Breaking Free: A Journey Through Shamanic Reiki 251

The journey of healing after loss is deeply personal, yet sharing these experiences can create powerful connections and opportunities for collective healing. In a recent episode of Share the Struggle, Alli returns to continue her story about losing her mother to addiction and suicide, revealing the steps she's taking to process this complex grief.

What makes Alli's story particularly compelling is her approach to healing. Rather than turning to conventional therapy alone, she embraced Shamanic Reiki—a holistic practice that combines traditional Reiki energy healing with shamanic techniques. This alternative healing method focuses on restoring balance by replacing negative energies with love and light, fostering connections with oneself, others, and the universe.

During her first session following her mother's passing, Alli arrived with three heavy emotions weighing on her: anger, hurt, and disappointment. These feelings stemmed from a deep-seated belief that she "was never good enough." The practitioner, Missy, guided Alli through a process that began with identifying these emotions and then working to release them from her body.

What's particularly fascinating about Alli's experience is how her physical body responded to the emotional work. Her throat chakra was significantly blocked—a manifestation of all the words and feelings she couldn't express to her mother over the years. As Missy worked to clear this blockage, Alli experienced an uncontrollable release of emotion, years of suppressed feelings finally finding their way out.

The session also incorporated soul retrieval, a shamanic practice where the practitioner helps recover parts of the soul that may have become disconnected due to trauma. During this process, Alli's spirit guides revealed several significant symbols: a seesaw representing the need for balance, and most remarkably, an anteater as her spirit animal.

This is where the story takes an almost mystical turn. Just hours before receiving the news of her mother's passing, Alli had discovered an unusual ant infestation in her home. Days before, she had observed birds called Northern Flickers—members of the woodpecker family known for eating ants—covering her mother's lawn. These coincidences, followed by the anteater appearing as her spirit animal during the healing session, created a sense of cosmic confirmation that she was on the right path.

Perhaps most powerful was the moment when Alli's mother's spirit attempted to interrupt the healing session, appearing angry and demanding that Missy stop because "you're going to make her forget me." The practitioner protected Alli's space, allowing her to complete her healing work without interference—a boundary that perhaps couldn't have been maintained in life now possible in this spiritual realm.

What Alli's story illuminates is that healing doesn't mean forgetting or diminishing the person we've lost. Rather, it means processing the pain so that we can move forward without being weighed down by anger, resentment, or unresolved trauma. As Alli describes the feeling after her session: "I felt free. I felt like I could take on the world. I felt so relieved."

For those wrestling with complex grief—particularly grief complicated by difficult relationships, addiction, or trauma—Alli's experience offers an important perspective. There are multiple pathways to healing, and sometimes unconventional approaches can provide breakthroughs that traditional methods haven't achieved. Whether it's Shamanic Reiki, conventional therapy, support groups, or a combination of different modalities, the key is to find what resonates with your own healing journey.