This is dad. Daddy LOVED sports. I like to think that daddy is watching me while I work with a prominent surgeon who loves sports too. Although I would like to say more about his 'prominence' I have to leave it to 'privacy' and let you infer the rest.
Like this picture, this surgeon has three daughters, just like dad did with us. And the bond between a father and his daughters is especially close.
'If you had ONE super power, what would it be?' the surgeon smiled under his mask, and asked the room. It was his daughter's writing assignment over the weekend. His daughter chose 'to fly'. He wanted 'to fly' too. His wife and a classmate had wanted 'to absorb and/or neutralize the super power of others'.
This last wish was very telling. He is Christian, conservatively so, and I could 'sense' that there was some 'hint' of 'the works of the devil' in connection with 'the super powers'. I know this all too well. At the Christian Preschool my children were at long ago, I had to sign a paper agreeing that 'Jesus is Our Superhero' and that no lunch boxes, clothing, or underwear could have any 'Superheroes' logos on it.
Clearly enjoying the question, he asked me next what superpower I wanted?
I said, 'I want the ability to see the positive in EVERYTHING and give others HOPE!', smiling inwardly, because he had no clue I was a Reiki Master, Karuna Reiki Master, and Reiki Doc (although some workers in the room are my Reiki students). Reiki is not a 'super power' but is definitely 'outside the range of normal human experience'.
He went on to say that perhaps some should wish for the ability to heal all disease? But then, he second-guessed, you would live forever...
I smiled and said, 'Well then of course you would have the ability to heal others, and then you would all live forever together, would you not?'
He smiled and agreed.
Then Spirit nudged me.
'I have heard that there are some healers out there, with Reiki, that can heal a cut when it happens just by placing their hand on it.'
'No, it must just do hemostasis!' he countered, bovie-ing away with electrocautery in the patient's wound.
'No. It reverses it completely. Like it never happened. It works for cuts, bruises, and burns in the kitchen.'
'What is this Reiki?'
I shared about Integrative Medicine, and that Reiki is on the forefront of this movement. Like Acupuncture, it facilitates the body to heal itself. 'It is like a YOGA thing' I chided, lovingly, with my heart. 'YOGA people are AWESOME!' making sure he felt the LOVE that was behind the Truth of this statement.
He took the bait. 'Tell me, where did this Reiki come from?'
'Master Usui was a professor at a Christian University in Japan. In Japan, there is an 'honor' between student and teacher. When student asks, teacher has to know. And if teacher does not know the answer, teacher has to look. Students asked Usui 'How did Jesus heal the body in the miracles described in the Bible?' So Master Usui set about to look. It took many years, learning ancient languages, reading the original papers--Tibetan Buddhist, Hebrew, something like that. And he gave up. He went on a buddhist retreat in silence and fasting for many days. At the end of his rope, he went up to the sacred waterfalls on Mount Kuyama (spelling?). Then down came Reiki. He went into the streets of his town, healing the homeless who were outcasts for free for seven years. But then, guess what? He started to see 'repeats'--healed homeless who grew tired of the responsibility of wife and job and family, and came back to the streets. It was then he realized how people have to desire healing, and to create an energy exchange between the healer and the client. He began to teach Reiki, and that is how we have it today.'
'Well, what is the difference between this 'Reiki' and something else?' he pondered aloud.
"You know sourdough bread? How it takes a little starter dough to make it rise? Reiki must come to you from someone who is already doing it, and is trained to help you start. It opens up the channels of energy in the body that were once asleep, much in the way acupuncture accesses the healing meridians channels of energy that are in the body. Did you know in China they can do heart surgery using no anesthesia but acupuncture alone? It takes weeks to train the patient to learn how to breathe with an open chest, but it works. That and cesarean sections with only acupuncture for anesthesia too. Clearly it is working! I figure with acupuncture, although it is hard to measure the fine energy of the healing because there is not enough technical advance in equipment yet, there is such a large 'n' in trial patients--all of China!--that it is proven to work. Memorial Sloan-Kettering, MD Anderson, Kansas University...all of these places have a Department of Integrative Medicine in them.'
'You know my friend, he started one of those programs at Duke!'
'See, yes, Duke has one of the best ones (ed - they also have an excellent department on the paranormal)! You see, there is a problem with cancer patients these days. They perceive 'us' and 'our medicine' as focusing on Death rather than 'life'. Reiki has been shown in clinical studies to 'relax' the patient and bring quality of life. Teams of Reiki providers go into the wards and give the patients help. That is the cutting edge of science of healing at this time.'
So he absorbed it all in, thoughtfully, and said, 'Hmmmmm'.
'Hmmmm' being said by a physician is a good sign in medicine. He is pondering something new. As I see it, he walked in to this room highly religious and knowing 'what was what'. He walked out of this case with a little education, courtesy of me, humble and caring, Reiki Doc.
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A nurse in the room at the time had shared that she 'had Reiki once'. She went to 'some place in Anaheim'. Her friend had been 'learning' and 'she had to make it stop because she felt like her head was going to blow off' during her treatment.
As we rolled the patient out to PACU, she asked me, 'Where can I get some more of this Reiki?'
'From me.'
'What? How?'
'I teach.'
'What? Was this something you did back in college?'
'No. Something more recent, since after I was a doctor. I wanted to learn more how to best heal my patients. I think next time Reiki will be a better experience for you.'
She opened her mouth and closed it, not knowing what to say. Then it was time to give report to the RN in PACU as we had just rolled the patient in to their bay.
Namaste,
Reiki Doc