Energy Healing and Reiki

In recent years, many alternatives to traditional medicine have been gaining mainstream attention. Dr. Mehmet Oz a leading proponent of integrative medicine considers energy healing to be the new frontier of alternative medicine and the future of "mind-body medicine." Alternative medicines, Dr. Oz says, deal with the body's energy—something that traditional Western medicine generally does not. "We're beginning now to understand things that we know in our hearts are true but we could never measure," he says. "As we get better at understanding how little we know about the body, we begin to realize that the next big frontier … in medicine is energy medicine. It's not the mechanistic part of the joints moving. It's not the chemistry of our body. It's understanding for the first time how energy influences how we feel."
The Oprah Winfrey Show
Feb 13, 2007

Did you know that a pain in your foot may signify that you don’t feel able to stand up for yourself? Or, that chronic pain in your lower back may indicate financial worry or the feeling that your life is out of control? And, overweight may stem from the need to energetically protect yourself?

Welcome to the fascinating world of the holistic human being, where everything we think and feel is integral to our bodies and our bodies are an integral aspect of our minds and spirits.

This is my world and my profession is energy healing.

The best known form of energy healing today may be Reiki, which comes from the Japanese tradition. Yet, every culture, ancient and modern has traditions of energy healing. These many forms include Christian traditions of ‘laying on hands’ and Chinese Qi Gong and Tai Chi which are self healing modalities. The Japanese history of cultivating the life force, or ki, is called Kiko. Kiko is training to promote health and is closely aligned with medicine, fine arts, and martial arts such as judo, karate, aikido, and kendo. Kiko is the origin of Rei-ki which is specifically for self-healing and also used by healers who pass hands over a patient to identify energy imbalances and promote healing by restoring balance.

The theory of energy healing is that just as you have a heart that pumps blood and a stomach designed to digest food, you also have many types of energy each with a specific purpose.

For example, one type of energy holds emotions. When you experience a sensation such as anger, it is a form of energy. In fact, anger is intended to put us into action to change what we don’t like in the world. When we don’t use our anger constructively for change, when we suppress it, the energy isn’t released and affects the body.

The result can be any number of physical ailments from a simple headache to very serious illnesses such as diabetes or cancer.

A question to begin your own self healing is: Where in your body do you store unexpressed emotions such as anger?

As an energy healer, I work with my clients to discover, or unlock, the hidden connection between their bodies and their emotions to facilitate healing throughout the body, mind, and emotions – at the level where healing is needed.

Each of us has an individual pattern of energy, including genetic strengths & weaknesses from our families. However, some illnesses seem frequently to result from similar circumstances or traumas.

One that I find interesting is Fibromyalgia. I have worked with this condition numerous times and perceive it as a form of Frozen Terror. People afflicted with fibromyalgia have often (not always) suffered a severe emotional or physical shock. Subsequently, an energetic block forms in the Cerebrospinal fluid.

The initiating cause may be something as straight-forward as a car accident or as horrifying as having been held as a hostage.

Healing warrants attention on every level. When I work with fibromyalgia I often recommend physical treatment (hot tubs and massage as well as energy work). I also work in with my client to release the emotional trauma using altered states. The specifics of the treatment are dependent on the guidance I receive for each client.

Anxiety and panic attacks appear to me also as a form of terror that occurs in infancy or early childhood, then is suppressed for many years and eventually surfaces in the form of panic attacks in adulthood. Anxiety seems especially related to the fear of annihilation, or death, and for this reason can also surface in the elderly as the unconscious mind faces mortality.

Chronic Fatigue seems to occur most often in people with very high performance expectations for themselves. These people often work into the late night hours, undertaking major projects that keep them busy until 2 am, and then jump out of bed by 5 for another performance-oriented day. Eventually, the body and the soul reach the point where they can’t go on. The greatest lesson for the sufferer of chronic fatigue is to let go of their conviction that they can and should be going full steam ahead 20 hours a day. Recovery from chronic fatigue occurs only by honoring the body and living a slower paced style of life. Such a philosophical shift can take years to occur.

Memory problems (Alzheimer’s, Dementia, etc) are conventionally thought to be the result of plaque buildup in the brain. Yet, recently, research through autopsies have shown that elderly people with only mild forgetfulness can have plaque accumulation as severe as any Alzheimer’s patient. How can this be? Energetically I suspect the distinction is related to underlying emotional blocks as well as physical factors. These emotional factors may be related to depression or perhaps to lessons of the heart.

Depression can be related to many underlying causes, including family genetics and ingrained energetic patterns (sometimes learned). These problems can be exacerbated by eating and sleeping habits. Nonetheless, depression is a condition where the energy system seems stuck, with little energy movement. The good news and the bad for people with simple occasional depression is to move. Move to the beat of music, get out and walk, take up aerobics or Chi Gong. Unfortunately, when we are down in the dumps, movement is generally unappealing.

Depression can also be a sign also of Family Wounding, often passed down for many generations. In these cases, special forms of healing may be warranted to heal the family tree.

In my experience, many wounds are familial, afflicting one generation after another. The member who commits to personal healing can generate a healing effect that radiates throughout the family.

In my experience, there is no illness or pain that cannot benefit from energy healing work, especially when the individual is ready to work with healing at every level. You don’t need to believe in energy healing for it to make a difference. What is needed is the desire for healing and the intention for what is stuck to get moving again.