True Healing with Reiki

They say that people always end up teaching what they need to learn, right?

Well, in literally every Reiki class that I’ve taught, I always talk about how the powerful Reiki energy heals us at a very deep, deep level. No surface band-aid healing here.

The very meaning of the word “Rei-ki” in Japanese means “Spiritually-directed Universal Life Force Energy”. When we practice Reiki, we harness that energy all around us and specifically focus it with a laser-like attention on the healing of the person, place, situation, what have you.

Since the energy is directed by Spirit, we as Reiki practitioners don’t have to actually do anything, but rather simply be a vessel for the energy to flow through and onto the recipient. We leave the healing up to the Universe, and then we surrender and allow it to take place, however it may look.

I always use the example of a client who comes to you with an ankle or knee injury. You can be the most powerful Reiki practitioner in the world, but if it is not in your client’s best interest for the ankle to heal, it won’t. “Reiki only works for the highest good of all concerned,” I remind the people taking the Reiki course. “Perhaps the client has a book they have always wanted to write, and the knee injury forces them to slow down and finally get to writing,” I inevitably add.

And, of course, what just happened to me two weeks ago? :D I was tubing on a raft with my eleven year-old cousin and two of his friends and tweaked my knee. (My cousin JerBear is a Reiki II Practitioner, by the way!)

I sent Reiki to my knee, Reiki-ed the situation, bargained with Spirit about how I’ve learned my lesson and therefore don’t need an injured knee anymore, etc. etc. I did all kinds of things! And while I do believe the Reiki helped my knee heal a little faster to some degree, the true healing Reiki gave me is much more powerful.

I do have a book I’ve always wanted to write (a couple, actually), and have been writing much more since the injury.

Reiki is teaching me the lesson of Surrender, of complete acceptance of whatever is happening because it is happening. I can either resist my injury and suffer, or embrace it as best I can.

My knee injury is teaching me Gratitude, as it could have been so much worse! I thank my lucky stars every day that my knee is healing, that I am seeing great progress and can walk now with almost no limp.

I am learning Trust, that the Universe has a master plan and how there is so much going on behind the scenes that I cannot see. Sitting on the couch, I’ve had time to look at my life and see what I want to do while I’m here on Earth. And that book/ those books I am meant to write are on the list. After all, what do I really have to lose?

Before the great Tubing Debacle of 2014, I was practicing yoga every day. The injury is teaching me Humility, and also Commitment, to still practice yoga every day and do the yoga poses I can (even if there are only two of them!) I have more Compassion for people with injuries, so the next time someone comes to my Reiki table with a broken bone or sprained whatever, I will be able to relate.

Someone who doesn’t believe in Reiki, “Well, if Reiki really worked, your knee would be better by now.” I myself wanted my knee to be better the next day after the injury. “Okay! I did my Reiki! Lesson learned! Let’s get to healing now!”

But true healing doesn’t work that way. True healing gives you the time to embrace the injury, illness or circumstance in your life. Real, honest-to-goodness healing allows you to perhaps even love whatever happened and all you’ve learned from it, to recognize that things happen for us, not to us.

So the practice of Reiki is teaching me Awareness. Humility. Gratitude. Trust. Surrender. Courage. Not too shabby for a simple knee injury, eh? And if that’s not real, true, honest-to-goodness healing, I don’t know what is.

How has the beautiful healing art of Reiki helped you?