retinal perspectives

(missing) a feeling of safety

I don't quite know what's going on but I have epiphanies rolling in left and right these days. I have noticed that my Reiki treatments (for myself) seem more intense, and I have been practicing Shiva Nata regularly, so I suppose it's to be expected. It's just that it's a bit overwhelming. They're all huge. They're all important. And they're all getting at deeper reasons for why I do the things I do (or don't do).

I decided that my focus for the month would be trust. I have a lot of issues with trust. It's important and useful. It's probably worth some focus.

The one message I keep getting consistently is that I need rest. I need rest in general. I need rest to process and integrate the epiphanies. I need rest to discover what's next. And yet, I resist. I don't trust the message. Plus, I don't know how to rest. Whenever I think I'm resting, I'm really doing things in my head or I'm worrying about all the things I think I should be doing instead of resting.

I was talking to a friend and she mentioned something about resting being connected to safety. Something about that thought rang true.

And then that night, while I was trying to sleep, it hit me.

I don't feel safe. Ever. Because once upon a time, in a moment when I felt safe (and was naked and vulnerable, no less), someone I trusted poured boiling water on me.

The me of now knows that it was an accident. But the me of then is small and scared and sees everything through a filter of fear. She thinks that something bad could happen to me at any moment. She believes that safety and vulnerability and trust lead to pain. And she knows that since she cannot control everything, I am never safe.

No wonder I can't rest.

No wonder trust keeps coming up as an issue.

No wonder money and weight keep coming up as issues (both of which represent safety to me, in varying forms).

I must confess that I found this very fascinating. I also didn't really know what to do with it, so I took it to my BodyTalk session later that week and told the practitioner about it. Along with doing the session itself, she suggested that I look for moments when I feel safe and take note of them so that it becomes easier to remember what safety actually feels like.

So, that's what I'm doing. I'm looking for safety.

what happens during a Reiki session?

In an in-person Reiki session, you lie on your back on a massage table (fully clothed, by the way) and the Reiki person spends an hour or so letting their hands rest on or near various parts of your body: forehead, shoulders, hips, knees, feet ..

If you happen to be familiar with the idea of chakras (I'm not so much), I believe the positions align with the major (and some minor) chakras somehow.

In a distant session - meaning a session where the Reiki person isn't in the room with you, which is what I offer - you sit or lie down in a comfortable position at a scheduled time and pay attention to your body.

At the same time, the Reiki person does a session for you, from wherever they are located. You're not in the room with them obviously, so what they are actually doing is focusing their intent on you.

The way I do that is to sit on my meditation cushion, cup my hands loosely together, and imagine that you are in between my hands. (There are other ways to do it; that just happens to be the way that works for me.)

It sounds crazy, I know. And yet it works.

(everything) I think about Reiki

I've had all these things rolling around in my head for a while now - things I want to tell you about Reiki. On a hike with the pup this morning - where we saw a squirrel that sounded like a bird! - they gathered themselves into a single post. Let's hope it actually makes sense.

Yes. It's true. I don't understand how Reiki works.

When I started this blog, I wrote a post in which I explained Reiki. I gave the explanation I heard in class. You know how you can tell when someone is saying something that they don't really believe? Yeah. That's what I hear in my voice when I try to give that explanation.

Later, I wrote a post in which I explained Reiki again. I said that I felt the original explanation made Reiki seem confusing and inaccessible. (I still think this.) And I explained that what Reiki did for me was to help me feel safe and supported enough to start learning who I was and what I needed. (I still think this as well.)

But even in that post, I didn't come right out and say the thing I was thinking. I was afraid. I was afraid that people wouldn't want to work with a Reiki person who doesn't know how Reiki works and isn't sure she believes the reason she was taught.

But that is the truth of it. I don't know how Reiki works.

Sometimes I wish I knew how Reiki worked, but mostly I don't really care.

Maybe it works the way they say it does - that it's spiritually guided energy that comes through me and into the receiver.

Maybe it has something to do with large clusters of nerve endings or accupressure points and somehow they can be affected even without direct touch.

Maybe there are chakras or an aura and it has something to do with one or both of them.

Maybe energy really does follow thought.

Maybe there is something in Quantum Physics that explains it. I know I've read a few things that make me think, "Hey! That could totally explain how Reiki works!" (I immediately proceed to forget them which is why I am not mentioning any specifics.)

Maybe it works because the power of the mind comes into play and we cause something to happen because we are expecting something to happen.

Maybe it's one of them or all of them or none of them. I don't know.

Hows and whys aside, I believe there is something magical about creating space for things to happen.

There is something to be said for setting aside time where your focus is on you and your well-being.

There is also something to be said for knowing that - for that same period of time - someone else's focus is on you and your well-being.

Our bodies want to talk to us. They are trying to talk to us all the time.

I do believe that even the simple act of giving them a space where they know we are open to hearing from them can cause something to happen. (This is also why I am so fond of the idea of doing a series of Reiki sessions instead of a single session. It's lovely to set aside that time once. It's even more lovely and magical to set aside that time again and again.)

And yes, even if I don't know how Reiki works, I do believe that it does work.

This entire blog stemmed from me wanting to share my experiences with Reiki. Either they are direct experiences, or they are indirect experiences, in that the practice made me more mindful and aware.

In the end, I don't think you need to believe that something will work in order for it to be useful for you.

I didn't believe Reiki would work when I started and it has given me so much.

At the same time, I do think you need to be open to the idea that maybe something will happen. If you're thinking of trying something solely because you absolutely positively believe that it doesn't work and you want to prove that it doesn't, maybe it would be best to save your money and your time for something that you feel a bit more positively about.

Along with that, I don't think it really matters whether you believe that something works how people say it works in order for it to be useful for you.

The hows and whys of things are interesting, but they're not all there is. What is even more interesting is your experience with something and your feeling about whether it was useful for you.

For me, visualizations are another good example of this. I've done a few of them (like the time I tried to talk to one of my fears). I can't say that I've ever actually seen anything during a visualization, but when I have to describe what I'm "seeing" in the visualization, the words come out. I often wonder if I'm just making everything up, but the information that comes out is always useful and helpful so I decide (yet again) that it doesn't really matter whether I'm making it up or not. What matters is that I'm getting the information I need.

Just for fun, do you want to know how I really think Reiki works?

I like to think of it as a little flashlight that's going through me, shining a light into dark and dusty and dim spaces and saying, "Oh, sweetie .. you really are ok. And if you're interested, here's something you might want to look at."

Yes. Like that.

taking time for yourself

I don't know about you, but I have a hard time listening to my body. Well, I don't know if it's that I have a hard time exactly; it's that I've never really liked to do it. I've never trusted my body or the information it provides. It was my mind that was in charge; my body was just a tool for my mind to use.

My body seemed to be the most contrary thing. It wanted me to rest when I had things to do. It got hungry when I had just eaten or when I was right in the middle of something or when I just did not have time to stop and eat. It was always pointing out nagging aches and pains. It had problems that I could not get rid of - like allergies or a lack of energy.

Over the years, I learned how to ignore it. When I did listen to it, I treated it like this annoying thing that didn't really know what it wanted. "No, you're not in pain. I don't have time. No, you're not hungry. You've eaten enough. No. No. No."

I spent most of my time living in my mind. The only thing I really did that consistently took me out of my mind was trail running. That was why I loved it. Everything was quiet and all I could think about was my feet on the trails. Even then, I never really focused on how my body was feeling other than to appreciate that it could run.

After I took my first Reiki class, I started giving myself a Reiki treatment every day. Those treatments were the first time that I really took the time to sit and pay attention to myself at all. (Which is not to say that I didn't sit, just that I never paid attention.)

As I paid more and more attention, I began to realize that my body was not out to get me. In fact, it was actually more loving and supportive than my mind. While my mind was saying, "You're fat," my body was saying, "Sweetie, you're hungry; you need to eat." While my mind was saying, "You need to do/be/have more," my body was saying, "Sweetie, you're burnt out; you need to rest." While my mind was saying, "You can't do the things you want to do," my body was saying, "Sweetie, you're on the wrong road; you might want to rethink this."

When I started listening to my body, it was like finding this great new way to get information on myself. 

If you've read about my Reiki services or done a session with me, you know that I like you to treat the sessions like an experiment. I like you to set aside the hour to relax, to pay attention to yourself, and to see what you notice.

I do this because it's a very good way to evaluate something and to decide whether it's helpful or not.

I do this for other reasons as well. One of them is because it gives you the opportunity to set aside time to relax and pay attention to your body. When you do this, you're telling yourself that how you feel (physically, mentally, emotionally) is important. It is important. It's nice to do something that affirms this. And this also gives your body the chance to talk to you a little.

If Reiki isn't your thing, no worries. There are lots of other ways to do this. You can try yoga or meditation. You can dance around to music and lie quietly afterwards. You can set aside a little time and just notice what's going on with your body. All you really need is a little attention and curiosity.

what should I expect to notice during a Reiki session?

If you schedule a Reiki session with me, I want you to treat your session like an experiment. I want you to pay attention to your body and see what you notice. The noticing makes it easier to decide whether it's something that's useful for you.

One of the questions I get asked is, "What sort of things should I watch for?"

I wrote a post about the benefits of Reiki a while back and mentioned that the most common thing people experience is a really really relaxed state. This is, by the way, why I prefer distant sessions. Otherwise, you're all nice and relaxed, and then you have to get up and drive home.

Besides the relaxed feeling, you might notice physical sensations like heat or warmth or cold or tingling sensations.

If you are experiencing pain of some sort, you might notice shifts or changes in the location or intensity of the pain.

You might also hear your body talking - rumblings and gurglings in your tummy. (This one took a while for me to get used to. I'm so used to apologizing for noises that it took a while for me to be comfortable with my stomach talking during a session.)

It is also possible that you may not notice anything at a physical level during the session. This is where I'm supposed to say that the energy is always working for your highest and greatest good, even if you don't notice it. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. Regardless, I try not to say that {unless you're my sister, she says with a giggle} because I recognize that it's not terribly useful, especially if you are treating this like an experiment in order to decide if Reiki is useful.

If you don't notice anything during the session - or even if you do - I'd suggest you pay attention for the next 24-48 hours and see if you notice any other shifts: insights, changes in mood or energy level, changes in any problems you've been dealing with, release of tension ..

the benefits of Reiki

My Reiki practice is officially open for business! Yay!

One of the troubles I have with Reiki is that I can't really say, "This is how a session will benefit you .." I've talked about this problem before - that's partly why I share my experiences with it.

I did a lot of Reiki sessions during March and April and asked everyone to report back on their experience. (All distant sessions, since that is what I was planning to offer.) I thought that if I could get a good sampling of results, I might find a few commonalities that would help me give you at least some idea as to how a Reiki session might benefit you.

The one thing I did hear back from most everyone was that they felt really deeply relaxed during the session. Other than that, the experiences were as individual as the recipients.

Except, now that I think about it, they were all similar to things I've experienced myself: change or lessening of pain, physical sensations during the session, better sleep, more energy, clarity, change in mood, epiphanies ..

So, I guess I'm back to my original plan. I still can't say, "This is how a session will benefit you .." All I can do is share my - and others' - experiences with Reiki.

the never-ending story of cat allergies

One of the things that Reiki is helping me with is my cat allergies. I am not really around cats all that much so I don't have a lot of opportunities to see how things are progressing. (Truthfully, I am still not all that comfortable around cats, so I also don't look for opportunities.) But, I spent about three hours at my parents' house on Saturday night where my youngest sister - and her cat - live.

The way it used to work is that within seconds, unless I was on steroids, my airway would start to close and I would find it harder and harder to breathe. On Saturday, for those three hours, I was fine. Of course, I was quite pleased with this. In fact, I may or may not have periodically poked my sister and whispered, "See .. no symptoms!"

I had to wake up really early on Sunday morning to catch a flight. When my alarm rang, I noticed that my breathing was shallow; apparently I was having a delayed reaction. I spent about 30 minutes giving myself a Reiki treatment and doing a round of Body Chemistry (a BodyTalk thing), coughed for a while, and then felt much better.

On the way to the airport, however, I was overcome with disappointment and frustration. It feels like I've been working on these allergies for ages - and I get so optimistic that they are finally gone for good - and then I find out that they're not. I can't even appreciate that they've improved because what I really want is for them to be gone completely. Anything less is unacceptable. (I would like to actually stay with my sister, instead of staying at a hotel.)

As I was expressing all of this, two things occurred to me.

First, when I am around cats, I am hyper-aware of my breathing and how I am feeling. I cannot turn that awareness off. I am not sure this focus is helping me. The thing that I think would help a great deal would be if I could totally forget about my allergies. Realistically, I don't know if this will ever happen. Maybe if my symptoms were things like sneezing or a runny nose. But not being able to breathe is a horrible and scary thing. I remember it well.

Second, I do have something that helps me. It's not quite as bad as the prednisone I used to take (which I hated because while I could mostly breathe, I felt awful and generally not like myself). It's rather expensive without insurance, and it's definitely not natural and holistic, but it does help. The trouble is that it doesn't work unless I start taking it before I'm around cats. And since I cannot track my progress if I am on it, I don't like to take it until I am at the point where I really need help, at which point it's too late. Plus, I am stubborn, and am stubbornly convinced that I can do this my way.

My allergies have improved to the point that I no longer have to worry that I'll go to someone's house and find out they have a cat and then I won't be able to breathe. If it turns out they have a cat, I am generally fine for a few hours or even the day. So, there are only two places I visit that I really run into problems: my sister's house (she has three cats and I have a history of not being able to breathe there) and my parent's house (the one cat and again, the history). And, because I do not like to take the thing that helps because I want to see how I am improving, it means that I can never really completely relax and enjoy my visits to those places. It's hard to relax when I am constantly monitoring my progress and watching for slight changes.

It seems to me that the kindest thing to do would be to take the thing that helps me before I visit either of them. I may never really know whether my allergies are gone completely. And I may never be able to sleep in either house overnight. But I am not sure that putting myself in hyper-aware mode just to test my theories is really being kind to myself. And getting upset at myself for being disappointed and frustrated and feeling like I must be doing something wrong if they're not yet gone - is most definitely not.

a free nail trim

It occurs to me that you haven't heard the funniest benefit of my experience with reiki.

When I was little, I chewed my nails. All. The. Time. People would offer me money to quit. I couldn't. I remember my grandparents offering me some large (to little me) sum. I still couldn't quit. A while after that offer, I suddenly stopped, without any effort whatsoever.

Except I didn't really stop. Instead, I started chewing my nails in my sleep. (Yes, in my sleep. I know. How odd.) And how on earth do you stop something that you are not even awake when you are doing, I ask you.

Well, I tried everything. Gloves. Tape. That gross-tasting stuff. Nothing worked. I finally gave up trying and resigned myself to a life of nail-biting.

A while after I started practicing reiki, I noticed that my nails were growing. And growing. And growing. I had to cut them. (A miracle! The only thing I used my nail clippers for prior to this was to try to fix my nails the morning after a round of nibbling.) Then, I had to cut them again. Then again.

Now, there is really only one time that I still chew them. If I look at them and think, "Wow, they're getting really long. I should cut them.", and I don't, I'll wake up the next morning with a few of them gone. It's as if part of me is saying, "Here, let me help you with that."

I suspect that the reason I was chewing them all those years was likely related to anxiety and stress. And that since I was very out-of-touch with my emotions and thought I had no stress, nail biting happened to be the way my body attempted to deal with it. So it makes sense that practicing reiki - which has helped me get in touch with my body and emotions and relieved anxiety and stress in general - would change things.

But it still makes me chuckle that I chewed my nails in my sleep. I mean, in my sleep? Seriously.

happiness is

I still haven't gotten around to writing down all the things that have changed for me since I started practicing reiki. But I was driving home from work one day and it occurred to me, as it often does now, how very happy I am. It's not a loud, boisterous, "OMG, I am so happy" kind of happiness; it's a quiet inner sense that all is right with the world. Aside from the cat allergies, which I have talked about ad nauseum, and the issues resulting from a childhood burn, that might be the biggest change.

The funny thing is, I always thought I was a happy person. (And most people that know me think that I am always happy.) As it turns out, what I was was cheerful and generally optimistic - and that is not always the same thing. I was also very disconnected from my feelings, especially feelings that are not considered positive, and very good at hiding those feelings from others. Under the surface, there was a strong current of unhappiness.

Looking back now, I recognize all the periods when my unhappiness overwhelmed me. When I was in one, however, I thought I was just career minded or lazy or anti-social. I can also see how those periods kept getting longer and longer. The longest one lasted over a year - up until I moved to Oregon. They didn't go away once I moved, but they were much shorter in duration, which I think is partly due to how much I love it here and how at home I felt immediately. (Hence the reason I will never argue that a change of scenery is no help at all because you always take yourself with you. It may be true to some degree but, in my case, it certainly helped.)

Anyway, all of this is not to say that I never get sad or worried or anxious or unhappy. Goodness knows I do. But underneath it all, I really am happy.

a goodbye, or a hello

{I fear this post may be long. You have been warned.}

When I tried reiki, I did so out of curiosity. Some people may want to try it for that reason. Some people may want to know how it can help them in order to decide if they want to try it.

The thing I have learned about reiki is that I can't direct it. It goes where it is needed and helps you figure out what you need most. I have no idea what that is. You may or may not have an idea. In other words, I can't say, "This is what it will do for you."

Since I can't give you specifics, what I'd like to do instead is share experiences and stories that will give you insight into the kind of things it might help with. At some point, I will try to share other people's experiences and stories. For now, I will share mine. Actually, almost everything I have written about thus far is related to my experience with reiki.

But - to be specific - here is one story about my experience with reiki.

When I was six years old, I had boiling water accidentally poured on me in the sauna and I spent a long time in the burn unit in Ann Arbor.

After that, saunas were not happy places. Except I grew up in northern Michigan. The land of the Finnish. Saunas were a staple. Every Saturday, we'd visit my grandparents for a sauna. Every Saturday, I'd sit huddled in a corner of the sauna, staring at the stove and hot water barrel, watching and waiting for something bad to happen. I never felt safe until I was back in the dressing room. But I could never tell anyone how scared I was.

Later, my friends had saunas, and they were hard to avoid. Especially since things like baking in the sauna + jumping into a freezing cold lake were supposed to be fun. I pretended they were. 

In the beginning, I tried not to think about it at all. I certainly couldn't talk about it. As time went on, I figured that it happened in the past and I certainly should be over it already. I mean, it was a long time ago. And it could have been worse. And there were people starving.

Then, I discovered reiki, and started giving myself reiki treatments every night. Slowly but surely, all of this mess came to the surface. All the pain and fear and guilt that I had spent 25 years trying to ignore was suddenly right there, staring me in the face. It was like this gigantic knot that was tangled up with every single thing in my life. To say that facing it wasn't fun would be an understatement. It felt more like I was falling apart and I had no idea what to do.

So I did the only thing I could - I kept giving myself reiki treatments. Sometimes I would go and get one from someone else. I had lots of crazy experiences during reiki treatments. Once, I felt a wave of intense heat everywhere the water hit; that was neat. I cried. A lot. (I got used to crying in public.) I saw a few people for various alternative-y treatments. They would ask how I felt about the accident. I would tell them. It got easier to talk about it. I had insight after insight. The fear and guilt began to dissipate. Slowly, the knot began to unravel.

For much of the time, it felt like I was falling apart. But the thing I started to notice was that every time something hurt, it would hurt for seconds, sometimes minutes, and then it would end. It felt clean. Healing. And afterwards, always, I felt lighter. More free.

It's been a year and a half, I think, and things are much better. The fear, at least, is gone. I ended up trying a sound healing which was amazing and helped the last bit of it leave. The knot is not completely unraveled - maybe it never will be. And you know, that's really ok.

It's funny .. all those years, I wished that the accident had never happened. That I was me, but without the memories and the scar. But it did happen. It's part of me. It shaped me. And now that I am on the other side, I am profoundly grateful that it did happen. I can't even be sorry that I spent all those years discounting the validity of my feelings. Painful as this healing experience was, I learned so much about myself in the process.

In the end, it is this experience that - more than any other - taught me that whether I understand how this energy thing works or not, there is something to it. When I say that I believe it works because I have seen what it has done for me, this is mostly what I am thinking about.