Parenting with Reiki and Healing Touch

One of my children, Mike, has been diagnosed with Aspberger’s syndrome. This supposedly rare autistic "disorder" affects roughly 5 out of 1,000 people, although my other two kids, their father and I all exhibit some of its characteristics. So do Keanu Reeves, dear Albert, my hero Al Gore, and less revered Woody Allen – these are recognizable “types.”

One of the most distinctive challenges Mike has trouble with has to do with attention.

My son can be brilliant, but scattered.

Together, Mike and I turned some major corners these past few days by directing some of my new ways of thinking into helping him overcome attention obstacles. Since Attention is suposed to be one of our key Reiki specialties, let's see how it fits into our daily practice.

He had two major projects due on consecutive days, early this week. One was a poetry portfolio, the other a science fair report and exhibit. He had completed all of the elements: the poetry was written, the experiments completed. What would be overwhelming for someone with attention problems, is literally “getting it all together.”

As I looked at his scattered, disorganized paperwork, I reminded myself of this key Reiki principal: Just for Today, I will Not get Angry. My disapproval will not serve my son. Hey, we all like to think we’re good guys who never show anger. I believe I am “ever-so patient and kind.” But all of our quiet thoughts manifest as energy, despite our pretensions. Reiki has made me more aware that my mirror is clouded by who I think I am, while my energy is strong and can be disruptive, even if I do not intend it.

Whenever I felt the urge to criticize, more than I previously realized, I stopped and recited out loud: “Just for Today, I will not get Angry.” Mike could, obviously, hear this, but he learned to accept it as a clue to my frustration, which was no greater than his own, and to see that we were sharing one of those critical problem areas, once again.

The opportunities for correction were great, my patience, at first, was not. “Just for Today, I will suspend Judgment.” I said. “Just for today, I will not be Critical. Thank you.” Saying it out loud seemed dishonest at first, but it wasn’t. It was vocalizing my Intention to Change my Thoughts and Energy and direct them to the Highest Good. I came to realize how empowering it could be to absolve myself of the responsibility of judging or criticizing others. We were off to a good start. Although there would still be several times I would need to remind myself, again, out loud, it was me re-balancing me, not a mom admonishing her son.

The shift in responsibility was helpful to Mike. When he lapsed in focus, stammered incoherent words or distracted himself, I was there trying to help him redirect his energy and focus. He could see frustration as running two directions, not just in toward himself. Perhaps it amused him. Thankfully he is always respectful with me. More importantly, he could see that I was going to stick with him until the task was completed and that my goal was to help him get there faster and get out of his way when he resumed control.

Mike pulled pages of poetry, in various stages of completion, out of a disorganized mess of papers. His teacher had e-mailed her concerns to me. She had given him checklists and other organizational tools, which helped, but there was much more to do. He would need to find and organized his work, type it, edit, pull references and package it into a pretty presentation -- all in one day.

I had breakfast with him and looked into his sad face. Clearly he felt overwhelmed. He wasn’t satisfied with his work, and thought it could be better. He admitted that instead of doing his work, he wasted a couple hours the night before looking for two poems he believed he finished but couldn’t find.

I told him to “stop worrying, and let it go.” I snapped my fingers in front of his face. Mike knows what that means and just laughed. As ridiculous as it may seem, finger snapping is a way to realign chakras, to rebalance energy in your body. His energy was unproductive. We would need to turn it a positive direction. "Snap!"

I advised him to just concentrate on what he had in hand and forget about what he couldn’t find, for now. Since I knew he was concerned that I would read his poetry and criticize it, I assured him that I wouldn’t read anything unless he asked me to.

I told him that his job right now was to let everything else go for a while and let the poetry flow into the keyboard. When Mike’s mind is clear he has a precocious talent for words. Sometimes I will keystroke for him to help get him started. When he is flowing it is nearly impossible to keep up with him.

When his mind is clouded, he has no words or else they “dummy down.” I have observed him stare at a blank sheet of paper for over an hour although he'd prefer to distract himself with any object at hand. If forced, the words are beneath his competence and grade level. But when Mike’s words flow, expressing his ideas about science, abstract imagery, story-lines, for example, they are often at a college level or beyond -- extraordinary. He straddles a line that vacillates, fluctuates, between utter frustration and pure ecstasy. His challenge is to shift to the the operative side of his brain and sustain focus. Not easy.

I ask him to center himself and think with the mind of a poet. “For Today, you are the poet, the wordsmith. Love yourself. Appreciate your talent and just Go for It.” After breakfast I ask him if he will be alright by himself, taking all the papers of the words he has written and using them as notes for his typing. He agrees. I rub his shoulders then leave him alone. At one point he asked me to realign his chakras in a quickie session. I do a (healing touch) mind clearing and overall unruffling, noting that his lower chakras have slowed at the knees and run counterclockwise at the feet, indicators of lack of forward motion. No surprise; we "snap" them out of it.

I check on him every hour and see he has progressed. He is happy and on track, a major improvement for Mike. I tell him how delighted I am with him and ask if he can stay on task for several hours by himself. This would be something he has only been able to do with reading, not writing or other project assignments.

When I returned, I was astounded to see that he had typed and formatted 23 pages on his own. He got stuck on the last one, a glossary. Why does he stop when he is so near completion? I don’t know. It took him several hours to get his head together enough complete the last page which ended up taking about 15 minutes.

The overwhelming encouragement was that this challenged soul managed to do more in one day than he ever had before. I congratulated him and asked him to go to sleep in a state of gratitude. I told him to think about this as being the new Mike. That he would need to do this again the next day, and that he could.

My words are to this effect: "Just for Today, love yourself and know that you have made important strides. You have created new connections for all your cells, opened their receptors to new patterns that feel good... New patterns, repeated often enough, push old ones away until they become more solidly entrenched." This is totally derived from What the Bleep, one of our threads of common interest. "This is the beginning of a new way of thinking about yourself and creating a fresh reality. Let the new Mikey you know express himself more and more, until you forget all about the old patterns and achieve your highest self." He loves it.

Mike enjoys discussing the paradoxes of abstract science – our bonding topic. Going on to the science fair project was something we both looked forward to, although once again I promised not to get over-involved in his development of content. I helped him stay on track. There were plenty of pitfalls and frustrations, but Mike overcame these with loving attention. I stayed with him through to the end. "Whatever the outcome" I told him as I drove him to school with his finished exhibit, "always know I'm proud of you. You learned more than the judges can ever know. So you're a winner, no matter what."

Last night we attended the fair and Mike took first place in his school, competing against 200 children. Quite a feat to mark a turning point, for this gifted and challenged young man. He admitted it was probably the proudest day of his life.

Once again I am so grateful.