Over the last few months, a phrase has kept emerging in our Reiki School of Self & Wisdom teachings: root to rise.
It wasn't something we set out to build the curriculum around, but it has appeared again and again in our conversations, practices, reflections, and healing journeys. The more I sit with it, the more I realise it captures something I have witnessed not only in my own healing but in the journeys of so many women who come through Peace Heal Love.
We have been taught that healing is about ascension.
We are encouraged to raise our vibration, connect with our intuition, open ourselves to higher wisdom, and become more evolved versions of ourselves. There is a place for all of that. Spiritual connection matters. Intuition matters.
But what I have often found, is that the healing that creates real and lasting change rarely begins by reaching upwards.
It begins by going down.
It begins by rooting ourselves back into our bodies, our emotions, our truth, and our lived experience.
Many of the women I work with arrive feeling disconnected from themselves. They are often highly capable, deeply caring, and incredibly self-aware. Yet beneath that there can be a sense of exhaustion, uncertainty, or feeling lost. They know how to perform, achieve, and care for others, but many have never been taught how to truly listen to themselves.
And honestly, I don't think that's accidental.
The patriarchal culture many of us have been raised within has taught us to value what can be measured, produced, achieved, and controlled. It rewards us for pushing through, staying busy, and overriding our own needs. Women in particular have been conditioned to second-guess themselves, suppress their instincts, and seek permission from external sources before trusting their own wisdom.
We are taught to look outside of ourselves for answers.
To the expert.
To the institution.
To the system.
To the next course, book, qualification, or authority figure.
Rarely are we encouraged to trust the intelligence already living within us.
The irony is that many healing journeys begin in exactly the same way. We start searching for the next thing that will fix us, heal us, or transform us. We continue looking outward and upward.
Yet true healing often asks something very different.
It asks us to slow down enough to hear ourselves.
To notice where we have abandoned our needs.
To feel the emotions we've spent years trying to avoid.
To reconnect with our bodies after decades of being taught they are something to control, criticise, or ignore.
To remember that our intuition doesn't live somewhere above us. It lives within us.
This is why the phrase root to rise has resonated so deeply within the Reiki School of Self & Wisdom.
Because before we can expand, we need a foundation.
Before we can trust our intuition, we need to trust ourselves.
Before we can access deeper wisdom, we need to create safety within our bodies.
Before we rise, we root.
What I love about Reiki is that while many people come to it seeking spiritual connection, what they often discover is a profound reconnection to themselves. Through Reiki, self-reflection, embodiment practices, and community, we begin peeling back the layers of conditioning that tell us we need to be something other than who we are.
We begin remembering.
Remembering our worth isn't dependent on our productivity.
Remembering our bodies hold wisdom.
Remembering that rest is not laziness.
Remembering that our emotions are messengers, not problems.
Remembering that we don't need to constantly strive to become more.
Some of the most profound healing happens when we stop trying to transcend our humanity and instead learn how to fully inhabit it.
When I think about the phrase root to rise, I think about nature. A tree cannot continue reaching skyward without a root system strong enough to support its growth. The higher it grows, the deeper those roots must travel.
The same is true for us.
The women I see experiencing the deepest transformations are not necessarily the ones trying hardest to ascend. They are the ones willing to root. Willing to meet themselves honestly. Willing to come home to their bodies, their truth, and their inner wisdom.
Perhaps that is the real work.
Not becoming someone new.
Not endlessly searching for the next level.
But rooting deeply enough that who we truly are can finally rise.
