As someone who practices both Yoga and Reiki, I also have an interest in the chakra system. As a nurse, I find it particularly meaningful in the way that the seven major chakras or energy centers in the body largely map onto the plexuses, major nerve branchings along the spine.
There is, unfortunately, a lot of drek to be found when looking for info on the chakras. I steer my Reiki students towards Anodea Judith's books. Wheels of Life is probably the best and most thorough introduction, and The Sevenfold Journey is a great workbook to go with it. I do also check out other books as I run across them and as time allows.
Most recently, I stumbled across The Inner Peace Diet. While I'm not sure I buy into all the book's claims, it does have some excellent-looking recipes. I don't have the time to prepare the week-long menus the book sets out, but I do like the idea of using food as a way to bring attention to and nourish the chakras.
When I teach Reiki III for Master Practitioners, I do it a bit differently than I've seen others do. I teach it over 12 weeks, and the first 8 are spent reviewing Reiki I and II topics in more depth as well as an intensive journey through the chakras. Week one, we work with the sushumna, the column of energy running parallel to the spine and along the seven major chakras. After that, we take one chakra per week alongside some of the basic Reiki topics. One suggestion I've often made to students is to include foods during the course of that week that resonate with the chakra in question.
The easiest way to do this, especially in warmer weather, is to incorporate fruits and vegetables that are the color associated with that particular chakra. I'm teaching a Reiki III class now, and last week ended up being a lot about tomatoes and strawberries and red bell peppers, for example. This week, we've got carrots, oranges, cantaloupe, peaches, and sweet potatoes, and I may even try making the pumpkin primavera recipe from The Inner Peace Diet. There are other chakra-related recipes on the net, several of which look interesting. But when life gets busy, keeping it simple can be the best way to go.
One of the things people in the US often struggle with is getting enough fruits and vegetables into their diet. That's one reason I find my bentos helpful, as the boxes make it easier (for me anyway) to make these the primary foods in the meals I pack to bring to work or school. I do, however, get into ruts. Taking the "this week is all about [color]" approach also lends itself to branching out a bit into fruits and vegetables I don't always think to include in my diet. Like oranges. I love oranges. Why don't I eat them more often? Well, this week, there'll be a bit more of them.
Showing posts with label reiki. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reiki. Show all posts
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Monday, May 6, 2013
Reiki and Nursing
Considering that it was one of the two holistic interventions I mentioned in my last post, and probably the one people are least familiar with, I thought it would be a good idea to elaborate on Reiki as part of holistic care, whether of one's patients/residents/clients or oneself.
Reiki is generally translated as "universal life force energy." The "ki" syllable is the same as one finds in T'ai Chi or Qi Gong, though the rendering in the Western alphabet is different in each case. The healing system of Reiki was developed by Mikao Usui, and while the story not only of how he did so but of how it spread beyond Japan is highly symbolic and mythologized, even Western medicine is beginning to recognize some of its benefits. Those benefits come from tapping into the universal life force that permeates and connects everything in order to bring one's own energy into balance.
That's a bit nebulous for many of the hard-and-fast science types, understandably. It's also difficult to evaluate rigorously, because it doesn't behave like a medication, a surgical intervention, or other easily measurable approaches. You can't see it. The recipient determines whether and how much of it to tap into, in a manner that many have ideas about but no one can prove conclusively, and the effects of how they use it may be completely invisible as well. Some try to argue that because a practitioner can not reliably determine whether there is an actual recipient on the "other end" of a distance session, that this somehow disproves its efficacy. I'm fond of the counter-argument that this is like asking an aspirin whether it is aware of relieving a headache as a means of determining how effective it is.
Here are two opposing examples from my own practice. I've had occasion to use Reiki to help someone manage severe and acute pain while waiting for medication to become available, with incredibly visible and obvious results. I've also had occasion to use Reiki with someone who I could sense was pulling through vast amounts of energy whilst I was seeing no change whatsoever in condition, either in physical or visible emotional state. This person was also near end of life, so I hypothesized at the time that the individual was utilizing the energy on a spiritual level to work out whatever spiritual healing was needed in order to transition from this life, but I can never and will never know. In practice on myself, I have observed that when I perform a Reiki treatment on myself before sleeping, my quality of sleep improves vastly and that has enormous impact on my physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health.
That's all well and good for Reiki, you may say, but how does it fit in with nursing? I suppose that depends in part upon your philosophy of nursing. Mine is heavily influenced by Katie Eriksson and Margaret Newman, who both take a very holistic view of people and their care needs, including body, mind, and spirit. (Actually, my personal philosophy developed before I became aware of either of these theorists, but I find that their theories describe my nursing ideals rather well.) As such, I feel that the care I give needs to address all these aspects of a person in order to be complete. That can be rather a tall order.
Often, there is little time in the course of a shift to give the kind of holistic care one would like, but as nurses, we frequently have occasion to place our hands on our patients during various aspects of assessment and care. As mentioned above, it is the recipient who determines if and how much Reiki energy they will tap into, and while there are specific hand placements (though considerable variation exists in these), all that's really necessary at the most basic level of practice is to place one's hand(s) on or near a person for that energy to be accessible to the client. I have been surprised on more than one occasion to feel the energy "turn on" while re-positioning a client in their bed or wheelchair or listening to their lungs. While my subjective perception of this is by no means necessary for it to be of use to the client, it is reassuring for me to be able to observe that this is available to them even when it is simply not practical to offer a full, formal treatment.
So, now that I've put some of my thoughts on Reiki and nursing out there, what are yours? Are you a nurse who practices Reiki? If so, how do you incorporate it into your practice?
Reiki is generally translated as "universal life force energy." The "ki" syllable is the same as one finds in T'ai Chi or Qi Gong, though the rendering in the Western alphabet is different in each case. The healing system of Reiki was developed by Mikao Usui, and while the story not only of how he did so but of how it spread beyond Japan is highly symbolic and mythologized, even Western medicine is beginning to recognize some of its benefits. Those benefits come from tapping into the universal life force that permeates and connects everything in order to bring one's own energy into balance.
That's a bit nebulous for many of the hard-and-fast science types, understandably. It's also difficult to evaluate rigorously, because it doesn't behave like a medication, a surgical intervention, or other easily measurable approaches. You can't see it. The recipient determines whether and how much of it to tap into, in a manner that many have ideas about but no one can prove conclusively, and the effects of how they use it may be completely invisible as well. Some try to argue that because a practitioner can not reliably determine whether there is an actual recipient on the "other end" of a distance session, that this somehow disproves its efficacy. I'm fond of the counter-argument that this is like asking an aspirin whether it is aware of relieving a headache as a means of determining how effective it is.
Here are two opposing examples from my own practice. I've had occasion to use Reiki to help someone manage severe and acute pain while waiting for medication to become available, with incredibly visible and obvious results. I've also had occasion to use Reiki with someone who I could sense was pulling through vast amounts of energy whilst I was seeing no change whatsoever in condition, either in physical or visible emotional state. This person was also near end of life, so I hypothesized at the time that the individual was utilizing the energy on a spiritual level to work out whatever spiritual healing was needed in order to transition from this life, but I can never and will never know. In practice on myself, I have observed that when I perform a Reiki treatment on myself before sleeping, my quality of sleep improves vastly and that has enormous impact on my physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health.
That's all well and good for Reiki, you may say, but how does it fit in with nursing? I suppose that depends in part upon your philosophy of nursing. Mine is heavily influenced by Katie Eriksson and Margaret Newman, who both take a very holistic view of people and their care needs, including body, mind, and spirit. (Actually, my personal philosophy developed before I became aware of either of these theorists, but I find that their theories describe my nursing ideals rather well.) As such, I feel that the care I give needs to address all these aspects of a person in order to be complete. That can be rather a tall order.
Often, there is little time in the course of a shift to give the kind of holistic care one would like, but as nurses, we frequently have occasion to place our hands on our patients during various aspects of assessment and care. As mentioned above, it is the recipient who determines if and how much Reiki energy they will tap into, and while there are specific hand placements (though considerable variation exists in these), all that's really necessary at the most basic level of practice is to place one's hand(s) on or near a person for that energy to be accessible to the client. I have been surprised on more than one occasion to feel the energy "turn on" while re-positioning a client in their bed or wheelchair or listening to their lungs. While my subjective perception of this is by no means necessary for it to be of use to the client, it is reassuring for me to be able to observe that this is available to them even when it is simply not practical to offer a full, formal treatment.
So, now that I've put some of my thoughts on Reiki and nursing out there, what are yours? Are you a nurse who practices Reiki? If so, how do you incorporate it into your practice?
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Today's Lightbulb Moment: Failure to Care for Oneself Is an Addiction
I just had a wonderful conversation with a fellow holistic nurse about how we nurses care for ourselves, or rather how we frequently don't. There were several great things that came out of the conversation, but this was the big lightbulb moment for me, when I realized we were using language like "hitting rock bottom" to describe what often has to happen before a person takes stock and realizes they need to take better care of themselves.
That's the language we use to talk about addiction, be it to alcohol or other drugs, gambling, whatever. So, then, if the same process has to occur, is pouring oneself into work and tasks and such also an addiction? If it takes a dramatic bottom-hitting wake-up call, then it would seem so. It is certainly habitual behavior that has the potential to result in self-harm.
I think that another pattern that we're culturally addicted to is the all-or-nothing approach. If I do not have the space in my apartment to do a nice long yoga flow every day, then I can't do any at all. If I can't stay awake for a full self-Reiki treatment, then why bother? The answer, for me, also comes from the realm of work I've done with people in recovery, using the harm-reduction model: something is better than nothing. It's not about being perfect, it's about doing better.
If the addiction is "putting everything else ahead of caring for myself," and the resulting harm is "reduced wellness for myself," then the goal is not "take on an impossible load of self-care practices all at once and set myself up for failure." It's "do something to care for myself, even if it doesn't measure up to some arbitrary standard of what that should look like." It's not "do an hour of yoga followed by an hour of Reiki every day." It's "do some."
Another tool that both comes from the realm of recovery and is echoed in one of the most common translations of Dr. Usui's Reiki Principles is to make a commitment to self "just for today." It's a useful tool, because truly, while what we do today can affect tomorrow, we can only act in the present moment, and it's helpful to remind ourselves of that. So just for today, I commit to doing ten minutes of yoga in the space that I have and ten minutes of Reiki before going to sleep.
Interestingly, in looking for a link to the Reiki Principles, I found this page that teaches you how to say them in Japanese. That seems like a neat practice and an intriguing one. It is also, though, in its way, a temptation. It would be very easy to derail myself onto the far more familiar task-oriented approach of learning something new, while letting the practices I already have languish for another day. That would rather defeat the point. So, just for today, I'm choosing to bookmark it as something to return to later, so that for today, I can focus on the commitments I just made to myself.
Returning to something I said in my introductory post, a theme I expect to return to from time to time, the Code of Ethics for Nurses from the American Nurses Association explicitly says that "[t]he nurse owes the same duties to self as to others (ANA, 2008, p. 55)." That includes setting realistic goals. We don't write care plan goals that say, "the client will avoid infection forever." That's not realistic or reasonable. We write goals that say, "the client will remain free from infection for one week," or maybe one month, or whatever makes sense in context. We also evaluate whether the interventions we've planned and implemented are achieving that outcome, and if not, we change them. We owe it to ourselves to do the same. Set reasonable goals and realistic plans to attain them. Evaluate whether the plans are working, and if not, change them. If they are working and higher goals become realistic, then adjust accordingly.
In other words, we need to use the nursing process on ourselves. Assess. Diagnose. Plan. Implement. Evaluate. Lather, rinse, repeat. We use it in caring for our clients because it works. There's no reason not to use it in caring for ourselves as well.
I hadn't intended to write a blog post today, but I wanted to get some of these thoughts down while they are fresh. I suppose that makes this a form of journaling, though I tend to associate that process more with pen and paper. But whether electronically (and publicly) or more conventionally (and privately), it's about reflecting and organizing thoughts into language using some means that can be revisited later. That's also useful, just like our dreaded charting. How do you know if you are achieving the goals you have set if you don't document it somewhere? How do you hold yourself accountable? I'd been thinking about starting a paper journal for yoga, specifically, to make notes after class about things I learn and experience. Thinking about it, but I haven't done it yet. I'm not going to add that to today's commitments, though. Just reminding myself for now that it's a thing I may want to incorporate. Because first, I need to meet the goals I set for myself today.
What about you? What goals can you set for yourself today? If they turn out not to be attainable, how can you modify them to make them so?
Fowler, M. D. (2008). Guide to the code of ethics for nurses: interpretation and application. Silver Spring, MD: American Nurses Association.
That's the language we use to talk about addiction, be it to alcohol or other drugs, gambling, whatever. So, then, if the same process has to occur, is pouring oneself into work and tasks and such also an addiction? If it takes a dramatic bottom-hitting wake-up call, then it would seem so. It is certainly habitual behavior that has the potential to result in self-harm.
I think that another pattern that we're culturally addicted to is the all-or-nothing approach. If I do not have the space in my apartment to do a nice long yoga flow every day, then I can't do any at all. If I can't stay awake for a full self-Reiki treatment, then why bother? The answer, for me, also comes from the realm of work I've done with people in recovery, using the harm-reduction model: something is better than nothing. It's not about being perfect, it's about doing better.
If the addiction is "putting everything else ahead of caring for myself," and the resulting harm is "reduced wellness for myself," then the goal is not "take on an impossible load of self-care practices all at once and set myself up for failure." It's "do something to care for myself, even if it doesn't measure up to some arbitrary standard of what that should look like." It's not "do an hour of yoga followed by an hour of Reiki every day." It's "do some."
Another tool that both comes from the realm of recovery and is echoed in one of the most common translations of Dr. Usui's Reiki Principles is to make a commitment to self "just for today." It's a useful tool, because truly, while what we do today can affect tomorrow, we can only act in the present moment, and it's helpful to remind ourselves of that. So just for today, I commit to doing ten minutes of yoga in the space that I have and ten minutes of Reiki before going to sleep.
Interestingly, in looking for a link to the Reiki Principles, I found this page that teaches you how to say them in Japanese. That seems like a neat practice and an intriguing one. It is also, though, in its way, a temptation. It would be very easy to derail myself onto the far more familiar task-oriented approach of learning something new, while letting the practices I already have languish for another day. That would rather defeat the point. So, just for today, I'm choosing to bookmark it as something to return to later, so that for today, I can focus on the commitments I just made to myself.
Returning to something I said in my introductory post, a theme I expect to return to from time to time, the Code of Ethics for Nurses from the American Nurses Association explicitly says that "[t]he nurse owes the same duties to self as to others (ANA, 2008, p. 55)." That includes setting realistic goals. We don't write care plan goals that say, "the client will avoid infection forever." That's not realistic or reasonable. We write goals that say, "the client will remain free from infection for one week," or maybe one month, or whatever makes sense in context. We also evaluate whether the interventions we've planned and implemented are achieving that outcome, and if not, we change them. We owe it to ourselves to do the same. Set reasonable goals and realistic plans to attain them. Evaluate whether the plans are working, and if not, change them. If they are working and higher goals become realistic, then adjust accordingly.
In other words, we need to use the nursing process on ourselves. Assess. Diagnose. Plan. Implement. Evaluate. Lather, rinse, repeat. We use it in caring for our clients because it works. There's no reason not to use it in caring for ourselves as well.
I hadn't intended to write a blog post today, but I wanted to get some of these thoughts down while they are fresh. I suppose that makes this a form of journaling, though I tend to associate that process more with pen and paper. But whether electronically (and publicly) or more conventionally (and privately), it's about reflecting and organizing thoughts into language using some means that can be revisited later. That's also useful, just like our dreaded charting. How do you know if you are achieving the goals you have set if you don't document it somewhere? How do you hold yourself accountable? I'd been thinking about starting a paper journal for yoga, specifically, to make notes after class about things I learn and experience. Thinking about it, but I haven't done it yet. I'm not going to add that to today's commitments, though. Just reminding myself for now that it's a thing I may want to incorporate. Because first, I need to meet the goals I set for myself today.
What about you? What goals can you set for yourself today? If they turn out not to be attainable, how can you modify them to make them so?
Reference
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