I looked in the mirror today. I saw it. The thing I notice on everybody else but hope nobody will see on me: that little stripe of grey at the roots of my hair.
I color it. I started when I was twenty-eight. When the stray grey hairs came in, I threw in blonde highlights. Now it has gotten to the point where I have to do something about it every three weeks. I used to go to the hair place when I worked part-time. Now I put the stuff in my hair because of my schedule at work.
We are going through a change every day we wake up. Although the gift of days in a lifetime are generous, the fact is that we are never going to live the same day twice. It is over. Completely.
This is a good thing of sorts: we get the chance to try again at our lessons.
This is a bad thing too: our children grow up, and we decline. I have already hit the age where I need my reading glasses to see.
What does Reiki say about the maladies of aging and the progression of time? Nothing. Reiki comes from a society where age is highly valued, an honor. But with many patients I work with in the O.R., I have noticed a trend psychologically that is reflected by the chakras and energetic system I thought I should write about--about being ready to let go of life itself entirely.
A great many people are 'done with their lives' but are afraid to say goodbye to their relatives. That's when the disease comes in. It gives them a rational 'way out' that helps prepare the family for their impending death. Who gets it? Well, across my last few weeks, there was the dialysis access patient who said, 'I don't care' to just about every question. 'Just get me out of here this hospital'. There was an inoperable tumor that was sent to radiation oncology that was sent back to surgery 'because it was too dangerous'. There was the ninety year old patient with dementia and a GI bleed to check out. The energetic systems were unbalanced severely in all those cases. I did my best to balance them, but they did not respond that well. And I made sure to get the transition symbol in just in case. These folks had made up their mind on what would happen. There was not much room to move anything around.
But the kindness that I showed on them was not lost. Nor the healing. Being able to help one get the most out of the end, for patient and family, is what Reiki does that palliative medicine can't. Palliative treats more than most other areas of medicine when the 'whole patient' is involved, and the whole patient-family unit. But Reiki targets specific areas of thought, and can balance individually where the palliative care 'blanket treatment' approach can not.
The other thing to write about today is the concept of our own mortality. Decay and death. That's the option for us all, except the decay part can be short-circuited. I always thought I would allow myself to let nature take its course. But when it happened, I fought it. I fought the hair greying. I fought wearing glasses until there was no choice. I did not welcome age.
Why? Because I was not done yet. I wanted to remarry, and have another child in love and joy, not sadness like a single parent I did before. I wanted to 'do it right'. I wanted to be a camp counselor, and ride horses and take gymnastics. The things I once did but I can't now make quite a list. I never said goodbye to those things. I was not ready to give them up.
Once of the most shocking things in my career, which has spanned decades, is that the nurses I trained with, started showing signs of age. I saw it in them first before I saw it in myself. The young ones started to look like the older ones. Wrinkles. Weight. Glasses. More tired and grumpy...
Reiki is a good thing for that. It hooks you up to Source. I tell myself I can appear any age I want to. I am losing weight on purpose. And I have more energy than I did before. I am in tune with my body and I listen to it when making choices about my diet or activity or thought.
Think about the years you would drop by omitting negative thoughts! Think about what harmony and peace from within will do to your wrinkles! Think about your ability to interact with others with grace and warmth? Isn't that the kind of old person you would like to be?
Now is the time. It doesn't matter what your age is, inside or out. The best defense against old age is not aesthetic surgery. The best defense is in the mind and in the heart. Lift it through Reiki today.
Meditate. Find your Purpose. And help spread Source wherever you are at. Find Beauty in all Life.
Namaste,
Reiki Doc
