What Reiki can do

Today while I was out for a run, I was trying to decide what I wanted to write about on my blog tonight. All of the sudden, I found myself thinking about a man I used to know named Dave. I wondered why my mind had wandered there since I haven't seen him or spoken to him in several years. When I went back to trying to figure out what I wanted to write in my blog, Dave popped into my head again. I considered that maybe it was a sign I should write about him.

I met Dave many years ago when I was volunteering at some Reiki healing services that were held a couple times a month at a church in San Jose. They were opened to anyone who wanted to receive a Reiki treatment and Dave was there almost every time.

He was an older gentleman, a very gentle, soft spoken man. He suffered from tremors that made me think he had Parkinson's disease, although I never asked him. I remember when I first met him, the tremors were mostly in his hands, but as time went on, the tremors affected his jaw and eventually his legs as well. He said he felt tired all the time because he wasn't able to get restful sleep, as the tremors kept him from truly relaxing.

It was the experience of seeing Dave at these healing services that showed me what Reiki could do. When he first got on the massage table for a treatment, his tremors were so severe the table would shake but about 15-20 minutes into the treatment, the tremors would stop completely. I was always fascinated by the fact that the energy could do that. It wasn't uncommon for Dave to fall asleep during the reiki treatments. Once the tremors stopped, he was able to really relax and he would often fall into a deep sleep. When that happened, no one wanted to wake him up because he was sleeping so peacefully. It was a beautiful thing to see.

Dave told us that the only time he ever got a break from the tremors was during a reiki treatment and the relief usually continued through the rest of the night and sometimes into the next day. It was what kept him coming back week after week.

I remember early on feeling a little disappointed that the energy couldn't help his tremors go away completely but Dave had a much more positive outlook on it. He was just happy to have any break from the tremors at all, so that was what he focused on . . . the night of peacefulness he was able to experience every couple of weeks.

It was a good lesson for me, to understand that the energy will do whatever it can. Sometimes it can't do everything we'd like it to, but I do trust that the energy will do what it is meant to do. For Dave, it gave him a respite from the tremors, and that was something he was incredibly grateful for.

We may not always know or be able to see what the energy is doing. It could be addressing issues we aren't even aware we have. It could also address the issues we are hoping it will. I learned that it is best to always keep an opened mind and maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised.