Caring for Diabetes with Reiki and Energy Work

Article on Reiki Treatment of Type I, II and Gestational Diabetes

Living with Diabetes the Reiki Way

Author’s Key Points

• Diabetes is one of the most prevalent chronic health conditions we face in the US.
• Contrary to the common assumption, the condition is not just a nutritional disorder of glucose (sugar), but of carbohydrates as a whole, fats and proteins. (All need insulin to work properly.)
• There are three major types: Type I, Type II, and Gestational.
• Reiki treatment or self-care can help with the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of caring for diabetes.

Energy Work’s Take on Diabetes

Louise Hay, pioneer of energy work and affirmations, describes the negative mental patterning behind this condition as: “Longing for what might have been. A great need to control. Deep sorrow. No sweetness left.” (Hay, 164). Fundamentally, diabetes is a dysfunction of the Solar Plexus or Navel Chakra.

Role of the Solar Plexus

The Solar Plexus, or Navel, chakra is the seat of our personal power. When it is balanced we feel:

• Powerful
• Willful
• Driven
• Responsible
• Prosperous
• Able to accommodate differences

When it is out of balance, it can manifest in our life as power-struggle, misuse of power, helplessness, anger, bitterness, and digestive complaints (among other things).

Affirmation Work for the Solar Plexus

To counter the negative cycle of sorrow and perceived powerlessness, Hay recommends an affirmation I’ve adapted to incorporate Solar Plexus attributes from Davies (50):

“I am open to joy in my life. I now take command of my life, respecting others to command their own. I now choose to experience the sweetness of today.”

For more on affirmation work, see: How to Use an Affirmation Mala.

Supporting the Solar Plexus through Diet

When it comes to regulating blood sugar with diet, I always start by looking at everything else:

• Fiber: How much are you getting?
• Protein: Are you getting enough protein at each meal? The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine suggest pregnant moms consume 1.1 g/kg/day (71 g). The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight per day for (an adult) average joe. Athletes are looking more at 1.2 to 1.7 g/kg/day. It’s my experience when folks lack sufficient protein, they crave sugars to compensate for low energy.
• Hydration: Are you drinking enough water throughout the day? There’s no easy answer for how much is enough. To quote the Mayo Clinic: “Generally, if you drink enough fluid so that you rarely feel thirsty and your urine is colorless or light yellow — and measures about 6.3 cups (1.5 liters) or more a day if you were to keep track — your fluid intake is probably adequate.”
• Lastly, simple sugars: What kinds of simple sugars are you consuming, how often, and with what other foods? Simple sugars can be sneaky — including milk, soda, white breads, white-bread relatives, white rice, all-natural and artificial sweeteners, fruit juices, and starchy snacks (e.g. corn chips, crackers, potato chips). It’s not just calories that are concerning — saccharin (a.k.a. Sweet‘N Low), sucralose (a.k.a. Splenda) and aspartame (a.k.a. NutraSweet and Equal) have all been found to raise blood sugar.

In addition, aimed to specifically promote slow sugar metabolism, Dr. Minich in Chakra Foods for Optimum Health suggests the following (102):

Low-Glycemic Foods to Support the Solar Plexus

[table id=1 /]

Supplements for Blood Sugar Regulation

There are a number of natural options when it comes to blood sugar regulation and supplementation: Vitamins, minerals, herbs, medical mushrooms, antioxidants, etc. However, most of them have not been studied in pregnant populations. For this reason, few are considered safe to take during pregnancy. You may consider talking to your healthcare provider about:

• Chromium (found safe in study at 4-8mcg/kg in pregnancy)
• Magnesium (considered safe in pregnancy in doses below the tolerable upper intake level (UL) of 350 mg daily)
• Vitamin B6 (some but not all studies have shown women with gestational diabetes who also have a pyridoxine deficiency improved glucose tolerance and blood glucose levels when taking 100 mg of vitamin B6 daily for 2 weeks)

For everyone else, talk to your healthcare provider about choosing additional supplements that would be right for your constitution and condition.

Need more help?

Consider trying a Reiki session (they can even be conducted over the phone!) to unpack any emotions or thoughts that are contributing to your condition. Did you know electroacupuncture can also help regulate glucose?

---

References

• Davies, Brenda. The 7 Healing Chakras Workbook. 2004.
• Hay, Louise. You Can Heal Your Life. 2004.
• Minich, Deanna. Chakra Foods for Optimum Health. 2009.

What is the source of energy in energy work?

If you’ve read my earlier post, you will have learned that energy work (as applies to us) is the manipulation of the human energy field. We can tonify its energy; we can deplete its energy. We can open the flow of its energy, or block its flow of energy. With what does an energy worker do this? That’s what we’re going to look at today!

Sources of energy

When it comes to calling upon the power of something, that power can be all sorts of things. It can be embodied, disembodied, or without body–you name it! Below are some of the most commonly tapped sources of energy (not an exhaustive list by any means):

Sample sources of energy in energy work practices.

Applying the White Horse Discourse

Around 300 BCE logician Gongsun Long wrote what’s now the well-known piece, the “Treatise on the White Horse” (白馬論). It starts, “Can it be that a white horse is not a horse? It can.” It goes to explain that when we refine our awareness to looking through smaller and smaller viewfinders, we can start to lose our perspective on the forest from the trees. Of course a white horse is still a horse; but is not a black or brown one also a horse? Yes, of course. And yet, if I asked you, “Are a black horse and white horse the same?” then you would wholeheartedly attest–no! So, are they the same, or are they not? They’re both.

I think of this piece when I think about energy work, because I think the same could be said for energy. Let’s look at a prism:

Are not all colors of the rainbow found in white here? But if I asked you to show me white, and to show me red, you would show me two different colors, right? They’re the same in one regard, but appear differently, and act differently. Prepare yourself….

The web of life

In energy work, we use the energy source that’s most appropriate for the job (within our scope of knowledge and practice, with no doubt)- which may be a refined manifestation of cosmic consciousness. In other words, when I call on that which I perceive as “my higher consciousness,” that energy source may only be, in the prism analogy, a tint of dodger blue, which is a shade of primarily blue-green, which is a shade of blue, which is a color of the rainbow, which is a component of white light, which is a component of light, etc. Recognizing it’s all the fabric of consciousness, however, we realize there can be no energy source from which we draw energy that is not fundamentally an aspect of our own consciousness, as any perceived energy (whether it’s my superconscious or Reiki) can only be a tint of color within the spectrum of cosmic consciousness. Would you confuse a tint of dodger blue with white light? No, never. In this way, while we can acknowledge we are the living, breathing cosmic consciousness, we can’t mistake our level of awareness for that of cosmic consciousness. This is why we have energy work–to simultaneously honor our unique manifestation of consciousness, while continually opening our minds and bodies to greater and greater awareness, ever reminding us of our unity with All That Is.

Your Practice This Week

Reflect on a time you were ‘in the zone.’ Maybe you were singing, dancing, playing sports, public speaking, hiking, writing, etc. Did you have a sense of inhabiting an energy greater than your perceived “usual” self, or that something ‘greater’ was moving through you? What conditions do you think helped that sensation to arise?

Postscript

For your wellbeing, please do not try doing working with these energies on your own. Always seek out a qualified practitioner; safety is key! 

What Are Energy Work Practices?

Author and inventor Dr. Lin Yutang wrote in his 1937 bestseller, The Importance of Living, “…[A]ll human happiness is sensuous happiness”(125).  He goes on to explain our capacity for enjoying the “positive joys of life” is inextricably tied to increased sensibility of our senses, and our full use of them.

To illustrate his point, Dr. Lin lists Chin’s Thirty-Three Happy Moments, suggesting that “the truly happy moments of human life [are those] moments in which the spirit is inextricably tied up with the senses”(130). You’re probably not surprised that I agree! (Why else would I start my post with this?)

Energy Work is Mundane Work

People often confuse energy work with something ‘beyond’ the ordinary, human experience. Or people think it’s something to ‘attain,’ or something mystical. Most often people think energy is separate from the body; and therefore consider the physical simply crude, unnecessary material they’re just waiting to shed to get back to the ‘good stuff.’

But, while energy permeates and animates physical matter, the physical experiences Spirit’s sublime nature. The physical interprets energy, and affects the world with energy. That’s potent stuff! Without the ability to sense, energy could not know itself. For this reason, while we are in the world, knowing we are not of it affords us a unique opportunity to care for and appreciate our vessel (the physical body), while experiencing Spirit in action.

Can Energywork Be Bodywork? (And Vice Versa?)

When we talk about types of energy work, some practices might fit under the category of bodywork, while others might be considered emotional release techniques, mental concentration practices, or in some cases spiritual or religious practice. At first glance someone with no background in energy work might think, “Hold on a minute, this can’t be right! Isn’t energy work stuff just ‘woo woo,’ waving hands in the air?” (I’m reminded of Christopher Walken’s trivial psychic skit….) No, it’s not. Remember, I defined energy work as any practice that works with our body’s energy; and if you understand that our spirit is inextricably tied to our body sense-experience, you’ll understand energy work in practice may involve the body, mind, and/or emotions.

A Short List of Energy Work Practices

There are countless practices that involve energy work I could name in this post today. Nonetheless, I’d like to introduce you to a short list so you can start to see that you’ve likely already been introduced to energy work, and perhaps have even been practicing it already. What makes the energy work a stronger aspect to physical, emotional or mental practice? Intention.

You’ll notice I slipped intention work and affirmations under perceiving energy. (Pretty much all the things on this mind map can be swapped from one side to the other.) I did this intentionally (ha!) as a reminder that sometimes we can learn things about what we really think or feel deep down when we try on a new, positive affirmation or intention. Resistance can crop up saying, “Yea, right! I don’t deserve that!” etc.

My today’s short list includes:

• Acupuncture
• Bowenwork
• Dream work (including interpretation and lucid dreaming)
• Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)
• ESP (including clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairgustance, clairsentience, claircognizance, and “medical intuition”)
• Feng Shui
• Homeopathy (including flower, gem and environmental essences)
• Intention work (including affirmations)
• Journeying (including to the Akashic records, Lower World, Middle World, Upper World)
• Meditation
• Pranic healing
• Psychic awareness (including psychometry)
• Qigong
• Reiki
• Rosen Method
• Shamanism (including soul retrieval)
• Yoga

Your practice this week:

Reflect on a time in your life when you felt most alive, connected and ‘in the flow.’ How did you feel in your body? How was the state of your mind; and what were the circumstances under which you had this experience?

Has an energy work practice greatly impacted your life or growth? I’d love to hear your story in the comments!

Welcome

“Intuition, not intellect, is the ‘open sesame’ of yourself.”

–Albert Einstein, Einstein and the Poet (p16)

In the world of energy work, everything is alive; everything is energy vibrating at its own speed. As an agent in this world, we have the privilege to discover ourselves through our experiences and our exchanges. Each step is a self discovery through mutual co-creation, an opportunity to redefine how we know ourselves and others through our relationship to ourselves and others. Why not take a leap? Why not suspend, then, for a moment what you think you know and open to what is possible for you in this life. Allow your deepest truth to emerge. Let love dissolve your fears.

You intuitively know more than your mind would have you believe. All this kind of knowing takes is… practice!

---

Welcome to the Reiki blog of Melissa Dana, Reiki Master/Teacher and East Asian Medicine Practitioner (aka acupuncturist), founder and owner of Black Pine Holistic Healing here in Seattle, WA. Since 2007, I’ve made it my mission to help those seeking self-awareness, acceptance and ease. Over the years I have fielded many questions as about the nature of energy work, the Reiki ‘difference,’ and role of self in healing. May my services as Reiki practitioner and teacher serve as a guide for those of you still seeking answers and guidance along your path. To learn more about me, my background and services, visit BlackPineHealing.com.

Have a question about energy work?

Leave me a comment; I’ll be happy to answer as directly and honestly as I can.

Concerned about your health?

Contact me via a secure form on my website.

Has energy work touched your life in a positive and meaningful way? Share your story with others!

Warmly,

Melissa Dana
Reiki Master/Teacher, EAMP, LAc, Dipl OM