Reiki and Palliative Care: How Reiki Heals into Life and into Death
Over the past years, I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to help several patients right after they have been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Some of them come to me looking to alleviate their physical pain, and to lessen the side effects of medical treatments, but what most of them are truly desperate for is hope, emotional support while they face their fears and anxiety over the impending transition, and the reassurance that their loved ones will endure the trial.
The first experience I had with Reiki in a similar situation was while my mother battled cancer. As my Reiki Master Teacher said it, Reiki did not only heal her into life but also into death. After ten years of health struggles, my mother was finally released of all pain. I was told, she did self-reiki treatments, as long as it was possible due to her health condition. If you know me, you’ve probably heard this story more than once, so I will let you read this time the story below as it was shared by my Reiki Master Teacher, who lovingly and unconditionally offered the emotional support we needed at the time.
I am now grateful to be able to pay it forward and bless other lives during times of physical and emotional distress, to ease the fear of the unknown of those who are leaving, and the grief and sorrow of those who are left behind.
This is the last picture I have of my mother and I during her last visit to the states.
Dearest Friends:
Some of you were able to meet Lilian’s mother, Alicia, when Lilian brought her to *healing circle (attached is a picture). Although only one of you was Spanish speaking, and we couldn’t communicate with Alicia, we were deeply touched by her spirit and her energy. It demonstrates how all is reduced to energy, and if we can only appreciate that, it motivates us to get out of the head, analytical stuff. It reminds me once when I flew to Los Angeles to hear one of my teachers teach before he departed to Australia. He was so exhausted from his daily travels around the world that he kept falling asleep so the teaching had more depth and breadth than his words or rather, lack of words. Being in his energy field alone was a great teaching; in fact, I’m almost glad that words didn’t get in the way. He lifted my vibration. I will always savor that experience rather than complain that I went to great expense to purchase a plane ticket, stay in a hotel, and also got a huge toll fine because I didn’t realize I was on a toll road. Like my teacher, Alicia was a gift to all who experienced her energy field. She touched our lives.
After Alicia came to healing circle and before she departed to Colombia, Lilian brought her over to see me once again. Lilian and I channeled Reiki for her, and then I attuned her without training because I knew she would be leaving her body soon. Here again, I never communicated verbally with Alicia because I am not Spanish speaking. I believed that she had courageously come here to the United States–without access to her medical care in Colombia–in order to see Lilian and her family one last time before she transitioned, and hoped that she would make it back to her home in Colombia. We, as a Reiki community, sent energy when she was taken to the hospital after she de-planed in Florida. Alicia and Lilian channeled Reiki the entire flight, and paramedics could not believe she lived because her blood pressure was in the mid 200’s and she had fluid around her heart.
Lilian had wondered if her mom would take Reiki seriously or even practice but when Lilian telephoned me yesterday to tell me that her mother had died at l:00 PM she told me that from the time Alicia left my home after I attuned her nearly a month ago, she never once removed her hand from her chest. She kept at least one hand on her chest 24-7. What was the result of that? Although she had cancer throughout her body and in her bones, she was pain free, optimistic, appreciative, and grateful–and she transitioned very peacefully and in a state of grace. Not coincidentally, at the moment of her death, Lilian was here in Utah at a Hospice meeting, and a candle was being lit at 1:00 PM. It was only after the meeting that Lilian received a phone call from Colombia that 1:00 PM was precisely when her mother had died.
I took the time to write this because it is a good example of how Reiki heals into life and heals into death.
It not only helps one heal into death but it helps to heal those who are left behind. The night before Alicia transitioned, Lilian sent Reiki to her all night, and Lilian said it felt exactly the way it felt when her mother was physically here. The silver lining in all of this is that it leaves Lilian committed to Hospice.
Reiki is a very gentle, non-invasive spiritual healing that is now used in a variety of ways in many hospices and hospitals across the nation.
Reiki can provide emotional support and spiritual strength for people who are in the last stages of a terminal illness. Give yourself or a loved the gift of Reiki!
*A Reiki healing circle offers the opportunity for practitioners to gather and practice Reiki and share their gifts with the public. You may attend Lilian’s Reiki healing circle on the third Monday of the month.
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