What does Mainstreaming Reiki mean to you?
Mainstreaming Reiki to me is increasing public awareness of Reiki and what Reiki offers as a healing modality.

What was your first experience with Reiki?
Reiki came into my life when I needed healing myself – Mind Body Spirit. It was three months before my graduation from Holistic Nursing when I saw flyers about Reiki. I was very skeptical, and was just curious about what Reiki could offer me as a healing modality.

Where have you practiced that you would consider mainstream?
As an RN and Holistic Healthcare Practitioner, I’m blessed to offer Reiki with my family, friends, co-workers, staff, patients/clients, community, volunteer activities, etc.

I’m grateful to Bellevue Hospital and VA Manhattan and to my fellow Reiki Practitioners in joining me to offer Reiki to both hospitals’ staff and management during Nurses Week. Treating students at LaGuardia Community College was also great!

To mainstream Reiki, what steps can you suggest to the Reiki community ?
Keep it simple. Focus on the benefits of Reiki. Provide testimonials by actual recipients of Reiki. Take advantage of the credible and useful links readily available to the public such as NCCAM (National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine) PubMed® and NIH (National Institutes of Health) clinical trials. Become an informed consumer/practitioner, knowing existing standards, regulations, laws in the state and country where you live.

What do you see on the horizon for Reiki?
Reiki is here to stay. Reiki is already within all of us. Each of us has an innate ability to heal ourselves.

What does Mainstreaming Reiki mean to you”?
Future vision: A subway commuter winces, leans back on the seat, and closes his eyes in pain. The stranger next to him asks, “headache?” — he nods. “Would you like some Reiki?”

Taking patients on my ambulance to the ER, and at least twice, seeing friends or family arrive and give them Reiki while awaiting the doctor. It’s as much, or more, about the everyday sharing between ordinary people, as it is about respected, professional practice. It’s about a day when it’s a household word, like yoga. That day is arriving quickly.

Where have you practiced that you would consider mainstream?
Nursing homes, hospitals, ambulances, corporate offices, police station, grocery store, sidewalk, high school talent show and silent auction, hair salon. Most fun of all, in the parks of New York City around 9-11 anniversaries.

To mainstream Reiki, what steps can you suggest to the Reiki community?
As Reiki grows, we are all on stage. Be a good citizen. It is your responsibility to be conscious of your own risk factors, and mitigate them. As one example, social workers in the U.S. have their code of ethics online – it’s worth reading them and thinking about how they might be relevant to your Reiki practice.

Consider your intended audience. Learn their language, and speak and act in terms they can understand, so they can make a free and informed choice. Let be, those who oppose or restrict Reiki in the settings they control. There are plenty of others who are willing – eager – to hear and experience what you offer.

What do you see on the horizon for Reiki?
Wow. What happens when an idea, or a practice, a way of thinking, being and behaving, reaches a tipping point? A way that admits all creeds, religions and beings, that is easy to learn and practice, that is gentle, mindful and useful? A way that requires no special physical conditioning or abilities? A way that promotes peace, awakening, and deep healing? I can’t even begin to speculate.

What does Mainstreaming Reiki mean to you?
Mainstream Reiki practitioners offer sessions in established venues rather than those considered to be New Age.

Where have you practiced that you would consider mainstream?
In 1996, I was the first Reiki master hired by Equinox Fitness to work in a spa, which resulted in Reiki being written up in national magazines like Vogue and W. I’ve worked in the operating room during open-heart surgery with Dr. Mehmet Oz, as well as with Dr. Sheldon Marc Feldman during breast cancer surgery, with the New York Giants, the NBA and at Ground Zero after September 11th.

To mainstream Reiki, what steps can you suggest to the Reiki community ?
Be yourself! In the operating room for instance, as a Reiki practitioner, understand that you are making the doctor’s job easier by keeping the patient calm. The last thing the doctor needs is another “technician” – he is awash in those, and meanwhile, there is no one to take care of the patient’s real Self – except you. Operating rooms are filled with doctors besides the surgeon, and even the ones who don’t know a thing about Reiki comment on how calm the patients are.

Realize the doctors you work with NEED you to be exactly who you are and do exactly what you do – Reiki, pure and simple, sublime in its service to every person you come in contact with.

This is the type of information included in my upcoming book, “The Healing Power of Reiki” with its Foreword by Dr. Oz (published by Llewellyn Worldwide), which I hope will bring Reiki even more into the mainstream. It recounts my actual experiences while performing Reiki in the venues mentioned above.

What do you see on the horizon for Reiki?
I see a future in which Reiki is used in every hospital as an aid to surgery patients; in the treatment of Veterans and anyone else with PTSD; as a way to bring soothing to those undergoing severe cancer treatments including children; and in the veterinary care of animals.

What does Mainstreaming Reiki mean to you?
To me, mainstreaming Reiki means joining other practitioners in bringing the Reiki experience out of the treatment room and into everyday life. The idea of energy healing has become more familiar as a result, and the timing couldn’t be better for reaching out to our own communities. The possibilities are everywhere, every day.

People are often intrigued but eager to receive some simple relief from their stresses. It can be as direct as holding someone’s hand at a hospital bed, or touching an elderly relative’s shoulder. Offering a peaceful Reiki moment to an animal is noninvasive and often hands-free, and therefore possible almost anywhere.

Where have you practiced that you would consider mainstream?
I’ve volunteered Reiki at a community college, in an adult day care program, at my town’s community center, the Culinary Institute of America, a conference at a VA medical center, a dairy farm, a housing project, a cancer conference, under a tree in a park (with tables), a beauty salon, a chemotherapy infusion suite, in animal shelters and rescues (with animals caged and loose), and in an ICU.

To mainstream Reiki, what steps can you suggest to the Reiki community?
Find fellow practitioners, do Reiki shares, and start to dream together. Sign up for health fairs and bring tables. Maybe look for a free space to set up tables on a regular basis, then spread the word and see who becomes a “regular” over time. Start small. Grow gradually. And keep your Reiki share going – you and your fellow practitioners will appreciate it!

What do I see on the horizon for Reiki?
There are no limits for providing Reiki services, it seems. The need for stress relief and healing is all around us, and those who experience Reiki’s calming gifts will be quite grateful. I believe you can find fertile ground wherever you happen to find yourself, in your family or community, or both.