All energy healing modalities teach us that the only person who can heal a person’s issues is themselves. A healer is only a channel or medium through which the energies can be made available; the energies flow where they are directed by the intention of the healer, i.e., to the physical or energy body of the person receiving the healing. Through a process of entrainment (matching of energy frequencies), the frequency of energy of the receiver matches itself to the frequency of energy being received, and a balance is sought to be achieved. However, this is the extent to which the healer’s intentions and the frequency of the healing energy can influence the healing process. Nobody but the person receiving the energy can control the outcome of this process. No matter how powerful the healer is, and no matter how powerful the energies being supplied are, the outcome of the healing cannot be influenced by them. Why? Because, from this point onward, the will and intention of the receiver of the energy will determine the result.

Healing is a process where the person getting healed has complete control and free will. Thus, they have to actively participate in the healing process by being willing to be healed, and by intending that they allow the healing energies to bring about the required balance. A lot of times, this requires clearing of mental blocks that we tend to hold on to: fears that have kept us captive for a long time, our own limiting beliefs that we define ourselves by, our judgemental attitudes towards others (and by extension, towards ourselves), that society has conditioned us to hold on to. These and similar negative mental patterns act as blockages to healing.

It may be counterintuitive for us to understand logically why we are reluctant to part with these negative patterns. The reason behind it is actually simple: our conscious mind–our ego–tries to protect us from uncertainty and wants to keep us within a lakshmanrekha of what is familiar to us: our comfort zone. It tells us that what lies beyond this zone is unfamiliar and therefore uncertain. For example, we may have defined ourselves as a particular kind of person, and the ego keeps scaring us by asking, who am I if I am not this kind of person? We are conditioned by society to reject certain parts of ourselves because they are what society labels as “bad”. When we confront those parts and when we try to accept them, our ego reminds us that if we are that, then we are bad and unlovable. If we accept those “bad” aspects of ourselves and are rejected by society, then what will become of us? Yet another example is when, due to an illness, we are receiving the kindness or attention of the people around us. Our ego tells us that if we were not ill, those around us would not care for us, then what?

When we refuse to face these fears of uncertainty, we are keeping us within what our ego tells us is the “safe” zone: effectively imprisoning us in the familiar patterns of abuse, neglect, abandonment, trust issues, limiting beliefs, attention-seeking behaviours and what not. Sending positive healing energies from outside can only help when we are ready to receive those energies – which might require us to face our negative mental patterns. This is why the receiver of the energy is responsible for the healing, not the sender/healer. This is not to put the blame on the receiver: instead, it is to show that we have a choice; we hold all the power. Whether we exercise that power and choice to heal is completely upto us.

The healing process is an inner journey of discovering the hidden parts of ourselves – some of which may be “good” and some “bad” – and facing the reality of knowing, “without all these beliefs that keep me in my comfort zone, who am I?” When the ego throws ‘what-ifs’ at us, ask back, “what if I find something and someone much better than I expected?”

The truth is that outside of our comfort zone lies the field of infinite potential and possibilities. We will never know what we are capable of until we let ourselves step out of what we are familiar with and what we have been conditioned to believe. The whole universe is made of unconditional love, and when you are ready to shed those masks, you will realize that you are Love too – pure, unconditional love that makes up the entire universe!