The Healing Power of Reiki

I don’t prescribe Reiki as a substitute for traditional medical care. Reiki can be used and is used effectively in conjunction with medical care and in my own case was used in a situation where traditional medicine could not help.

What is Reiki?

· Reiki is translated to mean “Universal Life Force” 

Translated literally, Reiki is the supernatural knowledge or spiritual consciousness or wisdom that comes from God or the Higher Self or the universe. This is the God consciousness that is all knowing. It understands each person completely. It knows the cause of all problems and difficulties and knows what to do to heal them.

· Ki means the same as Chi in Chinese, or Prana in Sanskrit. It is the vital life force or universal life force. It is the nonphysical energy that animates all living things. As long as something is alive, it has life force circulating through it and surrounding it. When it dies, the life force departs.

· If your life force is low, or if there is a restriction in its flow, you will be more vulnerable to illness. When it is high and flowing freely, you are less likely to get sick.

· Life force plays an important role in everything we do. It animates the body and also is the primary energy of our thoughts, emotions and spiritual life.

· It is this God consciousness called Rei that guides the life force called Ki in the practice we call Reiki.

· Therefore, Reiki can be defined as spiritually-guided or universal life force energy. It is guided by its own wisdom.

· All healers use life force but not all use Reiki. Reiki is a special kind of life force that can only be channeled by someone who has been attuned to it and this is done by a Reiki Master.

· Reiki energies are more powerful and are of a much higher energy frequency than other healing energies. Reiki energies do not have to be guided like other healing energies do.

· I am going to discuss the Usui form of Reiki which was re-discovered by Dr. Mikao Usui in the late 1800’s. He discovered long lost information used by Buddhist Monks more than 2,500 years earlier that disclosed how they healed.  Then he personally went through a transformation and he was given the power to heal. He began to pass this process on to those who had a desire to heal others.

How is Reiki transferred?

· Reiki is non-invasive. It is gentle and does not involve drugs, needles or manipulation of muscles or bones. This process involves only light touch. It does not hurt. It works on 4 levels to heal the physical, spiritual, mental and emotional aspects of the body and works only for a person's highest healing good. It cannot be used to hurt others.

· The practitioner simply places their hands on the person to be healed with the intention of healing. Reiki energy begins flowing automatically.

· Reiki communicates with the client’s higher self and uses this information to decide where to go and what to do. Reiki not only treats the area where the hands are placed but often travels to other areas of the body where it is needed.

· Because Reiki is guided by a higher consciousness, it can never do harm. It always knows what a person needs and will adjust to create the effect that is appropriate for the client. Reiki is always helpful.

· The Reiki Master or practitioner is a vehicle for healing to take place. The Reiki energy flows from the hands of the healer to the person being healed. In addition, because the practitioner does not direct the healing, and does not decide what to work on or what to heal, it is much easier for the ego to stay out of the way and allow the presence of this universal life force or God to clearly shine through.

· Because it is channeled healing from the universe, the Reiki Master’s energies are never depleted. In fact, the Reiki consciousness considers both practitioner and client during the healing process, so both receive the energy.

· A treatment always increases one’s energy and leaves one surrounded with loving feelings of well-being. The feeling of being connected directly to God’s healing love and protection is clearly apparent.

Is Reiki a religion?

· While Reiki is spiritual in nature, it is not a religion. It has no dogma, and you don’t have to believe in it to use it or receive its benefits. Anyone can receive Reiki. It crosses all ages, cultures and religions.

· In fact, Reiki is not dependent upon belief at all and will work whether or not you believe in it. It is the soul’s choice to accept or reject the healing. The ego, or intellect have nothing to do with it.

· Because Reiki comes from the Universe, or God, many people find that the experience puts them more in touch with their own spirit and spirituality rather than having only an intellectual concept of spirituality or religion.

How does Reiki heal?

· We are alive because life force is flowing through us. Life force flows within the physical body through pathways called chakras, meridians and nadis. It also flows around us in a field of energy called the aura.

·  Life force nourishes the organs and cells of the body, supporting them and their vital functions. When this flow of life force is disrupted, it causes diminished function in one or more of the organs and tissues of the physical body.

· The life force is responsive to thoughts and feelings. It becomes disrupted when we accept, either consciously or unconsciously, negative thoughts or feelings.

 · Allowing a constant flow of negative thoughts and feelings into our life stops the creative process. It stops our ability to create what we want in our life. It stops the manifestation of abundance, prosperity and good health from happening because it cuts us off from our own spirit or the universal life force which is the source of creativity and miracles.

· Because we literally hold onto these negative thoughts and feelings, these thoughts or feelings literally attach themselves to the energy field and cause a disruption in the flow of the life force. This diminishes the vital function of the organs and cells of the physical body. Our thoughts create our reality and what we think is what we create for ourselves. It is like a boomerang. Whatever we put out into the world comes back to us and therefore, that is our experience.

 How do these negative thoughts or feelings specifically affect the physical body?

· Our bodies have a very efficient way of telling us when something is wrong or out of balance. One example of this is the effect of stress on the body. When we are under stress and we don’t find a safe outlet to release it, the stress can become internalized and can manifest itself as low energy as well as physical pain in the form of back aches, neck and shoulder pain, headache and high blood pressure that can lead to stroke and heart attack.

· Another example is holding onto anger. When we hold onto anger at ourselves, someone else, a situation or relationship, instead of letting the anger go safely, we internalize it. Anger turned inward can manifest itself as unhappiness and depression, loss of energy and fatigue.

· Yet another example is holding onto fear. When we don’t recognize or express our fears, we can’t live our lives to the fullest. We can’t fully enjoy everything we have and we can’t move forward. We stay stuck where we are. So we don’t fulfill our goals and we never realize our dreams for the future.

· Reiki heals by flowing through the affected parts of the energy field and charging them with positive energy. It raises the vibratory level of the energy field in and around the physical body where the negative thoughts and feelings are attached. 

· This causes the negative energy to break apart and fall away. In doing so, Reiki clears, straightens and heals the energy pathways and allows the life force to flow in a healthy and natural way.

How is Reiki used?

· Reiki is both powerful and gentle. In its long history of use, it has aided in healing virtually every known illness and injury including serious problems like, infertility, multiple sclerosis, heart disease, cancer as well as skin problems, cuts and bruises, impotence, broken bones, backaches, headaches, colds, flu, fatigue, insomnia, poor memory, lack of confidence, changing unwanted habits like overeating and addictions, etc.

· It is always beneficial and works to improve the effectiveness of all other types of therapy and medical treatment.

What happens during a healing when a person receives Reiki?

·  What happens depends greatly on the person being healed. Because Reiki always heals for your highest healing good, the energy goes to the root cause of the issue.  Some people experience warmth and a lot of heat in or on the body, or feel a sense of relaxation and calm come over them. Others report healing of pain and physical symptoms. Still others say that their stress, worries and fears disappear for no reason. Some report that long-standing anger or anxiety melts away, difficult relationships improve, outlook on life gets better, new opportunities suddenly open up, or a problem that's been bothering them gets solved or goes away. It all depends on what needs to be healed and it can happen instantaneously or over time. The experience can be equated to the petals of a flower opening up and being bathed in the warm glow of liquid light. 

So your backache might really be caused by stress or a difficult situation or relationship and that has to be healed first before the backache can be healed. Look at your life and see if there might be some underlying cause for your pain, anxiety, fear, poor health or lack of opportunity flowing your way.

All that is required of the person receiving the Reiki is to receive the healing, pay attention and watch the miracles unfold. These miracles may be subtle, and they may not happen immediately but they will happen.

Are there different levels of Reiki?

· In Reiki level 1, or hands-on Reiki, the practitioner simply places their hands on the person to be healed with the intention of healing.

· In Reiki level 2, Reiki can be sent by the practitioner or Reiki Master from a distance to the person, situation or relationship requiring healing. At this level, hands are not required to touch the body. A connection to the spirit is all that is required.

· Reiki can also be given in the form of an Attunement.  In this case, the Reiki healing ability is transferred into the student by a Reiki Master. This process opens the energy centers or charkas of the body which energize the client’s hands to heal themselves or others or to send healing from a distance. 

· There are 2 levels of attunement, Reiki 1 for hands-on healing and Reiki 2 for distance healing.

· The attunement is a powerful spiritual experience guided by the Rei or God-consciousness and makes adjustments in the process depending on the needs of each student. Many report having mystical experiences, visions, healings and personal messages.

· The attunement also increases psychic sensitivity and intuition.

· Once you have received a Reiki attunement, you will have Reiki for the rest of your life. It doesn’t wear off and you can never lose it. The more you use it, the stronger the energy will get. One attunement is all you need for each level if you so choose to be attuned to that level.

· The Reiki attunement also provides protection to the student for life.

Because Reiki works in 4 ways, physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally, the protection it provides also works on all 4 levels and includes protection from physical harm, as well as protection from verbal and emotional confrontation and from psychic attack.

How I got involved using Reiki

· My husband and I were married a few months after I graduated from Harvard Business School. I was hired to work at the Business School as the Assistant Director of MBA Placement and then as the Assistant Director of Executive Education. After a while we began to think about having a family. We tried for a couple of years but I didn't get pregnant. We decided to seek medical advice and the doctors informed us that we were both physically fine and we should just be patient. It was suggested, because of my age, that we could try fertilization techniques. I was in my late thirties.

· We did that for a couple of months but it didn’t produce any results. I began to think that maybe there was something blocking our ability to conceive that was not physically related. Maybe there was some emotional or intellectual block that we were not even aware of. So I began to seek alternative healing methods.

· A friend of mine knew of our efforts to start a family and invited me to one of her mother's group meetings to hear a woman talk about a self-healing technique called Reiki.

· I was interested in the idea of being empowered to use my "own" hands to heal my husband and myself. I decided to receive a Reiki 1 attunement so that I could use my hands to heal us. 

· We couldn’t believe it. It worked right away on everything. We used Reiki on muscle aches, strains, back pain, headaches and cramps. The pain melted away after just a few minutes of placing my hands on my body or my husband's. I used it to help us relieve the stress from our busy days and to help us sleep better at night. It was very relaxing and comforting. It lowered our blood pressure.

· I wanted more and learned I could receive a second attunement to actually "send" healing to someone far away. This attunement is called the mental emotional attunement or Reiki 2. It can heal people from a distance. No physical touch is involved. It can also heal situations and relationships.

· By now I had started my own executive coaching business and began to use it on a limited basis to heal my client's relationships with their bosses, peers and subordinates and to enhance my relationships with clients when I made sales calls. This form of Reiki worked too. It really helped increase sales in my business.

· Whenever my dad called me to tell me about someone in the family who was sick or injured, I would send them healing. Later I would hear that they had miraculously gotten better.

· This experience happened so many times I knew it was more than a coincidence.

· Then I began to have what I would call some "interesting" dreams and experiences. I began to dream about women during different historical periods that all had one thing in common. They were either dying while giving birth or they were involved in some tragic event while pregnant where they died.

· These dreams occurred over a period of months for me so I didn't immediately see any connection between them and my life. I began to record some of the more memorable dreams and experiences in a journal.

· In one dream I was a young, pregnant girl being kept in a tower from the person I loved. I was told he had been killed. In the dream I couldn't bear the thought of living without him and I jumped out of the tower window to my death, killing the baby along with me. Then I saw the man I loved. He wasn't dead after all but coming to rescue me. I had committed suicide for no reason. I woke up in tears.

· I began to see a pattern was emerging. It occurred to me that these dreams might have a connection to our efforts to have children.

· Was I afraid of having children? My logical mind wanted to have children. Did my sub-conscious mind have some deep-seated irrational fear of dying during childbirth? The thought seemed sensless to me in this age of advanced technology.

· I began to use Reiki to heal my fears around having children. I also began to heal that part of myself that was blocking our ability to have a family.

· At this point I decided to become a Reiki Master. I wanted to share this energy with others and the process began to take on a life of its own.

· I had been searching for my purpose and it was my very soul that was making the decision to become a healer. 

· I began a one-year course of study with a Reiki Master to develop a plan for using Reiki in the business world. I planned to use Reiki with my coaching clients.

· I became a Reiki Master in April of 1995 and a month later-- I was pregnant.

· Other than using Reiki, we did nothing unusual to conceive. I had successfully healed myself using Reiki!  We were ecstatic.

· Then, 11weeks later, I had a miscarriage. It was devastating. The miscarriage was extremely painful, physically and emotionally, and I literally felt like I was dying. The doctors said that it was unusual to have that much pain during a miscarriage.

· After the miscarriage I had another dream. In this dream a beautiful young girl came to me. She was grown and she was with her guardian or "angel." The girl told me that even though our time together had been brief, she enjoyed being with me.

· The angel with her told me that this girl was the baby I recently miscarried and who also died in the fall with me from the tower window in a previous lifetime.

· Whether or not I believed in past lives was irrelevant. Maybe this was a karmic event that needed to be healed in order for us to move on with our present lives so that we could have a family. Maybe the dreams were just one way of calling attention to my subconscious fears. I don’t know. At that point, all I knew for sure was that I could conceive ,and that gave us hope.

· A few months later, I was pregnant again and this time everything went smoothly. We had waited 7 years to have a baby. I had used Reiki for 2 years. I was 40 when I had my first child. Two years later I had our second child. They are both healthy and happy to this day. We all use Reiki every day to enhance and heal our lives.

· Reiki helped me become pregnant and enjoy the family we have today.

· Reiki led me to a spiritual awakening and helped me find a special meaning and purpose in this life.

How I have used Reiki

· Over the last 13 years I’ve transitioned my executive coaching business into a life-coaching and healing practice. I have used Reiki in literally thousands of ways to heal people, animals, relationships and situations, past, present and future.

· I’ve used Reiki to help heal many people in the early stages of cancer.

· I’ve also used it to help people in the later stages of disease to live more comfortably and to die in peace.

· My son used Reiki to reset his broken arm after he fell off a battery-operated car. He said he felt no pain during the whole experience except when they had to give him shots.

· Reiki saved my father’s life after an invasive bacterial infection developed in a leg wound he incurred and the doctors couldn’t get the infection under control with antibiotics.

· Reiki stopped the uncontrolled bleeding in a woman who needed a hysterectomy. She came to me first to heal the pain. The Reiki also healed her fear of dying on the operating table. That fear was preventing her from having the operation in the first place.

· Reiki helped ease a young boy’s irrational fear of thunder.

· Reiki helped dissipate another boy’s sudden fear of going to sleep at night.

· Reiki helped a child with ADD.

· I gave an attunement to my sister-in-law’s father who was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. He was in a control group of 7-8 others trying a new combination of experimental drugs. He was the only one who received Reiki. He lived 3 years longer than any of the others in the group and experienced relatively good quality of life up until his death.

· Reiki helped a young woman find a loving relationship. She’s now married to that man and they have 2 great children.

· Reiki helped a woman make the decision to lose the 50 pounds she needed to lose and helped her stick to her regimen.

· A classmate from business school came to me for an attunement. He hated his job, his relationship with his girlfriend was not going anywhere and he had terrible stomach pain that wouldn’t go away. Within 1 year after the attunement, he had left his company and was the managing director of another investment banking firm running a local office, he had broken up with his former girlfriend and was engaged to someone else and his stomach pain mysteriously disappeared. He is now very successful, is married to this same woman and has 2 beautiful children.

· My sister was interviewing for a new job and she asked me to send Reiki to the person she was interviewing with to heal the relationship before she got to the interview so that the interview would go well. The interview went so well they offered her the job.

The Miracle Baby

· Most recently, in March of 2008, Reiki healed a newborn baby. When she was born, she was full term but she had aspirated maconium during her birth, she wasn’t breathing and she had no heartbeat. She was taken from her mother right away. The medical team worked on her for several minutes to get her to breath. During that time she was without oxygen to the brain. A couple of days later they did a brain scan on her and detected some activity in the lower cortex but no activity in the upper part of the brain. The doctors feared she was brain dead and would be a vegetable. The parents were preparing to let her die. The grandmother called me and asked me to send healing to her granddaughter. I told her I would but that the healing might just help her to die.

I began to work on this baby who was now 6 days old. At first I didn't get much of a connection with her spirit. She was in a coma and her spirit was deciding what to do next. I gave her a Reiki 1 attunement  from a distance to help her heal on her own and make a decision. Then I was able to communicate with her spirit and she told me she didn't know if she wanted to live because she didn't know where her mother was. I told this to the grandmother. I suggested she have the mother, her daughter, go back to the hospital and hold her baby, connect with her daughter. A short while later, the baby came back into her body and decided to live. She came out of the coma. 

Then I began healing her body. When she was born, she had one collapsed lung and a hole in the other. Within 48 hours her lungs healed, the maconium disappeared. The hospital staff kept trying to get her to eat on her own but she couldn't keep anything down. While healing her from a distance, I felt sick to my stomach and got the sense she was sick to her stomach. I got the sense the drug she was on as a precaution to prevent seizures was making her sick to her stomach. The parents convinced the hospital to start taking her off the anti-seizure drugs. She began eating on her own a little at a time, holding it down. I kept communicating with her and telling her she had to gain weight  to leave the hospital and slowly she began to eat more.

Simultaneously, I began working to heal her brain and increase her brain activity and intelligence. The grandmother and I worked together using a set of powerful healing sounds. I did them from a distance and the grandmother was given special permission to stay with her granddaughter at night, holding her. She used these sounds every night in the hospital room.

Slowly everything cleared. The fog I saw over her lifted and she became a brand new baby. There was a new clarity in her eyes. She began to cry, which she hadn't done up to this point,.She became alert. She started to act like a normal baby. The feeding tubes were finally taken out and she began to eat on her own and even nurse for the first time. Before she left the hospital, another brain scan was done on her. There was now brain activity in her full brain.

She was in the hospital for 26 days and received Reiki every day and night. She is now at home with her parents, recovering nicely. Although she had nightmares for a while, she now sleeps peacefully and eats on schedule, has good muscle tone, is alert and responds normally. I finally met the family  and recently gave her mother a Reiki 1 attunement so she can give her daughter, herself and her husband healing every day. I continue to work with both of them as requested.

Other practical uses for Reiki

· Besides alleviating pain, Reiki can be used to bring deep insight to issues that are troubling you. It can be useful for those who are struggling to find a meaningful or a purposeful life. It can help improve prosperity and abundance, improve relationships, career and job prospects. It can heal the causes of stress as well as physical and emotional trauma. It is regularly used as a pre- and post operative treatment to lessen pain and shorten hospital stays and the need for medication.

Research on Reiki

· The US Government’s National Institute of Health has funded 5 Reiki studies that focus on stress, HIV, fibromyalgia, prostate cancer and coronary disease.

· One of these studies tracked 111 AIDS patients in advanced stages of the disease. Half of the patients received Reiki in addition to their normal care. More than 75 percent reported increased energy, compared with no change in the control group.

· A study funded by the American Holistic Nurses Association looked at the effects of Reiki on patients who were having hysterectomies. Of the 22 patients in the study, those receiving Reiki took fewer pain medications.

· In another study, 12 patients with mild cognitive impairment or mild Alzheimer’s disease received 4 weekly Reiki treatments. 12 other patients in the control group did not receive Reiki.This study demonstrated that Reiki treatments show promise for improving certain behavior and memory problems in patients with mild cognitive impairment or mild Alzheimer’s disease.

· A study of 24 cancer patients experiencing pain showed that when they received Reiki, there was less fatigue and improved quality of life.

Reiki cannot hurt and if you try it you’ll be surprised at how much it helps every aspect of your life.