Reiki For My Son's Sleep and Stress

          It's been another difficult bunch of weeks, and by "bunch", I mean about six.   My oldest son was and still is overwhelmed with continuous long-term projects at school and is attempting to cope with managing them.  He is getting little or no sleep at night, and for this reason he is falling asleep in some of his afternoon classes.  He has undergone two medication increases in six weeks.  He is worrying about the unfair treatment his bestfriend is receiving at the hands of those around him. Of course, looking back on this list, several things come to mind:  This sounds like a normal tween; all of these things would cause any kid to lose sleep; and wow, he's actually doing really good... considering that on top of all of this he still hears and sees our relatives who have passed over.  (Just last week he informed my that my late dad checked in when my car wouldn't start and I needed a jump and subsequent new battery)

          Nonetheless, I felt like there had to be something else I could do to help ease what was causing me the most concern:  sleep.  I decided to try Reiki with him.   While I had a nagging feeling that this was going to help, I have to admit that I was more than a bit hesitant.  You see, I tried Reiki with him in the past for his migraines and the experience was a bit more unusual than I had experienced with anyone else.  Usually when I am doing Reiki, my hands can feeling anywhere from tingly to slightly warm, but when I am doing it with my son, my hands grow so warm that they ache to the point that it begins to move up my forearms.  Concerned, I asked both my medium friend and my Reiki Master who suggested that I might want to focus more on grounding beforehand.

          With this new grounding advice, I decided to give it a try.  I started by spending a short amount of time in meditation then began the Reiki session on my son.  I  focused on his adrenals as well as his crown, third eye, throat and heart chakras.  Again, the sensations that I felt were similar to the times prior, although the warmth and ache were less intense and did not move beyond my wrists.  My son commented that he thought he felt the energy "move with my hands".  He said that was cooler than the warmth of my hands.  The most exciting and encouraging part was that he slept through the night for the first time in a long time.

          Through this process, I have learned that Reiki can be very beneficial in helping children in preparation for bedtime, easing children out of phases of nightmares, spurring creativity, assisting with ADD/ADHD, autism, and assisting as they process emotional and physical traumas.  I also found out, which should be no great surprise, that children respond to Reiki much more readily than adults because they have less of that, shall I say "baggage" to push through and negative energies.  Below are some articles and websites that I've found helpful in this endeavor:

http://ezinearticles.com/?Reiki-Therapy---5-Ways-Reiki-Assists-Children-to-Be-Happy-and-Healthy&id=2693265

http://www.reiki.org/reikinews/reikinews.html

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/id/ART02746

May you sleep well...