Can You Use Reiki with Animals?
I get this question sometimes, most commonly when teaching Reiki courses, as participants start to understand the many ways Reiki could help them and those around them, it gets them thinking about the pets in their lives and they start to consider if there is a place for Reiki with their pets. Sometimes people looking to learn Reiki, or have already learnt Reiki are thinking of working with animals as an avenue for doing voluntary or professional Reiki treatments.
Below I will outline some thoughts on this. I don’t do professional Reiki treatments with animals; I have delivered Reiki to a variety of animals in the past, nowadays I do it regularly (most days) on pets, but that’s it. Animals usually like Reiki, they seem to sense it, most will find it relaxing so it could be a nice way to support them and as with humans, it will not do them any harm at all. To start with, let's understand a bit about Reiki and look at its potential to help animals.
Reiki was created as a practice to improve the mind and body, so primarily is a personal growth journey for humans. Within the system of Reiki we access, or channel Reiki energy (energy being the same stuff that might be called: Ki, chi, or prana). This energy is absorbed by the recipient to support their healing and well-being. Energy is known to be all around us and part of all living things including animals, so the question is can some of the benefits we see in humans have use for animals?
We can’t say that it will help from a scientific view, as with humans Reiki doesn’t lend itself to that measure, any results we see with animals will be anecdotal evidence, we just see the results as we do with people, so it will be by observation. In addition:
Any support Reiki can offer animals would be supportive of appropriate veterinary care; that’s how I would suggest you view it. There are legal considerations and rules around animal care. I’m not going to focus on that here, a link to that info is later on. With this in mind, my points here will be simply looking at the potential of Reiki in a supportive sense, not a treatment view, just exploring possible ways that Reiki could be helpful to animals, for those who are thinking of using it with animals.
Possible areas of benefit might fall into two categories
1. Reiki energy is believed to support the body’s natural self-healing mechanisms. This could be the case in animals as well, the most likely application would be in supporting physical healing. Possible areas of interest here might be the potential of supporting tissue healing, post-injury, or post-surgery. The expression of this healing would most likely look like faster healing, seen as a recovery duration faster than expected or better than expected progress in any vet lead injury rehabilitation programme.
2. The known calming effect of Reiki might have application, or benefit for animals as it does humans. The work we do with humans for issues such as emotional well-being, trauma, worry etc, might have applications for animals. Many animals fall asleep when receiving the relaxing effect of Reiki, as many humans do.
A point to make here is that Reiki is a high-frequency therapy, a bit of Reiki 30 minutes once a week will not be sufficient for example post-surgery, as with humans we want high-frequency. What I might do is train pet owners how to do Reiki themselves if they wish to support their pets with Reiki.
For those who wish to do Reiki with animals in a voluntary or professional capacity the most important thing is to get the right Reiki training, which I would recommend Jikiden Reiki training courses- that is your Reiki skill base to work with. From a Reiki view, working with animals you are doing reiki on an animal rather than a human, but what you are doing with Reiki is the same. So, the most important thing is getting quality Reiki training in the first place, or retraining in Reiki to deepen your understanding and improve your potential for good results with Reiki, to give you the best chance of good results helping animals with Reiki.
The concept of an Animal Reiki Practitioner doesn’t make sense from a traditional Japanese Reiki view so don’t get pulled in by Reiki courses marketed as Animal Reiki Practitioner courses. Look for quality Reiki training, you can deal with animal-specific training later, but no amount of animal training will counteract a poor base Reiki skill or training level.
Recommendations below:
1. Get quality Reiki training. The key is the Reiki training (not the animal bit at the start of your Reiki training) as you might not get complete accurate Reiki training and that should be the focus at the start. Most Reiki insurance companies would cover working with animals within a standard policy working with humans (just check). Once trained try Reiki with your pets and see if you like the idea of working with animals.
2. Understand the legal and regulations around working with animals. Once you have had quality Reiki training you need to understand the legal/ regulations around working with animals, the Reiki Council has a page that can start you in that direction here.
3. Attend a working with Animals workshop or course. You then now might want to look at a workshop or a working with animals course. The benefit is not anything Reiki related, but rather gaining understanding and tips from the course provider's experience working with animals, skills around approaching animals, and anatomy. You might want a qualification title saying animal practitioner, from a marketing view, but mainly it’s what they can teach you from their experience working with animals. So with this in mind, if you want to work with horses specifically, select a course teacher who has experience with horses. You might even find a more practical focused course, which would be ideal.
I hope this article has helped answer the question of whether Reiki can help animals, as well as give you some ideas as to how you might approach an interest in this direction. As ever, start with accurate, quality Reiki training courses, see Jikiden Reiki courses
I am mainly known nowadays for my work with Reiki, as a specialist in authentic Japanese Reiki. I am an experienced, Reiki teacher and practitioner with a proven track record of results. I offer Jikiden Reiki training courses, promoting authentic Japanese Reiki teachings. I am based in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, in the UK. I have a background in coaching and training in the areas of exercise coaching, holistic lifestyle, fitness, and performance coaching. I also have a BSc.(Hons) degree in Sport and Exercise Science, for more information visit: www.shaunmckeown.com
The information contained above is provided for information purposes only. The contents of this article are not intended to amount to advice and you should not rely on any of the contents of this article. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this article. Shaun Mckeown, disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this article.