May Reiki Energy’s Love Surround Your Pets and Houseplants
When reiki becomes a way of life, your relationship with others, including your family, your enemies, and complete strangers change. But reiki’s influence doesn’t just stop with people. It changes how you relate to the entire world. Today, let’s look at how your relationship with plants and animals could change, especially with your pets and houseplants.
Practicing Reiki on Pets and Houseplants
Reiki is versatile. It’s not just for people. You can use it on your fur friends and plant babies, too. For new students of reiki, their pets are often the easiest to practice on. After all, you don’t have to go through a complicated explanation about what reiki is. They will feel the love, plain and simple. And if they are going to curl up next to you anyway, why not place your hands in the meantime, right?
Using reiki on plants and animals is not too different from using it on people. For larger pets like dogs and cats, you can place your hands in positions that are equivalent to the 12 positions you learned in class. If they’re tiny, like a hamster, you can hold them in one hand and place your other hand on top, imagining the reiki energy penetrating their whole body. Got a pet that’s a little harder to hold, like a fish? Use your imagination. Shrink them down in size, and pretend that you are cupping them gently between your hands. You can place your hands on the tank right next to them if you prefer. And what about your house plants? You can place your hands on the pot, hover your hands over the plant, or just hold on to one of the leaves.
Is it Really Working?
Since our pets and plants can’t speak to us in words, it may be difficult to know if you are doing it right. But learning to trust your instincts is an important part of learning reiki, so turn off your brain and pay attention to how you feel. If your pet is healthy, you’ll probably just feel relaxed and comfortable. If the pet is not feeling well, you might briefly feel physical sensations and discomforts.
For example, I once sent reiki to a fish with swollen gills. Suddenly, my chest tightened, making it difficult to breathe. Don’t panic if something like this happens. I completely understand the urge to worry and say, “Oh, you poor thing!”, but stay relaxed and continue to pour love into your pet. Tell your pet how brave and strong you think he is for persevering through that. Tell her how proud you are and grateful you are to have her in your life.
Feedback from your plant is going to be so subtle, you may not be able to detect them. But send it lots of love nevertheless! A researcher by the name of Cleve Backster has shown that plants are far more perceptive than we give them credit for.
Learn from Your Pets and Houseplants
Last but not least, just like all the people who come into your life, your pets and houseplants enter your life to help you grow. I’ve noticed over the years that our pets, especially, come into our lives to help heal our childhood wounds. People tend to treat their pets the way they were treated in the past. I’ve seen people with abandonment issues adopt numerous pets, only to give them up for adoption later. Those who felt neglected by their parents would often fail to take care of their own pet. Those who came from a highly controlling family might also expect absolute obedience from their pets.
I believe one of the reasons why our pets come to us is to help us understand why our guardians behaved the way they did. They come to us to show us that we are all loved and that we are capable of offering unconditional love. They also show us how to value ourselves. If you have a pet or a houseplant right now, ask yourself what they are trying to teach you, because otherwise, you may end up continually welcoming a new one and repeating the same story over and over again. Your pet offers so much love. Return the love right back to them with reiki, and try to thoroughly comprehend the messages they are trying to convey to you.