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The Benefits of Reiki for your Pet

8th June, 2010 - Posted by Heather Davis - No Comments

Reiki: Can it help your pet?

BY DANIELLE THRONEBERRY / NASHVILLE PAW MAGAZINE

Chances are, you’re already familiar with how much pets can benefit our health and wellbeing. From decreased blood pressure to increased opportunities for socialization, you know your pet improves your quality of life. Sometimes, just the nudge of your dog’s wet nose or the warmth of your cat on your lap is all that you need to make the stress of the day melt away.

Rhonda Sherry, owner of Reiki 4 Better Health, has seen touch change human and animal lives more times than she can count. After all, she is a Reiki Master-practitioner who has over 15 years of experience in the art of Reiki healing.

“Whether we’re an animal or human, we have stresses in our life,” she says. However, the subtle signs of stress and dis-ease are not always apparent in our pets. Thankfully, Rhonda is very good at listening and responding to these subtle, unspoken signals.

“In many cases, the animal itself will move his body into a position where he wants you to put your hands,” Rhonda explains. “I had a client who was a ten-year-old Akita with hip dysplasia. This was a dog that didn’t like to be touched. Before Reiki, she couldn’t even go on walks because she was in so much pain. At our first session, we sat down in a park and I put my hands on her hips, and she just laid there. I worked on her for 50 minutes, and she would move her body to where she wanted her work done.” The session went a long way in helping bring back mobility and comfort.

Reiki can be an incredibly calming, soothing experience, and Rhonda finds that treatments can be especially helpful for older animals who are facing the end of life. “I’ve worked with many senior animals, and it’s remarkable what one session will do. I once treated a Golden Retriever who was very old, but after I left, he was bouncing around like a puppy again.” He enjoyed this quality of life for two more weeks, until he passed. Says Rhonda, “Reiki gives people an opportunity to see their companion happy again. It makes a difficult time easier.”

For those who think Reiki healing is a little too out-of-the-box, Rhonda suggests considering that warm-and-fuzzy feeling you get from loving your pet. It’s those warm-and-fuzzies that are the very basis of Reiki, and it is one of the reasons that she was drawn to working with animals as part of her practice.

“I believe that all living things have a life-force energy,” she says. “What I’m able to do with that energy is to help the body heal itself. I knew animals would be open to Reiki–they don’t have a belief system like humans do, so they don’t think it through. Since I had dogs and horses and cats, I first worked with my own animals to see what sort of response I could get.”

In a nutshell, Reiki is a stress reduction and relaxation technique that also promotes healing by a practitioner who moves healing energy through his or her palms. The word Reiki, translated from the Japanese, means “spiritually-guided life force energy,” and while its origins are dated to ancient time, the art in its modern form was developed in Japan in the 1920’s. According to the website reiki.org, a treatment “feels like a wonderful glowing radiance that flows through and around you” and is meant to create a feeling of peace, security and wellbeing. And thanks to many people who believe in its healing benefits, the art is becoming more mainstream, with endorsements from people like Dr. Oz, who has appeared on Oprah and whose wife is a Reiki practitioner.

“I want people to know me and to understand what a great alternative healing modality Reiki is, and that it is for everyone who wants it,” says Rhonda. “Receiving Reiki is really about being open to new things. It goes along with diet, nutrition and exercise. It gives your body the opportunity to heal in the same way it does when it’s sleeping, but Reiki not only heals the body, it also heals your emotions and relieves stress.” And that can be good for you, and good for your pet.

CONTACT:

Rhonda Sherry

(615) 915-4440

reiki4betterhealth.com

Danielle Throneberry is a freelance digital marketing consultant with her company Berry Interesting Productions. She lives with her family in Murfreesboro and can be a bit ‘woo-woo’ herself sometimes, practicing yoga and ayurveda. She is looking forward to the day when animals will once again join her family.