Appropriate touch comes in here. Nobody gets too excited about the head positions, but when we begin to move down the body all sorts of things come up. With an appropriate professional attitude and touch I should be able to lay hands anywhere on the body without raising any concerns of my own or the client's. If there are concerns, I need to examine why. Checking out all comfort levels before beginning any treatment is important.
This is as good a time as any to clean out your general attitudinal closets concerning bodies and healing. Any questions you have about body parts and areas need to be dealt with before you begin hands-on, especially your own attitudes. How do you feel about bodies in general, bodies you treat, your own body? The first place we tend to run into touchy issues is the curve of the female breast.
I personally believe that the breasts are part of the body, and treat them as such. I realize this makes me somewhat of a revolutionary teacher in the hands-on field. I don't think breast cancer statistics in Western cultures are only a result of our dietary differences with the East. I think our cultural attitudes have a direct affect on the diseases we develop. There is even a book out now that links breast cancer with bra-wearing. I never thought of that, but it is possible factor. At any rate, there has been enough cancer, breast and other, in my female relatives to precipitate my taking a good look at emotional attitudes and physical effects.
In America, we use breasts - especially young, firm, fairly large and smooth skinned ones - to sell things like beer, Coca-Cola and cars, among others. I've even noticed a correlation: the baser the product or instinct a product appeals to, the bigger the breasts and cleavage - beer advertisements use bigger breasts than Coca-Cola ones.
This compartmentalization of an area of the body, making it at once desirable and naughty, come here but don't dare touch, unobtainable and titillating is somehow an unnatural thing. And repeated over generations, it can become an unhealthy fixation. I use the word unhealthy on purpose, and this isn't just about our moral health. Our attitudes have physical effects on the body.
If I were a woman, I would begin to wonder what is so wrong about my breasts. Why is so much attention given to them from the first moment they become discernible from my chest muscles?
When I was growing up Catholic, we were very carefully taught not to pay any attention to this area of our body, or any other area that had more nerve endings than elbows. If this area of our body got large enough to remain in motion after the rest of the body quit moving, we were to harness the offending parts immediately.
Training bras hadn't quite made the scene yet, whatever the training was about. The 1950's version of that was the circular stitched cotton bras that we ironed to a point in the front, roughly corresponding to the area of the nipple. It didn't matter what shape you were naturally, we all looked about the same after 8 AM, with varying amounts of discomfort.
The next biggest thing I remember about breasts is having my first baby. I was a Navy wife, and delivering in a military hospital. The doctors were all very young, only a couple of years beyond my nineteen. The doctor I had was about six weeks out of medical school. After the delivery he came in with a very large needle. He announced that he would be giving me a shot to dry up my milk. I said I wanted to nurse my baby, and didn't want the shot. He said, "Why, Honey, you'll ruin your breasts!" I said, "Well, what did you think they were for?" He left, totally disgusted, and I got to nurse my baby. That is what I thought breasts were for.
I have always included breasts in the self-healing positions. I believe they deal with self nurture, and are part of the heart chakra energy, the milk of human kindness, and all that. I have noticed that other people are not so matter of fact about this area even for themselves, and especially not in treatment for others.
One woman I know had breast cancer and took Reiki training after her mastectomy. I was talking to her several months later and asked her if she was doing her self healing, especially her breasts. She told me she was too embarrassed to touch herself there. I can't begin to say how sad that perception of a body makes me feel. I felt very bad for her and the social, cultural or religious attitude training she must have been dealing with all her life, and was perpetuating for herself.
I don't think it is exactly my job to change people's attitudes about their body, not that I actually could. But it is part of my job to point out that there are other attitudes and perceptions they could hold.
It is part of my job to point out that healing begins at home, with our own body, mind and spirit. It is part of my responsibility to myself to love all the parts of my body, and take care of them as a whole, because that is what they are. It is like watching ripples on the surface of a pond - where do the ripples end and where does the water begin? It is perceivably different and yet indiscernible.
I also understand that there are laws and rules dealing with potentially intrusive and/or abusive treatment, especially in professional situations, that need to be considered and upheld. And in this insurance/lawsuit era, esoteric concerns often take a back seat to the workings of the "real" world. Male practitioners are more in jeopardy of being accused of sexual impropriety in a treatment on a female than a female practitioner is in a treatment on either sex, although all of the above can happen. Perceptions differ, and can be greatly influenced by a person's own issues and belief system - their social, cultural, religious filters, often some of the same attitudes and beliefs that underlie illness and dis-ease.
This brings up about a thousand questions about attitudes, ethics, professionalism, proper practitioner/client relationship, charging for treatments or accepting "offerings", advertisements, promises of results, etc., etc., etc.
There is also the very real concern that the person we are treating is in somewhat of an altered state during the treatment. If I am working with a new female client (men don't seem too concerned about this area), I will often ask if I may work on her breasts. Once I asked a Reiki Master this and she replied, "Why would you want to?" I answered, "Because they are there." Then we both laughed because they were quite large and very apparently there. When I asked another woman of the same stature, who was being "the perfect chest" for the chest demonstration during a class, she replied, "My pleasure!" and everybody had a good laugh.
These examples simply highlight that there is a lot of "stuff" about breasts and bodies, stuff we are better off releasing. I know it would be easier to ignore all of this, and simply exclude any "iffy" areas. And yet I feel I would be derelict in my duty as a healing teacher to allow these attitudes to continue unchallenged. So I forge ahead on my campaign to treat the body as a whole without any emotional charge. You don't have to follow. This is something you need to discern on your own.
What you are comfortable with, and what your client, especially a new client, is comfortable with, may differ. In that case, I need to remind you that you can place your hands anywhere on the body and the Reiki energy will eventually get to where it needs to go, even if you are not treating that area directly. So you can work within your own and your client's emotional comfort zone and you are giving full treatment - you are not impairing the treatment or its effects in any way. You are actually supporting the treatment by keeping you both emotionally comfortable. This is just as important as physical comfort for both practitioner and recipient.
In general, I treat all bodies the same when they appear on my treatment table. There may be some differences in length or girth, ability to turn over or not, but other than those minor concerns, they are the same. They are a person rather than a male or female. I really don't recognize a sexual difference, because I'm not concerned with their sex unless there is a particular problem that draws my attention to their sex. Then it is still clinical.
I have treated men with testicular cancer, as well as women with breast cancer. I may ask them if they would like me to treat the affected area. I explain that I don't have to place hands over the affected area because the Reiki energy will get there anyway, no matter where I place my hands. I use the same matter-of-fact approach I use if a person has some physical discomfort come up during a treatment. If they are uncomfortable, or prefer that I move my hands, I move my hands. Simple.
I offer to treat the affected area for a lot of reasons. First and foremost the person may be having emotional problems concerning the affected area, from fear of the cancer and the site itself to mourning the loss of that part if they are opting for or have had surgery.
This may be the only unconditional loving touch they get in that area. Any other touch may be clinical and possibly frightening - isolating, deciphering or delineating what is wrong as if it were separate, rather than acknowledging that this is a part of a whole person, a functioning body and psyche.
One woman came into class with her sister. I always ask my students to practice with people they don't know so they can have some sense of how different bodies respond to the energy. As the students were moving into the practice section of the class, this woman called me aside and asked if she could work just with her sister. I asked why. She moved her arm and revealed a very swollen breast. She had had a weeping abscess for quite a while, and was concerned about the tenderness and the odor. This was the second abcess she had had. She decided against Western medical treatment this time, and came to Reiki as an alternative.
I asked if she would be willing to work with a (then) Master candidate, Heather Buglear, who was attending the class as part of her training. She was willing, and these women stayed together for the entire class, ensuring that she got to exchange with someone other than her sister, and that she got the privacy and quality of care and attention she required. During the practice sessions, these two women talked a lot about self acceptance, and accepting and loving the parts of the body that are expressing or manifesting a dis-ease. This was one of the best examples I have ever seen of unconditional love given and - what is often harder - received.
