When is Reiki useful?
- Becci Godfrey
- Mar 20, 2023
- 3 min read
Reiki is a energy healing practice that originated in Japan. It translates as:
Rei = spiritual
ki = energy
This healing practice was popular in the 1920's in Japan at a time when doctors were sparse and medicine was expensive.
Originally created by a Japanese therapist Matiji Kawakami* and replicated by many other healers, the practice is based around evoking the body's natural healing response, mostly through being deeply present and hands on healing.
Reiki practitioners are trained to be familiar with a person's physical, mental and spiritual energy bodies, and a treatment will benefit a person on all levels.
This means Reiki is great for dealing with aches and pains, broken bones, wounds, coughs and colds, migraines, menstrual pains and gastric upset as well as chronic health issues such as irritable bowl, chronic fatigue and rheumatism and arthritis.
My experience is Reiki is also great for mental health. The calming and cleansing nature of treatments helps with low mood, anxiety, ADHD, Autism, childhood trauma and insomnia so people feel calmer and more resourced.
Finally, Reiki works on a spiritual level. For some, this is the most influential aspect of Reiki as it's the one we have tended to put the least emphasis on. Reiki treats our spiritual body with an equal amount of importance as our minds and our physical body. Our spiritual body is the essence of what makes us, us. It's our cumulative life experiences, dreams and desires, life purpose and unique perspective. An unhealthy spiritual body looks a lot like frustration, feeling bored, or like the bottom has fallen out of your world. It feels either sluggish, stuck and despondent, or anxious, disconnected and frantic.
Connected
Each or our aspects, mind - body - spirit, are connected to each other, which is why anti-depressants can help with irritable bowl and anti-inflammatories can help with depression. By treating psychological issues, physical issues change and by treating spiritual unrest, our minds and bodies can become more peaceful.
I love Reiki, because of its holistic nature. It evokes the healing response in all levels of our being. This might be dealing with the exhaustion of being a new mum or recovering from an operation, to helping a person change career or form new and healthy relationships. You can also do/receive Reiki for maintaining health and wellbeing, so that physical strength and immunity stays good and mental exhaustion and confusion is kept at bay.
In Japan, multiple family members would learn this technique and give treatments daily to those that were sick or injured. There are wonderful stories of illnesses cured and lives saved through Reiki, which quickly made it a popular approach. Learning Reiki was seen as an excellent choice for young ladies destined to be parents, with family members paying for their daughters and nieces to train and learn the methods necessary to support any family husband or they might have.
Nowadays, Reiki isn't as big in Japan as it was as western medicine became more influential. However, it is growing in popularity in the west with those looking to bring spirituality back into healthcare and offer more holistic solutions.
Reiki is increasingly being promoted by hospitals to compliment chemotherapy and has had some successful uptake in paediatric wards - not to mention that large number of doctors, nurses and therapists that are also Reiki trained of their own volition.
There is no circumstance when Reiki would be harmful, though with all things, it has a time and a place. I encourage anyone that is curious about the benefits of Reiki to reach out and ask me more about how Reiki might support them, particularly when other approaches have failed, or progress in a particular area has been slow. I look forward to hearing from you!
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