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Gentle
Touch
Reiki
can help calm the rocky waters of your body’s energy
field
By
Shane Hennessey
 Recently,
I told someone that I was a Reiki master. “Reekee?
Reggae? What?!”
“Reiki,”
I said. “Ray Kee. It’s a gentle art of hands-on
healing that is so deeply relaxing it allows your body’s
natural healing abilities to kick in.” Well, they
went from looking at me as if I had 12 heads to looking
as if I only had six. That’s half the battle, I
thought.
“So
it’s like massage?” they asked, a dim flicker
of understanding in their eyes.
“Close,”
I said, “and that gives us a decent place to start.”
Enter with me into a Reiki session. My client arrives
wanting some emotional and physical relief from a form
of muscular dystrophy. It has impacted her lungs and
she has not been able to breathe well for over a year.
She cannot clean her house, sleep well, or walk up and
down stairs without great difficulty. She also has stress
at home as a mom and stepmom. With all this weighing
on her mind and body, she is feeling, well, stifled—hence
the breathing problems.
So after a description of issues and symptoms, we begin
to work. She lies comfortably on the floor, and I begin
to attune to the Reiki energy and channel it through
my hands. Slowly I begin a series of static hand positions
(not moving) by covering her forehead and eyes. As the
energy flows and she begins to relax, she enters what
meditators know as the alpha state, a more trance-like
state, as opposed to the more workaday brain pattern,
the faster beta-waves frequency.
Deeply relaxed and anchored in the present moment, her
natural healing abilities take over and she begins to
detox some of the emotions that hold her physical symptoms
in place. As I continue the hand positions from head
to toe, she releases more emotion through crying. The
continuous bath in a balanced energy field is letting
her body/mind begin a flushing process she does not
normally allow herself.
Remarkable? Not really. Biofeedback studies of meditative
states and healing confirm that this is how we work.
Our body/minds have incredible restorative powers. The
problem is that we often get in our own ways mentally
by staying stuck in the past or fantasizing about the
future. Getting anchored in the present moment changes
the rules and facilitates healing. The Reiki process
does this quickly, simply, and powerfully. Not only
does it induce the alpha state, it also balances and
boosts the overall life energy (chi, ki, qi, or prana
in Eastern terminology).
The effects of a stress-free hour leave her energized
and a little bewildered because they are, as yet, unfamiliar.
Let’s leave her to rest and we’ll get back
to her in a moment.
So, you get all of this from relaxing and tapping into
chi energy? Sounds a little too simple, maybe? It’s
all that and a bag of chips. People who study these
things scientifically have a number of instruments that
look at subtle ways our body puts off energy. In studying
the energy field of the heart, researchers have found
that feelings of love, adoration, relaxation, and caring
show a coherent energy pattern. Worry, anger, and frustration
create energy patterns that are disordered and chaotic.
It does not take much to figure out that people with
peaceful and coherent energy better manage the ups and
downs of their lives.
The exciting thing is that all the healing and relaxing
ability is already inside us. The Reiki process acts
as a catalyst for what already is. Even more exciting
is that a Reiki master can easily initiate students
into being conduits for the energy, thus spreading the
healing far and wide.
And the overall effect? Back to my client...the day
after her first session, she called me to excitedly
report that she had cleaned her house, slept the whole
night through, and climbed up and down stairs without
difficulty. Remarkable? Yes!
She continues to work with me, using Reiki to balance
her treatment in the Western medical system. She has
made conscious choices to facilitate her own healing
and perhaps that is the greatest medicine of all.
Taking
a Reiki Break
Everyone
has a natural flow of chi moving through them. Should
you want to experience it for yourself, you do not have
to go through a Reiki initiation/attunement. That process
is mainly for those who want to commit to boosting their
energy flow and use it for themselves and others on
a more intense level. Not everyone desires this.
To do this process on your own, you need only know some
basic hand positions and be willing to hold them quietly,
gently, and without pressure for up to two-to-three
minutes each. You will also need to practice deep connected
breathing at the beginning and then again periodically
during the exercise (this is breathing deeply without
pausing between the in-breath and the out-breath). You
do this to bring more energy into your body, not to
hyperventilate, so don’t do it for prolonged periods.
It’s just to boost your body’s energy.
The hand positions require no pressure; just hold them
gently in place and breathe. Imagine breathing into
the area focused on. Don’t be surprised if your
hands heat up or begin tingling—it’s part
of the process. Keep your fingers together, including
your thumb—no splaying. Sit down, lay down, whatever
blows your skirt up. You might remember basic meditation
rules such as having a quiet area with no distractions
and soft music if you like.
#1 Eyes. Hands over
your eyes (you’ll get some of your cheeks and forehead
as well)...remember, no pressure, only gentle touch.
#2 Ears. Hands over
each ear and include your jaw joint and bone.
#3 Back of head.
One hand on your neck, the other hand on the back of
your skull, cradling your head.
#4 Heart. Both hands
laying flat against your chest, the fingers pointing
in opposite directions, comfortably covering your heart.
#5 Stomach. One
hand right where your ribs separate and one hand right
below.
#6 Kidneys. Reach
behind and put your hands on either side of your lower
back about level with where your ribs stop.
This routine will give a nice energy massage and leave
you feeling more peaceful than when you started. If
you’ve got other areas of your body that want energy,
put your hands there also. There are no real rules to
hand placement, so you can follow your intuition. You
do this naturally when you have a headache or a body
pain and you instinctively put your hand over the pain.
With some practice, you can even do this while working,
reading, chatting, whatever. You have only to put a
hand down on the area you want to receive chi.
Shane
Hennessey is a psychologist working in Houston who specializes
in psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, and Reiki. He can be
reached atethan@pdq.net
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