A Healing Crisis After an Energy Treatment

Q. I recently had an energy healing treatment, and when I returned home, I spent a day or two feeling emotionally raw and fragile, crying spontaneously. I also had strange pains in my legs and arms, and felt really depleted. I thought energy healing was supposed to make me feel better! Why did this happen?

Having a healing crisis following an energy healing session is not a common experience, though it does sometimes happen. When it occurs, a healing crisis includes physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual/energetic components. The length of a healing crisis can be a few hours up to a few days.

Often, the disruption may begin in the physical body; it registers aches and twinges, tension or stiffness, muscle contractions, and even nerve pain. The pain or discomfort can resolve quickly, sometimes traveling down one side of the body, creating tingling sensations as the energetic material exits through the feet chakras.

The nervous system can be highly activated, causing mental overstimulation and a feeling of panic or overwhelming anxiety. The emotional aspects can include wide emotional swings, from grief and despair to expansiveness and bliss and back again.

Spiritually, there’s a sense of separating from what was known and understood, and landing in a void or chasm of uncertainty, feeling disconnected from Source.

Sounds like a great time, right? Well, in truth, it’s a pretty powerful passage through layer upon layer of energy held in the energetic systems of the body, mind, and emotions. Ironically, there is often not a lot of emotional context or story. Healing crises are generally not memory-based, with recall of past trauma or experience informing the process. Without available context, the individual may feel adrift and unable to make sense of the spectrum of symptoms and emotions.

An experienced practitioner has navigated healing crises with their clients. It’s not a regular occurrence, but when it happens, the practitioner needs to be notified. With an energy modality, chakra- and aura-based clearing and infusing protocols may be appropriate to ease and regulate energy flow. Some practitioners are able to treat remotely, so the client can rest in the comfort of home while energy is balanced and integrated.

[Discover more: Are you having a healing crisis?]

Here are nine tips for moving through a healing crisis after an energy healing treatment:

• You collaborated with your practitioner to enable deep and powerful energy work to occur in your fields—the systems for your physical body, emotions, and mind. You stirred up and released this material because you were ready to evolve, shift, and heal. Validate your authority.
• The energy you released came from all of your energetic fields or bodies. Your Etheric body (the energy system for your physical body) was holding emotional energy in its cells, the fascia, joints, and multiple chakras. Your body let it go, a huge boon for its wellbeing. Your Astral body (the energy system for your emotional body) lightened through your work.
• As your energy and body integrate, you’ll likely find new insights and levels of conscious awareness to unpack and embody.
• Your mind may be unable to process what has occurred. It may lean toward thinking that something is wrong. The mind is a powerful resource, but it’s not the best at comprehending energetic and spiritual process.
• Do your best to be present to what is occurring.
  • Dialogue with your body, and let it know that it can release, let go, and integrate without pain syndromes.
  • Allow your emotions to move through without judging them or digging deep to determine the event or experience that might be behind the feelings. The emotion comes from all sorts of times, places, events, and interactions. The healing crisis is releasing residual emotion.
• You need not go it alone. Call your practitioner for support. Let your nearest and dearest connections know you may need some extra support, compassion, and care as you move through the process.
• If a reasonable period has passed and you still feel as though you’re not fully integrated, make an appointment with your practitioner to balance and regulate your energy so you can ground into who you are now.
• Trust yourself. If it feels weird, but you think you’re basically okay, trust that. If you feel like you need to reach out for support, trust that.
• Be gentle with yourself. Validate your astonishing ability to heal, evolve, release, and let go. Eat nourishing foods; take baths; sit outside under the stars; meditate; take naps. Self-nurturing and self-care are essential when you’re moving through a deep energetic integration.

A healing crisis is a powerful catharsis and reset of your mind, body, emotions, and spirit. It is generally a transit—not a dark night of the soul. In other words, you’ll move through it and find your feet under you once again, conscious of the nuanced and evolved self on the other side.

Want more? Read about being your own nurse during a healing crisis.