On Thursdays, I volunteer at the chemo unit of a local hospital, giving Reiki to patients, their families, and staff members. I’m usually there for about three hours, and I usually treat four to six people. Today, I hustled out the door to be sure to get there in time for the arrival of a particular patient I’d made arrangements with last week, but alas, her appointment had been cancelled. No worries: the blank space in my schedule was quickly filled by one of the oncology nurses whom I’ve been trying to get my hands on for over a month now. She’s usually too harried to sit still for ten minutes, but today, lucky us, we had a whole half hour to play with. Zzzzzzt – sinus headache?
Gone!
The way the scheduling works at the hospital is that the patients often get slotted into a given day (or days) of the week, so that I see the same folks over and over. Every so often someone new shows up. Sometimes, the new ones are immediately eager to try Reiki, but occasionally I get folks who need to be eased into it. They take a couple of weeks to dip a toe into the waters. Today, one new guy offered up that yeah, he’d heard of Reiki, because his wife – sitting right next to him – was attuned to Reiki some thirteen years ago, and her certificate is within sight of his nightstand. “He won’t let me touch him,” the wife said. Then, when she sheepishly admitted that she does not give herself Reiki every day – which is, if not a cardinal rule, at least a Highly Recommended thing to do – I yelled at her. OK, I didn’t yell. But I did wag my finger at her and warn her that in two weeks, at their next appointment at the hospital, I’d be checking in on her.
Tough love, that’s me.
When I received my Level 2 attunement a few years ago, I learned a technique in which it’s possible to place affirmations directly into the client’s subconscious. I place one hand on the client’s forehead, and the other on the back of their head under their occipital lobe, do some Reiki magic that I won’t bore you with here, and start concentrating on the affirmation.
Lately, I’ve taken to incorporating this technique into most of my work with patients at the hospital. And I have found that when I do this, my whole body gets super hot, to the point of whole-body-sweating. This tells me that not only is the person I’m working on very open to absorbing the positive affirmations, but that my own body is really open to the Reiki as well. Having become a Reiki Master last fall amped up my capacity, too, no doubt. Another nurse, whom I’ve treated a few times, told me that when she receives Reiki from me, it feels different and more powerful than when she receives it from others, and she believes it’s because I’ve received the Master attunement.
I mention all this because when you give someone Reiki, you receive the benefit of it yourself. It’s like some of it sticks to you on its way through your body. And today was a good day for me to have channeled all that juicy love, because as soon as I finished up at that hospital, I headed to another hospital, closer to home, for a (gulp) follow-up mammogram.
I’d gone in for my annual check-up last week, and got a call early this week saying that “additional diagnostic evaluation” would be needed – not a biopsy, but additional magnified shots. This has been weighing on me all week.
Wanna hear how it went? Let’s just say, I’m surprised that my boob is still boob-shaped after all the squashing that took place. Whoops! Did I just write all that out loud? You were expecting some nature photography, weren’t you? Sorry!
We’re all about boobs today, AND, there will be no pictures. Sorry. At any rate, all is well, I am told. It looks like I have “microcalcification”, which is when wee, tiny sand-size specks of calcium show up. In my case, in a very awkward location really close to my chest wall, which meant that about half my torso clear through into my spine was wedged up into the machine. Ladies, you know what I’m talking about. Usually, these bits of calcium don’t mean a thing, but you have to keep an eye on them in case they start plotting the overthrow of the free world, starting with your boob. First, Sarah’s right boob, and then, Poland. In my case, I don’t have to do anything other than show up next year at my regularly appointed time.
By the time I got home, I really, really, really wanted to dive head first into “Clash of Kings” (epic fantasy novel) on the Kindle and possibly consume my weight in strawberry rhubarb pie, but I managed to go for a run. And what gave me such awesome discipline and self-control? Is it because I’m a super-duper Reiki Master, able to cause people to either fall asleep or spontaneously combust at the touch of my Magic Reiki Hands? Um, no. It’s because of that half marathon I signed up for. My last long run before the race itself is on Sunday, only I can’t run it on Sunday because I’m going to Connecticut for my cousin’s baby shower, so I’m running it on Saturday, except for wait, I have choir practice on Saturday morning, so I’m running it on Saturday afternoon, so maybe I want to run it on Monday? No wait, should I run it tomorrow? Oh Help! No, I’m not stressed about the race at all, who me? stressed? no way. I’m a Reiki Master. I don’t do stress.
Hah hah hah hah hah hah hah!
It was a perfectly fine run.
I’ll do the long run on Saturday afternoon.
Now, where’s that pie?
