Why Energy Healing Doesn’t Always “Hold” After a Session
This is a topic that isn't discussed enough in energy healing: why someone might not be able to hold the energy work after a session. In other words, why a person might feel great during or immediately after a session, but later easily revert back to the old state they were in before they came in. It can feel like the healing "didn't take" or wasn't able to fully integrate.
This experience can be discouraging for both the client and the practitioner. After all, the goal of energy healing is real, lasting transformation—greater alignment, clarity, expansion, and relief. But the truth is, not every session holds long-term, and understanding why is a vital part of the healing journey.
Tracking this—without judgment—is important. It helps clients understand their role in the process, and it helps practitioners refine their work, recognize resistance or misalignment, and identify external factors that may be blocking integration.
Below are the most common reasons energy work doesn't hold, based on direct practice experience as well as what's been learned from fellow practitioners over the years.
Part One: Client Factors
1. They're not ready to truly change
At the end of the day, clients must also work on themselves outside of sessions. A practitioner can do extraordinary work during an appointment, but if the client goes back to the same patterns—without self-reflection or accountability—they'll return to the same old emotional and energetic loops.
It's okay to fall off the horse and to restart your healing journey. But outsourcing healing to someone else without doing any personal work will never create lasting change. For example, if someone stays in a toxic relationship or chronically overworks to the point of exhaustion and keeps repeating those behaviors, their life won't shift no matter how much energy healing they receive.
2. Drug use
This is a complicated topic with many nuances, because "drugs" range from recreational substances to plant medicine to clinical psychedelics.
Some practitioners believe that any type of mind-altering substance—even ones we deem "harmless" like marijuana—can tear or weaken the energy structure. They may agitate the system, cause anxiety, or create contraction instead of the grounding and expansion that healing generally aims for. One practitioner has described being able to always tell when a client smoked marijuana between sessions, because none of the previous work held—and when asked, the client always confirms it.
At the same time, there are people who use plant medicines intentionally during a ceremony. They call in guides, set a sacred container, and work with the spirit of the plant. In those contexts, the structure of the ceremony can provide some added protection from the effects of the plant medicine on the energy structure.
Others may use ketamine or mushrooms in clinical settings for PTSD or trauma therapy. These settings usually don't involve ceremony or create any kind of energetic container for the sessions. In those cases, receiving energy work after the treatment series can help repair any energetic disruption, if the person feels called to do so.
I remain agnostic on this subject. Underlying health issues aside, drugs that can harm your body can also harm your energy structure. On other substances labeled as plant medicine, I don't hold much of an opinion.
One thing worth noting: I once worked with someone who had a plant medicine journey the week before their session. Their entire energy structure felt very fluid, like they were still in an in-between state. By the end of the session, we got their energy structure settled and grounded. Again, no firm conclusion to draw from that—just an interesting observation.
3. Doing too much energy work
If someone is seeing an acupuncturist, a Reiki practitioner, and a biofield tuner all in the same month, they are putting themselves into a place of energetic destabilization without giving themselves any time to process and restabilize. The real integration happens after the session—you have to hit your new energetic baseline before you go into another one.
Constantly layering multiple modalities without allowing resolution can interrupt the healing process. Each modality does something different, and the body needs time to adjust, anchor, and land in the new vibration or perspective.
4. The ego, personality, or higher self is resisting the session
Essentially, either the personality or the higher self—or even both—are resisting the energy work. This means the energy work is not absorbing, or is being completely blocked. This topic deserves its own deeper exploration: the reasons why it happens, how you can tell, and what to do about it. This Is the link to that article: https://www.tunetobloom.com/post/why-outsourcing-your-healing-journey-keeps-you-stuck.
Part Two: Practitioner-Related Reasons
1. Lack of structure in the session
A practitioner needs a clear beginning, middle, and end. They must set the stage, actively get the person's energy structure to respond to the work, guide the process, and then ground and anchor the person before closing.
From personal experience, when learning new healing modalities, there can be more emphasis on learning how to actively perform the energy work than on the beginning or ending protocol—how to structure a session as a whole.
Setting the container and anchoring the session are essential. They orient the practitioner and client, give direction, and help harmonize and ground the energy structure at the end of a session so the client can hold the new potential.
Starting a session without a clear intention, or ending without proper grounding, can leave clients in an energetic "in-between," making it hard for the work to hold. I have a two-part series on the importance of containers and how to create them is linked below: Part 1: https://www.tunetobloom.com/post/what-is-a-container-in-energy-healing-and-why-it-shapes-everything Part 2: https://www.tunetobloom.com/post/how-to-build-a-container-in-energy-healing-components-depth-and-practice
2. Inexperience or lack of confidence
If a modality is complex, it takes time for practitioners to become skillful and confident. Beginners may still be learning how to perform the modality, sense and interpret energy, track a client's energetic structure, and make necessary adjustments—all while maintaining the container. We've all been there, and that's perfectly okay. Practice is what helps us grow, and we are always deeply grateful for the clients who allow us to learn and refine our skills.
3. Insufficient or low-quality training
Make sure your practitioner is legitimate and has been trained through a reputable school. These days, you can learn almost anything online—for example, there are Reiki and sound healing classes available on platforms like Udemy. While these can be helpful as supplements, they are not a replacement for live training.
Whether virtual or in person, live teaching is essential because of how the teaching is transmitted. In a live class, a distinct informational transfer happens directly through the teacher's energy structure. The teacher holds the frequency and structural knowledge of the modality within their own energetic field, and by being in their presence, students absorb that structure. A self-paced, pre-recorded course simply cannot replicate that real-time transmission. This connection to the teacher's field becomes a tangible resource the practitioner can tap into later during their own work.
Part Three: Energetic Factors
1. You might be dealing with an attachment
An attachment can be understood as an energetic parasite. Before your mind spirals into fear, this is not the kind of possession you see in movies—it's much more subtle, but it can still negatively affect your life.
These energetic entities are more common than most people realize. In direct practice, they've shown up in roughly a quarter of clients. It's a real phenomenon, and far more nuanced than Hollywood makes it appear.
Attachments feed on emotion—both positive and negative. Signs may include becoming far more reactive or explosive than a situation calls for, recreating certain situations that trigger intense emotions, or feeling unusually drained even when sleeping well, eating well, and taking care of yourself.
If that's happening, you may have an attachment. That's a much bigger topic on its own, but it's worth mentioning here because it can absolutely interfere with how well energy work holds.
To be incredibly clear: having an attachment does not mean you are a bad person, and it doesn't mean you did anything to deserve it. Just like catching a physical cold doesn't mean you've failed, an energetic attachment is simply a mechanical issue in the field that needs clearing—there is zero shame in it.
2. Negative thought forms or energetic imprints
You may also be dealing with a negative thought form that has attached to you. This is essentially negative energy, thoughts, or intentions that can disrupt your life and interfere with your healing process. Examples include curses, old vows or oaths from past lives, or other forms of black magic.
While this isn't a primary focus in my own practice, it is a well-documented phenomenon in more traditional cultures—such as Native American, Mexican, or African traditions.
Just like attachments, it's simply energetic static that got caught in your environment, and acknowledging it is the first step to clearing the air.
Conclusion
Holding energy work is a dynamic process. If your energy work isn't integrating the way you expect, it doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. It simply means something in your system—or in the practitioner's approach—needs attention, support, or adjustment. Healing is rarely linear. It's a layered process of clearing, integrating, relearning, and re-patterning.
The more awareness you bring to these factors, the more empowered you become in your healing journey. When the right conditions are in place—internal, external, and energetic—the work holds beautifully and can create profound, lasting change.
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