A Journey Down the REIKI Road

I started my journey down the reiki road in order to heal the onset of aches and pains in my hands and feet. I know that this condition was the beginning stage of arthritis. My grandmother has it and since it is hereditary it is only natural that I might have it as well. I have refused to see a western doctor because of the power insurance carriers have over the medical arena in this country. After their required tests, my rates would skyrocket. They would drain my pocketbook even more and for what? Does western medicine offer any sort of cure? We all know the answer is no. I would, however, have the stigma follow me on my records for the rest of my life. I was determined to find my own way around the ailment and leave doctors out of it.

Besides, if doctors discovered what I already knew was true all they could do is put me on medication for the pain. Unfortunately, that would not address the reason behind the arthritis. Not to mention the fact that I have had very little success with most medicines masking any pain…ever. I have never understood why Americans are so enamored with pill-popping. In almost every home you can find a cabinet filled with various prescriptions and over-the-counter medications. Why have we become so dependent on these pills when there are so many other avenues for actual healing we can take?

I remember as a child having to take some pills that my dentist prescribed before surgery so that I wouldn’t feel anything. In my mind a horse would have had difficulty swallowing these giant pills and I was a little girl. I eventually got them down at the allotted time before my surgery. Needless to say, the dentist was surprised when I screamed after he started cutting into me. I overheard him telling my mother that he prescribed the maximum dosage for me and he didn’t understand why the pills weren’t working. I wasn’t numb at all. So, laughing gas came to the rescue. Now I was drugged up on the original pills he gave me that didn’t do what they were supposed to do as well as nitrous oxide. I believe I had to miss school that day.

Since so many meds don’t work for me, I have always wondered if they only work if you believe they work; just another placebo. If that is the case, I encourage all those addicted to your medicine cabinets to get out and find alternatives. If you know it will work, it will and that is all there is to it.

I have always been a fighter that would never take a physical ailment sitting down. That plus the fact that I have had an instinct for natural healing all my life afforded me the ability to find various ways of curing a variety of conditions over the years. Long before my introduction to reiki, I had been interested in natural healing. I have a history of slipped discs and refused to accept that I couldn’t walk easily for six months. So, I practiced yoga to alleviate the stress and now one would never guess I have any spinal injuries. I have used positive affirmations in healing over the years. I have practiced visualization techniques that were successful and since I was six years old, I have even concocted potions in my kitchen to address sore throats and the like.

When I wanted another tool in my healing tool box reiki plopped into my lap. What is reiki? To quote my teacher, “reiki is a Japanese form of relaxation and stress reduction.” Great, I am all about relaxation and stress reduction, but what does that mean exactly? Basically, a practitioner is attuned to various levels of the reiki energy. After each attunement the practitioner has varying degrees of abilities depending on their level of attunement and then acts as a conduit for the Universal Life Force. It sounds very mysterious and very much like something out of Star Wars. Luke Skywalker to the rescue! And in a way, it is. Luke used “the force” to manipulate energy to carry out all sorts of magical acts. The Universal Life Force, or Reiki Energy, is not that much different.

As a conduit a practitioner receives the energy in their crown which moves through their arms and out their hands onto their client. As open as I was to my own version of energy healing I was a skeptic when it came to reiki. I wondered how can people could be attuned and then have the ability to do this?

My first hands-on experience with reiki was at a reiki share where people would take turns having mini-sessions on each other. We had four people in our group; that meant three people working on one person at a time. As the newbie I went first. I was shocked that the six hands on my body were all hot. How did they do that? Then I could feel the energy moving inside my body. It was like a little massage for my internal organs. I had recently quit drinking and one of the women went straight for my liver. I was amazed that she intuitively knew to go there. I also felt an emotional response when she did that. I had a tear in my eye. I knew that I was being healed for my former habit at the core level of my being. Why were these hands bringing this response in me? It didn’t make any sense to my linear thinking brain why this was working, but I didn’t care. It was working and that is all that mattered.

Someone asked me recently how long it takes for reiki to work. It occurred to me we have had it droned into us for so long that if we take a pill we are immediately fine. Unfortunately, we are not seeing things from the bigger picture. We want something and we expect immediate results for that particular thing. Here is the thing with reiki, it doesn’t work that way. It might work that way, but reiki works for the highest good for your Higher Self, whatever that means. It can heal on the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual sides of your being. For me, I have healed my broken foot in four days. I have healed anger that I had been holding onto for 20+ years that I didn’t know I was angry about. I have healed a cold in a couple of days. These things were cured with reiki sessions I performed on myself.

In addition to the sessions, attunements offer an enormous amount of revelation in your life. With each reiki degree I have acquired I have experienced more and more connection with the universe. I have much more clarity. Instead of having tunnel vision, I can now see peripherally things from a much higher level than before. I am more receptive to the signs around me. In other words I pay attention. With each level of reiki attunement one becomes farther along the path to enlightenment. There is a deeper understanding of who you are and what your mission on this planet is in this lifetime. You begin to see everything at a much higher level. Everything in life has a purpose and a meaning and most people don’t see beyond the pain and suffering. I see what the message behind the pain and suffering is.

I had a woman I was working on that broke her ankle and had to have surgery. She wanted me to heal her ankle. The first second I touched her I knew this would not necessarily be about healing her on the physical level as it would be the emotional level. In her case, I knew she broke her ankle because she was not moving on from a former love. Within 7 days of the first time I worked on her her former love called her out of the blue and she was completely distraught. Clearly she had not moved on from him. After seeing him she knew it was time to move on. So she was healed from the emotional reason why she broke her ankle in the first place. This is what reiki brought to her. In the mean time she did get her cast off a month early too. So, it did help on the physical level too.

We also have sacred spiritual contracts that can not be broken. For example, someone may come into this lifetime to have a disease so that they can experience what it is like to have that disease. On the physical plane they may want to be ‘cured’, but their Higher Self has this contract. So, healing for them may be seeing this disease from a higher perspective and/or changing how they experience life. Instead of seeing cancer as a tragedy, one might think of it as an opportunity to grow on a spiritual level. Sometimes healing is simply about taking time out in your day to smell the roses. It can be about seeing the joy in all things rather than the turmoil, which helps to raise one's vibrational level and guide them down the path of Enlightenment.

A friend of my family was in a serious motorcycle accident and should have died instantly. He held on for 11 days. He was in a coma and was in extremely bad shape. I decided to send him reiki distantly with the intention that he would either be cured or healed in order to move on to the next dimension. I didn’t know how it would end up, but I knew the universe would. As soon as I started working on him I could see that even while in a coma he had intense, actually excruciating pain that he was feeling while inside his coma. I realized comatose patients are very much aware of pain. It was pretty awful to say the least. I then saw in my third eye that he decided to release from his body. He kissed his girlfriend as he told her he loved her and move into the light. That was what healing meant for him…it was about letting go and moving on.

You may go into a reiki session because of a backache and then you don’t feel anything, but a few days later you get fired from your job that gave you the backache in the first place. The firing may initially seem horrible, but then you start the career that you actually want. This is what happened to a friend of mine.

I am now a reiki master and continue to practice on myself every single day, even if it can only be for five minutes. On the rare moment I feel aches and pains in my hands and toes I send reiki to it. I now see that the beginning stages of arthritis that I felt was helping to bring reiki to me and therefore lead me down the path to my awakening. It was my gift.

That all said, reiki works in mysterious ways. How is it that the attunement works? Why is the master able to pass on the ability after a few hand gestures along with some mantras? No one truly knows the reason…but does it really matter? We are all energetic beings. It is time we embraced our true nature and found ways to heal ourselves on an energetic level. Reiki is just one avenue to explore. I encourage you to discover whatever mysteries you are drawn to.

Thank you for reading and Namaste! (The Light in me recognizes the Light in you!)

**Disclaimer: While I do think that Americans overindulge in their usage of medications, medications are sometimes genuinely needed. Reiki is to be used as a complement to Western medicine. It is not a substitute. I choose to not use Western Medicine as often as others because this is what works for me. Each of us needs to go within in and search what is best for ourselves.