For the sake of clarity, this discussion of healing crisis will contrast conventional, science-based medicine with natural, tradition-based medicine. Please keep in mind that these two approaches are not mutually exclusive, and that the patient receiving both conventional care and traditional care is likely receiving the best possible health care.

The series on healing crisis (you’ll find links to earlier articles below) started because a physician who is also a Reiki practitioner (not trained by me) asked for advice on “how to deal with the emotional and physical healing crisis/cleansing effect.” He wrote that a healing crisis “can be very severe and even potentially dangerous in some vulnerable individuals.”

The conventional doctor’s confusion is understandable. He knows very well that the body has the capacity to heal itself. Physicians I work with often tell me most of the ailments they see at their offices would resolve without intervention, especially if patients would give the body what it needs to recover (rest and appropriate nourishment).

Healing crisis or adverse reaction?

But doctors are trained to think in terms of adverse reactions and unwanted side effects. When doctors see a patient feeling worse, they tend to see a patient getting worse. They don’t see a healing crisis.

Physicians are taught to intervene in order to manage adverse reactions and reduce the likelihood of a negative outcome. And they are taught to intervene earlier rather than later, hoping to minimize harm to the patient and prevent the situation going from bad to worse. (We won’t get into the unwanted side effects of aggressive treatment.)

A healing crisis, however, is not an adverse reaction in the medical sense. Rather, a healing crisis is an organic development of stimulating the body’s self-healing mechanisms.

Healing crisis and cure…and prevention

Healing crisis doesn’t occur in conventional medical treatment because conventional medicine attacks the disease directly. Rather than engaging the body, conventional interventions take over the fight.

Also, conventional medicine’s definition of cure is very specific. Once the relevant tests are clear, the patient is deemed cured. No attention is paid to healing the underlying causes of disease and degenerative conditions, as they are largely not detectable by conventional scientific tests (this is slowly beginning to change).

Traditional healing systems, however, have a comprehensive vision of cure and don’t treat the disease separately from the person. The goal of natural medicine is to restore the entire human system to balance; acute and chronic conditions are addressed within that context.

Healing crisis demystified

A healing crisis can seem magical, but it is decidedly not magical. It has a cause and it has an effect.

If a healing crisis happens, it happens as a natural consequence of strengthening the body’s own self-healing mechanisms. When the body’s self-healing mechanisms function more effectively, the body’s detox system is also functioning more effectively. If the system is detoxing faster than it is releasing, there may be a temporary exacerbation of symptoms. This malaise abates as soon as the system catches up to itself, at which point the person feels much better.

Healing crisis doesn’t happen in conventional medicine because conventional medicine treats the specific markers of a specific disease, rather than stimulating the human system to rebalance itself.

Beyond healing crisis: Hering’s Law

Nineteenth century physician and homeopath Constantine Hering observed the consistency of the body’s natural healing process and identified three elements in what is now called Hering’s Law:

• the healing process moves from the deepest, most subtle part of the system (emotions, mind, vital organs)
• symptoms reappear and disappear in the reverse timeline in which they originally occurred
• as healing progresses, symptoms move to the surface and extremities (skin, hands, feet)

If a person is consistently using natural medicine over a period of time, the specifics of the healing process described in Hering’s Law may be observed, especially if there is a continuing relationship with a traditional healing practitioner who is tracking the process.

If you have questions about healing crisis, please leave them in the comment section below. If you are reading this as an email, click the title to be taken to the website, where you can leave your question. Thank you for participating in this discussion.

Other articles in the healing crisis series:
Healing Crisis: Part One
Healing Crisis: What Is It?
Conventional Medicine and Traditional Medicine

Would you like to learn First degree Reiki in San Juan? We’re having a one-time only class February 21-23.

Click here to learn more about the upcoming Medical Reiki seminars in Barbados, Atlanta, and New York City.

Did you enjoy REIKI: A Comprehensive Guide? If so, please click here to nominate it as About.com’s Best Reiki Book.

The vintage doctor bag pictured above is available from Etsy’s junquegypsy.

I have a special invitation, just for you: Please join me in giving Reiki to the world.

Let’s do it now.

I’m not envisioning an elaborate network of distant treatment, nor suggesting we take to the streets and get our Reiki hands on a record number of people (although that’s not a bad idea).

Reiki now

My invitation is simple: whatever you’ve been plotting Reiki-wise, whether it’s starting daily self-practice or approaching a host partner to sponsor a public Reiki event in your community, take the first step now.

Right now, take a simple action to start the Reiki ball rolling out of your dreams onto a field where others can play too.

Do it right now to make sure it gets done. Don’t wait until it’s perfect enough or convenient enough. With whatever means you have at this moment, take action.

Your Reiki action

Your action might be writing the first draft of your event plan or writing the email asking for a meeting. It might be adding your daily Reiki self-treatment to your calendar, or contacting a Reiki buddy to meet regularly to exchange treatments.

Take an action that brings you closer to giving Reiki healing a larger presence in your life, and thus in the lives of others. One leads naturally to the other.

And if Reiki’s presence in your life is already overflowing the brim, take an action that will make Reiki practice available to others. Chances are that many people would appreciate the benefits you are experiencing, or other benefits you haven’t dreamed of, that would bring greater balance to their lives.

Think what your Reiki practice has brought to you, and how it has changed your life. Don’t you want others to have that opportunity? Take action.

Reiki audience participation time

Can’t think of an action to take right now? Ok, I’ll make it easy. Please share your Reiki story to delight and inspire us.

How did you come to practice Reiki? What has your practice given you? Scroll down to the comment section, or f you’ve received this as an email, click here to tell your Reiki story.

Next week we’ll return to our discussion of healing crises.

And please have a blessed, peaceful New Year.

Reiki Healing Crisis: Part One left us with this cliff-hanger –

A client receiving four Reiki treatments on four consecutive days often feels less than par on the third day. Is that third-day discomfort a healing crisis? Is there a point at which discomfort might be a sign of danger?

In order to shed some light on those questions, let’s clarify what a healing crisis really is.

What is a healing crisis?

The term healing crisis is used throughout natural medicine to refer to a very specific event that may or may not occur in an overall healing process.

What do I mean by natural medicine?

Natural medicine is a broad category of healing practices that are based in tradition. Natural medicine is distinct from conventional medicine (the medicine practiced by physicians and nurse practitioners), which is based in scientific evidence. Distinct, not mutually exclusive.

Natural medicine uses holistic, non-tech healing practices to address the underlying imbalances understood to create an internal environment in which symptoms and disease can occur.

The techniques used in natural medicine, while varied, all seek to engage the body’s self-healing mechanisms to remove imbalances and restore optimal health. A healing crisis may occur during that healing process.

Healing crisis is understood in natural medicine to be a usually brief period during which a client who initially felt improvement doesn’t feel so well. This temporary period of malaise occurs before improvement stabilizes.

What are the specifics of a healing crisis?

The malaise of a healing crisis falls into one or more of these categories:

• lethargy, fatigue
• feeling as if one might be “coming down with something”
• appearance of flu-like symptoms
• a return of specific recent symptoms
• a recurrence of much older symptoms.

The sequence that characterizes a healing crisis is:

• initial improvement
• temporary aggravation
• stabilized improvement.

A healing crisis is typically short. It may last a few hours at the end of the day and be gone by morning. Or it might last a day or even two. It will not usually be longer than that unless a more imposing healing approach (such as fasting) is being used by someone with chronic illness (hopefully with proper supervision).

Healing crisis not

If the person’s symptoms do not fall into any of the categories above, and do not occur in the sequence described, the event is not a healing crisis.

If a client has an immediate ill effect during a treatment, without having had a period of feeling better, that is not a healing crisis. If someone leaves a treatment feeling well but falls on the way home and is injured, that is not a healing crisis.

Such situations need to be addressed differently than one would address a healing crisis.

Why does a healing crisis happen?

According to natural medicine, a healing crisis is a period in the self-healing process in which the system is cleansing itself of toxins.

If the person is basically healthy, with self-healing mechanisms functioning well, a healing crisis might still occur, but it will likely be mild. A person who is suffering symptoms is more likely to have a noticeable healing crisis.

How can we be sure it’s a healing crisis?

The symptoms of a healing crisis may be the same symptoms associated with the disease. This can be confusing. Alarming even.

Certainty about healing crisis is only available after the fact, once the client has emerged comfortable and healthier. That said, a hallmark of a healing crisis is that the person recognizes the experience as somehow beneficial and retains a sense of well-being despite the discomfort.

When experiencing a true healing crisis, the person has an intuitive recognition that it is part of a curative process and is not alarmed. This is true even for people who are usually anxious to manage symptoms. The wisdom inherent in the human system is asserting itself, and the enhanced awareness of the client is a sign of that process.

Is a healing crisis ever dangerous? That’s our next topic to explore when we resume this discussion. Meanwhile, please click here to share your experiences of healing crisis.

A Reiki practitioner and physician recently asked “how to deal with the emotional and physical healing crisis/cleansing effect.” She was concerned that “it can be very severe and even potentially dangerous in some vulnerable individuals.”

It is surprising how often this question comes up. Surprising because in 25 years of professional Reiki practice, I have never seen a severe healing crisis.

But since questions about healing crises come up so often, let’s take a thorough look. Here is Part One.

Reiki healing process

When I offer Reiki treatment, that’s precisely what I do — offer. I’m not imposing anything beyond the light touch of my Reiki hands. This is my understanding of Reiki practice, that it is more mere presence effect than active intervention, human-being more than human-doing.

As my hands linger in the placement sequence, my client’s system responds to the Reiki connection from within. Her system begins to reorganize itself toward greater harmony, coherence, and balance.

In this way, Reiki treatment is quite unlike the oppositional medical approach to cure. Whereas conventional medicine uses drugs and/or procedures to oppose what’s happening in the body in an attempt to correct a specific problem, the benefits of Reiki healing emerge organically from the system’s enhanced state of balance. Medicine recognizes and values this balanced state, which it calls homeostasis.

I have no control over the process through which my client’s system moves toward greater balance; I can neither speed it up nor slow it down. Moving my hands through the placement protocol may effect my client’s experience of the treatment, if she is awake enough to notice, but since her healing response comes from deep within her own system, it doesn’t significantly effect her overall healing process.

The experience of the Reiki treatment itself is generally comfortable and deeply relaxing. Snoring is often heard.

Reiki healing: it ain’t over till it’s over

The client’s healing response continues long after the Reiki treatment has ended. How long? We can never know. The process is too complex and there are too many variables.

To help my clients recognize what’s happening as their body’s self-healing mechanisms go about doing what they do best, I ask them to notice anything that feels different in the days ahead — quality of sleep, choice of food, mental clarity, emotional balance, how they feel upon awakening, how they interact with others, any way in which it feels more enjoyable to simply be themselves.

I encourage clients to do whatever they feel the need to do in terms of their medical care, and to otherwise follow the body’s lead, going to bed early if they feel tired. The less we burden the body with unnecessary activity, the more resources it has for healing.

After the first session, I discuss with my client how she would like to continue. Some return for treatment on four consecutive days. Others choose to start with twice a week or three treatments in two weeks, tapering from there as needed. Some sign up for my next First degree training session.

Traditional Four Reiki Treatment Series

Clients who feel an imperative often choose the traditional four treatments in four days to give a solid foundation to their healing process. On the third day or evening of the series, many clients feel a bit out of sorts. Symptomatic discomfort may return, and a sense of being unsettled. Sometimes the third treatment does not feel as restful as the others.

Discomfort resolves in the fourth treatment, and the client finishes the series feeling renewed and hopeful that she can continue to heal.

Was that third-day discomfort a healing crisis? Is there a point at which discomfort might be a sign of danger? Good questions. In the next post, we’ll take a look at them, and at what a healing crisis is. To be continued…

Other articles in the healing crisis series:
Healing Crisis: What Is It?
Conventional Medicine and Traditional Medicine
Healing Crisis and Cure

Vintage image from TammyTutterow.

“There are dreamers and there are realists in this world.

“You’d think the dreamers would find the dreamers and the realists would find the realists, but more often than not, the opposite is true.

“You see, the dreamers need the realists to keep them from soaring too close to the sun.

“And the realists? Well, without the dreamers, they might not ever get off the ground.”

This bit of wisdom from the popular television comedy Modern Family set me thinking. I got the drift, and agree completely, but the language seemed a bit polarizing.

In that scenario, the realists are the debunkers, the naysayers. But what makes their rebuttal more real than what the dreamers see? It didn’t seem fair, or accurate, to put reality solely in their domain.

Visionaries and Builders

What if the dreamers were “visionaries,” and the realists were “builders?” While we each have some of both (switching sides as we please), these two functional categories of people truly need one another. Reality — making the dream happen — requires input from both sides. The vision needs a form where the world can participate.

Visionaries see the long term while builders focus on a more immediate future. Builders gather the temporal power needed to make something happen; visionaries see a subtle, transcendent power at play.

Visionaries warn builders of the unwanted side effects of what they are building; builders fashion visionaries’ dreams into a shared  reality.

What ultimately comes into form is a co-creation of visionaries and builders, and it needs constant tweaking.

What’s Your Vision?

As more people hold a vision, the likelihood of the vision being built increases.

Spiritual practice of any form –  meditation, Reiki, yoga, etc. — makes us both visionary and builder. As we practice, we give form to our vision in the world, as ourselves.

Actually being our vision (with thankfulness, work diligently) makes it more likely that our vision will show up in the world around us.

What’s your vision, for yourself and for the world? Please click here to share it as a comment.

The illustration is William Blake’s Jacob’s Ladder.

Imagine if everyone you met today, including the person in the mirror, were grounded and safe — safe for themselves, and safe for others. That would improve your day, wouldn’t it?

Living in today’s world, surrounded by a plethora of distractions — plus all the things our minds throw at us — staying grounded and safe can seem like a full time job.

For those of us who are hyper-responsive to the needs of others, it’s even more challenging. We naturally go out to people far too easily, or let them in too deeply.

Not everything that comes naturally is a good thing.

When we go out to others too readily, we lose our balance, we lose our center, we lose our roots. We go out to others because we want to help them, but what good can we accomplish in this world without roots?

Grounding for happiness and service

That’s why I encourage you again and again — ok, I nag you — to learn habits of grounding. That’s why I chose to celebrate 25 years of Reiki practice by organizing the Thankfulness Interview series.

The more reliably you ground yourself in yourself, the happier and healthier you will feel, and the more effectively you will be able to help others.

And the easier it will become to meditate. Not what you expected?

Why meditate?

Meditation is the mother of all healing (including Reiki practice), and the key to developing wisdom. Through meditation, we extend beyond our limitations to find inspiration, inner knowing, and compassion.

Meditation drew me to India many years ago. It was a move that moved everything. It changed my understanding of the mind and enabled me to see in a more holistic way. It also freed my mind to be more logical. Go figure.

That’s what happens when you give yourself to spiritual practice, whether it’s meditation, Reiki, yoga, or in my case, all three. The effects show up where you least expect them. And they keep showing up for the rest of your life.

Meditation you can do

I realize not too many people can schedule two years to live in an ashram in India immersed in spiritual practices.

That’s why I asked Sharon Salzberg and Sally Kempton, two of today’s most respected, effective meditation teachers, to bring meditation to you.

Sharon Salzberg teaches lovingkindness meditation. Lovingkindness is an accessible, deceptively simple (sounds a lot like Reiki…) meditation practice that has special resonance for Reiki practitioners. Lovingkindness requires no greater effort than becoming more mindful of what you are doing already — wishing others well, wanting people to be happy and healthy.

Simple practices, while readily accesible, arguably take longer to truly master; the skill of not doing is more challenging than any technique, no matter how complex it might be.

Learning from experienced practitioners is a great advantage. An experienced teacher helps us reach not just the low-lying fruit, but also the ripest fruits buried in the thicket of the mind. Sharon Salzberg has been teaching lovingkindness meditation for 30 years. Sharon’s new book Real Happiness leads you through the process of starting your own meditation practice. Click here to read excerpts or purchase.

Sally Kempton’s book Meditation for the Love of It: Enjoying Your Own Deepest Experience delivers everything the title promises. Sally shares generously from her 40 years of meditation experience to help you connect with the most subtle essence of your own being, that inviolable core of beneficence that is the goal of all spiritual practice.

The internet is liberally sprinkled with ads proclaiming:

“You Too Can Become a Powerful Reiki Master in 48 Hours”

“Becoming A Powerful Reiki Master Has Never Been So Quick, Easy Or Complete.”

But how complete can “quick and easy” be?

Doesn’t mastery — of anything — by definition, take time?

Actualizing Reiki healing

Some think Reiki practice can be easily mastered because the technique is comparatively simple, but is it possible to master even the simplest technique without actually practicing it?

Regular self-practice over (a long) time actualizes the potential of the initiations, so that we ourselves are healed by our practice (what could be more powerful than that?).

Healed of what, you might ask?

Healed of whatever needs healing. The details vary from person to person and according to the situation, but ultimately, the healing is of our wrong understanding.

Our Reiki practice changes our understanding gradually and organically. Through our own process of healing, we (slowly) come to realize that mastery is not of the practice, but rather, of ourselves.

This profound healing, this realization, cannot happen instantly — or in 48 hours — but only through patient, consistent self-practice.

Reiki master student

Becoming a Reiki master is becoming a student, a masterful student of your own ongoing practice, a poised walker of the path, with your Reiki practice as your constant, supportive companion and guide (Today only…).

Continuing practice unfolds the path before us, sometimes not revealing the next step until our foot is about to hit the ground. It takes time to develop trust in that process. It takes time to develop steadiness.

Faster master myth

Of course we all like fast results. And when offering Reiki treatment, especially in an emergency, sometimes we get them. But rapid improvement in an extreme situation is the result of restoring balance to a system in distress; it is not the same as instant mastery.

It takes time to build stability in everyday life, which after all, is where we spend most of our time.

Let’s be mindful of the tendency to crave instant success and other mirages, and be willing instead to be the overnight success that was years in the making.

Because even if it were true that You Can Become an Instant Reiki Master, why would you want to?

What are some of the benefits you’ve received from your Reiki practice that have taken time to show up? Please click here to share.

Ud Puede convertirse en un Maestro de Reiki al instante, the Spanish translation of this post, is available with other Spanish translations at ReikiCentral en Espanol.

A Reiki Federation Ireland member handed me an envelope as I left our community gathering in Dublin. She explained that a new Reiki practitioner wanted to tell me her story, but a chemotherapy appointment kept her from joining us.

In spite of her diagnosis, the woman’s wellness, enthusiasm, and gratitude radiated from her card, inspiring me to share her story of hope with all of you, in her words, but anonymously, as I am unable to contact her for permission.

A narrative of wellness during cancer treatment

“I was diagnosed with breast cancer in May and as I was filled with fear, a friend suggested I go for Reiki treatment before starting chemotherapy. After my first Reiki session, I felt unbelievably calm and in control, and that has stayed with me.

“Before starting chemo, I was told by my oncologist that my tumour was aggressive, and that after my fourth chemo treatment, they would scan to see if the tumour was shrinking. I received Reiki treatment the following week, and a few days later I noticed the lump had gone down considerably. I had an appointment with my consultant and she was very pleased that the lump had reduced in size after only one chemo.”

Our heroine was then trained in First degree and began practicing Reiki self-treatment. She continued:

“A week after my second chemo, I could not feel the lump. The following day, I saw my oncologist. She confirmed that she also could not feel the lump.

“After speaking with my consultant, they decided there was no need for me to have a scan until I finish chemo in October.

“To say I floated out of that hospital is an understatement. The first person I rang was my very own ‘Guardian Angel,’ my Reiki practitioner. I do realize that my chemo is necessary, but I do believe that Reiki has helped me so much in body and mind, and healing.”

Such an inspiring, compelling story. Something we want to share widely (and please do), both with people addressing serious illness, and with Reiki practitioners.

But not with doctors (except the ones who are reading).

But not for (most) doctors

Why not share this story with doctors? Wouldn’t it help open their minds (assuming they have closed minds, which in my experience is not a reasonable assumption).

I wouldn’t share this story with a doctor because it reads too much like a miracle cure, and miracle cures get ignored in medicine. Doctors need reliable, repeatable responses, and they cannot promise anyone a miracle. Also, doctors see so many patients that they’ve already seen a few who fared much better than expected. Doctors know this happens, but it doesn’t help them treat their next patient.

Reiki practitioners often don’t realize that although Reiki healing is extraordinary, and can help people in unexpected ways, it’s also true that some people are extraordinary patients who would have improved no matter what treatment they chose. (Since we only see people receiving Reiki healing, we tend to assume that all benefit comes from our practice, but that’s not reasonable.)

Seasoned Reiki practitioners have come to understand that people who receive Reiki treatment generally have better outcomes than would be otherwise expected, whether or not they are extraordinary patients, but each Reiki practitioner (or doctor, or nurse, etc.) has to arrive at that recognition in her own time. We cannot spoon-feed it to anyone without risking credibility–ours and that of our practice.

What we can reasonably say about Reiki healing

What we can tell doctors, without risking credibility, is that Reiki treatment helps the body heal itself. It does this by influencing the system toward relaxation, which optimizes the body’s own self-healing mechanisms. And Reiki healing does this whether the treatment is received from oneself or another practitioner.

That’s what we can reasonably tell a doctor or anyone else. And there is beginning research to support it.

Have you or one of your clients felt that Reiki healing helped with a better than usual medical outcome? Come on, don’t be shy. Please scroll down and share it in the comment section.

Sign up for free monthly e-newsletter ReikiUpdate now. The September issue talks about a new survey describing how hospitals are using complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), including Reiki.

Are you a Reiki practitioner ready to raise your professionalism to a higher standard, or a student preparing to become a Reiki professional? Register for the Introduction to Medical Reiki recorded webinar and you can access it immediately online, whenever you want, as often as you want, and start building your skills at the pace that works for you.

Reiki, Medicina y Milagros, the Spanish translation of this post, and other Spanish translations are  available at ReikiCentral en Espanol.