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.

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.

In Japan in the mid 1920s, Mikao Usui started a unique spiritual practice that has come to be called Reiki. Usui said his practice was new and never before seen in the world. He did not refer to his practice exclusively as Reiki, and at the time, there were other Reiki practices.

Somehow the name Reiki stuck to Usui’s practice.

It was as Reiki that Hawayo Takata and Chujiro Hayashi, her Reiki master and Usui’s direct student, brought the practice to Hawaii in the 1930s. Takata later taught Reiki on the mainland U.S., in Canada, and Puerto Rico, before dying in December 1980.

Most of the 22 masters Takata trained continued to honor her standards, but within a decade after Takata’s death, at least one of them began offering expedited Reiki training.

Rapid expansion of Reiki healing came with loosening of Reiki practice standards

With a fast turnover from First degree to Reiki master, it didn’t take long for Reiki practice to spread around the world. Few people would argue that global access to such a gentle, effective spiritual practice is a good thing, and this could not have happened so quickly if everyone adhered to Takata’s high standards. However, all rapid expansion coincides with a loss of standards, and this is the challenge that the global Reiki community faces today.

Perhaps the most critical question is this: Which practices are rightly called Reiki?

There is a reasonable expectation that any practice referred to as Reiki traces back to Usui—especially those practices called Usui Reiki—but we cannot assume this to be true.

Some practices marketed as Reiki have no basis in Usui’s practice. Those who sign on for such training usually don’t find this out until it’s too late.

The lack of agreed-upon standards in the Reiki community creates a buyer-beware market for the public. How can Reiki practitioners help the public navigate the sea of Reiki practices and identify those which are truly Usui-based? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Related reading:
Reiki Is Not Ancient
Reiki: Spiritual Practice or Energy Medicine?

We’d love to read your comments. Please keep them on point and in perspective so that we can have a thoughtful, respectful dialogue.

What is Reiki energy?

I don’t know. I’m not so sure it exists.

Yes, I know translations of Reiki founder Mikao Usui include the word “energy.” But these are translations, and translations from a language expressed in pictograms, not an alphabet and words, a language that is spoken by a culture with very different concepts and values than Western European-based cultures, so I don’t know how much confidence to place in them. It’s possible Reiki practitioners are wedded to a poor translation.

Reiki is commonly defined as Universal Life Energy, or Universal Life Force Energy. That definition is rather like defining one foreign term with another.

What is universal life energy? How many Reiki practitioners pause to contemplate such a reality, a reality so foreign to western dualistic culture that we don’t even have a word for it.

Many Reiki practitioners assume Reiki energy is a distinct entity. It’s possible, however, that Usui was referring not to something distinct, but rather to all subtle bio-energies, a group of putative biofield energies that includes qi (or the Japanese ki) and prana (which is very different from qi/ki). These are called putative because no conventional science documents their existence.

But a small body of research documents the impact of the Reiki connection on the human system.

The Reiki connection?

When a Reiki practitioner passively places hands on someone (or hovers just off the body), the recipient’s system responds by moving toward balance. This response is typically experienced as relaxation. People often fall into a deep sleep-like meditative state, or they experience a threshold state in which they are aware of their surroundings while remaining deeply in-drawn.

This state of profound (or even minimal) relaxation is significant. It is in this state that the body heals itself. The power of the resting cure has been recognized throughout the ages; the science behind it is well documented in the stress reduction literature.

The Reiki connection reminds the body of its capacity to self-heal. For this, we have some documentation.

Does the Reiki connection accomplish this through Reiki energy? I, for one, am skeptical, and there is as yet no conventional science to substantiate it.

Can practitioners be content for the moment to leave it as an open question? Or do we rush to fill the empty space?

Related reading:
Practice Makes Present
Spiritual Practice: The Trail Starts Here
Reiki Is Not a Word

Do you want to bring Reiki practice into health care? If you can’t come to NYC for the comprehensive Medical Reiki seminar March 19/20, the Intro to Medical Reiki webinar is available whenever you are, right on your computer.

Reiki practitioners love their work. Many love it so much they are uncomfortable being paid for it.

Or so they say.

I wonder. If we love our work, why wouldn’t we want to be compensated for it?

Being compensated makes it possible for us to develop as Reiki practitioners by making it possible for us to put in the considerable time needed to grow as professionals. Without being paid, how many of us would have enough time to approach the 10,000 hours Malcolm Gladwell identified as being necessary to develop expertise and success?

Paying for his session enables your client to leave feeling balanced and whole on every level, not feeling indebted to you for the favor. Feeling complete with the session means a client who values balance is more likely to come back. And isn’t that the client you want to work with?

If you truly love practicing Reiki professionally, but are uncomfortable with fees, try this after your next client session:

Look your client in the eye as she hands you the payment for her session.

Hold her gaze as you smile, and say with grace and gratitude, “Thank you.”

To prepare for that interaction, take a few moments now to contemplate everything that you thank your clients for. Here are a few possibilities:

Thank you for valuing what I offer you.

Thank you for honoring our relationship.

Thank you for enabling me to support myself (and my family) by doing work I love. I know that many people are not so fortunate.

What else will you be thanking your client for the next time you gratefully accept his payment?

RELATED READING:
Reiki and Money
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

This post has been translated into Spanish, Cobrar por Reiki.

Reiki treatment is safe when used with common sense, to support and not replace medical care. There are no known medical contraindications to Reiki treatment, no time when it is inappropriate. This is a huge statement, and a very important one, so let’s examine it carefully.

Reiki treatment is balancing to the individual’s system. The more balanced a system is, the less stressed it is. The less stressed the system is, the more resilient it is, and the more efficiently it self-heals. Reiki treatment encourages the receiver’s system to regain balance and thus optimizes self-healing. Reiki treatment supports and does not override the body’s natural process of self-healing.

When Reiki treatment is used as part of a comprehensive treatment plan for someone with a medical diagnosis, the Reiki treatment does not address the disease or any symptom directly. Rather, Reiki treatment encourages the person’s system toward balance so that the person is better able to address both the disease, and the side effects of medical treatment. Reiki treatment supports the person undergoing medical treatment, and does not interfere with the processes involved in the medical treatment.

Besides looking at the treatment itself, health care also looks at how a treatment is delivered, meaning how it gets to the patient. It is conceivable, for example, that there might be reasons why a treatment that might help a patient cannot be safely delivered to that patient. For example, some cancer patients who could theoretically be helped by massage might be too fragile to be able to safely receive massage, or there might be limitations as to what parts of the body could be safely massaged (perhaps hands and feet only).

Reiki treatment is most commonly delivered through light, non-invasive contact. The Reiki practitioner’s hand can also be held just above the body. In a quarantine situation, the Reiki practitioner offers treatment while wearing gloves. Since Reiki touch is non-manipulative (or non-contact), it carries no contraindications.

Reiki treatment involves no substances. The receiver is not asked to swallow anything, nor is any substance applied to the skin. There is nothing material involved in Reiki treatment that could interfere with medical care or impact the receiver’s health.

Therefore, from a health care perspective, there are no known medical contraindications, no time when Reiki treatment is unsafe.

It is always safe to offer Reiki treatment, as long as you are also taking care of whatever else is needed. For example, in an emergency, you can place a Reiki hand on the victim while calling 911. Reiki is not a replacement for needed conventional medical care, but used sensibly, Reiki can be a valuable resource that can help improve health care outcomes.

If you have a specific question or comment, please post it below.

Reiki is not ancient.

It’s either modern (a practice started by Mikao Usui in the 1920s in Japan), or it’s timeless (if by Reiki, you mean the unified field, source, primordial consciousness, pure awareness, great mystery, whatever you call that all-pervasive, unending reality to which we connect when we practice Reiki).

Using the term Reiki without specifying what comes after it (Reiki treatment, Reiki practice,  Reiki sensations, Reiki state, etc.) leads to confusion, especially when we’re addressing people who are new to the practice.

But no matter how you look at it, Reiki is not ancient.

It’s right here,
right now,
as you place your Reiki hand.

This post is available in Spanish translation, Reiki No Es Antiguo. Other Spanish translations are available at Reiki en Español.

This could be a very short post, because when it comes to the science of biofields, there isn’t any. That’s why the NIH uses the word “putative.”*

That’s not to say there isn’t a talented scientist or two engaged in cutting edge investigation of these mysterious realities. The scientific community has fringe elements like any other community. But fringe scientists doing frontier science don’t get a lot of respect until their data–and cause–are taken up by the mainstream.

Science is a group conversation, and in any group, what matters is what most people are saying. That’s called consensus, and that’s what carries weight. Consensus can be wrong, but it’s foolish to buck it, especially when trying to establish credibility.

Unless done skillfully, reaching for science to bolster your presentation of Reiki will likely backfire. Only people who don’t need “proof” will be impressed; scientists are skeptical by nature and training, and readily find the holes in an argument. So until such time as doctors are ordering kirilian photographs instead of CT scans and MRIs, don’t risk running your argument aground by confusing frontier science and conventional science.

If you want to lean on science, be humble. Deflect attention away from biofields, and focus instead on the research into how Reiki treatment can benefit people. Acknowledge first that this investigation is just beginning, then state that preliminary data suggest Reiki can help improve heart rate, blood pressure, and immunity, and reduce pain, anxiety, and depression. We do not yet have enough research evidence to say more than that, and if you try to, you run the risk of discrediting yourself, and Reiki.

If you are communicating with physicians or other health care professionals who want more information, you needn’t do the heavy lifting yourself; just hand them the top three articles in the medical papers section.

*NOTE:
The section of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that studies the safety and efficacy of complementary therapies such as Reiki is the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM).

Here is what NCCAM says about biofields: “Some CAM practices involve manipulation of various energy fields to affect health. Such fields may be characterized as veritable (measurable) or putative (yet to be measured). Practices based on veritable forms of energy include those involving electromagnetic fields (e.g., magnet therapy and light therapy). Practices based on putative energy fields (also called biofields) generally reflect the concept that human beings are infused with subtle forms of energy; qi gong, Reiki, and healing touch are examples of such practices.”

I was the principal reviewer for the Reiki Introduction posted on the NCCAM website. This document has no copyright and you are encouraged to use it freely.

How often have you seen information about Reiki that starts with this: Reiki is a Japanese word meaning universal life energy.

What is wrong with that sentence?

First of all, there are no Japanese words. The Japanese language is written in pictograms, not words.

I hear someone saying, “Picky, picky, picky.” And I completely own it. I am picky, picky, picky. But that doesn’t make a pictogram a word, or even a reasonable equivalent. A pictogram is a stylized picture. Even the most florid word is linear compared to a picture. Words define; pictograms suggest. And they can only be understood in context.

The definition above traces back to Hawayo Takata, the Reiki master who, with her Reiki master Chujiro Hayashi, brought Reiki from Japan to Hawaii in the late 1930s.

I want to go on record as having only the most profound admiration and gratitude for Mrs. Takata. But that doesn’t mean we freeze dry everything she said and use it without reflection.

Anyone who heard Mrs. Takata say those words also heard her say more, and likely felt her hands as well. Taking a line from a live event and turning it into the lead of an article doesn’t work. When writing, we have only our words with which to interest people. Make them count.

Use your words to tell people what they want to know about Reiki–how it can help them. If you lead with a definition that tells them nothing, you may not get a chance to elaborate.