unwanted emotions that we can hardly bear to sit with them for even a single day, never mind a week. In a world shaped by Amazon Prime’s buy now, get it tomorrow culture, we often expect our healing to work the same way: quick, easy and instant. It’s no wonder we jump from one modality to the next, hoping that a single session will magically erase all our struggles.
When healing doesn’t unfold on our timeline, we overlook the deeper truth - practices like meditation and Reiki are time-honoured techniques, refined over thousands of years and supported by a wealth of scientific research. Their power is revealed not in one-off attempts but through consistent, regular practice.
THE RIPPLE
Shifting our current reality is much like standing at the edge of a still lake and tossing in a pebble. The ripples begin to form and slowly expand outward but it takes time before they reach the other side. Change is always in motion, always on its way to us, yet so often we lose patience, give up too soon and start searching elsewhere before the ripples have a chance to arrive.
STRESS ADDICTION
Author and Spiritual Teacher, Dr Joe Dispenza, believes the hormones of stress are addictive. The addictive thoughts we have about our stressor weaken our ability to believe we can do again what used to work for us. It’s a difficult cycle to break free of, particularly if our current reality is only showing us what we don’t want to see - we believe in our powerlessness.
COMPLACENCy
Even when we do find our way back into a daily practice, another challenge often arises - complacency. As life improves, we may convince ourselves that we no longer need the discipline of showing up every day - that we’ll simply stay in this higher, lighter state forever.
The truth is, the dominant energy in the Western world still vibrates with fear, pain, and suffering. Without a regular practice to strengthen and uplift us, it’s only a matter of time before our vibration begins to drop. Without that daily re-fortification, we can quickly find ourselves out of alignment energetically, mentally and emotionally.
DEVOTION TO YOU
Keep showing up for yourself. Whether it’s meditation, Reiki or any practice that reconnects you to your centre. Allow it to be a daily act of devotion rather than something you turn to only in times of need. Take the Japanese Kaizen approach and start very small, with perhaps 5 minutes or even 1 minute a day and build up from there when you feel ready.
Healing and transformation are not instant; they are cultivated ripple by ripple, moment by moment. With consistency, your practice becomes a sanctuary, a source of strength and the very foundation that carries you through life’s ups and downs.
With love and light
Gwen x
