How Reiki May Support Someone With a Life-Limiting Diagnosis or at End of Life

Reiki at end of Life

PREAMBLE...

Before I launch into this story, it's helpful to know the background. My very first Reiki client was my best friend’s Mum. She had stage 4 Lung Cancer, which was a life limiting diagnosis. At the time I didn’t know how else to support both her and my best friend and so I offered the only tool I had, Reiki. I offered to facilitate Reiki with her every week for as long as she wanted it. It was an open and unlimited offer.

Without her knowing anything at all about Reiki, she eagerly accepted my offer which saw me going to her home every week (sometimes more often), for a period around 5 -6 months, to facilitate Reiki for her right up until and including the day she died.

"What is it exactly that Reiki promises? What is it that it offers?"

I'm not sure I knew at the time what exactly I was offering her with the Reiki. But I hadn't been practicing Reiki for very long. I was merely months into it and the only other person aside from myself I had facilitated Reiki on was my own Mum. And so it brought the question to the forefront for me, what is it exactly that Reiki promises? What is it that it offers? And this is a question that over time and now the many years of practicing Reiki, I have, through observation and experience, begun to become clearer about. With each story and experience, Reiki reveals itself that little bit more.

At the time with my friend's Mum, being so new to Reiki at the time, that regular time of practicing Reiki with her at the end of her life provided so many learnings and insights for me into what it is that this thing we call Reiki may offer. It was a glimpse and the beginning of Reiki revealing itself to me.

I have her daughter’s permission to share this story and for the purpose of this article, will call her Mum Sara.

"I can't quite put my finger on it, I feel different, in a good way, but I can't quite explain what it is".

Reiki is a gentle and yet powerful energy healing modality where a Reiki Practitioner, who is attuned to the Universal, vital life-force energy, places their hands on various positions on the clothed body of the recipient and connects them to the Reiki. It works cumulatively so each session informs the next and each new session builds and works on top of the one before and works to heal the mind, body and inner being.

For the first 4-5 Reiki sessions with Sara, she didn’t report much of a change in how she was feeling overall…and yet, despite that, she absolutely took to it like a duck to water. She said to me "I loved it! I don't know what it is, I feel different, in a good way, but I can't quite explain what it is". And that was enough for her to want to continue on with our sessions.

By the fifth session, Sara shared that she felt more energy during her week and that some of the challenges she experienced from her illness and treatment felt lighter. These were her own reflections, and they guided how we continued working together. And although Reiki gave her much more energy for the majority of the week, she reported that her energy levels began to drop back off the day before I was due to come again that week later to facilitate Reiki with her. She always greeted me with such eagerness, ready for her ‘top up’, as she would say!

It always brought a smile to my face how excited she was when I turned up. No matter how sick she was feeling, she always greeted me with excitement in anticipation of the Reiki helping her to feel better overall, stronger and more energised. Over time, she felt that Reiki supported her emotionally and energetically, giving her a sense of strength and helping her make the most of the days in ways that mattered to her. She had an insatiable joy for life, loved her children and grandchildren dearly, enjoyed the finer things in life like good cheese and wine and had a tenacious will to live and she felt that Reiki was affording her the opportunity to keep doing these things.

As she got closer to the end of life, she told me that the increase in energy she usually felt after our Reiki sessions didn’t last as long as before. She shared that she looked forward to our sessions even more than before as they gave her a short window where she felt more able to do the things she loved and cherished that time deeply. She would plan her activities and meeting up with friends around our Reiki sessions knowing the Reiki would give her the strength and energy to be able to do those things for a short while. When the effects of the Reiki had waned, she spent much of her time sleeping. She was increasingly weak and tired and not able to do much so the strength and energy Reiki gave her was vital to increasing her quality of life in those later days after our sessions.

And although her medical team were managing her symptoms as best they could, she still had days where she felt discomfort or challenges that weren’t fully eased. She often told me that during and after Reiki, she experienced a sense of relief and comfort that felt different from anything else she was trying. She was surprised by this, as Reiki was new to her and she found it remarkable that someone simply putting their hands on certain positions of her body could have such an extraordinary impact on how she felt in herself.

Whatever you're doing, keep doing it!...

Around halfway though the 5 months of our time together, she told me that her oncologist said that if any other specialist looked at her scans, they’d be convinced she was no longer alive. That it didn’t make sense that she was, given what he was seeing on the scans. He told her whatever she was doing to keep doing!

Into the Kokoro - the heart mind (Peace of Mind)...

At various times over our 5 months together there were inevitably things happening in her life or around her that had angered, worried, irritated or hurt her. And time and time again, we would do the Reiki and by the end of the session she would come through that session with a clearer, more peaceful state of mind, a more compassionate take on the situation.

There were times she literally went from wanting to do one thing in response to a situation and by the end of the session, coming up with an entirely different approach, even recognising at times where she was in her ego, not in the heart. It is perhaps the most fascinating phenomenons I've witnessed with Reiki and one which now, having practiced Reiki for more than 6 years, is something I see time and time again, observing how Reiki can take us out of the ego space (anger, worry, fear, judgement) and instead, into the heart and into compassion.

For Sara, what I saw happening was how Reiki continued to guide her into a peaceful state of inner being, finding and arriving at a place of peace with issues old and new, and that aspect of Reiki is probably the most powerful of all the things it can do, particularly for someone at end of life. I have so much more so say around that, particularly with greater insights from clients later down the track but this aspect of Reiki, the healing of old issues and clearing the path of a state of feeling at peace, is perhaps one of the most powerful aspect of Reiki's offerings. I'm not sure there is anything more important that inner peace, and time and time again, Reiki seemed to give this to Sara.

The final hours...

On the day which we now know to have been her last day here, we were scheduled for another Reiki session. At this stage of her living with cancer, the window of revived energy from Reiki lasted a day, sometimes only even hours and Sara had to come to really yearn for our sessions for that reason. Unfortunately that morning, she was experiencing swelling in her leg and was scheduled for an emergency scan as there was great risk if the swelling was caused by a clot. This meant she wouldn't be available for our hands-on session and she was absolutely devastated about that. Assuring her that distance Reiki was just as effective, I promised that I would facilitate a distance Reiki at the time we had scheduled our hands on session. I had facilitated some distance Reikis for her before and it wasn't something she overly connected to in terms of feeling or sensing the Reiki or the healing but she was grateful to receive the Reiki both then and in this instance.

Whilst it is not part of traditional Reiki per se, I was taught in the Western system of Reiki to connect intuitively and write notes during distance Reikis, where I would get a sense of what the healing related to and any advice or wisdom for the recipient in their next stage of evolution and growth. Unlike the other distance healings I had done for Sara, this one didn't deal with healing any life issues or challenging experiences that had impacted her along the way. The sense was that there was no need. Rather, in this distance Reiki, she was surrounded by loving energies, encircling her and patiently waiting for her to be ready to go with them. As I was new to Reiki, this was the first time I had experienced such a thing (though later I would come to have similar experiences with other clients). The messages in this distance Reiki for Sara was of extraordinary love and praise for how well she lived and loved, how her sense of humour helped get her through the tougher times. She received assurances that her adult children and her beloved grandchildren would be ok without her, that they would be sad and would miss her but that they were nevertheless be ok and there was nothing left for her to do here, she had completed her life and had done so well.

I didn't communicate this to Sara, I didn't have a chance. At this point in her journey, she was still capable of walking around on her own (with some fragility and loss of strength), she was still able to use the windows of energy she experienced to go out and meet friends for get-togethers and lunches and she was still able to get out and about (with some assistance). Being new to distant Reiki, and not having much experience with the intuitive aspect, I didn't realise that it was indicating that her transition was imminent. If I did, I doubt I would have tried to communicate that to her in any event.

She had had the scan that morning of the distance Reiki, they did find a clot and she was told she could briefly go home to pack some things for hospital and then immediately check herself in to hospital for treatment of the clot. Somewhere during that process, she messaged me just after I had finished the distance Reiki session, to tell me that she really felt the energy and how incredibly loved she felt. She also messaged her daughter to tell her the same. She was quite astonished by the intensity of the feeling and deeply moved by it. It was interesting to me that she felt that love that I mentioned above, despite us not having had the chance to talk. I didn't need to tell her the details, she felt every bit of it.

When she arrived home to pack a bag for hospital and stepped out of the car, without warning or any indication prior to that that death was imminent, to the shock of everyone, she collapsed and died instantly.

As shocked as her family were, they were certain that she went on her own terms. She had said over and over again that she did not want to die in hospital. Her daughter knew about how I did distance Reiki and about the notes and asked about them later than night. I went through them with her and them gave them to her. She was incredibly comforted by the notes which supported their belief that she was really ready, incredibly loved, supported and not alone.

It goes without saying that it was an absolute privilege and honour that my best friend's Mum allowed me into her life during such a precious time and put so much trust in me.

My time with her over those 5 or 6 months was something I will cherish for the rest of my life and when I think of my love for and journey with Reiki, I attribute so much of it to her. I had never intended on practicing Reiki professionally but it was because of those sessions with her (and her encouragement for me to work as a Reiki Practitioner) that I was deeply inspired to continue on to practicing Reiki with others.

How reiki may support people at end of life and what we can all learn from that....

Many people I’ve worked with have described Reiki as a supportive companion alongside their medical care, not only to help them to cope with the physical and emotional demands of their treatment but for a general feeling of well-being, energy, and a sense of feeling loved and at peace with our lives. Reiki as a support may offer comfort and care, not only for people at end of life, but for all of us.

People often ask if Reiki can cure this or that, it is often such a focus and what I say every single time, is that Reiki is so much more than about a ‘cure’. It supports us on whatever path we are on and at every step of the way, guiding us and taking us to the next stage of our evolution, whatever that may be. For some, Reiki accompanies periods of recovery; for others, it simply supports them emotionally and spiritually through whatever unfolds.

This idea that cure is the be all and end all to me is limited. To find a place of inner peace and peacefulness at any stage of our lives, to me is everything. And that's what Reiki provided Sara. That, and so much more. It supported her whole being, emotionally, spiritually, and in how she felt day to day. Reiki supported Sara, always with its loving, compassionate touch. It held her and help space for her and gave her most of all, peace of mind, inner peace and in incredible feeling of being loved, right up until the end.

Warmest,

Fiona x

Fiona Phillips

Certified Traditional Japanese Reiki Shihan (Teacher) and Practitioner

Trained by the Jikiden Reiki & Arjava Petter Institutes

Within The Space | Reiki Melbourne

Reiki is a supportive complementary practice and is not a replacement for medical care, diagnosis, or treatment. Any reflections shared in this article are based on personal experience and the client’s own reported responses. Reiki practitioners do not diagnose conditions, offer medical advice, or promise outcomes. Please continue to follow the guidance of your medical and healthcare providers for all health-related concerns.