Reiki and Me

Picture: http://dreamsawake.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/



My mother’s first cousin was the one to introduce me and many members of my family, including my mother, to the wonderful peaceful and calming world of Reiki. She gave me my first initiation and then when she immigrated to Canada, I sought her Irish Master who then gave me my Reiki II and III initiations. I am grateful to the both of them for providing me with such an amazing relaxing and healing technique that I wish I could practice more often.

For those of you who have not heard much about Reiki, it is a Japanese technique used to reduce pain and promote healing, reduce stress and provide relaxation. It is ‘Life Force Energy’ which is unseen and which flows through us causing us to be alive.

The word Reiki is made up of two Japanese words; REI meaning God’s (or Higher Power) Wisdom and KI meaning ‘Life Force Energy’. So Reiki is basically spiritually guided life force energy and those who practice it are usually very spiritual beings.

People on the receiving end of the healing feel like a wonderful flow of energy passes through them or surrounds their body… they tend to see colors changing… each color has a different meaning to it which I will not delve into in this post. Each individual receives and reacts to Reiki in a different way as it heals the whole person including the body, emotions, mind and spirit. But at the end of the session, people feel much more relaxed and many have told me how wonderful they felt after I had given them a session.

Reiki has provided me with so many stories that I would love to share with you. My first experience undergoing a group session was just after I finished my Bachelors and Teaching Degree from Lebanon and went back home to start work at my old school. I was miserable… very depressed… it was wonderful being with family again but I had left so many emotions bottled up and just needed to let go. For the longest time, I was unable to do so and ketp hiding things wanting to struggle and plough through it….

That was when my  cousin (who had become a Master teacher by that time and is very dear to me), the same cousin who initiated me the first time, insisted on taking me to her Irish Reiki Master to give me a full body Reiki. I had four people placing their hands on me… my cousin at my head, two on each side and another by my feet…. After only ten minutes into the session, tears started to fall uncontrollably down my cheeks… I tried so hard to stop them but couldn’t… the Irish Reiki Master, who was healing another person next to me on another massage bed, said, in a very calm and serene voice, “Let it all go… let the tears flow… let go!” and I did… I cried and cried while they gave me the healing and I felt so much better… What a session that was! Just beautiful… freeing… peaceful… unbinding…

I decided then to start working towards my Reiki II certificate… I started attending the group sessions providing healing to people along with the Irish Master… a few weeks later, my cousin decided to immigrate to Canada, but I kept going to those sessions… I received my certificate in 1997 a few months before I left to the US to study for a Master’s Degree… My friend was also planning to go to the States to get a joint Masters/PhD degree during the same time… but she had found a little immobile kitten by the side of the road a few days before her departure.

Being an animal lover, she took it home and then to a vet… the vet said that the kitten had problems with its hip and that there was no way that it would walk again… the vet advised my friend to put her to sleep as there wasn’t much she could do… but my friend refused to give up.. The kitten continued to just lay there next to her food and her litter box, being carried from one to the other to stay alive.

But my friend would not give up… she was telling me the story and that was when I explained to her about Reiki… I told her that usually dogs like it more than cats but that we could always try… and so it was that I started going to her house every single day for 30 mins- 1 hour… to provide the little helpless kitten some healing. The 4^th and last session was the day my friend was jumping on a plane. I gave the kitten her Reiki session and then did not see or hear from my friend for two weeks until I got to the US myself.

When I called her up to check on her and the kitten, she in New York and I in West Lafayette (IN), she told me what a miraculous recovery the kitten had made… I was a bit puzzled and asked her if she had taken her to a vet or something…  but she said No… that as soon as the plane landed and she reached her apartment, the kitten was jumping from one couch to the next, running around as if she discovered her legs again. Every time I remember that story I smile… I just love Reiki and wish that I had a group of friends around me who practiced it as well.

Moving on… I lived in Malawi, Africa, for four years and during that time provided many of my friends with Reiki Healing sessions which they loved… If I practiced Reiki on a regular basis, I feel stronger and also my premonitions and connection with the spirit world strengthens… you might think I am crazy but I have felt many presences during my sessions with friends… I will talk about them later… as this is becoming a long post…

But before I go… there was one time that I shocked a skeptical scientist on my school’s teaching staff… he was a Physicist and would not believe in such spiritual stuff… but I proved to him that it actually worked one time on our hike when his camera batteries went flat and he was so disheartened because he so wanted to take pictures and my husband and I had not taken our camera either… we had taken Moon Dance, our dog, but not our camera. So I asked him if he believed that I could recharge his batteries… and he said that he didn’t…

So on top of one of the hills and for ten minutes, I kept those batteries between both palms and watched the beautiful scenery in front of me, while he watched me with a smirk on his face shaking his head from side to side….

When the ten minutes were over… I gave him back the camera batteries and asked him to check them out… and I kid you not, the batteries worked and they remained working for another few days…. He was flabbergasted I tell ya… you could have heard a pin drop when he took his first picture… silence… and then a burst of laughter with, “I cannot believe this!” To this day he cannot explain it… he researched Reiki and saw heat detector pictures of hands with and without Reiki… THAT story also puts a smile on my face!

I know that many people out there are skeptical about Reiki… and to them I say… NEVER judge anything unless you have tried it… make up your minds AFTER you have tried it.