I Traded Traditional Talk Therapy For Spiritual Healing Sessions
I grew up in a culture and in a household where seeking out a therapist meant you were weak or “loca.” In fact, the few relatives that were in therapy were often attending either to save their marriage or due to a major life crisis or mental breakdown. It was never perceived or discussed as self-care or life management — which is literally what it is. As a result, it took years of me destigmatizing my own ideas around therapy and mental health to finally cough up the courage to see a therapist. But unlike a lot of my Latinx peers, my first experience with therapy didn’t come in my 30s or after COVID. I first took the plunge in my senior year of college.
I didn’t know what to call it until my 30s, when mental health became more of a mainstream conversation, but looking back I think I first started realizing I struggled with some degree of anxiety my senior year of college. The 2008 recession had hit hard, and it was particularly affecting the media industry, so I had a ton of anxiety about whether or not I’d be able to secure a job after graduation. I started to notice my thoughts would race, and whenever I was overwhelmed I’d feel like I was about to have a heart attack — when in reality they were actually panic attacks. So I started privately seeing a holistic therapist who specialized in cognitive behavioral therapy and relaxation therapy. The only people who knew were my parents and my siblings, who were incredibly supportive. I saw her for an entire semester and didn’t feel the need to go back to therapy until my early 30s. I’ve had my fair share of therapists, the most effective ones always being Latina women. I noticed a major difference in how my sessions would go once I started working with someone who understood my cultural needs and challenges. I say all that to say that as much as I advocate and believe in therapy, COVID taught me that I actually needed much more.
Before the pandemic hit, I was just starting on my own spiritual journey. I grew up in a pretty strict Christian Latinx household that became more progressive and open-minded as my siblings and I started to get older. But growing up, it was hard. As a result, I was pretty agnostic most of my 20s. It was after 30 that I really started developing more of a curiosity and interest in my spiritual health. And while I’ve explored this — mostly on my own — it was in 2020 that I chose to seek out more spiritual guidance and support.
In 2020, I lost my full-time editor job, the medical insurance it came with, and my apartment in Harlem. I was in my mid-30s, moving back with my folks, and feeling like the world was working against me. I needed support, and so my very good friend Yaquí Rodriguez — who is a reiki healer, a curandera, and the founder of Wave of Healing — started working with me for free for months. I got more out of these sessions than I’d ever gotten out of traditional therapy sessions.
If you’re not familiar with reiki, the best way I could describe it is it’s a form of energy healing that is believed to have originated in Japan. It is believed to improve the body’s energy flow and help remove blocks that can result in pain, stress, or anxiety. These energy healing sessions are typically done in person, but during COVID, Rodriguez and I did them remotely. They often felt like a mix of talk therapy with spirituality. I would share my struggles, Rodriguez would help me unpack them or work them out, and then we’d go into either a guided meditation or a reiki session, where things would come up for me and messages would be sent to her. It was helpful and healing. I was sold.