Reiki in Kerrville
Kerrville is a small town in Central Texas, population under 24,000, where majestic cypress trees line the Guadalupe River and wildlife graces the surrounding Hill Country. Having grown up in Houston’s bustling metropolis, I am grateful to call this peaceful place home.
Ever since my First Degree training in 2006, I envisioned bringing Reiki to our local Veterans Administration Medical Center. In those early years, very few people in Kerrville knew what Reiki was — and wasn’t. I encountered misunderstanding and even fear about it in the community, and embarked on an educational campaign to bring knowledge of Reiki and its benefits to the Texas Hill Country.
Thanks to one of my earliest Second Degree students — a retired Marine Colonel and devoted community advocate for Veterans — I received repeated invitations to represent Reiki at Department of Veterans Affairs annual events in Kerrville, including VA health fairs, mental health summits, and events honoring women Veterans.
The Healing Hands Unit
A decade later, the South Texas Veterans Health Care System (STVHCS) in Kerrville welcomed a Recreation Therapist who had come from a VA facility in New York City. Having seen Reiki work effectively there, he asked a local Yoga for Veterans instructor where the VA’s Reiki volunteers were. That instructor, a friend of mine, referred him to me — and an invitation to volunteer followed.
I had already researched existing Reiki volunteer programs across the country and developed a working model. The Recreation Therapist and I met several times, building a shared vision, and I followed up with a formal written presentation to the Administration introducing the newly created Healing Hands Unit (HHU) — its mission statement and scope of practice designed specifically for STVHCS.
A training period followed for HHU members, drawn from among my Second Degree students, along with a three-month VA application process for each volunteer. We conducted our first Reiki sessions with STVHCS inpatients on April 2, 2017, beginning with six HHU members.
Our VA Staff Sponsor in the Recreation Therapy Department — now one of my Reiki students — selects inpatients who have consented to receive Reiki. Where verbal consent is not possible, approval is provided by staff or family. The Sponsor accompanies our volunteers to work in pairs on each visit.
Weekly, the HHU shares Reiki with inpatient Veterans. Most fall soundly asleep during their thirty-minute sessions. We routinely witness their bodies settling into ease and comfort as their minds quiet. Afterward, many Veterans speak openly about the emotional and physical relief they experienced — and express genuine gratitude for Reiki.
We have also shared Reiki with family members who happened to be present when we arrived. Often fatigued and stressed, these caregivers respond dramatically — physically relaxing, sometimes dozing off — benefiting from the therapy as fully as their Veterans do.
Expanding Reiki Volunteer Opportunities
In 2017, the HHU and a number of my First and Second Degree students were invited to share Reiki at STVHCS during national Nurses Week — another first. Invited back the following year, we offered thirty-minute sessions to thirty nurses over two days. These dedicated staff members continue to recognize Reiki’s value, frequently experiencing physical relief alongside deep relaxation. It is now the HHU’s annual privilege to be part of this event.
From 2013 to 2016, several students and I volunteered Reiki to Wounded Warrior families visiting Kerrville through Operation Second Chance — a five-day Hill Country event organized by a local Veteran. Not all of these Warriors carry visible physical injuries, but their emotional wounds are no less real. And their spouses and children carry those wounds too.
Offering full seventy-five-minute Reiki sessions at my studio to these Warriors and their spouses has been among the most rewarding experiences of my practice. The greatest gifts were simple and profound: watching recipients physically release on the Reiki table, and hearing afterward that Wounded Warriors had experienced a quiet in their minds they hadn’t felt in years of living with PTSD.
Research on Reiki’s mental and physical health benefits remains limited — it draws little funding from pharmaceutical interests, not surprisingly given that Reiki sometimes reduces people’s need for medication. In the context of the ongoing opioid crisis, particularly among Veterans, I believe Reiki can serve as an effective complementary therapy in recovering a healthy balance of body, mind, and spirit.
*Anne’s article on Reiki with Veterans was published in the Summer 2018 issue of © Touch Magazine, The Reiki Association Community Magazine.
**Anne offers a discounted Reiki I training fee of $150 per person for Veterans and their families and caregivers.