MANILA, Philippines—My story of healing happened after a series of disappointments in my personal and professional life. I joined spiritual retreats, awareness seminars, yoga classes, tai chi and meditation. All of these eventually led me to a method of healing called reiki.

Reiki is the specific healing method I use. It is healing with touch. Reiki was founded by Dr. Mikao Usuki in Japan. Reiki enables you to tap into the universal life form or energy. The healer becomes a conduit between the universal healing energy and the patient.

I liken it to an electrical appliance, where electricity is the universal life force, the patient the electrical appliance and the healer is the electrical outlet.

Reiki healers are merely just that, outlets. They channel God’s energy. This universal healing energy is then transferred to the recipient’s energy centers or chakras through the healer.

There is no magical talent here. Tapping into the universal life force is something all of us can do, including a child.

However, with reiki we need the assistance of a reiki teacher who attunes you, the healer, with the universal life force. My teacher simply likened this to a radio, wherein her role was to “attune” my frequency so that I could tap into the universal frequency.

And such is the beauty of reiki. You start by healing yourself. Reiki is something that is available to everyone. I always encourage people who want to be healed to take it up themselves. Your body and soul has it within itself to heal.

Exercise

Let us first try this exercise. Feel your body and remember that feeling. Think of a situation, a person or anything that causes you to be angry, agitated or uncomfortable. Your body will begin to react to this thought, with either a slight twitch, a stomach cramp, emptiness in the solar plexus area, even a flutter of the heart.

That feeling is a feeling of dis-ease or dis-stress in your body. That is exactly how stress begins and develops. When you feel discomfort, pain or any dis-stress, your body is alerting you so that you can fix the problem right away before it escalates into a full-blown disease.

Healing is not just about ailments; it is also about emotions. When these emotions are suppressed, the body’s energy field is affected and the result is a dis-ease.

The first step towards healing is meditation. You can develop a center and awareness of body and soul. It helps determine the issues you are facing. It also makes you very sensitive to what is going on in your body.

You must recognize what is causing the discomfort, that sense of being ill at ease with oneself and one’s body. Everyone needs to go through healing as a form of awareness and cleansing. When the body’s energy is healthy, our bodies and souls are healthy as well.

Cancer

But what about cancer, what about those born with a congenital defect, what about a lot of other things? Again, I’m a novice at this, but at the same time it is my understanding that there are those who do not get better because of several reasons, some of which could be:

A) One is either born with the disease or acquire the disease later as part of his or her soul’s purpose; B) They have not addressed issues in their lives that are causing the disease in the first place; or C) The disease has a purpose, such as bringing a family closer together. It could be that because a mother is ill, the family members learn to forgive each other.

In this scenario the appearance of the disease is what will heal the family. There are many reasons, but through meditation and prayer you will have a better understanding of all this.

Herbs and flowers also have tremendous healing qualities, and there are other forms of energy healing like acupuncture, acupressure and reflexology.

Movement meditation like tai chi, qi gong and yoga also have tremendous healing effects.

Make the decision and the right method will come to you. Always remember that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

I leave you now with the guiding principles of reiki written by Dr. Mikao Usuki:

Just for today, I will not worry.
Just for today, I will not get angry.
Just for today, I will be grateful.
Just for today, I will do my work honestly.
Just for today, I will be kind to all living things.