“Healing Touch”: One Explanation of Teate Reiki

Healing touch has many names – Reiki, Teate, Touch for Health, Qi Gong, etc.. Here are self help techniques to get you started.

Healing by touch is called many things. When we were young and our mothers kissed or fathers rubbed our boo boo, this could be termed parental healing touch. When I was studying to be a massage therapist, the books talked about cave dwellers rubbing injuries as the first application of “massage”, another term for healing touch. The Bible speaks of Jesus “laying on of hands” and the healing effects therein experienced by the recipients. “Reiki”, “Qi-Gong”, “Pranic Healing”, “Touch for Health”, are just a few of the names given to healing touch that is now advertised as “alternative medicine” available to the public.

In the “Inochi/Kototama” meridian therapy medicine that I practice, “Teate” is the term for the healing “hands on” methods used. “Teate” can be translated as hand to hand, or as spirit to spirit. Reiki can be translated as universal life energy.

In the tradition of the Kototama (philosophy regarding the “soul” of words), my understanding of the word “te” is first action of life power. That makes sense to me when I consider the act of healing. Reiki, in a nut shell can be translated as life will brightening its existence with the empowerment of its true self. That also makes sense to me when discussing the ability to heal. Homeostasis is our true nature. Through the experiences of life in form and the five physical senses, we may lose our sense of balance or center. However, just as nothing is totally yin or yang, even in states of imbalance there is the seed of balance.

I feel it important to talk about Reiki as I have been practicing it now since 1989. The beauty of Reiki is that it is inherent in all of us. All of us have the capacity to help ourselves or others heal with simple touch. Just place your hands gently and let the love flow. Love and gratitude flowing are what I keep in my mind while performing Reiki for patients and family.

Reiki was so named by Dr. Mikao Usui who rediscovered this healing method in the ancient Sanskrit texts. As there are many versions of his story already available on the internet and in books, I will simply state my experiences with this powerful healing method.

With second degree Reiki, a practitioner has the ability to help spark another’s healing capability over long distances and or empower objects with healing energy to be used at will by the recipient. Over the years, I have been asked to send energy to those in need on many occasions. And I have “charged” objects with Reiki healing energy to be used by the recipient as they felt necessary. I was unable to see a friend who was in her final stage of life. So I charged a cherished comforter and offered it to the family. They graciously accepted it. Later I was told that it had helped her in easing her discomfort.

Since my completion of the Reiki I and II courses, I have felt first hand the energy flow between my hands and the recipient. I have witnessed what some would call a miracle and others have yet to explain with science. Those with whom I work often report a great warmth. I have seen people who are greatly stressed from pain and or anxiety achieve a great calm due to a Reiki session. Does it heal? I have no scientific validation as yet to point to. I can only tell you that through my experiences, I believe that it does spark in the recipient their innate ability to heal. I have seen people improve. Is it the “placebo effect”? I don’t know. And I have to tell you that I feel strongly that all tools to help oneself heal within reach should be utilized. “Placebo effect” should be utilized and encouraged.

I saw a “Nova” on the Public Television station. They were talking about a woman who had chosen chemotherapy. When she was receiving it, she affirmed that it was love penetrating her cells and healing her. She had a very positive outcome according to that show. We all have the power within to heal ourselves. What ever tool we choose, we should commit to completely. Having said that, I have seen even skeptical patients benefit from Reiki and our Healing Energy Blanket .

As of yet, I have found no “one thing” that is a sure bet. In scientific medicine they have successes and failures. I have successes and failures in my practice. As I have continued to hone skills to be a better conduit of healing, I have searched in the realm of scientifically based modalities and in modalities that science has yet to understand. With all the tools I have studied, Reiki has been the undercurrent. It has enhanced my massage practice. When I began studying Inochi/Kototama Meridian Therapy, I was asked to put aside the other tools I had, to better learn the one I was presented. I did that for many years. Now, I embrace my Reiki lineage and I am letting that practice and the practice of “Teate” enhance each other.

When I began my studies with Dr. Thomas Duckworth, he said, "there are three kinds of patients: ones who will get well with no intervention; ones who will get well with any intervention; ones who need a specific intervention”. The Healing Energy Blanket and the additional healing energy tools reach across the great divide to assist you in your healing journey no matter what type of patient you may be.

Here is a simple self-help techniques using one’s own healing energy and touch empowered by breathing.

Lay flat on your back. Place your hands comfortably over your Tan den (the area two fingers below the navel). As you breathe in, allow the breath to fill and lift your abdomen under your hands. Then allow the rest of the expansion into the chest. Breathe out. Quiet your thoughts. Let them be like clouds on a blue sky, passing by without a name. Feel the weight of your hands on your abdomen. As your hands warm, allow the heat to penetrate deeply into your abdomen. As you breathe in, the warmth culminates under your hands. As you breathe out, allow that warmth to spread up through the lungs and then on throughout your body. Practice this at least five minutes a day. This practice can be enhanced by lying on the healing energy blanket.

May this simple cost effective techniques serve you well.