An alternative form of healing

I graduated from a usui reiki course last weekend and apparently, I am now an official conduit of the universal life force energy, otherwise known as 'reiki' in Japanese.

I won’t go into the dynamics of what reiki is because that will be like chasing my own tail since I’m still trying to grasp the concept myself, but if you are interested to find out more, this is my reiki master’s page.

Anyway, during the course, I was given 4 “attunements” to align the 7 chakras in my body. An attunement is basically a balancing process whereby a reiki master “opens” up your chakra to enable you to receive “energy” from externally. This energy will bring about balance in your life. However, because your body is so thrashed up before the attunement, you will go through a detox before you can be, so to speak, “balanced”.

I was told that everyone detox in their own ways. Some might feel especially lethargic OR energetic. We might eat more OR eat less. We might feel especially emotional OR we might feel nothing. Some might fall sick OR feel especially healthy. We might see things different and have mini breakthroughs in our everyday lives. It is all personal and up to the individual.

That doesn’t say much, does it!!?? It basically says that anything goes. The only concrete guaranteed symptom is that we are all going to be super dehydrated and we should not consume too much alcohol because it will be absorbed doubly quick by our bodies – meaning we will be cheap drunks. (Guess who had to sit on her hands to prevent herself from clapping out loud in glee?)

My personal detox process has been, well, plain exhausting. After my attunement, I almost fell asleep and crash into a van while driving home after class. My body aches, my eyes are sunken and I have no gusto to eat. The Toe saw me a week later and ask me why my body has shrunk and became so “concaved”. (That’s the ‘in’ look now anyway, right?)

But other than that, I am fine and quite determined not to change a single thing from my usual routine because how else am I going to experience the joy of being ‘balanced’ if I just sit at home and mope about how tired I am, right? So since my usual routine is drinking anyway, Maro, The Man and I went for a couple of drinks that night after my class. Some Belgian beers, a few shots from a bottle of Finnish vodka laced with licorice (I can’t remember its exact name) and we finish off with a bottle of German Splatese. At the end of the night, I was feeling a bit funky. I also developed tiny red rashes all over the back of my hands which never happen before. I took that as a cue to stop and went off to bed. I woke up fine the next day to attend my second class so I guess it was just a temporary alarm by my newly ‘balanced’ body. Hah!

My second day at class is more interesting because we were taught how to heal ourselves (and others) using reiki energy. We were asked to pair up and to give each other treatments. Some of my classmates (specifically The American and The Gay Boy) got dramatic and waxed lyrical about how they saw rainbows, flowers, butterflies, unicorns and what not during the treatment. A girl even ran out of the class crying because she got too emotional. Frankly, I was just asleep throughout my treatment. Reiki energy is actually rather nice, warm and cosy…Zzz.

When it was my turn to give the treatment, my partner, Maro, was lying motionless throughout. When my treatment ended, she immediately jumped up, looked at me and rushed to the toilet. Apparently I reiki-ed her sensitive bladder nerves and since that treatment, she has been going to the loo every half hour. Oh, I also made her period come that day. Hahaha!

We ended the class with a special healing known as ‘scanning’. Basically we have to move our hands (where reiki energy is passed from) around the body of our partner using our ‘third eye’ intuition. Basically, you need to listen to yourself and let the reiki guide your hands to parts of your partner’s body where you think needs energy. My scanning partner is this pretty Penoi girl who has the same full name as the Marxist revolutionary who traveled across South America in his motorcycle (I kid you not!) When she was ‘scanning’ me, I had my eyes closed so I didn’t quite know where she was placing her hands. After the treatment, she told me that she had her hands over my head only and she didn’t move at all because she felt that’s where I needed it only. (My head???!! What's wrong up there?) She also later also told me that she instinctively felt that I have a very clear mind. (Ladies & gentlemen, this is proof that when I am sober in the daytime, I am actually sane and lucid. Woot!)

So that was what I did last weekend and I had since felt many subtle changes that reiki has made in my life. Physically, I am still a little drained but nothing the adrenaline from my regular workouts won’t fix. Mentally, I find that it is easier to de-clutter mental blocks and I find that my thoughts are a lot calmer and structured. Emotionally, I am more relaxed and quiet. Also, I find it very fulfilling giving reiki to others and sometimes, I can actually feel the strengthening of my connection with the recipient especially if he/she is someone very close to me.

Healing hands, anyone?