Why Reiki in Hospitals?

I’ve been providing Reiki on the wards of the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital for two years now. It hasn’t always been easy, but it is by far one of the most rewarding thing I have ever done, and a continuous privilege to spend time with the children, families and medical staff I meet there.

Sometimes a practice like Reiki on hospital wards can raise controversy: why is this ‘unscientific’ practice being allowed in a medical environment? But I have come to learn that sometimes Reiki can be the secret ingredient make a positive difference that, though not easily measured, is definitely palpable to those who experience and witness it.

I heard a quote in an interview with a neuroscientist who experienced a severe stroke and was in hospital for many months afterwards, Jill Bolte Taylor, she said:

“I learned real quick that all I was, was energy and I didn’t have much of it left ….. and I needed my people, whether it’s nurses and doctors or family or colleagues, I needed them to come in and not be demanding of me but to bring me love, to bring me energy, to bring me support, to look me in the eye, to be compassionate with me, to be respectful of me and I needed them to help fuel me and refill me so that I could have some type of connection and interaction because it took so much effort for me to try, just try to make a connection.

I got shivers when I heard that, because I realised that this is exactly what Reiki gives in spades.  This is of coure in combination with the loving energy a patient receives from all the wonderful doctors, nurses, parents and relatives that surround them. But as Reiki practitioners, we enter a very intimate environment but are at the same time apart from the situation, so are able to apply that energy without distress, without anxiety and this can make a huge difference to the person receiving it.

And it’s not only the children that need that input.  Johnny Depp talked recently described when his daughter was seriously ill in hospital: “I spent time in Great Ormond Street, where I was the parent when my daughter was ill. I’ve known darkness in my life but that was the darkest period ever. The kids, bless them, you know they’re so strong, so courageous, but the parents are the ones who are slowly dying.”

Supporting the parents while their child is seriously ill is vital. They need nurture and support so that they can nurture and support their child in turn. This week I treated a child, then their father and then their mother in the room they were staying in at the hospital. By the end of the sessions, the room was a little den of soothed energy and relaxation, when before the tension and anxiety natural to a situation like that had been palpable.

Working as a Reiki practitioner somewhere like the High Dependency Unit at a children’s hospital is not easy. I had to take a break this year after learning that a child I had treated shortly beforehand passed away. It affected me so deeply I found it difficult to return for a few weeks. But this gave me time to strengthen my Reiki practice, reconnect with my Reiki master, Tripuri Dunne and receive a Reiki blessing from her whilst I re-attended my Reiki 1 as a refresher course.

I also began again to self-treat regularly and during a short period of illness could feel how much support the Reiki gave me, and how I was literally soaking it up; it fed me when I was depleted. A Reiki session I received during that time completely backed this up: when you are ill, or afraid, or strung out, Reiki will soothe, fill in the gaps and nurture us from the inside out.  I began to find my confidence again. And in this way I got back to basics and started again, and I believe my practice has been deepened and strengthened from the experience and the willingness to ask for help and guidance when I needed it, and receive it.

We all need courage to face these difficult periods, but something like Reiki in a hospital environment can provide a welcome blanket of soothing and comforting energy when it is needed most. Often parents and children are wordlessly crying out for something, and sometimes Reiki is that something that can allow a baby to go to sleep, when moments before it was crying and anxious. Or it can provide a brief window when the parents allow themselves to close their eyes and relax for 10 or 15 minutes whilst they receive a rare moment of nurturing themselves, before going back to being on almost permanent vigil for their seriously ill child.

Reiki might mistakenly be seen simply as a way of providing relaxation and often we do find children drift off very quickly to sleep once we begin our sessions with them on the wards. But this relaxation has a deeper, much more vital function other than psychological rest; our bodies can only begin to heal themselves once when we feel safe and are able to begin to relax.  As Dr Lisa Rankin who wrote: Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself, says, “Your natural self-repair mechanisms only operate when your nervous system is in the relaxation response.”

So whenever I have wonder what really Reiki does and if it works as I hope it does for the children and parents we treat, I am reminded and reassured, not only by what I see on the wards every week or by what happens to me when I receive Reiki in times of need, but also by the accounts of parents and patients who describe a need for exactly this type of ‘magic’ we provide, that is sometimes, just what the doctor ordered.