The Body, Your Super Vehicle

By the age of seven, I had already experienced feelings of loneliness, abandonment, and sexual abuse. In addition, I had also lived through the sudden displacement and fear that came with having to leave the country with my grandmother. Today I can say that nothing has brought me more inner peace and understanding than studying the human body — not only its anatomy and physiology but also understanding it from an energetic perspective.

When I was a little kid, in the midst of everything, I would bombard my mother with questions about why we were here on this planet and how objects got their names. "Why is a cup called a cup, as opposed to a plate?" It's funny that this question truly perplexed me at age five. Who decided? Who was the namer of all objects? I would also ask her if God was telling the angels stories about us up there, surrounded by clouds. Then I would imagine him sitting on a puffy cloud with a giant golden book on his lap, surrounded by angels, telling them the story of us, the humans.

I remember always being connected to something bigger, even during my time in Puerto Rico, when everything seemed to be falling apart. While my grandmother slept endless hours in her state of depression and guilt, I used to pretend that I was a fairy princess who had the power to stir magic upon the world. I would peek out of my bedroom's unstable little balcony, with a view of the luminous green ocean, lift my arms up, and with the palms of my hands, I would send magic out into the world. I would do this and play other imaginary games, keeping myself busy for hours, patiently waiting for my grandmother to embrace me with the attention that I so urgently craved and missed. I missed the way she used to be, but I didn't fully comprehend what had happened.

I've always had this overwhelming sensibility, always trying to understand human experiences outside of myself, genuinely caring for others. Today when I see people's struggles, all I want to say is, "Stop those horrible thoughts. You are incased in an impermeable breathing structure that pumps blood just for you! How amazing is it that we can see the world's colors?"

My mother once told me that I had once reprimanded her for making fun of a celebrity couple because she had said that the woman was too pretty for the man she had married. At age five, I told my mother that beauty is on the inside. As a kid, I was perhaps the light to their chaos.

When I was thirteen, I enrolled myself in religious instruction classes, hoping to find some kind of answer for any of the events that had transpired in my life thus far. Religion was never enforced in our family, so my mother went along with my curiosity to learn. My mother was a bit of a rebellious woman who loved to draw and always encouraged me to do what I felt was right. She was perfect for the job of being my mother because she never stopped me from believing in extraordinary things. I attended the classes for a few weeks but did not find what I was looking for.

Today I don't even remember much about my experience with the religion classes except for the heaviness of the room, the smell of the frankincense, and hearing the restrictions. It was a definite change from what I was used to at home. I rejected religion with full force. I suppose that my initial reason for seeking religion was that I wanted to understand my inner self more, my spirit and my thought process. As strange as it may sound to some, I wanted to understand who the thinker inside of me was.

That same year, my sister was born. My mother had fallen in love yet again with a man who was involved in illegal activities, which of course infuriated me and caused me to rebel. Sometime after that, my mother left the state with him and my baby sister, leaving me yet again with my grandmother, who was not an enforcer of rules. During that time, I was coming and going as I saw fit. Despite my sometimes destructive behavior during that time, I managed to keep up with high school and graduate. My mother eventually returned, exhausted by a man who was abusive.

I started college as a liberal arts student, and a metaphysics professor greatly inspired me. He taught us a lesson on the idea of the changing self. I had never heard this train of thought before: "The you of the past is no longer the same as the you in the present. So are you still you?"

This question, though I had not asked it in the same way prior to the class, was the core of my wonder. I decided to major in philosophy with a minor in comparative religion. As far as religion, it was because I was fascinated by the similarities between religions as opposed to the differences and the histories behind them. At the core of it, for me, the answer was simple: we are all human beings. We all needed to believe in something, to have a purpose, to ease our fears about death, and to feel a sense of belonging. Without this basic ease, we would just be a bunch of breathing skin and bones on a floating speck of rock in the middle of an infinite expanding universe.

I know now that my fascination with religion and philosophy was also a result of the events I had experienced. As I got older, it became extremely difficult for me to understand and justify the paths my caregivers had chosen. In a sense, it was like living a double life. I could never fully express who I was to anyone, and if I did, I risked being judged. I didn't want to feel victimized or put my mother and grandmother in jeopardy. I didn't want that then or now. As I got older, I could no longer ignore the social ramifications of what was going on around me. These feelings definitely impacted my identity.

My major changed because I did not find what I was looking for in endless theories that tangled and complicated the meaning of life. It changed because everything around me changed. I was about eighteen, and my grandmother had gotten arrested for the second time. Not even for dealing. She had gotten arrested for being in an after-hours establishment that was raided. I got the call from my mother at work. "They pulled her file from eleven years ago," my mother said. Just like that, life took my dearest love away in the worst possible manner. How could I continue to live knowing that my grandmother would be locked away in prison, this time perhaps until the end of her days?

I had been in search for the meaning of life for as long as I can remember. For me, the meaning of life had to be beautiful, it had to feel good, and it had to be easy for everyone to understand. But I could not understand life at that moment. Nothing felt good. The sexual abuse that I had pushed aside began to haunt me in my dreams. You see, I always had recollections of the thing that happened, but not to the full extent. All the memories came pouring back, clear memories of the time in the bedroom, the time in the bathroom, in the car, on the couch, the way he lured me. I could not shake the feeling of dirtiness. I felt like an immobile bag of flesh and bones. I was empty and filled the void with cigarettes, sex, alcohol, and eventually drugs.

A good friend of mine had noticed that my world was falling apart and suggested I go for a Reiki healing session. Reiki is a form of energy work in which practitioners set their hands upon energy centers in the body to promote energetic balance. Practitioners do not use their own energy to do this. In other words, they are not giving you their energy. They work with the receiver's own energy systems to promote wellness. They do not do anything that your own body is not ready for. This is the case for all forms of energy work. My friend had explained that I should trust her and go for a session because she could not describe what she had felt during her session. However, she was sure that I would feel better.

I agreed to go. The day of the session, I was nervous and a little scared because I had no clue what I was getting into. The practitioner led me to an office. She sat behind a desk that was completely cluttered with paper and books, a wooden bookshelf behind her, and a huge window toward the side. The light of the sun poured in toward us. She asked me some questions and proceeded with the session. She instructed me to get on the table facing up, and she placed her hands on my feet, eventually making her way up my chakras (energy centers along the midline of the body). Her hands did not touch me directly. They hovered over the centers, and I felt warmth coming from her hands.

A few minutes into it, she started to cry. She said she saw and felt a lot of pain in me. Of course, this completely freaked me out. I believed she was putting on an act. I left as soon as I was able and cursed out my friend for sending me to a crazy woman who only wanted my money! But the truth was that I was in a lot of pain at the time. Years later, I came to realize that people fear things they do not understand, so they reject and ignore them. I was simply not ready to face it in that moment, and I didn't yet understand that some people are more able to perceive energy than others are. She probably shouldn't have cried in front of me, but life unfolds perfectly and sometimes you need to trust that unfolding.

I randomly stumbled upon Reiki again not too long after that first encounter. I was looking at crystals that were being sold in an outdoor market. The woman selling them invited me to a Reiki class. I shared my experience with her, and she explained that the class would teach me how Reiki works and also how to use Reiki to heal others. I paid more attention to her because it felt like a sign to me. Reiki was being offered to me again. How curious, I had thought. This time it was introduced in a different context and along with crystal healing, which I was much more comfortable with.

As a kid I'd learned about crystals and their healing properties from a friend's mom. I had spent a lot of time at their house while my caregivers were busy trying to survive. Seeing my friend's mother Emmie explore various religions and ways of thinking about life throughout the years shaped me. Without knowing it, she taught me that it was okay to search for what feels right, no matter what people think. Emmie was a free spirit who lit incense and talked about crystals and Egyptian history. During those times, she suddenly converted to Muslim, hijab and all. I was there to witness the reactions of the people who lived in our building and how she stood so proudly, no matter what they said behind her back. She was trying to find her faith and her position in her world. She taught me that it is okay to question and not accept things blindly — that people can change and no one can tell you how to get to your inner self and how to connect with your higher power.

Therefore, with Emmie in my thoughts, I went to the Reiki class one week later, feeling a little skeptical but going along with the signs. The class was held in the Reiki master's home. There were about five of us present for the class, which explained that Reiki is a healing art in which practitioners place their hands on specific energy centers to promote balance and activate the receiver's own natural healing.

We learned about chakra centers, what they were and where they are located in the body. We also learned the Reiki symbols, which we were supposed to visualize simultaneously with our minds while hovering over each chakra with our hands when working with our own chakras or eventually with clients. We discovered that once we learned the hand placements, symbols, and energy centers, we can chose to be attuned to be first-degree Reiki practitioners. The purpose of the first attunement is to connect the students to their inner selves, raise their energy levels, and open them up to infinite universal life energy. It was suggested that after the first attunement, the students should focus on doing Reiki on themselves. The second attunement connects the student more deeply to universal energy, making them more able to work on others and do distance healing. It promoted a deeper emotional healing. The third attunement, or the master level, should be done after the practitioner has had a lot of experience, for at this level, one can now attune and teach others.

After my first attunement, which I received that same day, I was convinced this was what I had always been looking for. To pass the attunement, the master stood over me. I sat down on a straight-backed chair, pressing my palms together in front of my chest. I had my eyes closed, but I peeked slightly, receiving glimpses of his warm hands waving symbols all around me. He did this for some time. I then felt him blow breath into my crown chakra and on my back, near my solar plexus. As he was blowing, I felt what can only be described as a euphoric embrace, and then shortly after, I wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. I was no longer peeking to see what was going on. I felt as though something was carrying me. I knew it was universal life force, and I trusted the attunement. He then opened my hands and traced a symbol on my palm, followed by three taps. He did this four times. He was opening my hand chakras.

The evening had gone by too quickly, but I was filled with love and purpose. I started the commute back home. It was the first time I had gone to New Jersey on the train. The streets were quiet, and everything felt lighter. I was definitely different, but the weeks that followed solidified this difference. For one, the next day my body started to detox naturally. No matter how many deodorants I tried that week, they did not work. I stunk no matter what I used. My body's chemistry seemed to be changing. I also stopped enjoying the taste of meat. This was particularly striking for me because I grew up in an Argentinean household and eating meat was part of our culture. Aside from that, I wasn't familiar with the concept of vegetarianism or even animal activism at the time. I was an eighteen-year-old girl from Queens, New York, with a mediocre public school education. How could it be that such core preferences would change so abruptly in a matter of days? I knew it was the attunement. I now believed in a higher power, or what some call God.

My view of the world changed, and I began to feel and see energy in others and in myself. I spent the next year reading about energy and doing Reiki on myself. I was fascinated by the changes in me. I learned that in order to be able to pass attunements as a master, one must be able to control the breath and have the ability to hold the Hui Yin position for long periods. The Hui Yin, I discovered, is the beginning of a meridian known as Conception Vessel, or CV 1, located at the perineum (area between the anus and genitals). Meridians are energy pathways typically used in Chinese medicine or acupuncture. Holding the position means that one is able to allow this energy to complete a figure eight–shaped circuit between the Conception Vessel and Governing Vessel, which is also a meridian. This is called the microcosmic orbit, but I call it activating the orbit. (I talk more about it later in this book.) The master is able to attune the student by tapping into this energy and moving the student's energy. It is a transfer from master to student. The attunement process opens the crown, heart and palm chakras. The attunement is a profound spiritual experience. Reiki is a profound spiritual experience that is difficult to describe in words. Sometimes things are too big to be described in words but can be felt. This is Reiki.

For me, this energy was the truth I was seeking. It was not in texts or in organized religion. It was an energy that I could actually feel, and it flowed in everything. It was source. I called it the hum because it was how source sounded to me. Most importantly, I felt I had physical evidence of source. We are magical beings, and it is possible to heal ourselves. If I did it, anyone can.

After my first attunement, I spent a lot of time working on my own chakras. I was profoundly connected with source, communicating with her through verses that came to me effortlessly. I followed her signs. I also acquainted myself with my spirit guides that came to me during my own healings.

I did my second attunement about a year after the first. As I've mentioned, after the second attunement, one can start to work on others and do distance healing. After doing sessions on several people, I felt the need to understand the body in more depth. The first time I realized this was during a Reiki session I was giving. I had been working on a particular area for some time, and I felt what I could only explain as heaviness or the sense of wanting to cry. I remembered my first experience with the woman who had cried after giving me a session, and I understood her. It was clear now. Of course, I held back my tears because I remembered how uncomfortable that had once made me. Instead, I waited until after the session. I asked the receiver if she had anything going on in the area where I had felt the feeling of crying. She confirmed that she had injured her back and had a herniated disk. I was able to perceive her area of discomfort without knowing that information prior to the session. That was amazing to me. I believed in my abilities; however, I also knew the importance of developing better language in order to explain energy without having it sound like mumbo jumbo.