Conscious Choice: What’s Up, Doc?

April 2004

What’s Up, Doc?

PRACTITIONER PROFILE

Who: Deanne Lozano, Reiki master teacher and practitioner, Healing Earth Resources and Family Health Resources, Chicago.

Quick Take: Reiki (pronounced RAY-Key) is a contemporary form of energy healing that literally means “universal life force energy.” Lozano channels this energy (or “chi”) to heal the mind and body. “In my opinion, Western medicine works on the symptom, while energy healing works at the [emotional] source where the problem lies,” says Lozano.

Old vs. New: Among all energy healing modalities, from Reiki to pranic healing, “The energy seems to be the same,” says Lozano. “The difference is the way the people who discovered them channeled the energy.” In Japan in the late 1880s, Mikao Usui sought to understand the energy behind great healers such as Jesus Christ and Buddha. After years of study and meditation, Usui was hit with a vision of Tibetan symbols. These symbols — and attunements to heighten practitioners’ sensitivities — allow those initiated in Reiki to channel chi.

Knowing the Difference: While some teachers offer Reiki master training in a weekend, Lozano thinks students should become masters only after completing 100 documented case studies. Lozano urges folks to ask practitioners about their backgrounds and for references. “If they’re not willing to connect you with those people, there’s probably something wrong with them,” she says.

Biggest Misconception: Reiki should feel like (fill in the blank.) In actuality everyone experiences Reiki differently depending on his or her need, says Lozano. After a session some feel giddy, others calm and still others tired or sick. “Just like when you get a massage, if there’s something right on the surface, the energy pushes it out ...but after it’s gone, you’ll feel much better,” says Lozano.

Case History: Lozano grew up “gifted” and often did energy work on friends. But she felt depleted after each session because she drew only from her own energy reserves. Reiki, she says, connects her to an abundant energy source that she can access at any time. Keep in mind, she says, just as it takes time to get your energy body out of whack, it takes time to get it back in synch. So as with any healing modality, folks should go into Reiki with a stick-to-it-ness.

Personal file: 51, single, longtime Chicagoan, plays Tibetan singing bowls and composes her own meditation music on a keyboard.

HEALING IS HAPPENING

We are sharing real life experiences of people who have found solutions by using complementary and alternative medicine. This is from Earl Mathias in Lafayette, California:

Complain to your M.D. about heartburn, and he or she is bound to reach for the prescription pad and put you on some drug that has a pullout instructional warning the length of both arms. Knowing that my mother’s liver was ruined by prescription drugs, I sought advice from a naturopathic doctor (N.D.). After working with an elimination diet plan, the doctor made one simple dietary change I could remember easily: nothing white at night. No white bread, white sugar or white pasta in the evening — and lo and behold, I don’t have the burning ache in my throat or upper chest. I feel great and I’m not taking the drugs.

It’s a wonder that we see night and day advertising for heartburn drugs, when my experience tells me that people just have to be coached to make the necessary lifestyle changes — and they’ll prevent all sorts of trouble for themselves. Why aren’t we teaching seniors this, instead of just paying for their growing drug habits?! I’m 78, and plan on following the advice of this N.D. from now on.

Share your story with www.betterhealthcampaign.org, a group helping to expand the dialogue about health care.

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