Energetic Band Aids
Healing Touch and Reiki used as go to tools in the family first aid kit By Corey Radman
The phone rang one afternoon, and when Lauri Pointer answered, she heard the stricken voice of a mother whose son had broken an arm while skiing. From the top of a mountain, Jackie, the mom, wanted Pointer’s advice. “What would you do for him?” she asked.
Jackie had taken Pointer’s introductory Healing Touch Class, Add a Little Energy Medicine to Your First Aid Kit. She knew the answer to her own question, but needed a reminder and a little moral support. After treating her son, his pain lessened, he relaxed and was able to trek to the hospital to have his arm set.
Healing Touch is a biofield (magnetic field around the body) therapy that uses universal energy to balance and align a person’s energy system. Using light touch or off body touch, the therapy works with the body’s natural ability to heal by unblocking areas that aren’t flowing.
“Letting my body act as a vessel, I flow universal love or life force energy to my clients,” explains Pointer, who is in her 14th year as a Healing Touch Certified Practitioner and is also a Certified Instructor. Lauri is a charter member of Healing Touch Professional Association and works full time as Healing Touch practitioner, trainer and Journaling instructor.
According to the Healing Touch Program’s national website:
Healing Touch uses the gift of touch to influence the human energy system, specifically the energy field that surrounds the body, and the energy centers that control the flow from the energy field to the physical body. These non-invasive techniques employ the hands to clear, energize, and balance the human and environmental energy fields, thus affecting physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. It is based on a heart-centered, caring relationship in which the practitioner and client come together energetically to facilitate the client's health and healing.
The broken arm is a powerful example of Healing Touch at its best. The therapy integrates with western medicine to heal the whole patient.
“Don’t ditch your physician,” Pointer says, “but with Healing Touch you can certainly cut down on visits to the doctor.”
So often, pain or infection manifests first in the body’s energy field. If a blockage of energy is addressed then, before it pops up as an ear infection or a headache, often, says Pointer, the problem will resolve – no need for antibiotics or appointments.
“Our bodies are phenomenal communicators. When something is out of equilibrium, the field needs to be balanced and strengthened.” Pointer uses her hands to lightly touch or hover over the chakras that regulate the problem area. Universal energy flows to the patient, often with a sensation of warmth or tingling, which can sort out the tangles.
Lauri notes that energetic healing can address many concerns that western medicine can’t, or can speed the recovery for surgery or cancer treatment. Research using Healing Touch has been conducted by hospitals around everything from cancer to chronic pain, psychology to post operative recovery. The growing body of research indicates that there is support in the medical community for integrating Healing Touch into the curative process ... that it is helpful to patients.
Healing Touch founder, Janet Mentken RN BSN, envisioned that the therapy could be used not just in every hospital, but also every school, child care center and home. It’s a healing tool that is accessible to everyone and works in many situations. “Of course, you want a doctor to set your broken bones,” says Pointer, “but [energy therapy] can head off so many other kinds of problems: sinus congestion, insomnia, constipation, menstrual cramps, toothaches ... It’s a tool for 2 a.m.”
Pointer continues that having the ability to do something when your family members are in pain is empowering, which is why she became a certified trainer for the program. Pointer now travels nationally to train all the Level 2 instructors for Healing Touch Program.
“I think most humans should take at least one Healing Touch class,” says Pointer. Her website lists her regular schedule of classes, including the introductory Healing Touch class.
We all find ourselves in situations when we wish we could take away someone’s pain – especially as a parent. When our kids fall down, our hugs and gentle caresses serve as a sort of energy therapy channeling love and peace to soothe the hurt. Taking a class to further those skills is a good idea.
Healing Touch is one modality that accesses universal energy, but there are other methods that dip into the same life force bucket. Angela Grisham is a Reiki and Jin Shin practitioner who also offers training classes for interested people.
“I was working in a holistic medical office as an LPN and started noticing the different methods people were using for treatment, and became curious,” Grisham says. A few incredible Reiki sessions led to a training class and then to more training. Now, five years later, she says she is her family’s Band-Aid and loves working with people who want treatment or to learn Reiki themselves.
Her practice is part time and is open to anyone who requests services (via her website), however she specializes in Reiki for veterans to whom she offers free sessions. Grisham also provides Reiki through the Life Spark program to cancer patients at Longmont United Hospital.
“Reiki changed my life,” Grisham positively glows as she explains. “As I practiced and learned, I could feel myself changing. My actions were more logical; I could see another side to difficult situations. I could feel more of a connection to God.”
Angela explains that giving a session is a lot like receiving one. Flowing energy all day is a wonderful, meditative realm to be in. Lauri Pointer agrees with Angela. “In some ways, it’s the world’s best job,” says Lauri.
Reiki is different from Healing Touch in its training process, as well as the means by which the energy is accessed. Healing Touch curriculum is standardized; Reiki classes are conducted differently with each instructor. At the end of a Reiki class, pupils are invited to participate in an Attunement process through which ancient Sanskrit symbols are placed in the body. These symbols are what Reiki practitioners call upon to enliven a patient’s chakras as they prepare to flow energy.
Literally translated, Rei means ghost and Ki means vapor. However, this Japanese word has many layers of meaning. Many people equate Rei to God or their higher power. Ki is the same as the more familiar Chinese Qi, meaning the energy that flows through all life.
According to Reiki.org: “Reiki can be defined as a non-physical healing energy made up of life force energy that is guided by the Higher Intelligence, or spiritually guided life force energy.”
“The great value of Reiki,” says William Rand, Founder of the International Center for Reiki Training, “is that because it is guided by the Higher Intelligence, it knows exactly where to go and how to respond to restrictions in the flow of Ki ... As Reiki flows through a sick or unhealthy area, it breaks up and washes away any negative thoughts or feelings lodged in the unconscious mind/body thus allowing a normal healthy flow of Ki to resume. As this happens, the unhealthy physical organs and tissues become properly nourished with Ki and begin functioning in a balanced healthy way thus replacing illness with health.”
Angela says, “Especially for moms, Reiki is so important. The ability to help your children is huge. But Reiki also gives us tools to help ourselves with everyday stress. I know how hard it is to be at home with kids. I tell my moms, ‘Hide in the closet if you have to and meditate. Work on yourself.’”
Her philosophy is that energy healing, however you access it, is a means to heal yourself and your loved ones. “It’s a gift,” she says. “I love to see my clients emerge from their pain or their emotional strain over the course of our sessions, but even more I love to give them the tools to work on themselves ... so they can have that energy and feel empowered.”
Angela explains in her classes how traditional chakras - energetic force centers in the body - line up exactly with the body’s endocrine system. When Grisham held up those two diagrams, her student, Sondra Lee, had an “Ah ha!” moment. “It kind of proved to me that there is a shared foundation between Eastern medicine and what we tend to do in Western medicine,” says Lee. Since Grisham’s trainings one year ago, Lee has been practicing Reiki on her family members, friends and acquaintances.
Lee is exactly the reason Angela Grisham conducts Reiki classes. The training gave validity to what she had observed throughout her life, that intentional loving touch applied through the hands can make people feel better.
Lee elaborates that, “Our bodies have the ability to heal themselves. There are things we can do to make symptoms go away, like taking a Tylenol, but the body has to make actual physiologic changes to prevent further headaches.”
Reiki is a tool that can do just that.
Corey Radman is a freelance writer living in Fort Collins. Her passion for story threads its way through all her work, which has been published at Style Magazine, Northern Colorado Medical & Wellness, Get Born Magazine, The Mom Egg and in the 2010 Write for Charity Anthology. She can be contacted via her website at www.fortcollinswriter.com.