| Thursday, 05 April 2012 23:58 |
Reiki for Healing and Spiritual TransformationBy Denise Sheehan Innately a spiritual seeker, I find it easy to integrate tenants of many spiritual teachings into my life. Ultimately, however, I am highly energy sensitive and I've experienced many medical "mysteries" since earliest childhood. Because of this, I am drawn to explore the connection between energy, healing, and spirituality. The first time I experienced
Reiki, an ancient healing art, was rediscovered in Japan in 1914. Reiki is spiritually guided "universal life force" energy that promotes stress reduction and relaxation and contributes to healing. Reiki promotes physical, mental, emotional and spiritual clearing and balancing by placing our hands in several positions on or above our own or someone else's body. It can even be offered at a distance by some Reiki practitioners who receive advanced training. When there is disease, Reiki is provided along with traditional and/or holistic medical treatments. Along with healing, Reiki also helps to remove barriers and challenges, while empowering goals. There's very little in the way of dogma, and it's available to anyone, regardless of the presence or absence of religious or spiritual beliefs. My life partner and I chose to learn Reiki when we were part of the care-giving team for his mother and aunt as they transitioned from this life. Before Reiki, like many novice healers, we found that the best we could offer them was our own life-force energy. They would experience some benefit, but not without us becoming completely energetically drained. After learning Reiki, we were able to provide more comfort and pain relief without becoming energetically depleted. In fact, offering Reiki to others feels as wonderful as receiving it. Though I initially sought Reiki to help others, I found it very valuable for my own healing journey. In addition to the workaholic patterns I mentioned earlier, I also went through several life-traumas over a few years. All of these experiences served me spiritually, but were initially exhausting and disempowering. Reiki didn't offer me a free pass on the chronic illness that resulted. Rather, Reiki self-sessions became one of my most powerful resources, helping me to heal and transform myself from the inside out. Reiki helped me to heal my thoughts and life patterns around perfectionism and insecurities. I eventually recovered from the pattern of putting others' needs, my career, plus a myriad of social causes, before my own needs, to the detriment of my well-being. I healed myself and my life. Reiki then brought me full circle, once more to be of service to others. Reiki blends the mystical and the practical. It helped me to intuit such things as getting laid off from my contract-funded University of Nevada, Reno post with enough advance notice to prepare for transition. I felt guided to offer Reiki to others as part of my life's work. Reiki led and supported my journey to become a certified
Reiki has been nothing short of spiritually transformational for me and others with whom I've taught Reiki or provided sessions. In addition to preventing and healing dis-ease, we attract more love, joy, and abundance. We experience enhanced inner guidance, so we feel more connected to our life purpose. In these days of many confusing and stressful energies related to the environment, economy, and more, Reiki can help us to find our firm footing and our best path for the journey of life. I feel incredibly blessed to have received these gifts and to offer them to others. *** This article appeared in the Reno News and Review's Arts and Culture Section, "Filet of Soul" Series on January 27, 2011. © 2012 Denise L. Sheehan, LLC, Sage Spirit Coaching & Reiki – all rights reserved |
