Estimated read: 7 minutes
My first experience with spirituality was not in a church. It was in my grandmother’s arms.
When I was sick she held me close, sang prayers over me, and bathed me in flower petals and herbs. She kept a garden and treated every plant with love and intention. She knew their healing properties and honored them as medicine. She was a wise woman who felt the world around her deeply, and her language was one I understood without words or doctrine. It was the language of love and communion with the earth.
I am Puerto Rican. Taino blood runs through me. My grandmother knew which plants carried medicine. That was ancient knowledge traveling through generations of women who refused to let it disappear.
I did not know it then, but she was teaching me everything I would spend the rest of my life learning again. As a nurse. As a Reiki Master. As a minister. She never said it out loud. She did not have to. Love was the lesson.
First, I was safe
Before I was healed, I was held.
In 1943 the psychologist Abraham Maslow described what he called a hierarchy of needs. At the base are our bodies: food, water, rest. Right above that is safety. Maslow wrote that when safety is missing, it can take over the whole person, and everything else waits until it is met (Maslow, 1943). Belonging, esteem, and becoming who we are meant to be all grow out of that ground.
I think about that every time I remember my grandmother’s arms. A sick little girl does not need a lecture. She needs to feel safe enough to rest. My grandmother gave me that first. The prayers, the petals, the herbs, all of it came after. Safety was the doorway.
I see it now in the emergency department every single shift. A frightened person cannot take in discharge instructions, a new diagnosis, or a plan. First they need to know someone is with them. Safety is not a soft extra in healthcare. It is the foundation everything else stands on.
Flowers, herbs, and the healing room
My grandmother never read Florence Nightingale, but they would have understood each other.
In Notes on Nursing, Nightingale wrote about fresh air, light, quiet, and the beauty of what a sick person gets to look at. She believed the effect of beautiful things on a patient was real, not only on the mind but on the body too (Nightingale, 1859). She was talking about the healing room more than 160 years ago.
Science followed. In a well known study, Roger Ulrich looked at patients recovering from gallbladder surgery. The ones whose windows faced a small stand of trees had shorter hospital stays and needed fewer strong pain medications than the ones who faced a brick wall (Ulrich, 1984). A view of living things changed how bodies healed.
Researchers now use the phrase optimal healing environments to describe what supports healing: the physical space, the relationships, the habits, and, right at the center, what they call healing intention, the inner orientation of the people giving and receiving care (Sakallaris et al., 2015). Reading that framework for the first time, I laughed out loud. My grandmother built an optimal healing environment out of a garden and a bathtub.
What the research says about scent
Aromatherapy is one of those places where I want to be honest with you, because honesty is part of healing too.
Some of the research is promising. Lavender, one of the oldest healing plants, has been studied for its calming effects on the nervous system, and reviews suggest it may help with anxiety and restlessness (Koulivand et al., 2013). Other claims are not as strong, and overviews of the research call for better studies before we promise too much (Lee et al., 2012).
Here is what I hold both of. The science is still unfolding. And I always carry lavender and vanilla with me. When a moment turns heavy, especially at work, I pause and reach for my scents. They calm me, ground me, and soothe me. Scent reaches memory and emotion quickly. That is not nothing. That might be the whole point.
The power of intention
My grandmother did everything with intention. She did not just water a plant. She tended it. She did not just bathe me. She blessed me.
Intention is hard to measure in a lab, and I will not pretend it has been proven the way a medication has. But there is good evidence that loving, attentive touch matters. Studies of touch show it can lower stress responses and support emotional and physical well being across the lifespan, from newborns to elders (Field, 2010). The way we touch someone carries a message. Her hands said: you matter, and you will be okay.
When I later trained in Reiki, I recognized that same quality right away. Reiki is traditionally offered without touch, with the hands resting just above the body, guided by intention. Sometimes, when my intuition tells me to, I rest a gentle hand on someone. Either way, the intention is the same. The research on it is still small and mixed, and trusted sources like the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health say so plainly (National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, n.d.). What I can tell you is what I have witnessed: people softening. Breathing deeper. Feeling, sometimes for the first time in a long while, safe in their own bodies. That was my grandmother’s gift, and I get to pass it on.
The long way back
What came after her arms was a long and honest journey through doubt, and a lot of dead ends. I kept searching for a way in. What I eventually discovered was that I had to be open enough to receive it.
Grace does not force its way in. It waits for us to make room.
The moment everything changed was quiet. No lightning. No choir. Just me in an empty chapel at a retreat, having a conversation with God and asking flat out for a sign. Almost as soon as I thought it, the chapel bells rang. Clear as day.
And I said yes. Yes to being of service. Yes to my ministry.
Love was the thread
I believe in synchronicities. In the thread that runs through all things. Some call that thread God, some call it the Tao, some call it the Great Spirit. I understand the energy of them all to be the sacred glue that keeps us all together.
Looking back, I can see the thread clearly. Nobody told me to become a nurse because of my grandmother. Nobody told me Reiki would feel like coming home. Nobody told me a chapel bell would call me into ministry. But love was guiding every step. The unsaid knowing that we are here to care for each other, and that caring is sacred work.
Nursing taught me the science of healing. Reiki taught me the energy of it. Ministry taught me the meaning of it. My grandmother taught me all three before I could read.
Today I am an ordained interfaith minister, a nurse, a mother, and someone who knows firsthand what it feels like to wander and to finally arrive. This path exists because I needed it once. I suspect you might too.
A small practice
Tonight, make one small healing space. A clean corner. A window. A flower or a sprig of something green. Light a candle or open a jar of something that smells like home. Sit for three minutes and set one intention for your own healing. That is it. This is how I live now. I believe in creating spaces in my home with purpose, intention, and beauty.
This essay is part of the Believe Series on the Believe path at The Gracewell Studio. Start at the Believe path here, or keep reading: Interfaith, Interspiritual, and Wholeness: How I Explain the Two.
A Blessing for the One Who Needs to Feel Safe
May you find arms, or a room, or a quiet moment that holds you. May you remember that you were loved before you did anything at all. May the healing start with safety and grow from there. Go gracefully. 🤍
About the Author
Rev. Kristina Soto, RN, BSN Registered Nurse · Quality Management · Interfaith Minister · Usui Ryoho Reiki Master · Founder, The Gracewell Studio
Kristina is a Registered Nurse with nearly two decades of clinical experience, including more than ten years in quality management and performance improvement, and now in case management. She is an ordained Interfaith Minister through One Spirit Learning Alliance, a Usui Ryoho Reiki Master, a Shamanic Reiki Practitioner, a NYC Marriage Officiant, and the founder of The Gracewell Studio, where artful living meets well-being. Read more about Kristina.
References
Field, T. (2010). Touch for socioemotional and physical well-being: A review. Developmental Review, 30(4), 367-383. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2011.01.001
Koulivand, P. H., Khaleghi Ghadiri, M., & Gorji, A. (2013). Lavender and the nervous system. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2013, 681304. https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/681304
Lee, M. S., Choi, J., Posadzki, P., & Ernst, E. (2012). Aromatherapy for health care: An overview of systematic reviews. Maturitas, 71(3), 257-260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.maturitas.2011.12.018
Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370-396. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054346
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. (n.d.). Reiki. https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/reiki
Nightingale, F. (1859). Notes on nursing: What it is, and what it is not. Harrison.
Sakallaris, B. R., Macallister, L., Voss, M., Smith, K., & Jonas, W. B. (2015). Optimal healing environments. Global Advances in Health and Medicine, 4(3), 40-45. https://doi.org/10.7453/gahmj.2015.043
Ulrich, R. S. (1984). View through a window may influence recovery from surgery. Science, 224(4647), 420-421. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.6143402
