Category Archives: intuition

Report on the 2012 National Gathering

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Well, that was quite an event. October 6th saw 140+ Reiki people from all over the country descending on Baden Powell House (right next to the Natural History Museum in South Kensington) for a day of fun, learning new things and making new friends. We had workshops and distant healing and Reiki shares, Reiju empowerments for all, and kotodama chanting. The venue was nice, light and airy, with a lovely atmosphere, and as the day progressed the place just buzzed with energy.

A few highlights of the day for me were seeing every one of the ‘Reiju’ seats occupied, with a queue of people waiting for their turn for a dose of blissfulness, or seeing everyone basically ‘take over’ the on-site café and turning it into a Reiki café, chatting on comfy sofas over tea or coffee, or maybe that experience of oneness at the close of the day, after that fantastic chanting!

It was great for me to get to meet and spend time with so many lovely Reiki people, and to publicly show my appreciation to my team of fantastic teachers.

What we did

Workshops featured Tina Shaw (“Discover your intuitive self”), Martine Moorby (“EFT for personal transformation”), Irene Forsyth (“Seeing auras”) and Marilyn Harvey (“Reiki meditations”). We were also lucky enough to have two separate QiGong sessions, the first hosted by Rhonda Bailey and the second hosted by Thalbert Allen and Maggie Tarling from the College of Elemental Chi Kung.

Attendees joined in Reiki sharing sessions and there were Reiju empowerments for anyone who wanted one (lots of people wanted one!), given by our team of lovely teachers. We held a couple of ‘chat to a Reiki teacher’ sessions and we had ‘en masse’ sessions in the Main Hall where we sent distant healing and chanted a sacred sound which elicits a state of oneness.

Useful links

Tina is now running special courses in Developing intuition and using a pendulum, which you can read about here: Special courses.

Martine teaches Emotional Freedom Technique in North Yorkshire and can be contacted here: Martine Moorby.

Rhonda teaches Tai Chi, QiGong and meditation in Kent, and you can find her here: Rhonda Bailey.

I particularly wanted to thank Thalbert for coming to our gathering to run a session for us. Thalbert Allen is co-founder and Director of the College of Elemental Chi Kung in Finsbury Park, and you can read more about the College here: Elemental Chi Kung.

Next year’s gathering

Very shortly I am going to be announcing the venue and the date for the 2013 National Gathering, and I look forward to seeing many familiar faces there next year; it can’t come quickly enough as far as I’m concerned!

Here’s a photo of me with 15 of my team of teachers:

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

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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 Second Degree

attunements, distant healing, intuition, reiju empowerments, reiki energy, reiki symbol, reiki treatments, self healing, , , , , , , ,

People learn Reiki 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 what in my view is the essence of Second 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 Second Degree level, or anyone who would like to review the essence of Second Degree.

The first thing I want to say is that there should usually be an interval of a couple of months or so between First and Second Degree if you want to get the most out of your Reiki experience, and that it is unwise to take both Degrees back-to-back over a weekend. We would not take an advanced driving test the day after passing our basic driving test, so why would we believe that moving on to a more ‘advanced’ level with Reiki would be an effective way to learn when we have had no opportunity to get the hang of the basics of First Degree? Can we get the most out of Second Degree when we have had no opportunity to get used to working with and sensing and experiencing energy, when we have had no opportunity to enhance our effectiveness as a channel and our sensitivity to Reiki through regular practice, when we have had no opportunity to become familiar with a standard treatment routine and have had no opportunity to feel comfortable and confident in treating other people? Reiki is not a race, and we need to be familiar with the basics before moving on.

Second Degree is all about:

1. reinforcing or enhancing your connection to the energy 2. learning some symbols which you can use routinely when working on yourself or treating others 3. enhancing your self-healing 4. learning how to effect a strong distant connection (distant healing)

And ideally it is also about opening yourself up to your intuitive side so that you throw away the basic Reiki ‘rule book’ and go freestyle, gearing any treatments towards the individual needs of the recipient.

There are many approaches to doing these things, and I wanted below to touch on each one and to dispel some myths that may have been passed on.

Enhancing your Connection to the energy

On your Second Degree 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 Second Degree level. Whether you receive one, two, or three attunements 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. If you are receiving empowerments rather than attunements then you really need to have received three of them at least.

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, or 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.

Being “attuned” to a symbol

For many years within the world of Reiki, people believed that the symbols would not work for you, that they were essentially useless, until you had been “attuned” to the symbol: then it would work for you. Unfortunately the only connection rituals available in the West were ‘attunements’ which involved attuning you to a symbol, so no-one knew how to carry out a ‘symbol-free’ attunement to see if you really needed to be attuned to a symbol for it to work for you.

But in 1999, from Japan, emerged Reiju empowerments, a representation of the empowerments that Usui conferred, and these empowerments do not use symbols. Finally we were able to see if you really needed to be attuned to a symbol for it to work for you. Lo and behold we discovered that the symbols work fine for people who are connected to the energy using Reiju; they work fine for people who are connected to Reiki but who have not been ‘attuned’ to the symbols. It seems that once you are connected to Reiki – and now we know how to achieve this without symbols entering into the process – the symbols will work for you, and in fact any symbol seems to push the energy in a particular direction without you having to be specifically ‘attuned’ to it (whatever that means). The Reiki symbols are simply graphical representations of different aspects of the energy, a way of representing and emphasising what is already there.

“Sacred Symbols”

In some lineages students are not allowed to keep copies of the symbols and have to reproduce them from memory, based on what they learned on their Second Degree course. There is the suggestion that the symbols are sacred and not only sacred but secret, and should not be shown to people who are not involved in Reiki, or people who are at First Degree level. Where this idea came from in the Western Reiki system is not clear, since certainly Dr Hayashi had his students copy out his notes by way of preparing their own manuals, including copying down the symbols.

For me, the Reiki symbols are simply graphical representations of different aspects of the energy, useful tools to assist us in experiencing or becoming consciously aware of different aspects of what we already have, and what is special or sacred is our connection to the source, not the squiggles we might put on a piece of paper.

Because of the ‘Chinese whispers’ that have resulted from students not being allowed to take home hard copies of the Reiki symbols, there are many different versions of the symbols in existence, but they are mainly variations on a theme and they all seem to work in practice. Do remember, though, that the original CKR had an anticlockwise spiral, and to use a version of CKR with a clockwise spiral is to use a symbol that is not part of the Usui/Hayashi/Takata system.

Using Symbols in practice

Some students are taught there is one ‘correct’ way that symbols have to be used. Reiki is not so finicky. The important thing when using a Reiki symbol is to focus your attention on the symbol in some way, so whether you are drawing the symbol with your fingers hovering over the back of your hand as you treat someone, whether you are drawing out the symbol using eye movements, or nose movements, or in your mind’s eye, all approaches will work. You do not need to visualise the symbols in a particular colour and if you can see the symbol in your mind’s eye in its entirety – this takes practice – you can ‘flash’ the whole symbol rather than drawing it out stroke by stroke.

Just because we have been taught some symbols does not mean that we are now obliged to use them all the time when we treat or when we work on ourselves. They can be used to emphasise different aspects of the energy, but this is optional. Use of symbols does seem to boost the flow of energy, so we can use them when it feels appropriate. This is the key: to bring a symbol into a particular part of a treatment when we have a strong feeling that we ought to, to work intuitively rather than following a set method.

I have written in other articles below about the issue of simplicity within Reiki practice, and the complicated way that people have ended up using the Reiki symbols, for example mixing symbols together or using complicated symbol sandwiches. Remember that the simple approach is usually the most effective, and that there is no hard and fast way that you ‘have’ to work with the symbols you have been shown.

By the way, if you have been taught that you have to draw the three Second Degree symbols over your palm each day or else they will stop working for you, you can safely ignore these instructions. The symbols will work for you no matter what you do or don’t do with your palms!

Why the symbols are there

At Second Degree, the prime focus of Reiki is still your self-healing, and the first two symbols are there to help you get to grips with two important energies that will further or deepen your self-healing. Putting the ‘distant healing’ symbol to one side, the other two symbols represent the energies of earth ki and heavenly ki, and we need to fully assimilate these two energies to enhance our self-healing and self-development. If we are going to use these energies when we treat other people, it makes sense to be thoroughly familiar with these energies, to have spent time ‘becoming’ these energies. We can do this by carrying out regular symbol meditations.

Making ‘distant’ connections

The third Reiki symbol that you are introduced to on a Second Degree course is commonly called the ‘distant healing symbol’. We should remember that distant healing is perfectly possible at First Degree level and that we do not need to use a symbol in order to send Reiki to another person: intent is enough. But using this symbol can help us to learn to better ‘click’ into a nice strong merged state.

There is no set form of ritual that ‘has’ to be used in distant healing, there is not set form of words that has to be recited, no established sequence which needs to be reproduced in order for distant healing to be effective, so we can find our own comfortable approach, different from other people’s but equally valid. The details of the ritual that we use are not important. All we need to do is to focus our attention on the recipient and maybe use the symbol in some way, merge with the energy, merge with the recipient, and allow the energy to flow.

Intuitive working

Ideally, Second Degree should be the stage where you start to leave the basic ‘rulebook’ behind and go ‘freestyle’, gearing your treatment towards the recipient’s individual energy needs, so that each treatment will be different, as the recipient’s energy needs change from one treatment session to another. Some students will already be modifying the basic treatment routine by the time that they arrive on their Second Degree course.

Set hand positions and a prescribed scheme to follow are useful things to have at First Degree, and allow the student to feel confident in treating others, but sequences of hand positions can be left behind when we open to intuition. Intuitive treatments seem to do something special for the recipient: when you direct the energy into just the right combination of positions for that person on that occasion you allow the energy to penetrate deeply and this seems to lead to a more profound experience for the recipient. Treatments using intuitively guided hand positions may involve much fewer hand positions being held, and each combination being held for much longer, than in a ‘standard’ treatment.

We recommend that the Japanese “Reiji ho” approach is used to help Second Degree students to open to their intuitive side, since the approach is so simple and seems to work for most people even within a few minutes of practice. The resulting strong belief that the student is “intuitive” is a hugely empowering state and opens many doors.

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. Carry on with your Hatsurei and self-treatments, get to grips with the energies of CKR and SHK through regular meditation, find your own comfortable approach to carrying out distant healing, and open yourself to intuitive working. And have fun!

How long should I spend in each hand position?

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timing of reiki hand positions

Treat like clockwork?

In some Reiki lineages, students are taught to spend a set amount of time treating each hand position, no matter who they are working on, and some practitioners use audio CDs with little ‘bells’ that sound out every three minutes, say.

But isn’t this a bit mechanical, and everyone’s different, so why would we give essentially the same treatment to everyone that we work on?

Altering your treatments to suit the client

The energy needs of each person that we work on will be different, so it’s reasonable to expect each Reiki treatment that we give to be different, based on the individual energy needs of the client.

I don’t think we should treat everyone like a “Reiki robot”, changing hand position every time a bell pings, no matter what the client’s energy system needs on that occasion. In my last blog I spoke about moving beyond the standard hand positions that are taught in some lineages, and we can also move beyond the idea of treating for the same amount of time in each hand position.

Clients will have areas of the body that need Reiki more than others, so it makes sense to spend longer in these areas of need, and to spend less time in areas where there’s not such a great need for Reiki to flow.

How to know how long to take in one position

So how can we work out how long we should spend in each hand position? I would like to suggest two methods, one based on sensing the flow of energy, and one based on intuition.

Most Reiki people can feel the flow of energy through their hands, which often shows itself as heat, fizzing, tingling, buzzing, heaviness, a magnetic feeling or whatever, if you can feel the flow of energy through your hands then you will be able to tell whether the hand position you are using is drawing lots of energy.

Sometimes it’s completely clear, since your hands are absolutely ‘on fire’!

It would be a good idea to stay in that hand position for longer, and after a while you will start to notice that the flow of energy – and associates sensations – starts to reduce in intensity.

When things have calmed down, move onto your next hand position.

We can also allow our intuition to guide us in terms of how long we spend working on a particular part of the body. Everyone is intuitive, and our intuition can make itself known to us in different ways. We may feel ‘locked’ into a particular hand position, or have an ‘inner knowing’ that we should stay where we are for the time being.

One little trick that I have used in the past to tell whether I need to stay where I am or move on involves using a visualisation that connects to your inner knowing: when treating someone, and I’m wondering whether I should move on now, I have an imaginary hand appear in my mind’s eye, resting where my real hand is.

I imagine that this imaginary hand moves away from the body, as if on a piece of elastic, and if the imaginary hand wants to pull itself back to its original position, pulled by the elastic, then I should stay there for longer.

If the hand seems happy to drift away, in my mind’s eye, then I know it’s ok to move on to a new position… just a little visualisation that you can use to access intuitive knowledge.

Over to you

If these approaches are new to you, why not try them and see what happens, and let us know about your experiences by posting a message below.

Or maybe you started out doing treatments with standard timings, and now you don’t.

How did that happen, and what do you think about the quality of your treatments now that you’re working more freestyle?

Here’s lots of advice about giving treatments

reiki books first degree manualIf you’d like some guidance about giving Reiki treatments, I have a whole load of advice and suggestions for you in the Reiki Evolution First Degree course manual.

This isn’t just available to Reiki Evolution students: anyone can work with our manuals.

You can order a professionally-printed copy, or you can download your manual right now.

Here are the links that you need:

Reiki First Degree manual

Reiki First Degree eBook

 

 

 



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			What Reiki hand positions should I use?
		

		
		

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reiki hand positions


Are there hand positions that you should always use?


In some Reiki lineages, students are taught ‘the’ hand positions that they need to use, ‘the’ twelve hand positions, as if it were set in stone.


But do Reiki treatments really need to follow a set format, no matter what the energy needs of the client? Does every client have to be treated in exactly the same way?


I believe that having a set of hand positions to follow when you are starting out on your Reiki journey is very useful: you have some basic instructions to follow, you don’t need to worry, and you can concentrate on getting used to working with the energy, becoming comfortable with being with people in a treatment setting.


You are firing the energy from lots of different directions to make sure it has the best chance to get to where it needs to.


But this ‘one size fits all’ approach is a bit limiting. Not everyone is the same, so why would we apply the same hand positions to everybody we treat?


So how might we start to adjust or alter where we are resting our hands?


Varying your hand positions for each client


There are two ways to adjust the hand positions that you use: through scanning and through intuition.

Scanning is taught on most Reiki course and it is a way of finding out where the energy is flowing to on the client’s body in the greatest amounts. Energy flowing strongly gives people a variety of sensations, and common feelings might be heat in your hands, or warmth, fizzing, tingling, buzzing, throbbing, heaviness, a magnetic feeling etc.


You hover your hands a few inches away from the client, drift your hand from one place to another, or sweep from one area to another, and focus your attention on the sensations that you are getting on your hand/fingers.


When doing this, you may notice that there are areas of need that don’t tie in with the standard hand positions that you are taught, and you could add an extra hand position when you get that part of the body during your treatment, or alter the hand positions away from the standard ones, to accommodate this area of need.


Intuition is another approach that can be used to gear your treatment more towards the energy needs of the person that you are working on.


Intuition can express itself in a person in different ways: a general ‘impression’, a feeling of being ‘drawn’ to an area of the body, an ‘inner knowing’, or you may find that your hands are drifting apparently of their own accord to some area. This latter approach is something that we teach on our Reiki courses, in the form of “Reiji ho”, an intuitive approach that derives from Japanese Reiki.


So after starting off your treatment in whatever way you do that, you could then simply follow your impressions about where to rest your hands, and go with the flow.


Want to find out more about Intuitive working?


reiki book second degree manualsA big part of our Second Degree course involves helping people to work intuitively, so that the energy guides your hands to the right place to treat for each client.


In the Reiki Evolution 110-page Reiki Evolution Second Degree manual you can find step-by-step instructions to help you move beyond standard hand positions.


This manual isn’t just available to Reiki Evolution students: anyone can work with our manuals.


You can order a professionally-printed copy, or you can download your manual right now.


Here are the links that you need:


Reiki Second Degree manual


Reiki Second Degree eBook


 




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			The 10 Rules of Reiki
		

		
		

			intuition, meditation, mindfulness, precepts, self healing, , , , , , , , , , , 					

	


		

		


In this article I thought I would set down ten things that you can do – ten principles to take account of – to benefit your practice of Reiki. This is not something that has come from Japan, or from early practitioners of Reiki: it is just something that I have put together myself. I hope that this article will be of interest to people at all Reiki levels.


(1) Reiki is all about you


Although Reiki is sometimes presented in the West as a sort of complementary therapy, a hands-on treatment technique, or a form of Japanese spiritual healing, that is not what Reiki is all about. If your practice of Reiki consists mainly of treating other people then you are missing the point because Reiki is all about you! Reiki is a personal practice for your self-healing and your spiritual and self-development. You are the priority here.


In Usui’s time the treatment of others was not focused upon or emphasised, in fact treatments were a bit of a distraction from the main thrust of his teachings, which Usui Sensei referred to as a “system to achieve personal perfection”. Right from the start, the system was about personal development, not working on others.


So to gain the greatest benefits for yourself through Reiki, you need to establish a decent routine of working on yourself in whatever way that you were taught. If you were taught Western-style then do your hands-on self-treatment regularly, if you know about Japanese-style Reiki then practise your Hatsurei ho; if you know about Usui Sensei’s original system then add his self-treatment meditation to your regular Hatsurei.


I know that some people seem to have the view that working on yourself is in some way ‘selfish’, but if you cannot look after yourself properly then how can you help other people? By working on yourself regularly you make yourself a better channel and more effective at what you do in terms of treatments, so there are plus points all round for those who make themselves their Reiki priority.


(2) Base your practice on the precepts


Usui Sensei established a simple spiritual system that was rooted in his precepts, his ‘rules to live by’. Rather than being an interesting set of instructions to read on a course and put to one side, Usui’s precepts are at the very heart of his system, and it was said that as much spiritual development could come through following the precepts as would come through doing any of the energy work. If we are consider ourselves as ‘practising Reiki’ then we will follow the precepts.


So we need to think deeply about the precepts and how they affect our lives. We need to consider each precept in turn and reflect on how that precept might impinge upon and guide our thoughts and behaviour and relationships and priorities. And we need to do this regularly, using the precepts as an ongoing source of guidance, the effects of which will make a real difference to us, and the people around us, over time.


The precepts are something that you we drip-feed into our lives, something that we refer to regularly and reflect on regularly, for our own benefit and for the benefit of the people with whom we come into contact.


(3) Practise mindfulness


Although not referred to on most Reiki courses, the practise of mindfulness was as important part of Usui Sensei’s system as were the precepts, and in fact mindfulness is hidden in the precepts! Mindfulness is a form of meditation that one can perform at any time, when carrying out ordinary, mundane activities like walking somewhere or washing dishes or sipping tea, and involves becoming consciously and fully aware of your thoughts and actions in the present moment, non-judgmentally, existing in the moment.


When you are living ‘in the moment’, fully engaged in what you are doing, fully aware of the present moment, then you are existing in a state where there is no anger and there is no worry. By not dwelling on the past or speculating about the future, by embracing fully the present moment, you are living the precepts, and mindfulness brings with it humility, honesty, compassion and forgiveness.


So mindfulness is a way of experiencing Mikao Usui’s spiritual principles.


(4) Work on yourself daily


Reiki isn’t something that you can pick up once in a while, play around with for a bit, and then drop again… not if you are looking to receive the many benefits that are available from the system, anyway. If you are looking for consistent benefits then you need a consistent practice. The precepts say “just for today”, and that is a good starting point: just do something with Reiki today. You can manage that. It doesn’t have to be hours and hour’s worth. Just do something for 10 minutes: you have ten minutes. Do something for 20 minutes. And if you don’t have ten minutes, get up 10 minutes earlier: problem solved.


Don’t worry about what you will do tomorrow: just focus on today.


When tomorrow comes, do the same. Just do something with Reiki, even for ten minutes. Don’t worry about tomorrow: just do something today.


(5) Commitment is the key


There are spectacular benefits to be enjoyed through practising Reiki, and all you need to do is to work with the energy consistently, focus on the precepts and practise mindfulness. The benefits build up cumulatively, you see, and sporadic and occasional practice isn’t enough if you want the very best out of your Reiki. You will get out of the system what you are prepared to put into it, so Reiki deserves a little of your time each day. You need to plug away at a few simple things, a few simple exercises or routines, and make them a regular part of your day, as regular a part of your routine as brushing your teeth or your hair.


And once you have established a regular habit of working on yourself with Reiki then you will find that it is difficult to stop: you will find that you really miss your hatsurei session or your self-treatment if you miss a day. That is the sort of position you are looking to get yourself into and by committing yourself to working with Reiki each day, even if it is a little inconvenient, you will reach that point.


(6) Don’t try too hard


While we do need to commit ourselves and establish a decent routine of working on ourselves in order to obtain the many benefits that are available to us through Reiki, we should at the same time make sure that we do not try too hard, work for too long, or take our practice too seriously. Reiki is best enjoyed in a gentle, laid-back and light-hearted fashion rather than in a fists-clenched, furrowed-brow, tense, ‘ready for a lot of hard work’ sort of way. We do not force Reiki and we do not force a fierce practice on ourselves.


Reiki is rather like a flowing stream of water, and we are a rough rock sitting in that stream. The rock will become smooth, of course, but this will be achieved gently, through having the water flow consistently, and this will be done in its own time.


We might read about some of the experiences that other Reiki people might have when working on themselves, or receiving attunements/empowerments, or treating others (seeing colours, feeling particular things) and we may not notice all these things ourselves; we may notice very little. We may then think that if only we tried a bit harder then we would notice these things and then we would then be ‘doing it properly’.


But trying hard and trying to force things is the best way there is to put a great big block on your progress. You will progress fastest when you give up trying and just be. Stand aside (metaphorically), do the exercises, treat people, and don’t think or worry about what you do or do not experience. Be a bystander, be neutral and empty, have no expectations. That is the best approach, the approach that will lead you to progress at the right speed for you.


(7) You don’t need to be perfect


Along with the need to be relaxed and laid-back and light-hearted about your practice, you should also make sure that you are not beating yourself up for not being perfect! You do not have to be perfect in order to obtain benefits for yourself through Reiki, or to treat other people successfully. No-one else is perfect, so you don’t have to be either.


So perhaps your mind wanders when you do a treatment or work on yourself. So what? This happens to everybody else. Don’t worry about it (there is something in the precepts about worrying). It you make a big thing about it and try through ‘force of will’ to have an empty mind, you have just made things worse: now you have two lots of thoughts… the first thoughts and then all the new thoughts about getting rid of the first lot of thoughts! Don’t worry. Pay the thoughts no attention. Let them go. Bring your attention gently back to what you were doing. Feel the energy flowing through you; imagine yourself merging with the person on the treatment table. Over time your mind will settle, and you’ll spend more of your time in a nice empty meditative state, but thoughts may well intrude again, and some days will probably be better than others. That’s ok. You’re human. It will sort itself out with time.


(8) Don’t keep trying to puzzle out ‘why’


To get the best out of your Reiki I recommend that you don’t spend too much time trying to puzzle out why you are – or are not – experiencing a particular thing. Don’t keep trying to work out what a particular colour that you or the recipient saw during a treatment means, or ponder the significance of a colour that you saw when self-treating. Don’t keep wondering what a particular sensation in your hand means or why you felt a lot of energy flowing into a particular area of someone’s body, or why you didn’t feel any energy flowing into a particular place. It doesn’t matter.


Your head can really mess up your experience of Reiki if you keep on frantically thinking about, analysing and questioning things. Don’t think! Just be. Empty your mind, merge with the energy, if you are treating someone then merge with the recipient, and let it happen. Follow the flow of energy when you are treating, yes, and allow your hands to stay for longer in areas where more energy is coming through, but don’t start frantically trying to puzzle out what is going on: Reiki works on lots of levels and you won’t know what’s happening so you may as well give up thinking about it and let go: enjoy the process, enjoy your treatments and give up the mental effort! It makes it so much easier that way!


(9) Trust your intuition


Along with not questioning everything that you feel or don’t feel, you should also not keep on doubting the things that you are feeling and noticing. If you feel something, you feel it: you are not making it up. You cannot make yourself feel something.


So if you notice that energy is flowing into you more strongly in a particular area when you are self-treating, accept that and go with it, self-treating for longer there than in other positions. The same applies when treating someone else: if you feel that there is a ‘hot spot’ or ‘fizzy area’ then accept the sensations and treat for longer there. You are not making it up.


Neither are you making it up if you feel strangely drawn to a particular area of the body. You are intuitive and you can work intuitively straight away. All you need to do is to stop second-guessing and doubting yourself, be still, and simply accept what comes to you. It doesn’t need to make sense. Don’t try and puzzle it out: just accept it and treat in the way that feels appropriate.


(10) Ignore silly rules and restrictions


While we are making sure that we are not cluttering our practice with endless thoughts, questions and doubts, we should also thrown out as unnecessary the various rules, regulations and restrictions that we may have been taught. Reiki does not need to be controlled, blunted and restricted by man-made rules that have no basis. Reiki is safe and Reiki is simple, and simple approaches are usually the most effective.


So we do not have to slavishly follow a prescribed set of hand positions when treating ourselves or other people and we do not need to say a set form of words for our Reiki to work. We do not need to follow ritualised sets of hand and body movements in a particular sequence to be able to treat someone and we do not need to refrain from treating people with various medical conditions. Reiki is safe and Reiki is adaptable. It allows many different ways of working that are all valid. There is no ‘one’ way that Reiki has to be used, and we should ignore admonitions that we should ‘always’, or ‘never’, do a particular thing.


So, to get the most out of your Reiki, I recommend that you make a commitment to yourself to work on yourself each day as your top priority, but not beating yourself up if you miss the occasional day. Use Hatsurei ho and self-treat, focus on the precepts and drip-feed mindfulness into more and more of your daily activities. Don’t try too hard though: be light-hearted and forgiving towards yourself because you don’t have to be perfect. Try not to clutter your mind with lots of thoughts and doubts and questions: just be neutral, have no expectations, be empty and content. And make sure you keep it simple.

	

	
	


							


	

		
				

			What a Difference a Year Makes
		

		
		

			commitment, intuition, reiki treatments, , , , , 					

	


		

		
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!


 


 


 

	

	
	


							


	

		
				

			Intention in Reiki work
		

		
		

			attunements, intention, intuition, reiju empowerments, , , , , , 					

	


		

		
do reiki attunements work


It never fails to inspire me how this word *intention* can be so subtle, yet so powerful.


Apparently, in the non-physical realms, (for use of a better word), as we think , we are there, as we intend, it happens etc. etc………………


I have worked with the Universal energies for many years and I can still be absolutely amazed at how powerful our intentions can be.


It is us who make it complicated and complex.


At times sometimes we can feel very much on our own,  especially if you are like myself, and don’t experience any whistles and bells  with angels floating around the room!


Initially it is wonderful to get proof when we first start to work with Reiki, but like most things, it balances out and starts to calm down. The *honeymoon phase* may be over for a while, but rest assured, it will return when you are least expecting it.


This is what I love about channelling this energy, it surprises us time and time again.


We don’t always get what we want though. It can manifest in many different guises, and that is why it is very helpful to be open, to be alert and to surrender to what the energy is presenting to us.


Live the 5 Reiki Precepts. Be mindful. It is all happening NOW1


Be childlike and trusting and put no conditions on anything!


When something does manifest, for heavens sake *trust* what you are being shown or given. Your intuition is never wrong. It is the language of the Soul basically!


Sometimes we think it is wishful thinking, we are imagining things, or it’s my mind playing tricks.


Our Western chattering minds can tell us all sorts of untruths about ourselves, that we are not developed enough, that we cannot sense anything, and that everyone else is getting something except little old me!!!


Getting our heads out of the way for a start is a good thing, asking Reik to assist us to be more open and trusting helps.


You know, we are Light Beings having a human experience while in body. So why, as a Spiritual Being can’t you believe in yourselves? You come from Light and you will go back to Light.


{You have just forgotten this temporarily}


You are part of the whole Universal Cosmos. And it is awesome, is it not? You are Reiki, (and Reiki is just a word which came up later in Usui’s time on earth)  but now you know this *consciously* due to the courses we offer at Reiki-Evolution.


O.K. I have went off track and twittered on a bit,  and I want to keep my message simple and uncomplicated.


Reiki is meant to enjoyed, not endured!


My students are very precious lovely Souls, who yearn for deeper and further knowledge, and I always talk a lot about Intention at the courses I host.


What I put out, comes back to me. I am very much aware of these Universal Laws, therefore it is important to keep our thinking as kind and loving as we can. Example if we put out aggression, if we are judgemental of others etc, then that’s what we’ll come up against.


Intolerant and unkind people! Usually with unbalanced egos!


But yes, they are learning too and have a right to be here


We are all playing out a drama prior to an agreement we made at some point!.


For some it is challenging and painful, while others seem to skate through life. Who said life would be fair anyway? We create our experiences, consciously or unconsciously.


 


 


A number of years ago, I had a student who completed all of her Reiki training with myself. This lady was paralysed from the waist down, due to a major road accident years before.


She gets around very capably in her *jet set buggy* and has the most beautiful and positive attitude to life. Nothing is a problem she can’t overcome. She has walked the road of the *suffering* so to speak, and life’s challenges will not hold her back from what she has to do.


She runs Reiki courses on a regular basis.


Now, remembering that this lady cannot stand, has no physical power from the waist down, manages to transmit the most powerful Western Reiki attunements at her Master classes, purely by *Intention*


She also transmits the Reiju Empowerments very beautifully, while sitting in her chair, all by *Intention* (And Usui Sensei did this also!) Without any rituals. All pure Intention!!!


I have received from her and have experienced her transmissions, and have been witness to the uplifting and wonderful energies when she is working.


This is *Intention* at work. She believes, *no she knows who she is* . A Lightworker!, following her inner guidance.


And can I say that this Soul could teach us all about *humility*


She works quietly and powerfully.


 


Another example I would like to share with you is about a student of mine who came along to do her Reiki Two with me a few months ago.


In the afternoon when we were going through the level 2 techniques etc, I was explaining to  her the *many hands* method.


She brought in her ethereal hands and was being gently guided by the energies. She then asked me if it was O.K. to direct some of these energy hands to *her own back* which was painful and uncomfortable. I noticed that she had been stooping a bit.


“Well, why not, I said, “we are all working as one, we are one, we are connected together as one energy, yes bring some of these hands around to your own back, and intend that the Reiki energy flows into your own back.


(I was very tempted to put my own hands on her back, but wanted to see what would happen)


Lo and behold, after a few moments she started to feel a warmth coming in, like a soft soothing balm being applied to the affected area, just being in the moment and experiencing this was a very powerful revelation for her and the other students.


Yes, we are all one!


 


This is the power of *Intention*


No doubting, just trusting and being open to what is. It. may not always be what we would expect, but Reiki only works for the greater good of all concerned.


I wish each of you a magical and transforming Reiki journey.


May your path be strewn with opportunity and growth, and of course much joy!


Like the Angels, lets take ourselves *lightly*


 


Warm Wishes


Margaret  Craig




glasgow reiki course scotlandMargaret Craig is one of the Reiki-Evolution team of teachers offering Reiki training at all levels in and around Glasgow and beyond since 2001.


Margaret has a nursing background which she discontinued a number of years ago. She is trained in many of the Complementary Therapies which she also practices. Hypnotherapy and Past Life Regression work also keep Margaret very busy in her Holistic practice.


Glasgow Reiki courses

	

	
	


							


	

		
				

			Seeing the same stuff
		

		
		

			intuition, reiki treatments, , 					

	


		

		


When you’re fully merged with somebody’s energies in a Reiki treatment, it sometimes happens that you ‘see’ the same things as the person you’re treating. I once carried out a treatment on a friend who I had just attuned to Reiki for the first time. As it wasn’t a formal course (she was one of my first students, in the days before I began teaching for Reiki Evolution), we went with the flow and did a simple treatment swap. During the treatment I saw a huge red crystal, the size of a football. It was a vibrant scarlet and you could see right into it, with pentagon shaped facets that you could peer through (and look, I’ve found a very lifelike image of one for you to enjoy too!). After the treatment, with not a word passing my lips, my friend described how she had seen a huge scarlet crystal exactly the same as I had seen. Naturally we pondered on the meaning of the scarlet crystal and concluded it was to do with the energy of the root chakra, which was somewhat out of balance for her at the time.


I’ve heard of quite a few students over the years who have had similar experiences, and certainly at Reiki shares, when a few people are treating the same person together, it never ceases to intrigue me how often people pick up the same ‘visual’ information from treating the same person. And sometimes the recipient will see the same too. It always seems to cause awe and wonder – no bad thing in my book.


Anyway… make sure you find time to have that chat with your client after the treatment has finished – share what you’ve both experienced and you might be surprised as how much more has been shared that the Reiki energy that has passed through you and into them!


 


And please feel free to post any similar ‘Reiki Visual’ stories below if you’d like to share them… hopefully then everyone will see, IT’S NOT JUST ME – it’s really quite common when working with Reiki!




kent reiki training coursesLouise Heseltine is one of the Reiki Evolution team of teachers, running 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. 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!