Peaceful Moments with Deuce: Easing Arthritis through TTouch and Reiki

Deuce is a stunning senior cat who I have been working with for a couple of months.  His person, Alice, volunteers at BARC Shelter (where I volunteer) and she had told me he has arthritis. 

I have been working with him primarily with Reiki, but with TTouches mixed into our session.  Alice has told me that before we started working together, Deuce had stopped a lot of the activities that he generally enjoyed, but that now he is much more interested in being up and about, which is great!

Deuce is a friendly, affectionate cat, and was certainly game for giving TTouch and Reiki a try pretty much right off the bat.

Most often, we will start out by doing some TTouches, and as we do this, he gets comfortable and will decide where he wants to settle.  Then I transition into a Reiki session with him.  After the Reiki session, sometimes I will do some TTouches with him as well.  That is not to say that I would treat every animal with arthritis in this way, but this is the way of working that feels right for him at this time.  Each animal is different, and I feel that what will most benefit an animal as far as treatment can shift and change over time. 

Something so beautiful that can happen in the course of repeated Reiki sessions, that I am feeling with Deuce, is a deepening connection with him.  I nearly always feel this type of progression with repeated sessions of Reiki.  I feel that he absorbs the Reiki energy at a deeper level each time that I work with him.  It feels that the deepening level of trust allows the energy to permeate him at a deeper level each time. 

The other thing that I have been incorporating into our sessions at times is the concept of color therapy.  I have been studying this lately, and so sometimes I will send the energy of a color to an animal while I am working with them.

The first time I did this with Deuce was an especially interesting experience.  While on the subway on the way to an appointment, I always start sending Reiki to the animal I will be working with.  This time I also began to send the essence of the color turquoise.  This color is a mixture of green and blue, which are both very cool, healing colors, and turquoise has to do with restoration and dissipating pain, so it felt like a very appropriate color to ease his arthritis.

When I got to the appointment and began to work with Deuce, he began to get himself settled as usual, but the interesting thing was that he settled right on top of a turquoise blue bag!  For the rest of the session, I kept picturing that he was surrounded with turquoise light.  And for the rest of the session, he remained settled on the bag.  I also began to see turquoise highlights on his fur as I worked.

I always feel an intention to offer Reiki to an animal for the highest good, but sometimes on top of that I will have a more specific intention.  In Deuce's case, it is to help ease his arthritis.  Sometimes I will feel my hands guided to certain parts of his body, but most often with him, as with many animals, he will shift himself until my hands are where he wants them to be.  Sometimes the hand positions will shift several times during an appointment, other times I may stay just about all the time in one position.  Reiki energy will go where it is needed, regardless of hand position :)

A little side note, there is another kitty in the house, a shy, sweet boy named Gruff.  Quite often, he will come to me for a few TTouches, or settle somewhere near where I am working with Deuce to pick up some of the energy.  Below is Gruff, on one of his favorite chairs, in an inquisitive mood.

Below is Deuce in one of his favorite spots, where he settled for our most recent session.  I was feeling the pinkish-red of the chair enveloping him with such a warm, loving feeling during the session.  Like he was sinking into that very soft feeling.  He went completely into what we call a Reiki nap, which feels like a rather daydreamy type of state.  He is giving a rather funny expression here, though, as it was right after the session.  I had felt him really go down into a very deep place of relaxation, and I think he wanted to get back to napping!

Thank you Deuce! I look forward to seeing you soon! xo

Connecting with Krishna: Moving Closer than Ever

 

 

Krishna is a beautiful, soulful cat who I have worked with and cat-sat for over the past couple of years or so. He is generally very fearful of everyone other than his human caretakers, Rebecca and Tim, but Krishna has come to trust me more and more every time I see him.   

I had not seen Krishna for some months, and went to work with him yesterday.  Krishna is extremely sensitive, so I need to enter with an extremely quiet energy, even more so than I usually do with most cats.  On the way to the appointment on the subway, I began to center and calm myself, and to send him Reiki energy.

He always seems to recognize me, and that was the case yesterday as well.  When I entered, he was resting in his bed, which was about halfway across the living room.  I lowered my body posture into a less-threatening kneeling position, and quietly said hello to him.  He responded by walking right up to me, sniffing me, and then sitting a couple of feet away from me.  When he came to sniff me, I stayed perfectly still - not rigid, but breathing and still.  If he tried to stare right at my eyes, I looked down a bit or away a bit, so as not to scare him.

In the last few appointments with him, a soft paintbrush like a makeup brush, tied to a thin dowel with string, has been a great tool to work with him.  This time, I used a longer dowel than I had in the past, since I felt that sometimes I wanted to give him more space, as he can get suddenly startled sometimes when he gets close.

Generally, I have found that TTouch circles and strokes are what work with him best, but because of where his body was positioned yesterday, which was sideways to me, just a couple of feet away, with his head further away, I tried doing some TTouch circles with the tool going down the side of his body.  I did the circles very slow, with a "snail's tail" at the end, which means doing the usual circle and a quarter, followed by a pause, and then reversing the circular path for a quarter circle.  This can provide an extra release. 

It is very important, especially with a fearful cat, to come towards them in a sort of diagonal path, rather than directly towards their face or head.  Even when I am going to do TTouches on the head with the tool, I come from a diagonal direction and first touch him on top of his head, but coming from the side, not straight on.

He started to look more and more relaxed, with his eyes getting more sleepy, but still his tail was twitching back and forth, so I was careful to pause every so often, to give him a break. 

It was very interesting that yesterday, in the pauses, he would generally shift his body posture in a manner and direction that was coming closer to me, rather than further away. 

Below you can see the tool I was using.  At one point, I did have to tuck the string in!

 

 

The TTouch circular touches and strokes were helping him to increasingly relax, and intermittently he would do a somersault, stretch and get a bit closer to me.  A couple of times during the session, he did go to his "mom" Rebecca for a few pets, but then he came back to me.  So he really was making a choice about where he wanted to be.

At the same time as this was going on, and for the whole session, I was also sending him Reiki energy.  I felt quite a lot of energy coming out of my hands.  And, as I have recently been learning about color therapy, I decided to visualize a turquoise blue color surrounding him.  Turquoise, as it is a mixture of green and blue, which are both very calming, healing colors, can be a very calming and healing color, and just felt right for Krishna at this moment.

After the TTouches on the body, I decided to go back to what has usually been more his comfort zone, which is the forehead, in between the ears, and at the base of the ears.  Sometimes I would work in a few TTouches on the body, then go back to the head.  Below you can see that he was quite relaxed, with his hind leg sticking out.  And at this point the tail was quieting down too.

And, I had started quietly working my hand down the tool.  As you can see, my hand is much closer to his body than the photo above.  As I did this, I made sure to check in on my breathing, as I could feel myself start to get a little bit nervous as I got closer to him.

 

 

 

 

What was interesting, too, that had happened during this process was that Krishna had pivoted his body around so that he was not only closer to me but had his head facing directly towards me.

I kept doing the circular TTouches and strokes, pausing every so often to give him space.

And..... when it seemed the right moment, I carefully took hold of the dowel with my fingers, and did a few TTouches and strokes on his forehead with my thumb.  And then after a few TTouches like that, I went back to touching him with the brush.  At a couple of points, he seemed a little surprised, but not terribly, and then he would go back to being relaxed.  This was certainly a far cry from the sudden panic that can happen, usually followed by a yell or a swat.  And each time I went from my thumb (or sometimes I used a finger) back to the brush, he seemed to get more comfortable, getting his body in a more and more comfortable position.



 

 

He is extremely attached to Rebecca, and at various points during the session, he looked over at her, as if to ask if it was ok that he was getting so close.  Rebecca said, and I agree, that it felt as though he wanted to really get even closer to me, but was still a bit hesitant to do that.
Each time he got closer to me, it was as though I could feel our hearts more closely connected, like a band of love and energy was traveling back and forth between my heart and his. 
The session had flowed very natural, and seemed to have its own natural ending place.  I quietly thanked him, and he walked to a cozy spot to rest.
Thank you Krishna!  It is such an honor to work with you, connect with you and learn from you.  I look forward to seeing you soon!!