Healing Hands (Part 7) - That’s All Folks!!
So it’s episode 7 and it’s sadly the final instalment of my Mum’s reiki journey. I really hope you have enjoyed this series of blog posts as much as I have had. Hopefully my Mum will be back soon with some more tales to tell, but for now she is taking a little break.
Today is another tear jerker for me, the end of a journey in more ways than one....
And finally... Reiki practitioner to Reiki Master - by Chris Daniels
My apprenticeship as a reiki practitioner lasted for almost four years. As I explained in my last article, life intervened through part of this time and made me wait to take the next step of my reiki journey. I had tried to sort dates with my reiki master for my reiki master training, but she was also busy at that time; the same week that my granddaughter Luna was born, she had also given birth to her daughter; plus she had moved house and was still getting her treatment room ready, so unless I felt the need to choose another reiki master to study with, I had to accept that the universe was urging me to wait a while!
Despite my own trials and tribulations, I did continue to practise during those four years and I continued to develop my reiki skills and enjoy new experiences. Although I had sometimes felt my client's energy moving, the autumn of 2016 brought a definite new discovery - I started to feel my client's chakras. Looking back at my notes initially there were a lot of exclamation marks, for example '… felt chakras buzzing, solar plexus a definite hot spot, sacral hot spot and a 6 inch ball of energy over the root chakra!'. After my initial experience, for a few days I was guilty of trying too hard to feel the chakras to see if I could tell which way they were spinning and how fast for example.... I very quickly learned to work with more respect for my clients, when for a few hours following her session, one of my regulars reported back to me that she had suffered with dizziness and vomiting. A huge lesson learned for me and a reminder that delivering this type of healing is not about me and my experiences, but about helping my clients!
Another interesting experience involved Ron of the dodgy ankle (see article 3 for a reminder)! In late 2017 he arrived for his regular session and asked if I could pay particular attention to his right arm. He shared that four years previously he had badly broken it and as a result he had had an operation to put a pin in it and that for the last few days he was suffering significant pain there. Up until that point, I didn't normally work too much on arms, but I warned him that I would work 'hands on' on his arm so that he should not be surprised when I got to that point in the session. The session started and after about 20 minutes I laid my hands on his arm. After a further 30 seconds I felt a bolt of energy jolt out of his arm, up my arms and down through my body, exiting through my left foot! I was literally shocked but Ron didn't appear to notice so I just carried on. We discussed this at the end of the session and he confirmed that he hadn't felt anything but confirmed the pain had now gone; more to the point the pain didn't come back!
As the months moved on, from time to time I still had other experiences that were new. On one occasion I was working on my son-in-law who was having a problem with his arm and shoulder. I came across what felt like a stream of energy coming out of his elbow joint; the stream was the size of a narrow drinking straw pointing upwards, I recall finding it then moving my hands away before going back to check if it was still there. I worked on it until it stopped and he confirmed when we had finished that the pain started at that point and moved up to his shoulder. Unfortunately his pain continued... but he is a bodybuilder and very reluctant to stop lifting weights, as that is the thing that keeps him sane. You win some, you lose some!
Finally, I managed to arrange my reiki master training for May 2019. This was quite different to the previous training courses, as by now I had performed 530 sessions for friends, family and clients, so delivering the actual reiki was not something I really had any doubts about. So the essence of the two days training was making sure the student is ready to commit to the next stage, learning another symbol that is shared only with reiki masters, learning how and what to teach to others and how to attune new students (you cannot teach reiki unless you are a reiki master); plus of course having the final attunements yourself to complete your reiki master training process. It was also a fantastic opportunity to share my experiences to date and to discuss all things reiki with my reiki master, particularly after the two years that I had just lived through!
There is one more story that I want to share, which relates back to my dear friend Shirley, who was the one who had had a reiki session way back in 2015, coincidentally at the same time that I had started to look at reiki as a new path for myself (see article 1). Once again coincidence played its part; at the same time that we discovered that my husband had duodenal cancer, Shirley's husband Roy was also diagnosed with prostate cancer. At that time I was confident that prostate cancer was one of those cancers that was very treatable and was convinced that Roy would get the treatment and recover, whilst I was less sure about my husband's prognosis as it was much rarer and there weren't / aren't any regimes (other than major surgery) that have been proven to help. However, time proved that I was wrong and without playing out the detail, which is not mine to share, Roy was declared as terminally ill in September 2018, although he chose not to be told about his prognosis at that time.
Roy was one of my friends who thought reiki was woo woo at best and hocus pocus at worse, so whilst he was never rude about it, he declined to try reiki even when he was obviously very poorly. However, in March 2019, as I could see that he was suffering I asked Shirley to check with him again, to see if he would accept a session as a gift from me, in the hope that it might help him to relax and possibly help to reduce his pain. To my surprise he accepted and I went to their home (not my usual protocol), got him settled in his electric recliner and off we went. To his surprise his feedback was that he had felt a lot of heat from my hands and then saw lots of peculiar scenes in his head, which included a dachshund sitting on a dining room chair (Roy was perplexed about how it got there!) plus a scene in which Tom Daley (the swimmer) was depicted as a Viz cartoon character, body facing forward and head at 180 degrees looking backwards... diving into a lake in the Lake District, the famous Mr Ed (the 1960's talking horse for the uninitiated) amongst other funny but odd scenes. He also felt someone touching his foot when I was still working on his head. All in all, he did enjoy the experience so we arranged a follow on session a week later. I was delighted that the second session was much the same, so a few days later we happily started a third one. This time Roy called a halt after about 20 minutes. He was very upset and needed time to gather his composure. When he had calmed down, I asked if he would like to share what had happened and he tearfully stated that he had seen his dad, his mum and his brother in quick succession, all of whom had been in the spirit world for many years. Sadly, for the time being this put an end to our sessions. I can only speculate how Roy felt, but believe that he had only just come face to face with the seriousness of his condition.
The first Saturday in May 2019, whilst I was actually doing my reiki master training, I heard that Roy had ended up being admitted to hospital the day before. I went to see him in the evening and was surprised how chirpy he was, having been warned that things were really serious; I watched in amazement as he suddenly sat up (I thought he was asleep) wolfed down a main course that had just been brought for him, swiftly followed by a pudding! As he ate Shirley said that as soon as she could make time she would like to come to me for a reiki session and to my surprise, Roy piped up that he would like one too! I was thrilled! However, by the Tuesday, Shirley had managed to get him transferred to our local hospice, as it was clear that he would not be going home again; so I went to sit with Shirley (and Roy, but by now although he was listening, he was no longer responding – it was all far too much effort) and Shirley asked me if I would give him the reiki session he had asked for. Of course I did, and that was, to date the most emotionally draining session I have ever done. I delivered the session with much love from the chair that I sat on. I knew he was in a lot of pain and didn't want to add to this by touching him and as the reiki flowed freely so did my tears.
Early on the Friday morning I got the message that I knew was coming, that Roy had gone to join his dad, mum and brother. It left me with a heavy heart, that the couple, for whom I had been honoured to be a bridesmaid at their wedding forty years earlier, were now parted from each other.
And so I dedicate this final article to my much loved friends Roy and Shirley. My two daughters have both reminded me when I have not been able to help people to heal, that I cannot save the world and the truth is that we all have our allotted time on planet Earth and then we have to go on to the next adventure! But when it is someone close, that is a bitter pill to swallow, but as a reiki practitioner you have to take the delight that you feel when you have been able to help someone, and balance it with acceptance that when it is time to move on, you can still help people to transition from one form of being to the next, a bit like a dragonfly or a butterfly.
So for now at least, is my last article about my reiki journey to date – I am sure that with time I will have new things to share with my readers, but for now that's it folks! Thank you for reading and I hope to see you next time... I have lots of other experiences that I can share from attending my local spiritualist church, taking courses there and doing other psychic development courses elsewhere, but for now at least I will have a break!