Our Healing Hands

Joyce and Barry Vissell

Your hands can be used as beautiful instruments of healing and you don’t necessarily need to be specially trained. All you need is love in your heart and a belief that healing is possible.

When our daughter Rami was five years old, I taught her about the healing energy that can come through our hands. We practiced on teddy bears and dolls.

Rami’s sister was born soon after and my mother came to help me. Grandma got sick with bronchitis and fever, and antibiotics weren’t helping. One day while Grandma was sleeping, Rami slipped quietly into her room. She placed her small hands on Grandma's chest and concentrated on sending healing energy to her. My mother woke up and said it felt as if an angel were touching and healing her. Several hours later her fever broke, and by the next day she felt better.

Was it a coincidence that she got better right after Rami's "healing session?" Perhaps it was, but we like to feel that Rami's innocent gesture of pouring her love and energy through her hands to Grandma opened a door of healing.

Recently in a counseling session, a woman told me about her husband who has had knee pain for over a year. They had consulted five different surgeons and each had a different opinion. Her husband was doing exercises that helped somewhat, but the pain remained, especially after walking.

I suggested that she place her hands on her husband's knee and allow her loving energy to flow through her hands. The next day she reported that for 15 minutes they prayed for healing while she held his knee. She felt a lot of energy flowing through her hands, and he felt heat on his knee.

Later her husband was outside cutting roses when he had a strong inner prompting to take the inserts out of his shoes, which he had wore for more than a year to make his heel higher than the ball of his foot. He went for a walk—no knee pain. A month has gone by and the knee pain has subsided so much that he has decided not to have surgery.

Is it just a coincidence that he received the prompting to take out the inserts right after sitting with his wife in a healing space? I like to think that the healing space opened a higher wisdom within his heart to know what needed to be done.

Many women as well as men do not experience much touching unless it is sexual. Sexual touch can be wonderful and healing, but it is not enough. Touching one another in a non-sexual, loving and healing way brings closeness into the relationship that balances the sexual touch.

Last week Barry and I both strained our lower backs, and found ourselves complaining about our pain. We decided to lie close together and place our hands on each other’s pain spots. It was very comforting and we soon fell asleep. We felt markedly better in the morning.

The healing warmth of touch brings you into a deeper alignment with others.

Joyce and Barry Vissell, a nurse and psychiatrist by training, are the authors of the popular books The Shared Heart, Models of Love, Risk To Be Healed, The Heart's Wisdom and Meant To Be. They are conducting a Summer Renewal workshop on July 23-28 at Breitenbush Hot Springs. Visit www.sharedheart.org.