Last Updated on December 6, 2020
From a scientific and medical perspective, there has to be a correct diagnosis to find the proper cure and treatment for a certain illness. Everything about the human body and physical symptoms has a corresponding scientific explanation. Experts believe that the elements that influence one’s health always translate to physical descriptions.
In the early years of healing and medicine, people have been ignoring the effect of spirituality on one’s health and wellness. The primary reason is that there is no obvious proof or methodical rationalization that spiritual healing works.
There’s a lack of proof about the positive effects of spiritual healing, but various groups and organizations study its correlation to quantifiable positive outcomes. Medical research shows that spirituality has a positive impact on a person when he or she finds balance in all aspects of life, including emotions, thoughts, and relationships.
Over the years, there has been a shift in the concept of spirituality and its influence on healing. Experts associated spiritual factors with their progressive studies about alternative treatments. They realize that spirituality may help a patient in the face of suffering and adversity.
Some correlational studies show that there’s a positive relationship between a person’s spirituality and health. Health care systems recognized that integrating spiritual approach to therapies is essential. They believe it’s significant to consider biological, psychological, and social factors in a disease or illness.
What is spiritual healing?
Many forms of spiritual healing exist at present. Despite varying techniques across different faiths and traditions, one dominant concept about spiritual healing is the use of subtle energy. Energy, from a spiritual context, is the invisible life force vibration within the body and from objects and people that we encounter in our daily lives.
Spiritual healing helps ease physical, emotional, and psychological conditions. Some people consider energy healing as alternative medicine, although there has been no scientific evidence to prove its effectiveness. Others prefer to call it holistic healing to complement scientific methods and medicines to heal people with serious conditions.
Experts are yet to explore and discover more about spirituality and the human mind as the source of medicine, but there have been a lot of reports about positive outcomes. Spiritual healing results include patients feeling positive emotions and improvement in their holistic well-being. It influences self-healing and cleansing to rid oneself of negative energies that manifest through physical symptoms.
What does a spiritual healer do?
In spirituality, people believe that natural and professional healers use energy, prana, chi, or light to influence their clients’ well-being. They are open to work with people suffering from a wide range of physical, mental, and emotional trauma, which they intend to heal. They promote and foster the mind-body connection and its association with one’s relationship with people, environment, and spirituality.
We regard spiritual healers as self-motivated individuals who have gained experience from different aspects of healing. They help restore their patient’s body, mind, and spirit by channeling the life force energy. Below are just a few of the many forms of spiritual healing:
Distant healing
One of the common spiritual beliefs about healing is that our body is made up of aura or energy that flows within us. The energy or vibration is invisible to the eye and we can only feel it. This is an essential part of distant healing as the process relies on positive energies and intentions.
Have you ever tried praying for a friend or relative who’s suffering from an illness? There may be a point in your life that you asked others to pray for you. We consider this as distant healing in which you set your intention and pray for other people’s healing.
People practice distant healing by using their minds, saying prayers, or setting intentions to influence others even from a distance. They make use of tools and techniques to direct their energy towards a person and call for spiritual guidance from higher beings. It is an act of compassion to improve the health of others.
Distant healers use tools like photographs to focus their attention on the person who needs healing. Positive thoughts and mantras could help produce positive outcomes for a patient, even from a distance.
More than the rituals, mantras, and prayers is the belief that other people are rooting for you and praying for you. It gives you strength and helps you gain the confidence to get past your current suffering. This may not be clear or visible, but it’s something that you feel from within.
Hands-on healing
Laying on of hands to heal is existent across many cultures and traditions. In Christianity, this is a common practice in the Church associated with Christ healing the sick as referenced in the Holy Bible. Laying on of hands is also a symbolic practice of invoking the Holy Spirit.
In the aspect of Reiki healing, the healers use and transfer the universal energy from their palms by laying their hands on their patients’ bodies. Derived from the words “Rei” (God’s wisdom) and “Kei” (life force energy), this healing method helps improve the flow of energy in a patient’s body.
Reiki healing originated in Japan in the early years, aiding people to balance both their physical and spiritual health. It is a natural method that makes you get into deep relaxation. It also helps cleanse a patient’s body from energy blockages.
From the perspective of biofield therapy, Healing Touch became popular in the sphere of nursing and pain management. It is a modern-day approach to the ancient laying-on-of-hands type of healing. This involves the use of non-invasive techniques to balance and energize a client’s physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels.
Healing touch influences the human energy field that helps speed up healing. This is an adjunctive healing method that complements other healing techniques including conventional medical treatments and body-mind therapies.
Chakra Balancing
This is a form of spiritual healing that focuses on a person’s energy centers, also known as chakras. There are seven key energy points in the body, each with unique properties that rule specific aspects in one’s life. When one chakra is overactive or unbalanced, it may affect the other chakras and manifest through your body, emotions, thoughts, and even relationships.
Negative energies from emotions, thoughts, and physical traumas can cause your chakras to fall out of balance. Understanding chakras and how they influence your body, mind, and spirit is essential. You can live a fulfilled and balanced life when your chakras are in a state of equilibrium and work in harmony.
Healers recommend chakra balancing as it removes blockages and lets the energy flow within the patient’s body. Apart from creating awareness and educating one about chakras, healers use tools and techniques to aid them such as meditation and chakra stones.
Empathic healing
Empathy is a powerful ability that complements a healer’s intuitive skills to sense other people’s needs. For example, a spiritual healer can identify that the patient is experiencing pain in a specific area in the body. Empathic and sensitive individuals are receptive to these intangible energies.
People regard empathy as an essential part of medicine and psychotherapy. Medical and mental health practitioners discover how an environment full of empathic people foster healing and recovery to a patient. This is where empathic healing takes place.
One sign of having a spiritual gift of healing is being empathetic. Many spiritual healing practitioners feel that they’re calling and purpose in life is to help and heal others. They are compassionate and sensitive to someone else’s needs and sufferings.
Empathic healing makes a healer focus more on his or her client’s emotional wounds or burdens. This method helps a patient see the more positive side of things, negating adverse emotions and thoughts. Below are the kinds of empathic abilities that a spiritual healer may possess.
- Natural empathy. Individuals who feel energized and grounded when being close to nature are natural empaths. They have a strong connection with plants, animals, and even the weather.
- Physical empathy. Physical empaths can sense the energy in objects and other people’s bodies. Spiritual healers feel their patient’s ailments, letting them know how to heal the patient.
- Emotional empathy. This allows one to feel someone else’s emotions. Healers use empathy and compassion to relate to their clients.
- Mental empathy. This gives someone the intuitive ability to access others’ motivations. This can help healers perceive their clients’ motives.
- Spiritual empathy. People who are spiritual empaths can absorb other people’s energy. Healers who are spiritual empaths can sense their patients’ higher needs.
- Shamanic empathy. This enables someone to connect to the world outside the physical realm. They receive messages and sense extrasensory beings around their patients.
Conclusion
A spiritual healer channels energy to help restore balance in the patients’ life. Some may still be looking for explanations on how this method of healing works, while others believe in the intangible benefits of spiritual healing.
Spiritual healing is not associated with any religion and more on the use and flow of energy to heal. It works beyond the physical symptoms and a holistic approach to going deeper into one’s spiritual being.
