When I first learned Reiki healing, I was told not to be sympathetic with my patients. ‘What?’ I thought, ‘sympathy is good!’ No, I was told. Empathise. Sympathy is a strict no-no.

And with so many years into healing now, I realise how damaging sympathy can be. Everyone says they want to be ‘healed’, but not all truly, genuinely, want it. This category of people subconsciously enjoys the misery they are in, while outwardly projecting their helplessness – and they often convince themselves too, that their misery is out of their hands.

I have, with sadness, watched too many people self-destruct in this fashion, without the slightest idea of what they were doing. These are the people which make the toughest patients – because how can you help someone who does not want to help themself?

Do you do it?
So how do we distinguish between those who genuinely want to get out of their misery, and those who enjoy it? The first detector here is sympathy. How many people know about your problems? Do you tell everyone the tough times you’re going through? If you’ve told more than one or two people about your problems – you know you’re looking for sympathy. And you know that you enjoy your misery.

The Energy Explanation
Sympathy causes a transfer of energy from the sympathiser to the ‘victim’. So those who enjoy the sympathy of others are usually people who are addicted to this technique of gaining energy. Their subconscious mind thinks like this – if people sympathise with you, you feel energised, so tell them all your problems. And then their subconscious invites more problems, thereby making their lives more miserable, so that they have more sob stories to tell. Its a vicious cycle.

If you talk about your joys more than your sorrows, then you know you are heading on the right track.

The Shrugging off of Responsibilities
As a healer, I have another easy technique to know whether the person is really keen on getting out of a problem – I just give them a simple task, something which they must do to improve the situation. And that separates the wheat from the chaff.

If you tell an obese person to avoid chips one day in a week, and get a “Nooooo, I can’t!” reply, you know that they aren’t interested in [i]doing[/i] anything to come out of their situation. They just don’t want to shoulder any responsibility!

The Remedy
Acceptance is the first step towards improvement. If you realise that you are addicted to sympathy, the realisation itself will start wearing off the effects, since everytime to try to gain sympathy, you’ll be reminded of what you are trying to do. Once the awareness comes in, you will start to alter things subconsciously.

Change is not easy, and it gets tougher when it comes to issues of harnessing energy. Learning reiki, or starting with meditation at this stage will help, as it will help you get energy directly from the universe, and you will not have to depend on sympathy to fulfil your needs.

And then, you can start to visualise yourself the way you want yourself to be – and imagine yourself taking up responsibilities, owning up for your actions and your life. Imagine yourself in control of your mind and body, and your emotions.

Finally… I would like to stress on the awareness factor. Observe – yourself and others. Observe everything around you like an outsider, and watch yourself react to situations. Ask yourself why you react the way you do. And if the answer does not satisfy you, then rectify that behaviour. Three simple words. Observe. Detect. Act.