Magic, healing and chronic illness: The power in surrender

I believe that while we deal with whatever cards we’ve been dealt in life, we can find meaning, and hopefully some deeper sense of peace, even through the pain.

One of the hardest things about chronic illness and chronic pain is the experience of hitting a wall after a period—however long or brief—of feeling better, only to have a day or week or more when it all comes crashing down. When you have plans to create, to work, to play, and instead, all you can do or feel like doing is nothing, it can be devastating. Sometimes, you can barely get out of bed, let alone go for a walk, clock into a job, read, type or look at a screen. You have to stop, rest, and wait, no matter how uncomfortable that is. It forces you to confront the systemic and internalized ableism, capitalism, and other harmful notions about productivity and worth that most of us have been mired in for so long, whether we’re conscious of it or not.

And for a healer and a witch, it can also bring up feelings of “Am I doing this right?” or “Does any of this even work?” And my answer is absolutely fucking yes, of course it does. Anyone who promises that energy healing, magic, or medicine of any kind is a guaranteed cure-all isn’t being honest. I’ve seen people who were so dedicated to Reiki, meditation, and other holistic healing practices still die, as we all eventually will. But their lives were eased and made better during the time they had here on Earth, likely even extended, because they believed in and practiced spirituality or magic. I have no doubt that it not only helps, but is incredibly powerful and healing.

As someone who practices Reiki and meditation every single day and has been dealing with chronic illness since I was a child, I know that it works for me, even if it doesn’t solve all my problems. I believe that expecting it to make all our problems go away is ableist, unhelpful, and honestly, not even the point. Instead, what Reiki does for me is create extraordinary gratitude for the good days, and extraordinary surrender to rest and recover on the hard days. Knowing that I’m doing all that I can—physically, medicinally, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—is enough. And when I can’t do it all? That’s still enough, because just being is enough. Nothing is perfect, and yet it is still enough, and it is still beautiful. And eventually, when I feel better, I am so grateful I had these spiritual tools and healing practices by my side, and always do, through the bad and the good.

Healing and spirituality help me create acceptance of what is and the belief that things often can and will get better (though not always, and sometimes not in ways we can control or predict). I don’t believe having an illness or pain means we somehow “want” it, brought it on ourselves, or don’t really want to let it go because we feel we need it in some way. That mentality, in my opinion and that of many other disabled and chronically ill people, is incredibly harmful. But I do believe that while we deal with whatever cards we’ve been dealt in life, we can find meaning, and hopefully some deeper sense of peace, even through the pain.

And it’s not all on us. We should be able to ask for help, from our families and our communities. It’s up to society to evolve and create structures and systems that allow people to rest, to not have to go to work sick for fear of not being able to pay rent or put food on the table. We must take the lessons of these pandemic years and expand on them in the years to come, to give all people the resources and support they need to heal and simply exist the best they can, with the tenderness, dignity, pleasure, support and love that is each and every being’s birthright.

I know that Reiki, meditation and other kinds of natural and holistic healing have helped me tremendously, along with medical treatment and care. I also believe that having chronic illness and chronic pain has deepened my ability to hold space for others, to meet them where they are and accept and love them unconditionally. Ultimately, for me, Reiki creates a deep compassion within myself to accept and nurture, to rest unapologetically even when I want to keep going, and to trust the ebb and flow of life. There is magic in all of it.

-Lauren