New Distant Healing meditations for you

October 15, 2011distant healing, mp3sdistant healing, reiki, simplicitytaggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk

To help Reiki people who are experimenting with distant healing, and looking for a method that suits them best, I have put together a collection of six distant healing meditations that you can use, and they are suitable for Reiki people at all levels, including First Degree. You can download the meditations straight away, as MP3 files, and listen to them as you carry out your distant healing.

I have been writing a series of blog posts on the subject of distant healing and if you have read them then you will know that I don’t believe there is any ‘set’ method that has to be used: people can find their own comfortable way of working with the energy and don’t need to follow a checklist set down by someone else. If you’r einterested in trying out a few different distant healing methods to see what seems to work best for you, then why not use these meditations and see how you get on with them.

Here are the meditations that I have put together for you:

(1) Simple distant healing session: no symbols, no props, no complications
(2) Connecting through cupping your hands
(3) Using a prop, like a teddy bear, pillow or even your leg
(4) Distant healing using a book or box
(5) Healing your past, healing past events
(6) Sending Reiki to the future

All the meditations are about 10-11 minutes long and so can be carried out any time you have a few minutes to spare, and the soft background music, and gentle commentary, will help you to enter a lovely, deep, merged state.

Distant Healing meditations as MP3 downloads

Reiki meditation CD, Reiki MP3
Six distant healing methods including sending to the past and future.

Price: £11.98

To order by PayPal, use this button

To order by NOCHEX, use this button

And once you’ve been using the meditations, please post a message below to let me know how you got on with them.

Author: Taggart King

Sending Reiki to the future

October 13, 2011distant healingdistant healing, reikitaggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk

Using distant healing creatively

I suppose that most people who send practise healing will send the energy to a friend or a family member, but the energy can be used more creatively too and, since Reiki doesn’t seem greatly constrained by either time or space, some people will send Reiki to their future.

So how might this be done?

Well, imagine that you have a public speaking engagement or a job interview, or a musical performance or an exam, any event where you could do with a bit of Reiki contentment sparkling over you. What you do is to imagine yourself in that future event, in whatever way feels comfortable, and imagine that Reiki is flooding into that event or situation, flooding into the room maybe, surrounding and engulfing you and any other people who might be there.

The Reiki that you are sending gives you just what you need on that occasion, supporting, nourishing and healing in the way that you need it, working its magic on the relationship between the people that are going to be there perhaps.

Reiki your day

Some people send Reiki ‘to their day’ by imagining their day ahead (in a brief, truncated or speeded up fashion) and flooding their day with Reiki, imagining everything going well, smoothly, calmly.

I have heard of someone who sends Reiki to ‘their bed’ each day, with the intention that the Reiki hangs around, ready to deposit itself on that person when they get into bed.

You can be endlessly creative with this!

Over to you

If this idea is new to you, why not experiment and see what’s possible, and let us hear about your experience by posting a message below.

Want to find out more about Distant Healing?

A whole collection of distant healing methods are contained in the 110-page Reiki Evolution Second Degree 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 Second Degree manual

Reiki Second Degree eBook

Author: Taggart King
Picture Credit: renatodantasc

Attunements, empowerments & contact lenses!

October 10, 2011attunements, contraindications, reiju empowerments, reiki energyattunements, reiju, reiju empowerments, reiki, taggarttaggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk

In this article I would like to talk a bit about attunements and empowerments used in Reiki, explaining the similarities and differences between these rituals. I was prompted to write this article after reading a message posted to an Internet discussion group a while ago, on the subject of Reiju empowerments. The message contained such a lot of misinformation and distortions that one could have concluded that it was posted mischievously, or maliciously, for ‘political’ reasons. Just the other day I smiled broadly because I came across an item on a web page which was trying to argue that the empowerments used by Mikao Usui were ineffective in connecting people to Reiki! Very strange. In any case, hopefully I can clear up some confusion or misunderstandings that people might have about attunements and empowerments, and this article should be of interest to people at all Reiki levels.

As for the contact lenses, you can find out about them towards the end of this article!

Introduction

No matter what sort of Reiki course you choose to follow, wherever you are in the world, you are likely to go through a ritual or a series of rituals which can be seen as a way of ‘connecting’ you to Reiki, a way of hooking you up to something that you were previously not connected to. That is a common way that such rituals are viewed: a way of ‘attuning’ you to something that you were not attuned to before, a way of plugging you into a new source of energy that was not available to you before.

But perhaps it is more useful to say that an empowerment, or an attunement, is a ‘ritual permission’, a permission to recognise something that is within, something that has always been there. The effect of the connection ritual is to allow you to channel energy for your own benefit, and for other people’s benefit, in a way that was not possible for you before you went through the ritual with your Reiki teacher.

Most people in the world of Reiki have been ‘connected’ using an “attunement” ritual, a version of the ritual that Mrs Takata was using, and while increasing numbers are now being connected using an “empowerment”, for the foreseeable future those attuned will always outnumber those empowered: most Reiki teachers attune, only a minority empower.

What are “attunements”

Until approximately 1999, everyone within the world of Reiki will have been ‘attuned’ using some sort of variation of the connection ritual that Hawayo Takata taught to the Masters that she initiated in the 1970s. Since the ‘70s Reiki has spread throughout the world and the attunement rituals used have evolved and changed as they have been passed from one teacher to another down the line. Some attunements are now quite complicated affairs, with many, many stages, while others are fairly simple, though there are some common themes that seem to run through most methods, for example the placing of the Reiki symbols into different parts of the student’s body (head and hands for example), tapping, blowing, affirming, visualising.

So there is not one standard attunement ritual used in the world of Reiki: there are endless variations, some quite contradictory to each other; if one method works in terms of the ‘theory’ behind it then a very different method does not make ‘sense’ and simply cannot work, and yet all methods do seem to work perfectly well. Some people insist that there have to be four attunements for Reiki First Degree, which is a big historical misunderstanding that I will not go into now, while others use three, or two, or even one attunement on their courses. All these approaches work.

It should be stated that Mikao Usui did not give people attunements, he did not attune anyone to any symbols, and he did not teach attunements. Attunements were not part of the system that Usui taught: he used empowerments instead. Usui taught empowerments to his Master students, and this was not done early on in their Master training – passing on the Reiki ability to others was only taught towards the end of the Master student’s formal training with Usui Sensei.

Now, the Imperial Officers who trained with Usui had not trained with him for long enough to have reached the level where they would have been taught to empower others, so where did the attunements used on most Reiki courses come from? Interestingly, it seems that after Usui’s untimely death the Imperial Officers put together a ritual that replicated the feelings or the experiences that they had when being empowered by Usui. Dr Hayashi passed on such a ritual to Mrs Takata, and then variations of this ritual spread throughout the world.

So attunements started their life as a constructed ritual put together by the Imperial Officers, and this ritual has now evolved, changed, altered over time as it has been passed from teacher to teacher in the West. These various attunement methods have been used to attune most of the Reiki people in the world.

So attunements work, of course. They ‘connect’ the student to Reiki. But that is not the end of the story: if we are going to get the most out of our Reiki then we are going to have to commit ourselves to working with the energy regularly, on ourselves, on other people, to develop our ability as a channel, to develop our sensitivity to the energy and to develop our intuition. An attunement gives us a baseline connection to the energy, but we can develop ourselves further, and benefit further, through our own efforts.

And in fact we can benefit from receiving further attunements, too. This is something that Reiki Master William Rand has been advocating for many years now, I believe. He does not say this because attunements are in some way ineffective, or temporary, or weak: he recommends that people get together to re-attune each other because he has found that there are definite benefits associated with having your ‘connection’ to the energy reinforced or renewed.

So one attunement is enough (or two, or three, or four, or however many attunements you had on your Reiki course, or however many attunements you believe are necessary), but there are definite benefits associated with being reattuned, and if we are serious about our Reiki then we need to also commit ourselves to working with the energy regularly. You don’t just go on a course and that’s the end of it: you need to work at your Reiki.

What are empowerments

When people talk about empowerments, they are referring to “Reiju empowerments”. You can write the word “Reiju” in two different ways using Japanese kanji, one way meaning “accepting the spirituality” and the other meaning “giving the spirituality”; spirituality in this case means ‘connection’ to the Reiki energy. In fact the word Reiju has been interpreted in several ways, for example “giving of the five blessings” and “the union of mind and ki”. The line in the Reiki precepts where it says “the secret method of inviting happiness through many blessings” might actually mean “the secret method of inviting happiness through receiving many Reiju empowerments”.

The empowerments that Mikao Usui used with his students can be referred to as “Reiju” and these were equivalent to a Tendai Buddhist blessing, a blessing that a Tendai teacher would bestow on a student with the intention that the student should receive what they need. Usui Sensei gave the blessing using intent only, but within Tendai Buddhism there is also a physical ritual that can be carried out which conveys the Reiju blessing; details of this ritual were passed to the West from Usui’s surviving students in the late 1990s and it is this ritual that we use on our “Reiki Evolution” First and Second Degree courses.

The effects of empowerments do not wear out. Empowerments ‘connect’ you to the energy; they allow you to recognise something that is already there. Just like attunements. The consensus that I have seen amongst those teachers who are using Reiju in practice, all over the world, is that not only are empowerments effective but they also confer special benefits. In my experience, students who receive Reiju seem ‘better connected’, better able to work intuitively, more sensitive to the energy in the early stages, when compared with people who have been attuned. Not everyone will agree with this, but many people who have moved from giving attunements to giving empowerments are saying the same sort of thing.

One empowerment is enough but it is nice do a few on a Reiki course, and we choose to carry out three empowerments on our First and Second Degree courses. But there are definite benefits associated with receiving Reiju repeatedly, and Usui Sensei’s students received Reiju from him again and again throughout their training at all levels. William Rand’s recommendation that Masters re-attune each other, because of the benefits associated, serves to echo this original practice. We echo Usui’s approach ourselves, by making distant empowerments available for all our students to tune into at any time on a Monday, every week, and Reiju empowerments are also given to students attending our teachers’ Reiki shares.

Receiving Reiju regularly helps to ‘reinforce’ your connection to the source. It enhances self-healing, it helps the student to develop spiritually, it enhances intuition and increases sensitivity to the flow of energy. Being reattuned will also help to achieve this, though as far as I can see it is not so common within the world of Reiki for re-attunements to be offered.

Now for the nonsense

One or two people are trying to argue that Usui Sensei’s method for connecting people to Reiki is ineffective. They are saying that Reiju is a weak and provides you with only a partial and lowly connection to the energy, that you are actually “dis-empowered”, unable to benefit from Reiki properly and unable to treat other people effectively.

These people – who will not have experienced Reiju for themselves, of course, or used Reiju in practice – are also arguing that Reiju-connected students are obliged to desperately carry out energy exercises every day to try and maintain some sort of a decent energy-channelling ability, and that they are dependent on their teacher for a regular ‘top’ up, without which their Reiki ability will dwindle and disappear. This is such a distortion of reality! By way of contrast, they also say that attunements give a far better permanent connection to the source, and the implication is that the student then does not need to carry out any energy work to develop themselves because they are perfectly connected right from the start, and no further commitment or responsibility for personal development is required.

Interestingly, in the same article, I was amused to hear that:

There is a lot of nonsense spoken about Reiki, and two more examples that were just sent to me the other day nearly had me choke on my cup of Tick Tock tea: there is a local college somewhere in the UK (I won’t name it) that tells it’s Reiki students that they should not treat people who wear contact lenses because the energy will distort the lenses, and in that same part of the country there is also a teacher who is telling their students that every time they use one of the Reiki symbols they are shortening their life by several minutes.

We have a word in England for such advice, and for the nonsense that is being written by one or two people about Reiju empowerments: “claptrap”. Claptrap should be avoided at all costs; claptrap will seriously diminish your enjoyment and experience of this wonderful system that we have been given. So the next time you hear that you shouldn’t treat people with pacemakers, or contact lenses, or green trousers for that matter, or the next time you hear that Usui’s method of connecting people to the energy doesn’t work properly, take such comments with a pinch of salt, ignore them, and move on!

A Reiki Diary

October 8, 2011My Reiki Storymy reiki story, reiki, reiki journey, reiki treatmentstaggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk

Peter Handy has kindly agreed to share his Reiki story, including publishing a “Reiki Diary” that he kept during the first four weeks after learning Reiki. Here is what Peter has to say…

“Four years ago I took a Reiki course provided by my local carers association. I had been a full time at home carer for my wife for 14 years. She had suffered several strokes over the years, the first one 30 years previously, shortly after we were married. My daughter who was 22 at the time I did the course, was also suffering health problems and as she lived alone and over 10 miles away I was doing a lot of travelling between our homes. In short it was all getting to me, I developed depression, and the Reiki course was part of my reigime to combat the depression and get off the tablets. I did my level one Reiki and since then have used it for self healing, and for my wife and pets. Reiki helped me to come off medication and helps my wife to bear the pain that is largely resistant to strong pain killers including morphine.

We, (the students on the course) were encouraged to keep a Reiki diary for the first 4 weeks after attunement, and I recently came accross mine, the rest of this story is copied from that diary more or less verbatim, exept where clarification needed a few extra words. When refering to muscle spasms/-pains, Reiki was not used as a stand alone treatment. Pain killers and muscle relaxants were used as well. Any effects My Wife Linda reported were over and above what she would have expected from medication alone. On occasions the Reiki does not appreciably lessen the pain ,which can be exteme at times, but she always said it helps her to cope better with it. It certainly gives me a lift knowing I can actualy do something practical to help her.

Wed 12th December 2007
Attended the Quaker Meeting house in Newcastle-u-Lyme for Reiki first degree seminar, Teacher – Nicola Brough.

Following the attunement – First attempt with fellow student, she felt more effect on her heart and abdoment areas which I did ‘hands off’ than on the head/neck area which I did hands on. When she practiced on me I did a silly thing, I tried to see what would happen if I resisted or tried to channel energy while she was treating me. What happened then wasn’t static electricity because she had been ‘hands on’ for a minute or so, but she immediately recoiled and said she had got a shock from my forehead (I wont try that again!)

Thurs 13th
am. Short treatment on my wife , top of head, then front/octipical. She lay in bed with severe head/neckpain. After treatment pain was less. She described front/occtipical position as partly closing a curtain on the pain. Pain receeded from eye and neck but overall headache remained. pm. self-heal.

Fri 14th
Treated my daughter . she’d had a headache for 2 days. Used head and shoulder positions. She reported cold sensation radiating down through her head. Headache was not cured but she felt more energised and her mood lifted. pm. self-heal.

Sat 15th
Ready to go out for Xmas lunch with her family, Linda felt ill and had headache. We had a little time, so I stood behind her as she sat in her wheelchair and we did Reiki. Afterwards, she said the experience was ‘something else’. Her abdomen chakra opened immediately and was ‘buzzing’. I felt the energy was building very slowly with little or no sensation in my hands.I concentrated harder and was aware of an increase in energy flow. At this point Lindas pain rose breifly followed by a sudden release of emotion and a reduction in her pain levels. It was if a blockage had been cleared. She coped well with the day, and she was on good form, which she would not have been had the bad head persisted. pm. self-heal.

Sun 16th
Saw Jo my daughter to fetch and deliver her new sofa. her headache had improved after Fridays treatment, but had since returned. She had migraine symptoms. Light headed, speech a bit muddled, left sided headache. I did longer treatment today, her sitting on a chair, hands off, over crown of head, then front to back left side of head, then sides of head, then neck/shoulders. As I moved down to her chest/back, still with hands about 6″ from the body, she suddenly reacted to a sensation of heat to her solar plexus.She opened her eyes to see my hand over that area. She said it felt weird* but wanted to continue. I told her to leave her eyes open if she wanted to, so there would be no suprises. I repeated the crown of head, hands on. She was clearly affected by the teatment and felt faint, so I left as she went to bed. She phoned 2 hours later to say how pleased she was that her migraine had stopped.

I had started with a headache and had been sweating and coughing on the drive home, and felt I was starting with a cold. I later self-treated my head, throat, and sinus area and the cough ceased.
Tonight I self-healed and tried to let go of many negative thoughts and emotions.Some are long standing and will need ongoing effort. My heart chakra is difficult to open and causes some discomfort. I have been working on my base and feet and seem to be making a little progress.

Mon 17th
self-treatment.

Tuesday 18th
Treated Linda as she lay in bed with bad head and muscle spasms. She then slept after feeling the tension release from her neck.
self-treatment.

Wed 19th
am, self-treat. Gave Linda Reiki to head and shoulders in the few minutes before she went out shopping with her sister. I had cold hands but she felt heat, she felt calmer and her breathing steadied. She saw ultramarine or cerulian? blue colours as the tension released. pm. self-healed.

Thurs 20th Dec
Tried static self-healing**, No hand positions used, just sat and recieved the energy.

Fri 21st
Linda got sudden rt side head/eye/neck pain. Drugs didn’t seem to be helping. Reiki ‘narrowed’ the pain enough for her to be able to get to bed.

She said the head and neck treatments were very powerful and she felt stronger and more able to stand the pain. Once we were upstairs I treated again both of us sitting on the bed. She made a gutteral sound as her throat chakra opened and she/we became emotional. She lay down feeling more relaxed.

Sat and sunday 22, 23rd
self treated,

Mon 24th
Self healing, then treated jack our old dog, who is suffering a bit. he was quite frisky afterwards, (could be because he hasn’t had much fussing lately)

Tuesday 25th
I treated Linda as she lay sleeping (we had agreed this would be OK to do previously). Hands on hip and shoulder area.
(Next day she said she had had a nice dream, lying in a meadow, sun shining, tall buttercups, and as she lay dozing in the sun her heart chakra opened up.) Self-healed.

Wed 26th
am. Treated Linda as she lay in bed, hands on head, then hips and shoulders. She felt those areas shimmering for some time afterwards.
pm, Linda developed a migraine, I treated her sitting on the bed, and she saw a complete rainbow or color wheel (hard to describe). She started to giggle as I worked over the midriff area. Then she was treated laying down and she had a strong throat reaction, and saw a vivd flash as i was doing hands off work to the soles of her feet. later on did self healing.

Thurs 27th
am early, did short self-healing before getting out of bed.

Fri 28th
am, did self healing sitting downstairs, after taking Lindas breakfast up. Linda told me she has had very bad eye/head/neck pain since 4am, so after self-healing I treat her as she id lying in bed, sitting alongside in a chair.

1st) hands on hip and shoulder, we got immediate response which stopped the pain!
2nd ) hands on, sacral and top of neck.
3rd) side of neck at base of octipical, fingers touching only.
4th) forehead-base of skull, hands on.
5th) One hand on crown.
6th) Each foot in turn.

Linda said it was the best treatment yet, the first to completely eliminate the pain. She felt shimmery for some time afterwards. I checked in on her about 10-15 minutes later and I felt engergy coming from her as I walked around the bed, like radiation from a crystal but bigger.By bedtime she was ‘going off’ again as she was tired, but it was 10.30. note: it is a rare occurence for Linda to be pain free.

Sat 29th
am, self-healing. treated Linda as she was lying in bed with a bad head. The pain diminished to the point where she was able to get up and go out for a drive and a walk around a local beauty spot (I walk Linda uses electric wheelchair) but the headache didn’t completely clear up like yesterday.

Sun 30th Dec
Linda poorly, to the point where she was agitated/emotional. Headache, itching skin, and legs rigid with spasm. treated at 10.50am. Her neck muscles relaxed, but arm/leg spasm persisted and her headache was still there. I treated her again in the evening with more success, and I tried to cocoon her her with energy at the end of the Reiki treatment, bearing in mind her need for emotional comfort and support. I didn’t tell her what I was attempting as she rested with eyes closed, and it was just an instinctive thing on my part. I drew the shape of a cocoon around her in the air with my hands, I and tried to fill it with loving energy. The next day without any promting she said she had felt protected by a bubble or aura, and that she felt she could have touched it if she had tried. I can’t remember reading or hearing of anyone doing this cocooning, but it seemed to work. self-healing before bed.

Mon 31st
I started with a migraine in the afternoon, the first for a few weeks. I didn’t take tablets but tried self healing with reiki. The typical visual distrurbances continued, but it didn’t develop into the usual throbbing head/nausia session. further self-healing before bedtime.

Tues 1st Jan
Did self-healing at night time, then treated Linda as she lay in bed tired and with a headache. She relaxed and slept well, and only got up twice in the night to go to the toilet instead of the normal 4-5 times.

Wed 2nd
pm.Treated Linda as she lay in bed, ner neck pain subsided, and I again tried to cocoon her, and she said it worked again.

Thursday 3rd
Self healed am, before going to take Jo shopping.

Fri 4th
self heal after lunch, then treated Linda, her lying in bed, back towards me as I sat on a stool at side of bed. Rt hand on crown and left on hip, then below the base, hand off. Pain in rt eye increased before reducing. Spine, sacral-back, then sacral-neck. Both hands over then on shoulders/neck area. Feet, right first then left. Cocoon. Her eye/head pain went in the first couple of minutes of hands on the crown of head and other hand below the base chakra. From that point on she gradualy went into a deeper state of relexation, and finaly felt cocooned. She sais the cocoon was strong and felt it would have moved with her if she had moved. She slept, and felt well enough to get up after a couple of hours.

Sat 5th
Self healed. Linda in bed with ususal head/eye/neck pains. Hands on head and shouldersrelaxed the the neck but eye pain persisited. Worked on back and tummy area as she had been having constipation pain since yesterday. Then as I worked on her left foot her eye pain went away. She felt the energy rising up from her foot and through her body and when it reached her head the pain stopped. 20 minutes after treatment she opened her bowels.

Sun 6th
self treated.

Monday
2.45am Linda awake with bad head, gave short hands-off to her neck as I lay falling asleep and it helped her to relax and get back to sleep.
Later on I went to Nicola at Burslem for Reiki treatment, I was tired beforehand, I was still very tired but relaxed afterwards and had an early night!

Tues 8th
Noon, Reiki on Linda, for head pain and muscle spasm. She felt a hand on her heart chakra long after I had removed it ,and she touched the area a couple of times to check (she lay with eyes closed). She relaxed and her eye pain ceased. I worked on her feet for 15 minutes and she felt the energy rise upwards through her body. I then did self-healing. I concentrated on the area that Nicola had been working on yesterday, as I could feel something happening in my rt side sacral area but I concentrated more on the central spine area. (I have had back problems for many years).

Afterwards I felt as if I was standing differently, either taller or straighter or both, and my balance felt a little weird. I also felt more awake, not so tired and with an elevated mood.

Wed 9th Jan
Self healed, finished after midnight, I must start earlier.

**On 20th dec I was just sitting, reading the level one manual and as I read about the hand positions and the chakras I was feeling a physical effect. For example as i read about the chakras my chest area started reacting. I decided to go through the self healing routine but just sit and imagine. The effect was just as if I was placing my hands in the positions. I imagined my hands on the front of my face covering my eyes, and i felt energy on that area. When I went on to the next position I still felt the energy in the previous one. As I progressed from one imagined hand position to the next I quicky ran through all the previous ones. In this way i eventualy felt as though I had several pair of hands working on me at the same time. I have tried this since and it works quicker If I briefly put my hand on the place , and it sort of jump starts the proccess.

My wife has remarked on a similar effect, sometimes feeling as though I still had a hand on a part of the body I had moved away from.

*My daughter found the unexpected charge of energy a little disturbing. Even though Reiki seemed to help, and I offered to perform Reiki any time she wanted, she has never asked, and I haven’t offered since. It seems to me that ‘hands off’ generally speaking gives more of a sudden surge of energy while ‘hands on’ builds up slowly. Being an ex-mechanic I liken this to a slow discharge of electricity, compared to the ‘spark’ you get when electricity jumps over an air gap in a spark plug.

Using a family member as my ‘client’ has been invaluable. At the start, I asked Linda to give me honest feedback about what she felt and what effects if any ,the Reiki delivered. In any case she is a disarmingly honest person, and in her own words ‘she never bullshits’.

From previous experiences, (she once did an aromatherapy course, and she had regularly visited a spirit healer some years before), I knew she was very sensitive to subtle energy. She would buy crystals and say” just hold that it’s really buzzing” but I would seldom feel anything. She can’t stay in one of those large crystal shops with the huge geodes for more than a few minutes, as it jangles her nerves. The first time the healer put a crystal under the couch Linda knew straight away that something was under her. My Reiki of late has been a little seldom, but re reading the diary has reminded me how much it has helped and I will return to using it more often in the future.

Thank you for reading my story.

Peter Handy

Sending Reiki to the past

October 6, 2011distant healing, self healingdistant healing, reiki, self treatmentstaggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk

Getting creative with Reiki distant healing

They would do that by imagining a past situation or event which has had some ongoing effect on them in terms of what they believe about themselves, some event that has held them back in some way, preventing them from being the person they could be, and imagine that the energy is cradling or flooding that event, doing whatever needs to be done to bring healing and resolution.

Whether the energy actually flies back in time to flood that event with Reiki is a moot point I think, but since all we have to experience is the present in any case – we live in the now – what this practice does is to heal the ongoing effects that the earlier event has had on the way that we feel about ourselves and other people, for example; it calms the ‘ripples’ that the event has produced over the years, to remove the chains that are holding us back in some way.

Healing the ‘inner child’

Some people might send distant healing to themselves in the past, imagining themselves as a child, by way of healing the ‘inner child’, not imagining a particular event or situation, but a representation or composite of them in childhood.

And, interestingly, this seems almost to be a Reiki version of ‘Time Line’ work, which is a practice in NLP: clients are taken back to find early events that have had a deleterious effect on their self-esteem, for example, and insights are passed on to the younger them that have knock-on effects in terms of how that earlier situation has affected them.

Over to you

If this idea is new to you, why not experiment and see what’s possible, and let us hear about your experience by posting a message below.

Want to find out more about Distant Healing?

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

Author: Taggart King
Picture Credit: thejbird

The 10 Rules of Reiki

October 3, 2011intuition, meditation, mindfulness, precepts, self healingdo not anger, do not worry, gokai, hatsurei ho, reiki, reiki meditations, reiki precepts, reiki principles, reiki treatments, self treatments, simplicity, taggarttaggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk

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.

My Reiki Story – Gail Vettraino

October 2, 2011My Reiki Storymy reiki storytaggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk

This is another in our series of “My Reiki Story” posts that we will be adding to the Reiki Evolution blog, where a Reiki person talks about their journey with Reiki. In today’s “My Reiki Story” we hear from Gail Vettraino from Lanarkshire…

The popularity of Reiki in recent years has resulted in Reiki being regarded as an holistic energy therapy. Whilst there is some merit in this essentially Western interpretation of Reiki, to experience the true wonder of Reiki, it is best understood from the Japanese perspective. I experienced Reiki from the Japanese perspective through Reiki Evolution a website owned by Taggart King. Taggart is a Reiki Master based in Spalding, Lincolnshire. He teaches Reiki on live courses and unusually online with distance learning courses.

At the time I enrolled for First Degree Reiki online with Taggart, I was emotionally, spiritually and physically wrecked from helping my young sons come to terms with the death of their father. I had been drawn to Reiki for about ten years and always felt amazing after a treatment, energised, positive and even strong enough to deal with an abusive husband. After I had left my husband and he died, I really struggled financially and couldn’tafford regular Reiki treatments, but I knew Reiki was the only therapy that would heal me completely. With the stress of widowhood my health had deteriorated and I had a virtually constant tremor in my leg, my balance and co – ordination worsened and I was using a walking stick. So much for your thirties being the time of your life !

I decided the way forward was to train in Reiki and self heal. But the killer question was, ‘Where do I find the right Reiki Master ?’ Finding the right Reiki Master is like finding the right partner – a game of needles and haystacks ! Having little money and no transport (Reiki Masters seem to delight in deeply spiritual, isolated and generally inaccessible habitats, which is bad news for single mothers !) the idea of doing my training online was a genius concept. Until of course my inner cynic came out to play. I am highly adept at being a technophobe and the idea of regularly emailing Taggart to receive guidance and receiving my empowerments (the ritual tuning into Reiki) long distance irritated my logical nature. But as ever, my intuitive side won and I trained online. The distant empowerments literally knocked me off balance ! The immense feeling of raw energy descending onto your aura is very hard to explain. Initially it felt overwhelming, yet before I realised it, I quickly adapted to the feel of the energy. I can’t imagine life without Reiki coursing through my system. Let’s just say I’m more mindful with my cynicism these days !

I rapidly began to heal on every level and passed my First and Second Degree Reiki quite quickly. It’s two years since I needed my walking stick, the tremor has ceased and my balance, co – ordination and energy levels have improved massively. According to my neurologist, I had a congenital balance disorder that was progressive, incurable and not treatable with medication. In his opinion, drugs would exacerbate my symptoms. So much for expert medical knowledge ! I have returned to work and bought a house, things that simply weren’t possible three years ago. I am currently scheming a way of finding the money to train as a Reiki Master – hopefully my bank manager doesn’t read this !

Well OK, I hear you say. You felt lousy, did Reiki, got better. What’s the significance of Japanese Reiki ? The answer’s very simple – it’s the real deal. Taggart has studied extensively Mikao Usui’s teachings and has replicated them as authentically as possible. By paring down Reiki to it’s simplistic Japanese origins, Taggart reveals the immense power of this therapy. Unlike the Western interpretation of Reiki that sees it as a transference of energy with added angels, crystals and possible leprechauns (it could happen !) to give it ‘va – va voom’, Japanese Reiki connects the person with divine. Although Reiki has its roots in Tendai Buddhism and Shintoism, it remains spiritually neutral. Consequently, a person experiences profound peace from whichever deity makes sense to them. The connection with the divine provides access to the unconditional magnanimous love of the Universe and both body and soul are equally attended to. According to Taggart, Mikao Usui never used the term Reiki – that came later. The use of hands on healing and the significance of symbols was evolved for military medics to use a triage system to treat patients with serious injuries, until appropriate treatment could be given. It was from the military doctors that the term Reiki evolved. Instead Usui described his teaching as a ‘Method to Achieve Personal perfection’. The Precepts of Reiki were instituted by Usui and essentially revolve around the significance of being at peace with yourself and others, being constructive with your life and not being anxious.

The teachings of Mikao Usui were a synthesis of ancient cultural traditions and a reflection of the impact of modernity on Japan in the late nineteenth century. Usui did not use a uniform teaching stratagem, instead he tailored his teaching to the student’s needs. Taggart has replicated this approach by combining ancient wisdom with the convenience of computers. So Reiki, the spiritual linkage between the human and the divine, has become universally accessible through the internet. Hopefully, reading this encourages you to experience the unlimited healing of the Universe through Reiki. Obstacles such as lack of time or transport are no longer relevant, thanks to Taggart’s online training. May your Reiki journey, whether it is in the flesh or in cyberspace be as rich and as rewarding as my journey.

With thanks to Taggart King for his permission to write about Reiki Evolution.

Gail Vettraino

If you would like to tell your Reiki story on the Reiki Evolution blog then send a jpeg head/shoulders photo of you, your name, and let us know about your story: when and why did you learn Reiki, what happened on your course, how do you use Reiki and how has Reiki changed things for you? Send your contribution to taggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk.

And if you like the sound of what Reiki can do for you, or if you’d like to take your Reiki further, remember that we have Reiki courses running throughout the UK, as well as multimedia home study courses.

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Scanning at a distance

September 29, 2011distant healing, reiki sensationsdistant healing, hand positions, reiki sensations, reiki treatmentstaggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk

Using props

In “How to send Reiki distant healing (Part IV)” I spoke about different ‘props’ that you can use when sending distant healing: sending Reiki into a teddy bear, or a pillow, or even into your upper leg.

All these props serve to represent the recipient’s body, helping you to focus your attention on the recipient and direct the energy into a particular part of their body at a distance. You are bolstering your intent by using the prop to make your intention ‘concrete’.

But in the same way that you are using the intermediate of the teddy bear, say, to help ‘transmit’ the energy, you can also receive information from the recipient about where the energy wants to go in greatest amounts, and we can do this by ‘scanning’ the teddy bear (or pillow).

Scanning a prop

Scanning, when used on a client on a treatment table in front of you, is a method where you hover your hand(s) over their body, a few inches away, and drift your hands from one place to another, paying attention to the sensations of heat, pulsing, fizzing, tingling, heaviness etc in your hands, by way of finding those areas that are drawing most energy, so that you can spend longer treating those areas.

Your hands can then guide you in terms of how long you treat in a particular area since you will notice that, after a while, the flow of energy subsides and you can then move on to another hand position.

And we can scan the teddy bear or pillow, who represents the recipient, and we can hover our hands, drifting our hand from one place to another, noticing the flow of energy through our hand into the prop, into the recipient.

An area of great need in the recipient will show itself by a more intense flow of energy into a particular part of the prop.

Just like in a live Reiki treatment, when you find an area on the prop that is drawing a lot of energy then you can treat that area for longer, until the flow of energy subsides.

So the distant connection to the recipient works two ways: as a way of directing Reiki to them, and also as a way of receiving information about where the energy needs to go.

Over to you

If you haven’t experimented with this sort of thing before, why not have a go and let us know what happened by posting a message below.

Want to find out more about Distant Healing?

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

Author: Taggart King
Picture Credit: Horia Varlan

What if I get it wrong?

September 26, 2011attunements, reiki sensations, reiki treatmentsattunements, hand positions, reiki, reiki treatments, taggarttaggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk

When we go on a Reiki course, whether at First Degree, Second Degree or Master Teacher level, we are given instructions telling us how to carry out various tasks, and if we are conscientious then we will try our best to follow those instructions to make sure that we are ‘doing it properly’. So whether we are treating ourselves, giving someone else a Reiki treatment, or performing an attunement on a student, we hope to achieve the desired results by doing it right, by following the instructions to the letter, and if it appears to us that the desired results have not been achieved then we tend to surmise that we have not followed the instructions properly, that we have forgotten something vital and done it wrong, and we may believe that the lack of an expected result is our fault.

If only we could have done things properly then things would have been different.

But there are two problems with this. Firstly, in reality, not following all the instructions will have very little effect on the efficacy of our treatment or attunement and, secondly, a lack of an expected response or result does not mean that we have done it wrong, or that something has not worked properly.

Treatments that ‘go wrong’

Let’s think about Reiki treatments for a while. We have been given a set procedure to follow by our teacher and perhaps we have a certain ritual to carry out before we commence the hands-on treatment. Perhaps we have been given a standard set of hand positions to follow or a set of things that we are ‘supposed’ to do at the end of a treatment, to bring things to a close. We carry out the treatment and then the recipient says that they didn’t feel very much, or they didn’t feel anything at all, or they felt unsettled and not relaxed, and we think back and realise that we missed one of the ‘introductory’ stages, or we got the words wrong, or we forgot to say something, or we used the ‘wrong’ sequence of hand positions, or we missed out a hand position or two, or neglected to carry out one of the closing stages of the treatment.

Because the treatment ‘didn’t work’ (apparently) we then assume that this is because we got the treatment wrong, we did the wrong thing, we forgot a vital stage, and it’s all our fault.

But we should remind ourselves that not everyone in the world of Reiki is taught to carry out treatments in exactly the same way. Other people may have stages to go through and phrases to say that are very different from how you were taught; they may not have even heard of half the things that you were taught to do, and yet their treatments work perfectly well. Should we assume that they are not doing things properly because they are not doing it the same way as you? Or should we assume that your treatment is inadequate because you are missing out vital stages that other people were taught to go through? Of course not: there are many different ways of approaching giving Reiki treatments, different traditions, different styles, different flavours, some simple, some complex, and they all achieve the desired results.

So we should realise that the ‘vital’ stages that we were taught to go through are perhaps not quite so vital as we first thought. Reiki accommodates many different ways of working and no phrase or hand movement or ritual is absolutely necessary. Reiki is above all that fiddly detail. It doesn’t matter.

What matters when you treat someone is that you focus your attention on the person you are working on, that you feel yourself merging with the energy and the person in front of you, that you allow yourself to disappear into the energy, neutral, empty, no expectations, and just let it happen. Anything else beyond that is just frippery, icing on a cake that was fine when it was plain. We don’t need to gild the lily, we don’t need to adorn unnecessarily something that was already beautiful, or to make superfluous additions to what is already complete.

So follow the instructions that you were given, by all means, but don’t fret if you don’t follow the sequence exactly, and please allow yourself the freedom to tailor your routine according to what feels right for you; find your own style and comfortable way of working rather than slavishly following a set of instructions passed on to you by another person. Go with what feels right for you on that occasion; be guided by intuition.

And why should we assume that the treatment did not work, that the session did not give the recipient what they needed, just because they felt very little, or felt nothing happening, or felt unrelaxed during the treatment? While many people have a wonderful time while being treated, seeing coloured lights, feeling tingling sensations or intense heat from the practitioner’s hands, experiencing deep relaxation and peace, melting into the treatment table, not everyone experiences that. Not everyone is the same. Not all recipients have a great time when they receive Reiki. Some people feel nothing, some feel very little, and some are quite unsettled by the whole experience. But no matter what they noticed happening, they received what they needed, and they experienced whatever sensations they needed to experience.

It’s nice to have positive feedback at the end of a treatment session, and people saying how relaxed they were and how hot our hands were etc. helps to boost our confidence, but such things are not compulsory and not everyone will say these things. We didn’t mess up their treatment because it would be very difficult to mess up a Reiki treatment: Reiki is foolproof!

Attunements that go wrong

The same comments apply to the carrying out of attunements. There are very many different attunement styles being used in the world, some quite simple, some quite complicated, and there will be stages and ritual movements or phrases/affirmations being used by some teachers that are not being used all by other teachers. One teacher may be going through – to them – a vital stage that others do not replicate, while others will be doing ‘necessary’ practices that we do not follow. And yet all these attunement styles work.

So while we should always try and do our best, and follow the attunement instructions that we were given, we should not worry terribly if we realise that we have missed out a particular stage or forgot to say a particular phrase, or failed to draw a symbol perfectly. What is important when attuning someone is your underlying intent; the details of the ritual are there to create a ritual ‘space’ in which the attunement can occur, but there are no really vital stages that have to be carried out no matter what, so we should not worry.

And we should remember that the reaction of a student to an attunement will vary greatly. If a student feels very little or nothing we should not assume that the attunement has not ‘taken’; this would not be possible. Equally, we should not assume that a student who experienced ‘bells and whistles’ has been far more effectively attuned. Such sensations and experiences are nice for the recipient but do not really indicate anything significant. Attunements work, even with some mistakes, and sometimes the recipient has an amazing experience; sometimes not. It doesn’t matter what they feel or don’t feel.

Finally

So we should feel confident that Reiki is giving the recipient what they need, whether they are receiving a treatment or an attunement, we should try our best and be conscientious but we should not worry too much if we don’t follow all the instructions. We should allow ourselves to find our own style, own comfortable way of working, which may be a little different from other people’s but which is just as valid, and we should not assume that a lack of ‘bells and whistles’ on the part of the recipient means that something hasn’t happened. There is no one ‘correct’ way to do things, there is no correct response to treatments or attunements, and Reiki accommodates many different styles and approaches. So we can relax!

My Reiki Story – Amanda Stec

September 25, 2011My Reiki Storymy reiki storytaggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk

My Reiki story begins about two years ago when I was browsing a new age shop and picked up a leaflet without thinking much about it at the time. I got home and perused it: Reiki classes. It sounded intruiging, but I’d never heard much about Reiki before and so it went into my drawer. It sat in my room for a few months and every so often I would take out the leaflet, look over it, then put it back in my drawer. Looking back, I can see that Reiki came into my life at the right time, and it all started with my instinct to pick up the leaflet! Gradually my curiosity was peaked and I began researching it. I sent Irene Forsyth – who ended up being my Reiki master for three courses – a lot of sceptical emails which she patiently answered.

I didn’t find Reiki – Reiki found me, when I least expected it. Things happened in my life which pointed to the fact that I should take this course, so I did. I hoped to find inner strength and cleansing, to help others and to compliment my growing spiritual practice. I achieved all of this and more with the inspirational Reiki Evolution course. The experiences I had on the day were life-changing and mysterious. Since I began doing energy exercises daily, living the precepts and letting Reiki into my life, I felt reborn. It gave me hope for the future. My first empowerment made me feel nauseous like I was floating outside my body, like my head was in my Tanden or like I was praying with my forehead on the floor. In both my first and second empowerment, when I did ‘gassho’ I felt heat on my face like a radiator. In my second empowerment I felt no nausea at all but an increased focus on my Tanden and when I did ‘ghasso’ I felt a huge awareness on my third eye chakra. Nine months later, I became accustomed to working with the energy and felt ready to move on to second degree. I learned to listen to my heart more, listen to my body more and deal with stress. Irene reviewed the information learned in our study pack, sent empowerments and gave us many opportunities to get to grips with working with the energies. She also answered my questions and kindled my interest for taking reiki further. The most recent course I have taken has been the Reiki Deepening course, which really did what it said: it deepened my experience of Reiki and widened my horizons by showing me even more ways that I could apply the energy in my life. I became more sensitive to the energy and felt that my hands warmed up much quicker and were hotter when I did the meditations. I am also much more comfortable when working with intent now. I had never realized how intuitive I could be until I went on this course. It has really boosted my confidence in my ability as a healer and now reiji ho is my preferred method of treating.

During my treatments, I feel a strong connection to the energy source. I try to be trusting and not insecure or anxious that the treatment go well. I simply go through the motions as if doing an experiment, with a distanced and childlike curiosity. I listen to where my hands want to move and enter a trance-like state where I almost forget who or where I am. I feel one with the energy. I feel as if my mind’s eye is closing down and the voice in my head goes quiet. From time to time, my mind switches back on to ‘check-in’ on the process, passing judgments like ‘it’s going well’ or ‘what if I’m not doing it right’, but soon it leaves again. Doing the energy exercises frequently has meant that my energy is stronger and people who treated me have noticed this. Throughout the time that I have practiced Reiki, the transformation in me has been immense. I have done many other things – acupuncture, yoga, Alexander technique, cognitive behavioural therapy, meditation, rekindling my spiritual side – along the way, but Reiki has been at the heart of it all, giving me the strength to find all those other things. It has helped me let go of old habits and make space for new light in my life. Due to moving country, I did not practice Reiki for one week. I noticed that I felt out of control, as if I was sleepwalking passively through life, letting events wash over me without taking time to breathe. Upon doing hatsurei for the first time in a week, I felt instantly uplifted. With Reiki, I have more energy to give myself fully to events, situations and encounters with people. I have the clarity to live with intent instead of passively letting life happen to me. Because Reiki lets me be my full and true self, I am able to be less selfish and more compassionate with others. I can take the focus off of my needs and be more aware of the needs of others.

Amanda

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How to send Distant Healing (Part 4)

September 22, 2011distant healing, intentiondistant healing, reikitaggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk

Using some sort of a prop for distant healing

Distant healing is a very important part of Reiki practice, of course, and is something that is not unique to Reiki. Distant healing (DH for short) is carried out in different Reiki lineages in different ways and there is no one ‘right’ way to perform this process.

How to do distance healing with Reiki

The important thing when carrying out DH is your underlying intent, and the details of the ritual that you use are unimportant.

What I would like to share with you today are some methods that use ‘props’ to represent the recipient.

As a prop, you can use a teddy bear or other cuddly toy, and by sending Reiki into the teddy bear’s head, or chest, or arm etc you are directing the energy to that part of the recipient, at a distance.

Some choose to use a pillow to represent the person, with one end of the pillow representing the recipient’s head and the other end representing their feet.

Some people are taught to use their upper leg or legs to represent the person to whom distant healing is being sent, with your knee representing their head, and the part of your leg next to your hip representing their feet.

Some people use both legs, with one leg representing the front of the recipient, and the other leg representing the back of the recipient’s body.

Props can help you focus

These props are there to help you to focus your attention, to focus your intent, and are not a necessary part of the process: distant healing can be carried out simply ‘in your head’, in a meditative state, but for those who like to have something tangible to work on, they can work very well, with the practitioner resting or hovering their hands over the different parts of the prop’s ‘body’ and imagining that energy is flowing into that area, directing the energy into that part of the recipient’s body at a distance.

Over to you

If these approaches are new to you, why not try them out and see how you get on, and let us know by posting a message below.

Need some help with your distant healing?

If you’d like to learn more about how to do distance healing with Reiki, or if you need some help with your distant healing, why not download my collection of Reiki distant healing meditations on MP3. They are suitable for all Reiki levels.

The meditations encompass the most simple approach ever… and more ritualised ones. Cup your hands, use some sort of a prop like a pillow or teddy bear, use a Distant Healing box or book and send to your future or past. All these meditations are right there for you to use straight away.

Just close your eyes and I’ll talk you through everything you need to do. Experiment with the MP3s and find out what works best for you.

Price: £13.49. Click to order via PayPal:

Author: Taggart King
Picture Credit: Björn Láczay

My Reiki Story – Alexis Crabb

September 18, 2011My Reiki Storymy reiki storytaggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk

Many times I have read testimonials or heard people describe how Reiki changed their life, how they found Reiki or how Reiki found them. Here is my story.

I believe that my Son, Jack lead me into Reiki through his interest in Martial Arts. This interest began in his tenth year and at the time I was horrified. I had no knowledge or interest, only seeing the ‘Martial’ not the ‘Art’ and being unaware of the discipline and spiritual elements. Whenever possible I discouraged his interest fearing that the hobby would interfere with his school work and later his studies. I hasten to say, I was mistaken he has become very successful in his professional life and still regularly practices Martial Arts for relaxation.

When Jack completed his university studies he wanted his independence so decided to move into an apartment. After my husband was tragically killed in an accident

I was living alone and was about to give up teaching to focus on my work as a canine behaviourist and private personal counsellor. I had more time for myself, more time to think about my spirituality and the rest of my life. Jack kept in touch regularly and would sometimes come to lunch. It was on one such occasion that he excitedly told me about his recent achievements in Martial Arts. He had become a Master and qualified as an Instructor. He went on to mention that his friend’s on-going back injury had recently improved after receiving Reiki. Jack suggested that I might take up Reiki for myself and that it would be good to use with dogs, plants and something extra to offer my counselling clients. An avid reader he had been researching alternative therapies and Reiki had been of the most interest to him.

The conversation we had that day aroused my interest so I began to think about Reiki. In fact, I could not stop thinking about Reiki. What was this Reiki? Where did I start to learn? After reading a few books I turned to “Ask Jeeves “. There were hundreds of Reiki sites to choose from. I am a practical person, careful with money and pride myself on having a lot of ‘common sense’; so the search was destined to become a time consuming process. After hours sitting in front of the computer I found “Reiki Evolution”. I instinctively knew it was the one for me. My birth sign is Libra so not a quick decision maker. I balance the ‘for’s and against’s’ carefully and usually proceed with extreme caution. On this occasion there was no time to waste I felt compelled to ‘throw caution to the wind’ book the course, send the cheque without considering the cost. In fact, I could not wait for the day to arrive to begin my Reiki journey. I was excited! It was a considerable sum of money for me at that time but I have never regretted the ‘investment’. On the contrary taking Reiki into my life has been and still is a wondrous experience that has brought me so much ‘Joy’.

In childhood I was frequently told that I was stupid and worthless, as children will, I believed it. Of course, I have proved otherwise but there are times when I feel a little unsure of myself. After taking Reiki Level 1… I had a few doubts. Would the energy work for me? My first client was a real sceptic his attitude made me more nervous but I soon began to relax as I felt the energy flow through me into him. The result was so reassuring that I never looked back. When I return to England the same client always asks for Reiki.

Soon after Reiki came into my life I met and married my present husband. On the day of the wedding my Reiki Teacher promised to send me some Reiki. At the time I thought little of it. I awoke on my wedding day to grey skies and torrential rain that continued all morning. As I left the house the Sun appeared, it was amazing everything seemed to have a golden glow so beautiful. The sun stayed with me throughout the ceremony, photographs and reception. It was as though we were all enveloped in a huge ‘Golden Bubble’. I still think of our wedding as a ‘Golden Day’. Was it the Reiki? I believe it was! What do you think?

I have had so many “sensitive life experiences” always seeming to have been looking in on the happiness of others. Since my marriage and beginning my Reiki journey life has changed for me. I have found happiness, contentment and “inner peace” of course there are still up’s and down’s…and the inevitable problems of life. But they don’t seem so bad now! Reiki Evolution was definitely the right choice for me.

I have since moved to Spain; my Reiki Journey continues to open new pathways: sharing the gift of Reiki with others, writing regular articles for newspapers, magazines, public speaking and organising events…the first Reiki Event was, “Celebrate Reiki Day in Spain”.

If the reader considers making Reiki part of their life look no further; because in ‘Reiki Evolution’ you will have found the ‘Best’. To find the best in Reiki…
“Do not only look for the Joy …bring Joy to what you do!” Reiki will give you what you need: physically, emotionally and spiritually!

I wish you the same “Happiness” and “Inner Peace” that Reiki has brought into my life.

Reiki Blessings…Alexis

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