Positive Health Online

Ever since I was first introduced into Reiki, I knew I had to get it into hospitals and felt the best way was through the nurses and doctors. They were to be my prime target for they were the ones who would then, in turn, introduce it to the patients and relatives. Reiki could then flow in abundance throughout the medical profession, thereby creating a loving, healing environment for patients in hospitals, not forgetting, of course, GP surgeries, Well Woman Clinics and even dental and veterinary surgeries.

Carole Easton demonstrates one of the hand positions used during an initiation/attunement.

Karen Higgins, Care Assistant, administering Reiki to patient Stanley Kitler who is also attuned and giving himself Reiki.

For this to happen, I needed to create an example at Lynden Hill Clinic where we have established the first Reiki Clinic in the country. Over the years, the majority of our staff, including our resident doctor, matron, nurses and management, have been initiated into Reiki and use it on a daily basis. We have ongoing workshops for nurses from other hospitals to come along and be initiated into Reiki and we have development and support groups. The benefits to all are numerous and we now feel that Lynden Hill Clinic is a wonderful example of how Reiki works in a medical environment.

One of the wonderful things with Reiki is that whilst you are giving it, you are also receiving it yourself, which means that in emergency situations, it is enabling you to stay calm and peaceful.

What is Reiki?

For those readers who are not familiar with Reiki, I will briefly explain what it is. Please also refer to issues 17 and 18 of Positive Health for the history of Reiki and further information.

Reiki is a Japanese word that means 'Universal Life Force Energy'. As children, we 'know' this source, we are one with it, but as we grow up, we forget and feel separated. One of the gifts of Reiki is a feeling of being reconnected. Reiki is neither a religion nor a belief system. It opens the way to new depths of spiritual experience and understanding. Once you have been initiated, Reiki is activated by placing your hands on yourself or another person. The Reiki energy is then effortlessly drawn through the body at a pace corresponding to the need and will go to the level where the energy is blocked, charging it with loving energy and raising the vibrational frequency. The energy is healing, not the practitioner. In giving Reiki, there is no transmission of any personal energies between giver and receiver. Reiki is both a powerful and gentle healer.

Overall uses of Reiki

As all disease entails energy imbalance, Reiki is effective in most cases. Simple illnesses such as colds, 'flu, headaches, stomach upsets and mild infections usually respond rapidly. Burns will heal faster with far less or no scarring. As well as aiding the withdrawal process of addictive drugs and substances, Reiki can effectively relieve pain and reduce the unpleasant side effects of strong drug therapy, while strengthening the immune system to aid the body's own natural healing activity.

Long-term chronic illnesses can be relieved over time. Illnesses such as ME/PVS (Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome) can be particularly helped when the person is initiated/attuned, as this is something they can do for themselves, raising their vibrational frequency and working on the thymus which stimulates the immune system.

Reiki is a very effective form of stress management and reduces shock very quickly.

Through the healing process we become aware of our habits and the effect they have on our health and wellbeing. Once we have had the initiation/attunement, raising our vibrational frequency puts us more in touch with our intuition and creativity.

Geraldine McHugh (co-founder) and our Doctor, Liza Jackson, giving Reiki to a patient whilst monitoring the heartbeat.

Physiotherapy Department – showing how easy it is to give Reiki to our patients during their treatment time.

The benefits of Reiki in a hospital environment

Reiki is so simple. There is no need for preparation and it can be utilised in all hospital environments including operation rooms, intensive care units, emergency rooms, and all in-patient and out-patient rooms. It can be used at any time alongside any treatment. There are no side-effects or contra-indications. It is non-invasive and no adjustment of clothing needs to be made. The patient can be standing, sitting or lying down. It can work through plaster casts. Reiki does not depend upon the consciousness of the receiver. The patient could be in a coma or in a severe emotional state – it will not make any difference. Just a few minutes of Reiki can radically change the patient's condition. Stress can turn to peace and those with panic attacks can return to normal breathing. Reiki is always at its best in emergency situations.

Ambulance crews would really benefit from using Reiki, both for their patients and themselves. I myself gave Reiki to a crash victim whilst she was waiting for the ambulance. When I arrived, she was cold and shaking, sitting upright and a passer-by was holding her head still. I immediately applied a Reiki Sandwich, one hand on her back, the other on her chest. Within minutes she was breathing normally, lovely and warm and had stopped shaking. No-one knew what I was doing nor cared as the change was remarkable. Imagine all emergencies dealt with in this way. I trust this will happen soon.

Doctors and nurses working in terminal care units are having to care for the patient, the relatives and their own personal feelings around loss. The feelings of helplessness can be quite over- whelming, especially where children are involved. Just by placing your hands on patients and those close to them, you will enable them to find peace and also experience the peace yourself. Reiki is guided by divine wisdom. It has nothing to do with the channeller, so when applying Reiki to the dying patient, it is not to stop the process of dying, but to give peace and comfort in aiding their transition.

The nurses who work in paediatric units will find that children are exceptionally responsive and love receiving Reiki. Children have no pre-conceived ideas about healing and are therefore truly open to all the benefits of Reiki.

Nurses are usually very busy people who come into a profession with a deep desire to truly care for sick people only to find that they spend more time working with machines and highly technical procedures. They may probably think they would not have the time to apply Reiki, but this is not the case. The Reiki touch can be given whilst taking temperatures and blood pressure, dealing with surgical dressings, helping the patient to sit up, dressing, combing their hair or just sitting and holding the patient's hand or placing a hand on the shoulder whilst talking with them.

Using the symbols in hospitals

There are two Workshops: Reiki 1, where you are trained and initiated for hands-on healing and Reiki 2, where you are given the three symbols – distant healing, power and cleansing, mental and emotional, with further initiations for this purpose.

I personally use Reiki all day long, starting with myself. I then do a morning round with the patients, generally chatting on how they are and during this interaction I am cleansing their energies/ auras by surrounding them with symbols. In cases where I need to stay longer, I can give distant healing whilst still talking to the patient. It is very interesting to observe how the patient reacts to this. It can be quite variable but in most cases, it is relaxing. In some cases, patients can be emotional as the higher vibrational frequencies they are pulling in push up unresolved emotional pain, especially if I am using the mental/emotional symbol. In other words, love brings up anything unlike itself in order to heal.

Patients are not normally aware of what I am doing as this can be done very discreetly. It does not mean I am doing anything against the patient's wishes as it is the patient who is subconsciously pulling in the Reiki energy.

It was very interesting one day when a new patient saw me again in the afternoon and said, 'Thank you. That was such an enlightening conversation we had this morning that I had the best results of my physiotherapy and speech therapy I have ever had. Also, when you left, I had such a strange feeling, as though you had taken a scrubbing brush and brushed all around me. I felt so clean.' This lady could not have described it better. Needless to say, it was not the conversation that had this effect on her. I then explained what I had been doing and she continued to enjoy her Reiki in the mornings for the rest of her stay.

The energy in a patient's room is very important as the rooms and wards are full of past pain and grief. I use the powerful cleansing symbol to cleanse the patients' rooms before they arrive. In fact, the whole Clinic is constantly being cleansed with Reiki.

There are times when hands-on healing would not be appropriate. Some people are averse to being touched. For example, one new patient was so stressed that she was hardly able to contain herself. If I had placed my hands on her, I think she would have screamed.

I therefore used distant healing as I stood beside her and she became totally calm so quickly that it even shocked her. She could not understand what had happened to her. I asked how she was feeling. She said, 'My breathing has changed. I feel relaxed, but nothing has happened to make me feel this way. How did it happen?' I explained I was working with her energy and it could be scientifically explained at a later date when we had more time and that lots of nurses and counsellors are trained to do it. She found this quite acceptable. In fact, she was not really bothered – she just felt so much better.

For patients who have trouble sleeping, I recommend Reiki at the end of the day. Some patients, when I suggest this, are convinced nothing can help them. I enjoy a morning visit when I hear how well they have slept and how amazed they are.

Another case is of a lady who was having a severe asthma attack and the nurses were setting up the oxygen when I called in to visit her. Within two minutes of Reiki, she was breathing normally and no longer needed oxygen. In fact, she was so relaxed she talked about what was really troubling her and I know this helped her considerably.

The attunement/initiation

The Reiki attunement is a powerful and spiritual experience. First, we raise our vibrational frequencies through: clearing – balancing chakras – meditation – visualisation and sound. Each person is initiated individually attuning the upper chakras and hand chakras to receive the Reiki Ray. Some people have mystical experiences, healings, visions, colours and body sensations. Attunements can increase the psychic ability. Once attuned to the Reiki Ray, you can never lose it.

De-mystifying the attunements/initiations

Generally speaking, nurses are very practical, down-to-earth people and could feel that Reiki and the possibility of somebody attuning them so they can channel a higher vibrational frequency of energy through their hands quite difficult to comprehend. I find the easiest way of explaining this is to remind them that the body is energy.

If we take the heart, the heart vibrates at a vibrational frequency which equals 'heart'. If the heart is unwell, then it will resonate at a lower vibration and could eventually lead to a heart condition. So, if we look at all the organs in the body from the heart, the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, the blood, the bones to the millions of billions of trillions of cells that are in the body – all are vibrating at their own frequency.

Every vibrational frequency in the body equals something. From the moment we are conceived, our womb experience, our birth experience, everything that happens in our lives from that moment, is recorded in a vibrational frequency within the cells of the body. For example, if you were to take a little cell out of your body and have a look at it, it could be vibrating at the frequency of 'sad'. If you have repressed a lot of sadness in your life there could be an accumulation of these 'sad' cells creating our inner sadness. Likewise, this applies to 'happy' cells and all other feelings.

So, if you are holding on to bad experiences, then those experiences will remain in the body at a low vibrational frequency. Feelings of sadness, resentment and anger are all lower vibrational frequencies, whilst being happy and peaceful and content are raised vibrational frequencies. This is why in counselling it is so important to go back to the past, to go back to the core issues of our childhood and our birth experiences to clear the vibrational frequencies, thus raising the frequencies throughout our body. Rebirthing is a very effective way of being able to do that by conscious connected breathing. This enables a person to go back to their birth experience and release the trauma and negative belief systems that went with it, e.g. cord round the neck, forceps, induced, not wanted, etc. I also apply this with our inner child work. Using the distant healing symbol, I send Reiki back into the past to heal that particular situation. A combination of counselling, Rebirthing and Reiki is extremely powerful.

So the vibrations of the body, as you can see, are very unique. By the time you have all these varieties of vibrational frequencies for all the different reasons in your body and combine them, you come up with your own vibrational frequency.

The body resides in the third dimension and therefore it is a slow frequency of energy and is solid matter. We cannot float through walls. But, of course, we are not our bodies. We are actually beautiful divine souls. Our souls come from a higher dimension and obviously a higher vibrational frequency. When we have X-rays, we cannot see our souls because these higher vibrations are not seen in this dimension. They are too fast. The soul resides in the body and the vibrational frequency of the soul combines with the vibrational frequency of the body and there you have your very own unique frequency which will be going up and down all the time. It actually has a tone. If we could hear our tones, we would know whether we are harmonious with other people. This is why sometimes, when we meet people, we feel very drawn to them and we feel our energies can merge very comfortably and we get on extremely well, whereas with others, we just do not merge at all.

Our body actually resides within the energy of our soul, so whereas we know our soul is in our body, the soul emanates energy beyond the physical body and this is known as an aura.

Before being initiated into Reiki, it is best to go through a process of cleansing and purification, both physically and mentally. This means focusing on healthy eating and raising your awareness of any negative feelings you may need to release that no longer serve you.

During my Workshops, time is spent raising vibrational frequencies by cleansing, balancing and opening the seven major chakras (energy wheels) in preparation to receive the vibrations of the symbols which will open up a channel to receive the Universal Life Force energy (Reiki) – an energy of a high vibrational frequency which equals unconditional love.

Symbols are a higher way, like prayer, of being able to communicate out to the Universe. Once the symbols are used, they are immediately received and responded to and they are very, very powerful. Once a person has become a Reiki Master, they are then able to attune/initiate other people in to being able to give healing. This is done by the Reiki Master drawing, with the palm of the hand, the symbols in a particular way and in a particular sequence as was done probably two and a half thousand years ago. The response is immediate and that person then has this channel of energy which, after the fourth initiation, locks it in and they have it for eternity.

So, as you can see, it makes a lot of sense. We are all energy and we have our chakras fully prepared, vibrating at their right frequencies, ready to receive the vibrational frequency of the symbols which will in turn open up the Reiki channel. It works for absolutely everyone, there are no exceptions. Because we are all unique, everybody will have their own unique experiences of the initiation and of their 21 day detoxification programme which will then follow. This is a very powerful cleansing and people can go through a lot of transformation.

Patient cases

Over the years, I have had the privilege of meeting up with so many different types of people who have had to deal with devastating illnesses, disabilities and life-threatening challenges and their courage and sheer determination to overcome their problems and get back into the flow of life never ceases to amaze me.

There are so many that stand out, like Mr X, a successful businessman in his early fifties, who had been in a coma for seven weeks due to a meningococcal septicaemia and arrived at Lynden Hill Clinic paralysed from the waist down, together with other complications and suffering severe pain. He had lost the will to live and made no effort with his rehabilitation programme. I felt a great affinity with this man and knew he was going to do great things. I applied Reiki over his heart and solar plexus chakras and after a while, I knew I could talk to him on a soul level. He had been resuscitated twice and I reminded him that he had chosen to be here, i.e. back into life. If it was his time to die, he would have done so, but he had chosen to live in spite of what lay ahead of him. The courage of his soul was incredible. I explained how his life had totally changed course and he was now on a new and different path for a very good reason, that he had come back with a purpose and his soul knew this.

Mr X smiled and said, 'I know', and from that moment on, he never looked back. Over the last year and a half, he is slowly but surely recovering. Today, I had the privilege of seeing him standing (against all odds) unaided. He still has a long way to go, but he is going to make it. His attitude and will are made of iron. He still does not know yet what he is going to do with the rest of his life, but this very powerful and successful man wants to do something to help others like himself – and he will. He was initiated into Reiki one and a half years ago.

Another patient I met three years ago was also initiated into Reiki 1 and Reiki 2. Sadly, she had cancer of the tongue and the radiotherapy had damaged her oesophagus and she was unable to swallow and had to be fed via by a gastroscopy tube. She was also unable to speak – her only means of communication was to write things down. She suffered tremendous pain and was on constant morphine. This beautiful soul chose to die at home. She was having regular healing when I visited her and she told me she was pain-free and not on any pain killers at all. She died peacefully at home.

A further patient I had the privilege to meet was a young man with his second brain tumour. He had already survived the battle of one brain tumour and was on a new drug to try to combat the second. The side effects of the drug and tumour itself caused him great distress.

He had everything to live for – his own successful business and newly married to his childhood sweetheart and both very much in love. The drugs had transformed his good looks, but his personality and quick humour won through. He warmed to Reiki straight away and was able to cut down on his medication – 'bluies', he would call them. Instead of a 'bluie', he would call me and have Reiki.

He was also initiated into Reiki and was able to share his deepest feelings that were causing him problems in the present moment. Once these things were put to rest, he was able to speak more openly to his family.

The following are comments made directly by nurses whom I have initiated:

"I have found that using Reiki helps to improve the recovery time of the patients who have had surgery. It also helps to calm patients who are feeling stressful and apprehensive about their condition.

"It also benefits me, as I feel calm and relaxed when giving Reiki."
Karen, Care Assistant at Lynden Hill Clinic

"Reiki, to me, is like a friend. It is a comfort and at times, I share it with colleagues and have done it with my family. The pace is a bit hectic and fast moving for patients so far.

"We had over 6,000 out-patients last month – it helped us to keep smiling."
Out-Patient Nurse

"Since being initiated into Reiki, patients seem to be drawn to me. Consultants also refer patients to me due to my successful healing of wounds – they seem to clear up more quickly regardless of using the right products. Patients have commented on the heat coming from my hands.

"Patients also seem more relaxed. They will wait a long time to particularly see me for their wound dressings. I am referred to as 'the nurse with the healing hands'! For example, a leg ulcer that would normally be colonated with bacteria was clear and the wound is healing quickly."
Wound Care Nurse

I will leave the final word to our doctor at Lynden Hill Clinic, Dr Liza Jackson, who says:

"When I first started at Lynden Hill Clinic, I did not know much about the holistic approach to patients and I certainly had not worked in an environment where that was the approach.

"Since then, I have learnt that using different holistic therapies, including Reiki, in adjunct to medical therapy, can be very beneficial to the patient. Reiki, for instance, is used at the Clinic for relaxation, pain control and to give the patient a sense of self-worth.

"I have been initiated into Reiki and have found it very helpful. I use it for myself to relax and re-energise after a stressful day and I also find that it can comfort patients when they are anxious, in pain or generally feeling low.

"Reiki has enabled me to see my patient more as a complete person and not just a medical challenge."
Dr Liza Jackson, MBChB Dip Obst
Lynden Hill Clinic

Further Information

Lynden Hill Clinic is an in-patient and out-patient Clinic dealing with medical and surgical rehabilitation, recognised by major health insurance companies. Further details can be found in the Clinic Directory of this issue.