Tip for Day 1 of 21 Days of Free Distance Reiki
Are you ready to surrender to the Unknown?
Book an appointment with me for my 21 Days of Free Distance Reiki Promotion NOW through April 20!!!
“The ailments that Reiki seems to treat most effectively are those that orthodox medicine struggles to manage: pain, anxiety, chronic disease, and the fear or discomfort of facing not only the suffering of illness but also the suffering of treatment . . . [Medicine] is less successful at recognizing the way that emotion, trauma, and subjective experience can drive physical health—and the way that they can affect recovery from acute medical care.”
— Jordan Kisner
The April 2020 issue of The Atlantic features an essay on Reiki by Jordan Kisner. Although Kisner is a Reiki Practitioner herself, she remains a bit skeptical of the more mysterious, unproven aspects of Reiki healing as the title of the essay itself indicates, “Reiki Can’t Possibly Work. So Why Does It?”
Kisner writes:
“Reiki’s growing popularity in the U.S.—and its acceptance at some of the most respected American hospitals—has placed it at the nexus of large, uneasy shifts in American attitudes toward our own health care. Various non-Western practices have become popular complements to conventional medicine in the past few decades, chief among them yoga, meditation, and acupuncture, all of which have been the subject of rigorous scientific studies that have established and explained their effectiveness. Reiki is the latest entrant into the suite of common additional treatments. Its presence is particularly vexing to naysayers because Reiki delivers demonstrable salutary effects without a proven cause.”
As an academic, a philosophy minor, a thinking personality in every personality theory (Air, Enneatype 5, ENTP), and an avid reader of The Atlantic, I get the impulse to want to understand the WHY behind it and know the logical reason something works. I’ve been reading The Atlantic since I was in seventh grade and would stand on tiptoes to get the mail before my mom got home from work, so I could be the one to read it first—while the pages were still fresh and smelled like ink that would rub off on my greasy hands and leave smudges all over my clothes and the furniture!
And, the artist in me (Water, my strong 4 wing, the NP) finds it necessary, though not always easy, to let go of that need for a reason, to surrender to the unknown, and let the creative process, also known as life force energy, flow through my hands as well—mysteriously and compassionately. And, that artist is also a devoted healer in the old sense of devotion to my spiritual practice. And, that devotion has led me to more calmness, clarity and spaciousness so that I don’t always need to know anymore. I trust that I know enough.
Part of what allows us to surrender to the unknown is trust: trust in the people we love, trust that we are okay, and trust that things happen as they are meant to happen.
So, this time, my mom beat me to reading The Atlantic, though both she and my dad were excited to share how it had opened them up to understanding more about what I’m doing with my healing arts business and as a Reiki Practitioner. My mom is an intellectual, and while my dad is more intuitive, he’s also not spiritually driven.
But, after reading Kisner’s essay, my dad shared in an email to me:
“I totally understood the Reiki concept when they mentioned a Mother placing her hand on a child’s head to help ease a fever or especially kissing a child’s scratch or scrape to make it feel better. For me, those memories of your grandmother doing that to me as a child are vivid and the concept of a loving Mom’s profound touch as an effective healing measure is real. As the article says, Reiki means ‘Spiritual Vital Energy’ of love, caring and a spiritual interest in healing. I believe it can work! I certainly am looking forward to a treatment session from the gentle hands of my loving daughter. I love who you have become and will continue to evolve into.”
I also love who I have become and who I continue to evolve into!
Getting in touch with a deeper sense of trust is one of the most profound changes to my life I’ve received from my own Reiki attunements and healings. It has allowed me to be okay with myself at a whole other level, to be okay with not having an answer, and to love myself even when there is so much that is unknowable.
