I Wasn't Always WooWoo

I wrote this title, walked away, did some reflecting, and came back to my computer. Was I always woo woo and didn't realize it? I mean, I had three imaginary friends, not just one. They say a kid's imaginary friends are actually their spirit guides and cease to exist once they grow up or are conditioned to traditional western culture. I also talked to animals. I would ask a question and seemed to get the answer. Nobody knew if I was right, though. I would chant and perform rituals. "Fishy, fishy in the lake, come and bite of Buffy's bait." was quietly recited as I lowered my lure into the water during Junior Bass tournaments. It worked for that 16 pound Stripped Bass I caught!

Dad was just as excited as I was!

But then I was into computers in middle school and science in high school. My parents bought me a Commodore64 and I wrote little programs in BASIC. I played games and troubleshooted when it stopped working sometimes.

I just aged myself, bigtime.

I was excited, and honestly a little surprised when I won first place in Bug Identification with my friend at the State Science Olympiad when I was in high school. I took flute lessons and performed in concerts and recitals. Other than the quiet little prayer that I would say asking that I didn't mess up, it was all pretty mainstream. There was that one time in high school though, that my boyfriend at the time and I drove to a dirt road called Morgan Street. We stopped, turned off the car, turned off headlights, and waited. Legend was that a ghost would push the car to the paved part of the road to keep the passengers in the car safe. We knew the story of the horrible wreck and wondered if the ghost would save us. The car started moving, and since I was driving, we got out of there before we even got to the pavement!

I went to college and majored in music. Nothing was really woo woo there (except for those continued prayers) until I pledged the band fraternity and we were taken out to the "Forrest" for a team building thing. I swear there was something otherworldly out there. Then as a member, we took the new pledges out there for the same experience. What I didn't know at the time is that our chapter president planned a little "surprise" for us. Scared shitless, a fellow member and I, started praying the Rosary. He put his arms around me and we asked for help together. Turns out the lights and noises were the chapter president's roommate. It wasn't woo woo at all.

You see, there was an explanation for everything. Morgan street had a slight downward grade and a heavy car would just start rolling until the pavement where the road moved slightly upwards. The "Forrest" (think a group of cottonwood trees in a flat desert town) was just a initiation experience passed down through fraternity leadership. Now there's stuff like Quantum Physics that explores the interconnectedness of realities and Neuroscience that studies brains and finds specific patterns during spiritual experiences. The science nerd in me goes bonkers over this stuff.

You might wonder why I'm even writing about all this. I can be woo woo if I want to or I can question everything all the time. I do both. So when Reiki worked for me, I questioned the hell out of it. I knew what I felt. I wanted that again so I learned it. But my bug-identifying, physics loving self wanted proof.

There's been recent studies on Reiki. I won't go into all the research, I'll just give a little taste and link the articles. The first one was a controlled study on 42 people with knee arthritis. The individuals in the study reported that they felt less pain and higher well-being scores after just 39 minutes of in-person Reiki and two distance sessions. (https://journals.lww.com/orthopaedicnursing/abstract/2024/03000/the_effect_of_reiki_on_pain,_functional_status,.11.aspx)

A review of 14 controlled trials found that Reiki had a significant effect on participants with depression and anxiety as opposed to those who received a placebo. (https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.897312/full)

Finally, here's an article that includes these two studies and a few others: https://www.healthline.com/health/reiki#benefits

So, I think it does some good. It's a compliment to traditional therapies and practices. Reiki should never be used as a cure for anything and Reiki energy can only be used for good. If nothing else, you can lay on a table in a comfortably lit room, be totally quiet with no pressure to carry on a conversation, and know that the Reiki practitioner's focus is totally on you.

Come see me.