I had an interaction yesterday that really just left me feeling ick, and I feel like it is important to talk about and is a great example of why it is so important to practice discernment in spirituality and not just jump to believe everything you see or hear.
I have a witchy friendly acquaintance I’ve befriended and we did a trade recently. I gave her a tarot reading and she was going to do reiki for me. I shared with her I was dealing with a heel spur and would love some reiki for that. She also asked if I’d like her to do a sort of energetic diagnosis of what she felt after she performed the reiki on me, and I agreed to that as well. I’ll also note that this was done over distance. I did my tarot reading for her over FB Messenger and she did the reiki session from her home while I was in mine.
Before I go any further, some background context. During my spiritual awakening years ago, I had a supernatural experience/encounter during a state between wake and sleep that healed long term liver pain I was experiencing. During this encounter, I was told very audibly by a female voice to feel the “sacred heat energy”, and I felt a really intense heat in my hands, then my liver region. After that experience, the liver pain I was dealing with for a year + was healed. I hadn’t been taking any medications for it, it was just gone. To this day, I do not deal with it. Fast forward a few years, I attended a reiki therapist for some emotional healing work, and during this session, I was physically able to perceive this same heat energy again and could pinpoint the exact areas in the body it was reaching.
The reason I mention physically being able to perceive reiki energy within my body is because when my distance reiki session began with my friend, I felt nothing. I didn’t feel that heat sensation anywhere in my body. I have never done distance reiki before, so I am not sure if it is different somehow but I assumed if I was able to perceive it when I was at a reiki clinic a few years ago that I would be able to perceive it even if it was at a distance, but I didn’t.
Anyways, when she finished the reiki session, she sent me a message with my energetic diagnosis. Didn’t mention anything about my foot, which was what I had thought the reiki session was originally for. She said she felt a lot of pain on the left side of my body, shoulder, knees, etc. She also felt a lot of pain in my root chakra, having to do with sex and relationships, which left me a bit confused to be honest. She mentioned 3rd eye and throat chakra were blocked as well, heart chakra blocked. I was more receptive to that possibility because I grew up in a religious household and I’ve had to do a lot of healing work over the years to move forward from a lot of emotionally painful experiences growing up that resurfaced when I moved back to my home town. Throat chakra made a lot of sense for me and was something I already knew about, and wouldn’t be surprised if other chakras were connected with those past experiences. I mentioned that to her, let her know that resonated, but as for the root chakra and having difficulty/pain associated with sex and relationships, I felt things were going very well in that area. My husband and I have a great relationship. The only thing that came to mind was an ex from my high school years, but he had come to me a few years ago and apologized and I forgave him and feel at peace with those things now. They’ve been resolved. I’ve also never dealt with child sexual abuse, fortunately, as I know it is very common. I also told her that I don’t feel any pain in any of the areas she mentioned. The only area of pain I deal with is in my foot due to the heel spur, but even that has slowly been getting better over time. Not 100%, but it is far better than it was a year ago.
Now, this is the part that really rubbed me the wrong way and I was kind of taken aback by it. She said “remember, I feel pain before it hits the physical body”. To me, this was basically saying “well, if you’re not feeling pain now, you’re gonna”. I don’t feel that what she is saying is true, and it kind of gave me a different impression of her. Instead of just admitting that maybe she hadn’t quite sensed everything correctly – and that would have been completely fine with me and I would have respected her for it – she instead reaffirmed that pain was going to come into my life, basically prophesied it over me and it just left me feeling kind of gross and lost a lot of respect for her, not only as a friendly acquaintance/potential friend but as a practitioner.
This is why it is so important to develop spiritual discernment. I am very thankful I am as far along in my spiritual journey as I am, because I think had I have been young and naive, I would have really taken her words seriously, become fearful and perhaps unintentionally manifested those things into my own life. Spiritual discernment is something I think comes with time though and going through different experiences, both good and bad, have really helped me to develop an understanding of the things that work in the benefit of my highest good, and the things that go against that. If someone is trying to push negative thought patterns onto you, fear, anger, or negative things disguised as trying to be helpful but ultimately cause harm, you can be certain it is not working towards your highest good, it is working to tear you down and create chaos in your life.
All that being said, I think there is still a lot I have to learn on my spiritual journey, but, this experience was a great test I think, and a reminder of how far I’ve come, and I feel really grateful to have gone through some of the painful spiritual experiences I’ve had years ago. Despite how painful and uncomfortable they were at the time, I feel I’ve become so much stronger and wiser for it, and truly progressed on my inward journey.
This whole situation reaffirmed something I’ve learned time and time again—just because someone claims to have spiritual insight doesn’t mean they hold any authority over my life. True spiritual growth isn’t about fear or blindly accepting someone else’s narrative; it’s about inner knowing, trust, and self-empowerment. I won’t take on projections that don’t belong to me, and I certainly won’t let someone else dictate what my future holds. This interaction could have left me shaken if I hadn’t already built a strong foundation of self-awareness and spiritual understanding. But instead, it reaffirmed what I already knew: I don’t need to accept every word spoken over me as truth. I have the power to decide what energy I allow into my life. I choose my own path, my own healing, and my own truth.
So, if you ever find yourself in a situation like this, where someone’s words or energy don’t sit right with you, trust that feeling. You are the ultimate authority over your own life and well-being. Keep questioning, keep learning, and most importantly—keep standing in your own power.
