Reiki is gentle but powerful. It can be used as primary treatment on a regular basis to support a healthy body, mind, and spirit, or it can be used as a complement to western medical treatment. I was taught to give myself a complete Reiki treatment every day, and it has helped me stay healthy and avoid illness, even when surrounded by people suffering from contagious colds and flu. Reiki also helps to relieve stress, which itself can lead to illness. The most profound benefit of Reiki in my personal experience is the tangible contact with a power greater than myself that it provides whenever I am giving Reiki to myself or to someone else. I can literally feel the power of the connection in my hands.
Reiki can be used to alleviate symptoms and address the underlying cause of illness. Shortly after I learned 1st degree Reiki, I caught a cold. One night I awoke and found I couldn’t breathe through my nose because it was so stopped up. I tossed and turned for about an hour, and then remembered that I could give my nose Reiki! As I lay on my back, I put my hands over my nose and face, and gave myself Reiki. I immediately felt more relaxed, and in about 20 minutes my nose suddenly opened up completely and I could breathe through my nose very well! I went back to sleep, and woke up about 4 hours later with another stopped up nose. Again, I gave myself Reiki for about 20 minutes with the same results, and didn’t have any more difficulties breathing through my nose. Since this cold, in the past 20 years since I learned Reiki I’ve had only 2 colds, and have used Reiki to treat them for a quick recovery. One of the benefits of giving myself a complete Reiki treatment every day is that it keeps the use of Reiki in the forefront of my mind, and if anything arises that could benefit from Reiki, I remember that Reiki is there to help!
Before I learned Reiki, I had chronic headaches and took four aspirin or Tylenol every three hours. I knew that this was not good for me, but I had to do something about my headaches. Since learning Reiki, I have not had a single headache and don’t even keep pain relievers available.
On a less serious note, I have a strong reaction to ant bites and get big, red, pussy, itchy spots if an ant bites me. It’s very unpleasant. One day I was looking at rural properties with some coworkers. At one of the stops, I looked down and saw ants crawling all over my left ankle! I brushed them off and got into the back seat. As we drove for about ½ hour to the next stop, I gave Reiki to that area of my ankle. When we arrived, I had only tiny red dots where the bites had been, with no itching or other reaction. It’s very important to treat any sort of bite, sting, or burn immediately for the best results.
Reiki can be very helpful in an epileptic episode. Shortly after learning 2nd degree Reiki, I was eating dinner in a local restaurant when a young man eating at a booth nearby started shaking uncontrollably. His mother helped him to the floor where he lay as he continued to shake in an epileptic episode. His mother, as might be expected, looked at him and was very concerned. I went over to him, kneeled by his side, and put my left hand on the crown of his head and my right hand on his stomach, letting the Reiki flow to him as he needed. After about 30 seconds he relaxed as I continued to give him Reiki. Once he had fully recovered from the episode, I went back to my seat to finish my dinner. As he and his mother left, his mother thanked me and gave me a look of peaceful gratitude. I was very grateful that Reiki was there to help him.
Reiki can benefit people undergoing treatment for cancer. In one of the 1st degree Reiki classes I have taught, one of my students had recently completed chemotherapy treatment for liver cancer. I was very happy that she had decided to learn Reiki, but was sorry to see the toll that cancer and its treatment had taken on her. She was very pale, weak, and had a distant look in her eyes as if she weren’t really present in the moment. In the afternoon of the first day of a 1st degree Reiki class, I typically show the class how to give a complete treatment by giving a complete treatment to one of the students while the other students watch. I asked this student to be my model in this class, and she received a complete Reiki treatment that took a little over an hour. When she stood up after receiving the treatment, her face was a healthy rosy color and her eyes were shining! She felt much stronger, much to her surprise. She returned the next day for the remainder of the 1st degree class, and continued to recover. I understand that she followed my suggestion to give herself a complete Reiki treatment every day, and that she has recovered from her cancer and its treatment.
Reiki can be very helpful in situations requiring first aid, and I have been able to help several people by giving them Reiki after an injury. When treating an injury, it is important to give treatment as soon as possible. I have treated many wounds with Reiki, and found them to heal much faster than usual and with little to no pain. In one instance, I was hiking on a small mountain on the Gaspe’ peninsula of Canada, and a family on bicycles waved as they rode past me. A little later, they were on their way back down when the little girl’s bike got away from her, careening down the path. She fell, and was lying next to her bicycle when I got to her with her parents had not yet arrived. She said that her bloody knee was hurting badly and that her left rib area hurt a little. I gave her knee Reiki, with my hand about 1 inch away from the injured area so as not to cause pain, until her parents arrived. I explained to her somewhat perplexed parents that I wasn’t a nurse, but that I was using a natural energy healing technique. My treatment lasted about 10 minutes, and when I moved my hand away, she said that her knee didn’t hurt anymore. She got onto her bicycle and rode with her family down the mountain to their car. As they were packing up their bicycles, I passed them on foot. The girl said that her knee now felt fine and only her rib was bothering her. Reiki had worked again!
I was once passing out balloons in the pediatric ward of a local hospital when I met a man in his late 20’s who was being given IV antibiotics for his Cystic Fibrosis flare up. He told me that the lifesaving antibiotics were rather thick and that it was painful to receive them. I offered to give him Reiki, and he accepted. He said that it made the pain go away. So, I taught him Reiki in several visits while he was still in the hospital. He was then able to give himself Reiki daily and whenever he needed more of it, and said it was very helpful in treating his pain.
A friend was recently giving himself shots of prescribed medicine to treat Multiple Sclerosis. When he administered the medicine, the injection site almost immediately developed a raised, red area about three to six inches in diameter that stung worse than a bee sting. This reaction could last up to 72 hours. I gave him Reiki for a period of about 10 minutes immediately after one of his injections that had a particularly bad reaction, and the redness and swelling were almost gone and the stinging subsided. A visual inspection of the treated area compared to an untreated injection site area from two days prior showed the treated area to show much less reaction than the untreated site that was older and would have been expected to have recovered. I attribute this to Reiki’s ability to calm inflammation by restoring balance.
Because one of the benefits of Reiki is stress reduction, it is very helpful in treating alcoholism and addiction. Stress is often a response to triggers that can lead to substance abuse, and by relieving stress, Reiki can enhance treatment of these illnesses.