Category Archives: commitment

Reiki teaching: advice for new Reiki Teachers

attunements, commitment, reiki courses

pic of reiki students, advice for master teachers

It’s nerve-wracking preparing for your first Reiki course, isn’t it? You’re taking a step into the unknown and you are going to be guiding a group of people who are trusting you to do a good job. You probably feel that you don’t know enough and that you’re not ready yet. I know how that feels.

I this article I thought I would just pass on a few pieces of advice that might be of help to you, to ease some of your anxiety. Here goes…

It’s OK to teach differently from how you were taught

I’m sure that the First Degree course you went on was great and gave you everything you needed. But the course may be a bit hazy now, given that you have gone on to take Second Degree and your Master Teacher course.

Maybe you have a sense that you would like to do things a bit differently from the way that your teacher taught you: you are a different person, you have a different personality, you approach things in different ways.

And that’s ok: you should not feel that you have to exactly replicate the way that they taught or the content of their course. You can be yourself and find your own distinctive way, so long as you pass on the essentials, which you can read about in this blog: Back to basics: all about Reiki First Degree. So if you think you can explain things better, provide better course materials, or think the course would flow more logically if you did things differently, go right ahead.

Teach Reiki, not stuff that has nothing to do with Reiki

This is a bit of a bug-bear of mine, but I shall say it anyway: make sure that when you teach Reiki, you just teach Reiki, rather than a whole load of New-Age add-ons that have very little or nothing to do with Usui Reiki but have crept into Reiki over the years, and here I am thinking about smudging, crystal healing, chakra balancing, tarot cards, clairvoyance. When you run a Reiki course I recommend that you teach Reiki, just Reiki.

Make sure that you have practised your attunements well

No matter what lineage you have, you are going to carry out some initiations with your students, whether that be Reiju empowerments or some other variety of attunement ritual. You need to be comfortable in giving these initiations because you don’t want to have to keep flicking through your notes half way through the attunements. That would be so unprofessional.

So practise, practise and practise some more! Attune a teddy bear, attune an empty chair, sit in your lounge on a sofa with your eyes closed and imagine in your mind’s eye you giving an attunement, see yourself going through the movements, explain out loud what you are doing (as if you were explaining to someone else how to do it), gesticulate so you get used to the hand movements, walk up and down like a mad person, talking yourself through the stages you have learned, draw little stick-figure diagrams to summarise the stages, rap a little rhyme to remind your mind! Be creative!

Once you have the attunements sorted you will feel a lot more confident.

You don’t need to have all the answers

You are probably worrying about what people might ask you on your course and whether you will know the answer to all their questions. You probably think that you don’t know enough. To be honest, so long as you know more than they do then you will be fine, and you know far more than you think. Your students don’t really know anything about Reiki and you have been using it for some time now, so you have a wealth of experience to draw upon.

But there’s more to say about questions because you do not have to have the answer to every question; I know I don’t. Some questions do not have an answer, or nobody knows, or nobody knows and it doesn’t matter anyway. Don’t waffle or try to make up an answer: people can tell if you’re bullshitting, and if you’re honest with your students then they will take more notice of you when you do have something to say.

Remember that Reiki is a practical art

Remember that Reiki is a practical art and that when you teach Reiki you are passing on what you have learned and noticed during your personal experience of working with the energy. You are not passing on high-blown academic theories that you have to revise and might get wrong: you have personal experience of doing all the things that you will be guiding your students through, so you are on very solid ground.

You have given yourself a lot of self-treatments and if you learned Japanese-style Reiki then you will also have experience of using Hatsurei ho most days, and working with the Reiki precepts. You have given Reiki treatments to other people and you have become comfortable with this, learning from your experiences and finding your own comfortable way with the process, making it your own.

You know far, far more about all this stuff than they do, you know far more than you realise, and you have personal experience of doing all the things that you will be guiding your students through… so you can chill, be yourself, and enjoy the day.

And I am sure that you will have a wonderful time on your course.

 

Need some help with your course materials?

reiki first degree course book cdI have put together comprehensive and detailed course manuals and easy-to-listen-to audio CDs with commentaries and guided meditations. All these are available for you to use on your own courses (no matter what lineage you have) and you can order them in packs of four at greatly discounted prices. Reiki teachers all over the world are using them. Find out more by clicking here:

Reiki Evolution Manuals and audio CDs.

 

 

 

Did you like this blog?

If so, you are going to love this book…

 

Teaching Reiki

“Spot on! I’ve been teaching reiki for many years and I must say I wish this book had landed back then!

I’ve put together courses and really would have loved a book like this to refer back to, it’s concise, clear, laid out really well and is informative and a mini support system to boot.

If you’re entering the Reiki world with an aim to become Master/Teacher then having this book in your armoury will benefit you.”
S J Price

Teaching Reiki

A Comprehensive Guide to Running Great Courses

This is the book I really wish had been available when I started running Reiki courses in 1997. And it would have helped me greatly in my journey as a Reiki teacher thereafter.

You’ll find a wealth of advice about how to set up and run your Reiki courses: read articles about planning and structuring your courses; find out how to explain things to students in a way that honours their learning preferences and personality types; discover how to create top quality course materials and how to support your students long-term.

We look at the differences between ‘Western’ and Original Japanese Reiki and I explain how I created “Reiki Evolution” courses, which pass on the essence of Reiki’s original form. Read this book and you’ll know how to teach “Reiki Evolution” style: what to say, what to teach, and even how to teach Reiki in a ten-week ‘Evening Class’ format.

This book will be of interest to anyone who is about to start teaching Reiki, or to established Reiki teachers who are interested in enhancing the quality of their courses.

Read the contents list before you order, if you like, by clicking on this link: Table of contents

Book: 370 pages.

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Photo credit: Teresa Ostos

The Right Time

animal reiki, commitment, intention, intuition, mindfulness

A question often asked of me is: When is the right time? This relates to lots of aspects – When is the right time to start practising Reiki as a profession? When is the right time to meditate? When is the right time to start competing my horse? When is the right time to move on to the next chapter or level?

Unfortunately this is a question for the person asking, not the teacher. It is a question that you can ask as many times as you would like to – and usually the answer doesn’t appear in Big Red Ink infront of you – never say never though!

Inside of us everyone knows the right time, however, we put things off, we make excuses, we’ll promise to make time to sort things out or put more effort in, and then the time will be right for us to make a change or better ourselves.

We all need to remember that: we can’t make time, we can only choose to use the time we have wisely.

So my answer is this: if you are thinking of doing something new, making a change for the better and you’re asking or thinking, when is the right time?…

Then it is time to Go For It! The simple fact that you are thinking about it, shows that your subconscious is hinting at you!

The aspect of making a change may seem scary, but hey, fear is an illusion – fear is the monster that lives in the cupboard and becomes scarier and scarier, until one day, you open the cupboard door and realise there’s nothing there!

The right time is now!

____________________________________________

Sarah Berrisford Reiki Master Teacher, author or the popular books ‘The Handbook of Equine Reiki’ & ‘The Complete Guide to Animal Reiki’. Sarah is based on the Lincolnshire/ Cambridgeshire border, where she teaches Reiki, Equine Reiki Courses and Distant Learning Equine Reiki Courses.

www.epona-equine-reiki.co.uk

 

The Kaizen of Reiki

commitment, intuition, meditation, precepts, reiju empowerments, reiki symbol, self healing, , , , , , , ,

If you have come across the word ‘kaizen’ before it will probably have been in the context of industrial quality control or personal development. “Kaizen” is a Japanese word that is usually translated as ‘improvement’, but it means more than that. The word has connotations of continuous, gradual, orderly and never-ending improvement, the willingness to constantly, relentlessly pursue improvement a small step at a time. The application of the kaizen principle is the reason why Japan’s economy was transformed after the Second World War. All workers were encouraged to make suggestions as to how quality and production could be improved, even by tiny, tiny percentages, but over time the effect of these tiny percentage improvements, applied consistently and built upon, transformed Japanese industry.

So what has this to do with Reiki? Well the word kaizen actually appears towards the end of the Reiki precepts. The line in Japanese is “Shin shin kaizen, Usui Reiki Ryoho”, which could be loosely translated as “Mind body change it for better Usui Reiki method”. So when Usui was talking about using his system to improve the body and mind, I get the impression that we are looking at a lifelong commitment to work with the system, to focus the energy on ourselves again and again, long-term, in order to produce small incremental improvements within ourselves, to dedicate ourselves to developing our effectiveness as a channel. But small changes build on previous small changes, an enhancement upon an enhancement leads to amazing development over time. And Usui’s original system gives us the solid, concrete techniques that we can use to develop ourselves: as channels, in terms of spirituality and in terms of intuition, to produce our own individual Reiki Evolution!

So how do we pursue our own kaizen of Reiki? How do we apply the concept of continuous and never-ending improvement to our practice of Reiki? Here are a few suggestions…

Root your practice of Reiki in daily energy work.

If you are serious about wanting to obtain the many benefits that are available to you through the Reiki system then you are going to have to work on yourself most days, ideally every day, and by doing so you will build up the beneficial effects of Reiki within you. It is not sufficient to use Reiki on yourself once a week, or to assume that if you treat other people occasionally then this is enough to give you the Reiki you need.

Your first priority should be yourself, and this means daily energy work. This does not need to be an onerous task, nor does it need to take a long time to carry out. Sometimes we decline to use Reiki on ourselves because we do not have the perfect opportunity, perhaps because we do not have, say, 30 minutes to work on ourselves. Yet even 10 minutes of energy work, when carried out consistently each day, would be far better and produce much better results than doing nothing for days, and then a great big blitz for a big chunk of time on a weekend to try and ‘catch up’. Spending even a small chunk of time working on ourselves each day builds up a momentum and stirs changes which build and build. Sporadic practice leads to some beneficial changes, but you are not maximising your Reiki potential.

So, how can we work on ourselves? Well, a good place to start would be to practise Hatsurei ho, a series of energy exercises taught in the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai (the ‘Gakkai), an association set up after Usui’s death by the Imperial Officers who had trained with him for a while. ‘Hatsurei ho’ means something like ‘start up Reiki technique’ and consists of a series of energy meditations/ visualisations that focus on your Tanden (Dantien in Chinese) and which are designed to be carried out every day. The effects of Hatsurei ho are to:

    Clear and cleanse your energy system
    Help to move your energy system more into a state of balance
    Help to ground you
    Help to build up your personal energy reserves
    Allows you to grow spiritually
    Develop your ability as a channel for Reiki
    Help to develop your sensitivity to the flow of energy
    Help to develop your intuitive side

The exercises take perhaps 12-15 minutes to carry out each day, and can be fitted into the busiest of schedules if the will is there. We can all make this time for our Reiki practice.

But we should also focus the energy more specifically on ourselves, on our own self-healing, by carrying out a self-treatment each day. Whether you carry out the Western ‘hands-on’ method of treating yourself, or use the self-treatment meditation that Usui Sensei taught, you should focus the energy on yourself on a regular basis to help bring things into balance for you on all levels, and to help you to release things that no longer serve you: mental states, emotions, physical things. The energy will deal with many aspects of your body/mind, many deeply-embedded imbalances, if we give the energy the opportunity to do its work on us, digging deep and chipping away at the ‘baggage’ that we carry, over time.

We prefer to use Usui Sensei’s self-treatment meditation because it seems more intense and versatile, but all self-treatment approaches are valid. Usui’s Sensei’s system was all about spiritual development and self-healing, so Hatsurei Ho and self-treatment can lie at the very heart of your Reiki practice. You need to put yourself first, and the principle of kaizen means that by working on yourself consistently, great transformations are possible. You owe it to yourself to allow yourself to obtain the benefits that are available to you through Reiki.

Receive spiritual empowerments throughout your training and beyond.

Training with Usui was rather like martial arts training, where you were in ongoing contact with your teacher over an extended period of time. Part of your training involved receiving simple spiritual empowerments from Usui Sensei, repeatedly, at all levels. Each empowerment reinforced your connection to the source, cleared your channel for the energy, allowed you to develop spiritually and enhanced your intuitive potential. To echo this practice, Taggart sends out a distant Reiju empowerment every week, on a Monday, which can be ‘tuned in to’ by any Reiki person. You can find out about this, and what to do, by visiting this page of the Reiki Evolution web site:

Reiju Broadcast

On each occasion that you receive Reiju you are given what you need, and as your needs change from one occasion to another, this simple spiritual ‘blessing’ helps you to develop. A one-off attunement or empowerment does of course give you something permanent, and when you learn Reiki for the first time the attunements or empowerments that you receive provide you with the ability to use Reiki permanently, but it does not stop there: by receiving empowerments on a regular basis you are building momentum and allowing the energy to penetrate more deeply within you.

If we are committed to ongoing improvements within ourselves then we should make the time to receive an empowerment weekly. And again it is the regular commitment which is the key, the key to deepening your experience of the energy and its beneficial effects on you.

Work on developing your intuitive potential.

Mikao Usui’s original system did not focus very much on the treatment of others, and any instruction on treatments would not have involved slavishly following a set of ‘standard’ hand positions that you had to apply to everyone you treated. Usui’s method was simpler and more elegant. You allowed the energy to guide your hands to the right place to treat, different from one person to another, and different within the same person from one treatment to another. The way we have been taught to do this is through a ‘technique’ called ‘Reiji Ho’ (indication of the spirit technique’), a way of emptying your mind and merging with the energy, getting your head out of the way to allow intuition to bubble to the surface. The exciting thing about Reiji Ho is that it works for everyone, and with time – we come back to kaizen’s small incremental improvements – your hands will move more quickly, more consistently, more effortlessly, and you will start to attract more intuitive information. So every time we treat someone we should spend time cultivating our ‘Reiji’ state of mind, and gradually, gradually, we develop.

Learn to become the energies.

…that you are introduced to at Second Degree and Master levels. Usui’s system didn’t involve symbols as far as most of his students were concerned. Students were expected to carry out meditations over an extended period of time in order to learn to experience different energies and, at Second Degree, students were introduced to the energies of “earth ki” and “heavenly ki”, which represent two fundamental aspects of our being. By practising ‘becoming’ earth ki and heavenly ki again and again – a powerful self-healing practice – these energies became so familiar to the students that they could ‘connect’ to the energy direct without having to use a prop like a symbol. Usui provided some Shinto mantras for some of his students to use to invoke the energies, but it was possible to move beyond these mantras with time, too. In my article ‘A Simple Way with Symbols’ I describe a meditation that you can use to ‘become’ these energies.

But again we see that to obtain the greatest benefit, to enhance self-healing, to free up our practice and move beyond symbols, takes time and commitment. A quick meditation carried out a few times is not enough: Usui Sensei’s students spent 6-9 months meditating on just one energy, and this was done because the principle of kaizen – plugging away and developing by small amounts again and again – led to deep changes over time.

Live your life according to Usui’s guiding principles.

Usui’s simple principles to live by offer perhaps the best example of the principle of kaizen in our Reiki practice: Usui Sensei’s precepts are a work in progress. They are not something that you read through and think “OK, got that”: the precepts are simple to read and understand but they are something that you drip-feed into your daily life over time, more and more over time.

We may begin by thinking about the precepts when we first come across them on a First Degree course: we reflect on how they might impinge on our lives, our thoughts and emotions, our behaviour; we might imagine situations from that past that might have proceeded better had we exemplified the precepts, and we might imagine situations in the future and see ourselves behaving in a way that demonstrates that we are living the precepts.

But this initial surge of interest in the precepts is not sufficient to produce the beneficial changes that the precepts can produce in our lives.

To fully embrace Usui Sensei’s spiritual principles takes regular reflection and ongoing thought. On an ongoing basis we consider our thoughts and our behaviour, we reflect on the principles and what they mean to us. If we do this then over time we will find that living the precepts becomes easier, that our behaviour is modifying itself, that there are more permanent changes in the way that we react and behave and relate to other people. But this will only happen if we ‘chip away’ at our current behaviour patterns, using the precepts as our guiding light. There are no quick fixes: the precepts are not just for First Degree. The precepts are the essence of our Reiki practice.

Now, we do not need to be perfect, we do not need to beat ourselves up for not applying each and every principle on all occasions, but by dedicating ourselves, and by forgiving ourselves, and by trying to do a little better each day than we did the day before, we transform ourselves.

That is the key to our kaizen of Reiki: dedication and commitment, patience and forgiveness, and openness to the source. Long term.

Back to basics: Reiki First Degree

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People end up on First Degree courses for many reasons and come from an amazing variety of backgrounds, all attending for their own personal reasons. Reiki courses in the UK present a whole variety of approaches, some “traditional” Western-style, some more Japanese in content, some wildly different and almost unrecognisable, some free and intuitive, others dogmatic and based on rules about what you should always do and not do. Reiki is taught in so many ways, and students will tend to imagine that the way that they were taught is the way that Reiki is taught and practised by most other Reiki people.

What I have tried to do in this article is to present a simple guide to the essence of First Degree: what it’s all about and what we should be doing and thinking about to get the most out of our experience of Reiki at this level. My words are addressed to anyone at First Degree level, or anyone who would like to review the essence of First Degree.

First Degree is all about connecting to the energy, learning to develop your sensitivity to the flow of energy, working on yourself to develop your ability as a channel and to enhance self-healing, and working on other people. There are many approaches to doing these things, and I wanted below to touch on each area and to dispel some myths that may have been passed on.

Connecting to the energy

On your Reiki course you will have received some attunements or some empowerments. Attunements are not standard rituals within the world of Reiki and take many forms, some simpler and some more complex. They have evolved and changed greatly during their journey from teacher to teacher in the West. There is no “right way” to carry out an attunement and the individual details of a ritual do not matter a great deal. They all work. Equally, there is no “correct” number of attunements that have to be carried out at First Degree level. The number four is quoted often as being the “correct” number but this has no basis in Reiki’s original form, and whether you receive one, two, three or four rituals on your course, that is fine.

On your course you may have received some “empowerments” rather than attunements, though these are less common. The word “empowerment”, or “Reiju empowerment”, refers to a connection ritual that has come to us from some Japanese sources, and is closer in essence to the empowerment that Mikao Usui conveyed to his students. Again, there is no correct number of empowerments that has to be carried out. One is enough but it is nice to do more.

What we experience when receiving an attunement or an empowerment will vary a lot. Some people have fireworks and bells and whistles and that’s nice for them; other people notice a lot less, very little, or even nothing, and that’s fine too. What we feel when we have an attunement is not a guide to how well it has worked for us. Attunements work, and sometimes we will have a strong experience, but it’s not compulsory! Whether we have noticed a lot, or very little, the attunement will have given us what we need.

Since in Mikao Usui’s system you would have received empowerments from him again and again, it would be nice if you could echo this practice by receiving further empowerments (or attunements) and perhaps these might be available at your teacher’s Reiki shares or get-togethers, if they hold them. But it is possible to receive distant Reiju empowerments and various teachers make them freely available as a regular ‘broadcast’. This is not essential, and your connection to Reiki once given does not fizzle out, but it would be a beneficial practice if you could receive regular empowerments from someone.

Developing your Sensitivity to the energy

People’s experience of energy when they first start working with Reiki can vary. Some people notice more than others, particularly in the early stages, and if we perhaps notice less going on in our hands when compared with another student on the course we can become disillusioned to an extent: that little voice in your head says “I know Reiki works for everyone… but it’s not going to work for me. I knew it wasn’t going to work for me”. Well if this describes your situation then I can say to you that Reiki will work for you, and is working for you, and the vast majority of Reiki people can feel the flow of energy through them in some way, though your particular ‘style’ of sensing the energy may not involve the more usual heat, fizzing, tingling, pulsing etc. that many people experience. There are a few Reiki Master/Teachers out there who feel absolutely nothing in their hands, but this is not common, and Reiki is still working for them.

Sensitivity to the flow of energy develops over time, with practice. Some people are lucky enough to be able to feel quite a lot in their hands and in their bodies to begin with, but others have to be patient, trust that Reiki is working for them, and perhaps focus more on the feedback that they receive from the people that they treat, rather than what they feel – or don’t feel – in their hands.

It would be worthwhile if all First Degree students spent some time regularly practising feeling energy: between your hands, around your cat or dog or your pot plant or a tree, around someone else’s head and shoulders, over someone’s supine body, noticing any differences in the sensation in your hands as you move your hands from one place to another. Don’t expect to experience a particular thing or a particular intensity of feeling. Be neutral and simply notice what experience you have and how that experience might change from one area to another.

On some First Degree courses this process will be taught as “scanning”, where you hover your hands over the recipient’s body, drift your hands from one place to another, and notice any areas which are drawing more energy. This can provide some useful information in terms of suggesting additional or alternative hand-positions to use when you treat, and can suggest areas where you are going to spend longer when you treat.

Working on yourself

It is vital that after going on a First Degree course you establish a regular routine of working on yourself in order to develop your fledgling ability as a channel and to obtain the benefits that Reiki can provide in terms of balancing your life and self-healing. Most people decide to learn Reiki because they are looking for some personal benefits as well as looking to help other people, and the way to get the most out of the Reiki system is to work on yourself regularly.

On your First Degree course you will have been taught a self-treatment method, perhaps a Japanese-style meditation but more likely the Western “hands-on” self-treatment method. You will most likely have been given a set of hand-positions to use, but please remember that these positions are not set in stone and, particularly if some of the hand positions are quite uncomfortable to use in practice, you will develop your own style. It is fine to change the hand positions based on what feels right from one self-treatment to another, and you should do what feels appropriate. There is no “correct” set of positions that you have to use, and each hand-position does not have to be held for a particular period of time. Treat for however long you have time for, and however long feels right for each hand-position you decide to use.

Many people are taught that they have to do a “21 day self-treat”, and some people have the impression that they then do not need to self-treat any more. The “21 day” period has no real basis, and I can say that you ought to be thinking in terms of working on yourself long-term. To gain the greatest benefits from this wonderful system you need to persevere and make working with energy a permanent feature of your life with Reiki, a basic background practice, the effects of which will build up cumulatively as you continue to work with the energy.

You may have been taught a series of energy exercises and meditations called “Hatsurei ho” which comes from Japanese Reiki, and I can commend this practice to you. It is a wonderful way of grounding, balancing, and enhancing you ability as a channel, and should be a regular part of your Reiki routine.

Treating other people

First Degree is also about starting to work on other people, a process which also benefits the giver, so plus points all round really! A few students may have been taught not to treat others at First Degree, or for a particular prescribed period, but this is an unnecessary restriction and Reiki can be shared with other people straight away.

There are many different approaches to treating others, and we should not get bogged down with too many rules and regulations about how we ‘must’ proceed. Reiki can be approached in quite a regimented way in some lineages, and students may worry that if they are not remembering all the stages that they ‘have’ to carry out then they will not be carrying out the treatment properly. This is an unnecessary worry because treating other people is simple.

So here is a simple approach that you can use: close your eyes, maybe put your hands in the prayer position, and take a few long deep breaths to calm you and still your mind. You should have in mind that the energy you will channel should be for the highest good of the recipient, but there is no particular form of words that you need to use when commencing your treatment. Now we are going to focus your attention on connecting to the energy. Imagine that energy is flooding down to you from above, flooding through your crown, through the centre of your body, down to your Dantien (an energy centre two fingerbreadths below your tummy button and 1/3rd of the way into your body). Imagine the energy building up and intensifying there. You are filling with energy. Now direct your attention towards the recipient and imagine that you are merging with them, becoming one with them. Feel compassion and enjoy the moment.

You may now begin your treatment, and maybe it would be nice to rest your hands on their shoulders for a while, to connect to them and to get the energy flowing. What hand positions you use will vary depending on what you were taught – there are many variations – and they are all variations on a theme, a way of firing the energy from lots of different directions to give it the best chance of getting to where it needs to go. Hand-positions for treating others are not set in stone and do not have to be followed slavishly. They are just there as a set of guidelines to follow to build your confidence when treating others, and with time and practice you will start to leave behind these basic instructions and gear any treatment towards the needs of the recipient on that occasion, perhaps based on what you picked up when you were ‘scanning’ and perhaps based on intuitive impressions, where you feel drawn to a particular area of the body. Don’t try and work out ‘why’ you have felt drawn to a particular area of the body: just accept your impression and go with it.

Reiki is basically a hands-on treatment method, though for reasons of comfort and propriety you will choose to hover your hands over the recipient in some areas rather than resting on the body. I do not plaster my hands over the recipient’s face or throat, for example, because I think that this is uncomfortable and unsettling for the person you are working on.

You do not have to hover your hands for every hand position, as some people are taught, and equally you do not have to keep at least one hand in physical contact with the recipient’s body at all times, for fear of ‘losing’ your connection: your connection to the recipient is a state of mind, and where your hands are is irrelevant!

As you treat, you should aim to feel yourself merging with the energy, becoming one with the energy, to imagine yourself disappearing into the energy, and this can give you a quite blissful experience. Your mind may wander, particularly in the early stages of your Reiki practice, but you do not need to worry about this. If you notice thoughts intruding, pay them no attention; let them drift on like clouds. If you make a big effort to try and get rid of your thoughts then you will have in your head the original thoughts and then all the new thoughts about getting rid of the first lot of thoughts… you have made things worse! Just bring your attention gently back to the recipient, to the energy, feel yourself disappearing into the energy, merging with the recipient, and let the energy flow; your treatment can become a wonderful meditation.

It is not acceptable to chat to other people while giving a Reiki treatment. If you want to be an effective channel for the energy then you need to direct your attention to the work at hand and make sure you are not unduly distracted. For this reason, conversation between yourself and the recipient should be restricted. Reiki works best of you are still and focused, merging with the energy, in a gentle meditative state. Developing this state takes practice and you can’t do it properly if you are chatting.

You do not need to stay for a particular set amount of time for each hand position. Though it would be probably be best to stay for a few minutes in each position, if in a particular hand position you feel a lot of energy coming through your hands then you can stay in that position for longer – sometimes a lot longer – until the sensation subsides and you can then move onto the next area. Your hands can guide you. Work from the head and shoulders, down the length of the body, and it is nice to finish with the ankles. Many people are taught to smooth down the energy field at the end of a session, and that is a nice thing to do, but remember that you do not have to follow any rituals slavishly, particularly in terms of any sort of ‘closing’ ritual; you do not need to touch the ground, you do not need to say a particular set of words, you do not need to visualise anything in particular, and you do not need to make any ‘set’ movements of your hands or body.

The Reiki Precepts

On your First Degree course you will have been introduced to the Reiki Precepts, or Reiki Principles, Mikao Usui’s “rules to live by’”. Just in case you have been given a slightly distorted version of the precepts, here is a more accurate translation:

The secret of inviting happiness through many blessings
The spiritual medicine for all illness
For today only: Do not anger; Do not worry
Be humble
Be honest in your work
Be compassionate to yourself and others

Do gassho every morning and evening
Keep in your mind and recite

The founder, Usui Mikao

NOTE
The phrase “Be honest in your work” really means “be honest in your dealings with other people”.

Any reference to ‘honouring your elders, parents and teachers’ is a later addition to the list, and is not what Mikao Usui taught.

The precepts were the hub of the whole system, and it is said that as much spiritual development can come through following the precepts in your daily life as would come from any energy work, so they are important. If we can try to focus on living in the moment, not forever dwelling on the past or worrying about the future (fear is a distraction), if we can remind ourselves of the many blessings we have in our lives, if we can forgive ourselves for not being perfect and if we can see things from another’s point of view, if we can be compassionate towards ourselves as well as others, then we have gone a long way towards achieving a liberating sense of serenity and contentment. This is not something to be achieved overnight, of course: it is a work-in-progress.

Finally

Reiki has the potential to make an amazing, positive difference to you and the people around you. Remember that Reiki is simplicity itself, and by taking some steps to work on yourself regularly, and share Reiki with the people close to you, you are embarking on a very special journey.

How far you travel on that journey is governed by how many steps you take.

What a Difference a Year Makes

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reiki self treatment meditations

Did you know that learning and working with Reiki can really enhance your intuitive abilities? Here’s an example of how just one of my own students experienced intuitive development during her first year working with Reiki:

A lovely lady I taught many years ago swore she hadn’t got an intuitive bone in her body and was very definite that she would never be able to do treatments based on her own feeling for the energy. I begged to differ and asked her to trust that this would come with practice. And, happily, it certainly did. She took to Reiki beautifully and worked with the energy as taught on my Reiki First Degree course – self treatment, energy exercises and treating a variety of friends and family. I was so thrilled when a year later at our Reiki Share, she demonstrated just how far she had come with her inner vision and sensitivity to picking up energy.

We’d been doing a shared treatment on another student, and were all very merged with the energy of Reiki and the energy of the recipient. After a 20 minute session, we had the usual feedback to see what everyone experienced. This lady was explaining to someone who had only been attuned to Reiki the week before, how she ‘saw’ a large, blue glass curved screen floating over the heart of lady we were all treating, and that she felt that the lady had developed it over time for her own protection and safety. I saw it too, just as she described, and had the same impression. Apart from the fact that we both found seeing the same thing and getting the same impressions fascinating, (confirming that we were not mad or imagining it since we both saw the same thing), this just goes to show how much development can come simply by practicing Reiki regularly – by doing the daily Reiki meditation called Hatsurei and doing some regular treatments on self, friends and family.

My student had grown so far in a year, way beyond her initial beliefs of what might be possible. What was beautiful about this story was that the lady she was explaining this to was completely new to Reiki, and in fact, was in the same situation that this lady had been in a year earlier. She couldn’t understand what we meant about “seeing”, and felt this would be way beyond what she might be capable of.

If you feel as if you’re unlikely to have an intuitive bone in your body, I hope you will take heart from this story and trust the process to deliver, in it’s own time.

And remember, in terms of spiritual development (with Reiki in your life)… what a difference a year makes!

 

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kent reiki training coursesLouise Heseltine is one of the Reiki Evolution team of teachers, running live courses in  Kent..   Louise began teaching Reiki in 2005 and has worked as a complementary therapist, offering Reiki, aromatherapy (Tisserand trained), reflexology and Indian head  massage. She has 20 years experience working in the world of education as a primary school teacher, and is passionate about sharing her skills and knowledge with both children and adults alike. Louise also runs Reiki Retreats and has taken Reiki people to Egypt and run regular retreats to Spain to develop their healing  skills.

Her website can be found here: www.silvermoon.org.uk.

Click here to ‘like’ Louise’s Facebook page!

 

 

 

The Healing Age: Reiki To Go?

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These days you find people searching, searching, searching. Looking desperately for the answer to life the Universe and everything. They can’t seem satisfied with their ‘lot’ in life. There must be something missing, something more, something that will make them feel whole, complete, happy.

We live in a fast food society where we want everything now and by golly we don’t want or expect to work for it either!

With the 2012 Era now in full swing, people are undergoing great changes, huge events in their lives that they would never have guessed could, or would, happen to them. Things that happen only to ‘others’ as they sit safely in their own little bubble of existence.

Well, here’s the latest news flash, if we haven’t already, we are all very soon going to experience our fears and our joys, our light side and our dark side, the good and the bad. This is unavoidable. We are all ascending, albeit at a different and individual pace. We are all part of that One Source that is experiencing itself in all its multi-coloured, multi-faceted glory!

So what does this have to do with Reiki?

Well, as with anything in this 21st century life of ours, there are sometimes some ‘fast food’ students who want it all and want it now. They want miracles in their lives to occur after just 1 empowerment or 1 or 2 self healing or meditation episodes and if it doesn’t work, then boy, they are mad, they feel cheated!

I will always tell students that the true learning (and miracles) come from Reiki itself after the training day.

Spiritual growth, which encompasses our personal healings, rarely comes with a flash of light and an epiphany! We are here to work, here to learn and this takes dedicated time and discipline from us.

Yes, we all know this and yet we still want it all now. We cannot believe we have to go through the mill to get what we want in life, good health, peace of mind and abundance.

I don’t mean to be a party pooper, but come on folks, if we could achieve spontaneous healings and enlightenment, then don’t you think we would have already?

Some people go to great lengths and elaborate rituals to induce a healing. The Truth is that all we ‘need’ is us and our trust in our connection to Source. In order to manifest our reality, we need now to draw on all our Spiritual resources, all our senses both known and as yet unknown.

We need to apply FEELING to our intentions whether we are healing or at a job interview. It goes even beyond mere human emotion stemming from ego. This is deep, deep Spiritual FEELING I’m talking about.  Feeling from that deep space within, that space which is Source itself. Knowing you are already healed and enlightened. Feeling that you already are.

‘Fake it ‘till you make it’ as the Americans say! SIMPLE

This is our path home, no matter which system you may decide suits you best, be it Reiki, Spiritualism, Shamanism, Buddhism etc and this takes your time and your patience with your own speed of growth, healing and change.

Reiki can assist us in getting to that deep place within. Simple connection and channelling of this high frequency energy can begin to turn our lives around, BUT, and there is always a BUT……this won’t happen if we pick Reiki up every few months (when we need it) and then we drop it again with reasons like:

“I just don’t seem to find the time”

“ I have too many other things to do”

“we were on holiday, you know how it is….”

NO folks, sorry but there really are no excuses. You either want change or you don’t.

Be honest with yourself at the very least 🙂

You cannot run a marathon without putting in some serious training.

So if you are truly serious about making changes for the better in your life, then put on your running shoes and get going!

Namaste

 

Debbie McDougall is one of the Reiki Evolution team of teachers offering training in the beautiful city of Salisbury, Wiltshire.

Debbie began her Reiki journey in 2004, eventually leaving the NHS in 2008 after nearly 30 years as a Nurse, and more latterly, a Midwife. Debbie has also trained in other forms of Holistic healing and runs regular workshops and groups aiming to empower others to heal themselves. She also runs Munay Ki workshops to pass on the beautiful and profound Ascension Rites of the Incan Shamanic lineages and writes her monthly ‘Earth Change Updates’ available on her website.

Debbie’s website can be found here: www.heaven-wisehealth.co.uk

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