05037 - Brownsville, Vt.
Connie Holstein is a trained practitioner of equine sports massage, acupressure and Reiki, which she has been practicing on people and animals since 1994. The following is an edited interview.
If you picture your house, it has electrical outlets everywhere. You utilize that energy by plugging in whenever you want to use it. That's kind of what I'm doing. I'm plugging in to this universal outlet that's available, tapping into a certain energy frequency and I'm channeling it just like electricity.
The basic idea is, just like acupuncture and acupressure, you’re opening blockages that stop the body from working properly. Like taking a rock out of the river so the water can flow better, you’re taking out the negative energy so the body can heal. You’ve got to get rid of pain and inflammation before you can start to get better. You can take an aspirin and wait 30 minutes or let Reiki do it in five.
When you begin a treatment, a lot of times a horse will relax instantly because it recognizes the energy and says, “Hey, that’s pretty good.” They haven’t been conditioned to be suspicious and it’s nothing foreign or strange to them. They operate in that world all the time.
People approach it a bit more skeptically. A lot of the time, it’s their own thoughts and fears that get in the way. There’s something about an injury that people hold onto and it becomes part of their identity. An animal always wants to get better but some people would rather be in pain because they’re afraid to let go.
My hands get really warm and I notice a lot of tingling as the energy is coming through. It connects me to the energy around me — universal energy, for lack of a better term — so that you’re able to run that energy through you. It’s Chi, that life force. We can’t live without it.
There is an intention involved to heal this tendon, or mend this fracture, soften this stiff muscle, whatever it may be, but all the time I’m surprised by the effect, by the power it has. There’s an innate knowledge in the body that knows how to heal itself and it recognizes this energy. It’s like turning the switch on and off and I’m actually just a channel.
To me it’s a spiritual, as opposed to religious, experience. It’s mystical, and mysterious sometimes. Other than that I’m not really sure how to explain it. On the deepest level, it’s unconditional love. Everything responds to that.