What About Animals and Reiki?

What is Animal Reiki?

Simply speaking, it’s meditating with animals. By doing so, we support their self-healing abilities.

A clear explanation, but it took me some time to understand what it means. Only when I’d discovered Kathleen Prasad’s Animal Reiki Source^® lineage did I begin to understand how deeply effective Animal Reiki can be.

Prior to this discovery, starting in 2006, I’d studied and become a Master in two separate Reiki lineages. Then in 2009 I began studying with Kathleen Prasad. Her Let Animals Lead^® method of Animal Reiki is unique in my Reiki studies: I learned to connect with animals with compassion and respect, and on their terms.

Kathleen Prasad’s Let Animals Lead^® method of Animal Reiki recognizes all animals as our partners in their healing experience. Animals are treated as our teachers, and we follow their guidance as to how, when, and certainly if they wish us to share Reiki with them.

The 6 Pillars of Practice

The Let Animals Lead^® method of Animal Reiki comprises 6 Pillars of Practice:

1. This method is founded upon traditional Japanese Reiki techniques and philosophy.
2. Animal Reiki is mindfulness meditation practiced “with” our animals, rather than an energy therapy done “to” them.
3. Animal Reiki meditation is taught as a state of mind with flexible physical forms.
4. Touch is used only when animals seek it out, and then only as a compassionate support.
5. Mental focus techniques develop an “All is Well” state of mind for the practitioner that sees the animal’s perfection in this moment. Kathleen calls this seeing with your “Animal Reiki eyes,” in other words, seeing more deeply, with your heart.
6. This method acknowledges and honors each animal as a spiritual teacher and healer in his/her own right. Practitioners learn to listen to animals and become receptive to their spiritual wisdom and healing gifts.

The Animal Reiki Practitioner Code of Ethics

In addition, Kathleen Prasad’s Let Animals Lead^® approach follows the Animal Reiki Practitioner Code of Ethics.

Compassion For All Beings

With over 20 years of dedicated practice and through her inspiring classes, talks and books, Kathleen developed the Let Animals Lead^® method of Animal Reiki, now practiced with animals around the world. As taught by Kathleen, Animal Reiki is a spiritual practice of compassion for all beings, which is the ultimate healer. This is the powerful space that Animal Reiki creates.

Learn more about Kathleen Prasad and her Let Animals Lead^® approach to Animal Reiki:

https://www.animalreikisource.com/animal-reiki-information/what-is-animal-reiki

Animals Always Get To Decide

As subtle as the Reiki energy is, animals are highly sensitive to their surroundings and they’ll quickly notice Reiki energy if it’s nearby.

Animal Reiki is best offered, not given, so an animal gets to choose whether to accept this energy and to take charge of the healing experience.

Practitioners “ask” permission of an animal when a session begins, and then a healing space is created by inducing the Reiki to flow. That’s it. That’s all we humans need to do during a treatment session.

What Does Animal Reiki Look Like?

We don’t start off using hand positions with animals. We just sit or stand (on the floor at home or shelter, or out in a pasture), and the animal can come up to us and let us know if they want hands-on. Animals know what they need. They are in charge of their treatment session, however they want it.

Does your pet want to snuggle during a treatment session? Or perhaps relax a few feet away? Under the sofa? The next room? At the other end of the pasture?

How much Reiki is enough for your animal at any given time? 30 minutes? An hour? Your animal will take what she needs.

 

 

More about what Animal Reiki looks like here. 

 

Animal Reiki can also be offered over a distance. It works wonderfully for many shy or hesitant animals or when a personal visit isn’t possible.

Often Reiki is offered to animals in a series of 3 or 4 treatment sessions, whether once a day or perhaps over a week’s time. When receiving a treatment over a distance, animals may respond the same way  as an “in-person” session: relaxing, maybe falling asleep, getting up and moving around, all in the same session.

However the treatment session happens, the result is a more rested, more balanced animal, in mind, body, and spirit.

What About Reiki in Animal Shelters?

I volunteer each week at the Ulster County SPCA in Kingston, NY (all breeds of dogs and cats, plus bunnies and smaller animals), and also at the Saugerties Animal Shelter. In past years I volunteered at Animal Farm Foundation (pit bulls) in Dutchess County. All 3 shelters are located in upstate New York.

At Saugerties I meditate on the floor facing the dogs in their kennels, each behind their closed kennel door. I sit 10 feet away, and all dogs will receive the energy flowing in the room.

For this roomful of kenneled dogs, I’d begin the Reiki flow and simply ask in my mind to the dogs, “Would you like some?” and we are quietly off and flowing together.

When they settle down on their blankets or beds, they often doze off. If a dog is not interested in Reiki that day, no problem — same as for any person, “No Thanks” means “No Thanks.”

For cats in shelters, the setting could be an open adoption room with cats roaming around freely, or a room with cats in cages.

Also I volunteer in the back rooms, such as the sick room at the UCSPCA. Here I don’t handle the cats so much, and they remain caged.