I don’t always know what will come through when I put my hands on someone …

Yesterday I worked with my youngest client yet.

A four-year-old girl.

Her mother told me she's dysregulated. Can't fall asleep. Can't stay asleep through the night.

I wasn't sure how I'd work with someone so small. I'm a Reiki energy healer and a Restorative Yoga Therapist, and I wanted to bring in a little of both without overwhelming her.

She was shy at first. Then we started chatting and something softened.

Kids actually love restorative yoga. It's a bit like building a blanket fort. Bolsters, pillows, blocks, eye covers. A nest. With my soft white rug and all the cozy props, it didn't take much to invite her to lay down and be still.

I scanned her energetic centers.

A lot of activity in her mind, which is normal for a four-year-old. But her root chakra, the place that holds safety and groundedness, was quiet. Almost absent.

That gave me pause.

She was cozy. Warm. Eyes covered. Ready for Reiki.

I placed my hands on her head. And the moment I did, one word came through.

Fire.

Fire.

Fire.

I asked again, quietly, in my own mind. Same answer.

I let it sit.

We moved into another posture. I brought in a weighted blanket and small sandbags, the way you'd weight a nervous animal. She stayed calm. Playful, even.

I asked her if she liked water. Her face lit up. She loved water. She loved mermaids. I asked her to imagine swimming, feeling the water on her skin, feeling at home in it.

Something told me to bring comfort in before going near the harder thing.

Toward the end of the session, she didn't want her eyes covered anymore. She was done being still. So I asked her gently.

Tell me about fire.

Her eyes got big. She told me her house was on fire. That her whole house burned down but her bedroom didn't. She said she was in bed when it happened. She was scared. She told me she can't sleep, and her feet feel heavy, and her belly feels heavy.

(Not feeling grounded. That's what her little body was telling me.)

I looked at her mother. She shook her head...yes.

After the session, her mom told me she got goosebumps all over her body when I mentioned the word fire. And then she told me the truth. The house never actually burned. But when her daughter was two, the family was evacuated because a fire was threatening to reach them. The fear was real. The danger was real. The fire just never arrived.

But it arrived in her body.

And it stayed.

Her mother told me she's deathly afraid of fire. She doesn't want to be with them when they have the campfire going in the backyard.

A fear that never fully happened can still live in a child's nervous system for years. That's what I keep sitting with.

We talked through some next steps:

-Water imagery playing softly through the night

-Gentle water sounds as a constant companion

-Reminders, in every form we could build, that water is here, water is safe, water is with her

Not everything resolves in one session. But this was real progress.

I don't always know what will come through when I put my hands on someone. Sometimes nothing comes. Sometimes a single word arrives three times in a row and changes the whole direction of the work.

When it lands, it's powerful. And it's humbling.

(I used an AI generated image for this blog post - I don't take photos of my clients during sessions for privacy reasons).