Tag Archives: do not anger

The 10 Rules of Reiki


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.

When we need to adapt…

reiki 1 training course first degree classes

Sometimes our bodies simply say NO! Enough is enough.  If we don’t listen to what our higher self is trying to tell us then it will act and ensure we have to listen!  So we’ve two choices.  We can bemoan the fact that we are laid up incapable and worry and beat ourselves up for what we may see as our own inadequacies. We can gnash our teeth and wail about the things we are not getting done. We can wallow in self pity and become angry and frustrated but what would all these emotions  achieve exactly?  Would they make ourselves feel better, or simply produce a further dip in our spirits?

We could, on the other hand, surmise that whilst there may not be an apparent reason for our circumstances, nonetheless there is a reason and we can choose to go with the flow instead of fighting against it.

I’d like to share this little story with you, though not I hasten to add for a sympathy vote! Two days ago I was lamenting how little time I had to accomplish everything that needed doing.  My work is at its busiest (not that I’m complaining), the kids need running around here, there and everywhere, paperwork is piling up, household chores have had to be put on a back burner, my studies aren’t getting the attention I feel they need and my weekends are filled with ‘duties’ when surely my time I felt, could be better spent elsewhere. I did start to wonder who was actually in control here,  if it’s not me, then who is?

Yesterday, we travelled twenty miles in one direction for an appointment, turned around and travelled sixty miles in the opposite direction for another commitment  and inbetween all this had various stops to make to fit in other tasks. That morning my lower back started to niggle away at me but guess what? There’s simply no time for that nonsense, I thought, so I ignored it and carried on. Gradually the pain worsened, yet still I smiled and shrugged it off. I laughed at the way I was beginning to walk, cracked ‘old age’ jokes and ignored what my body was trying to tell me.  That was until 4.30am Sunday morning when my back went into spasm and seized up completely!   I couldn’t even writhe around in agony.  I wish I could end my tale by saying I channelled Reiki and lo and behold my back was cured.  The pain, however, was all encompassing and even though I made a squeak for help, I knew deep down there was a lesson here I needed to learn.  Would that lesson be learned if I instantaneously got the pain relief I needed?  Sadly, I think not.

So yesterday I was literally helpless but I still had a choice.  I could watch the dross on the television or I could connect with my higher self, pin back my ears and listen.  I could give my mind and body the attention it has been demanding.  I could work with the beautiful healing energies of Reiki, I could meditate on self healing, I could practise mindfulness and I could use the five Reiki Precepts as they should be used.  And so I did.  Whatever life throws at you, the precepts are a comforting guideline that we can adapt to our present circumstances.  For me,  in the here and now,  just for today…

I will not anger… I will accept that I need to rest and recuperate.

I will not worry….  about all the things that were planned for today, the places I needed to be, the things that simply had to be done because that will not alter my position.

I will be humble… I will accept that there are things I cannot do for myself today; that I have to rely on my family to do things for me.  So just for today I release the control freak as she cannot do anything better than anyone else 😉

Today I will be honest in my work. I will admit my current capabilities and not take on too much, or actually anything at all, I will accept I can do no other.

Today I will be compassionate to myself, as well as others. I will listen to my body and I will allow it to heal.   I will not beat myself up that I chose to ignore the warning signs, I have learned by my mistake!

In future I will not ignore my own needs and understand that if I do, I do so at my own peril.  Can you say the same?   It may be said that hindsight is a wonderful thing, I think a little foresight would serve us better ! 🙂

Reiki Blessings to you all,

Ann xx


yorkshire reiki courseAnn Halstead is one of the Reiki Evolution team of teachers offering Reiki training near the beautiful Summer Wine country in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.  Ann and her husband Jonathan also offer psychic development workshops and spiritual counselling.

Ann’s website can be found here:  www.holistic-wellbeing.co.uk

You can feel yourself getting sleepy…

developing reiki intuition course tina shaw…or how the use of hypnotic techniques and trance states with Reiki can do quite amazing things for people.

Through experimentation – and I would like to thank the hundred or so Reiki people who volunteered to be my guinea pigs when I trialled my first three “Reiki Hypno meditations” – I discovered that using a combination of a Reiki-style meditation with gentle suggestion patterns had a tremendous effect on people in just a few weeks of listening to a 10 minute audio track most days.

As well as being a Reiki teacher I am also a qualified Cognitive Hypnotherapist and NLP Master Practitioner. I trained at Regent’s College in London with the internationally respected Quest Institute and a lot of the course involved perfecting the art of making hypnotic suggestions, a series of elegant and subtle suggestion patterns that can help guide people’s subconscious minds so that a person lets go of whatever is holding them back in their life, and enhances their potential.

To begin with I focused on what I think are quite common challenges for people starting out with Reiki:

  • Calming your mind so that you can be in more of a mindful state
  • Developing your intuitive side
  • Enhancing your sensitivity to the energy

This is what some of my students said after listening to the Reiki Hypno meditations for a few weeks…

“The constant activity in my mind feels to have calmed down. I still have random thoughts, but I now have the ability to let them pass, without grabbing hold of them and picking the bones clean.”
Anne MacKenzie
“Certainly, without any question, the MP3 has been a huge benefit to me. I have often wanted to learn meditation but never found the medium or created the opportunity. Your track has changed things to such an extent I would like to learn more and develop my meditation skills.”
Jim Furze
“I just seem to be able to get on with life without so much worry. I don’t think i realised how very different i have been feeling and how much calmer not just i am but my family and my life is until i sat down to write this.”
Jo Cole
“I have often felt no sensitivity to the energy but found that this changed quickly once i started listening to the MP3. I have become much more aware of heat and energy in my hands when using the MP3 and giving treatments. I have been very pleased with the results.”
Pauline
“In all I’m delighted with the results. The trial has helped me more than I believed imaginable. My confidence has grown immensely and I’m raring to take my second degree and start working as a practitioner.”
Wanda
“My Reiki sessions have definitely altered for the better. I do tend to be more flexible in my approach… I am being ‘drawn’ to lay my hands on areas that I might not have been before…..and it is certainly a whole lot easier and less structured than before. I have ‘let go’ of all my former expectations of how the Reiki session ought to proceed…and the results are quite eye opening at times. It is as if I have been ‘attuned’ to Reiki in a new way ….all over again. I can’t quite explain it really!”
Carol Leslie

And this quite astounded me, actually. I was sure that the meditations would work, but I didn’t realise how well they would work and how quickly! I think what’s going on here is that when you meditate using Reiki you enter quite a deep trance state, where your subconscious mind is quite receptive to positive suggestion. Within Reiki, some people already use Nentatsu ho, where you rest your hands on your head and send an affirmation that is intended to be accepted by your subconscious, so what I am doing could be seen a a turbo-charged version of this, using the best of Ericksonian suggestion patterns with the supporting and boosting effect of Reiki energy work.

Since I was so enthused by the feedback I was getting, I decided to put together three tracks that dealt with the Reiki precepts, creating suggestion patterns that focused on:

  • Releasing anger and worry/being ‘in the moment’
  • Embodying humility and honesty
  • Experiencing compassion and forgiveness.

Here are a couple of the responses that I received from people working with these Reiki meditations

“I have all of Taggart’s hypno meditations and use them on a regular basis. I started with Compassion — a beautiful piece, relatively short, which means it can be fitted in any time. I have also found it a great starting point for work on the other precepts. I often listen to Compassion before I give Reiki or Indian Head Massage to someone. Humility and honesty are fantastic reminders for basic and decent behaviours, with humility constantly urging me to step back a bit, listen more actively, be more thoughtful … But the meditation I use most is Be free from Anger/Worry, and it has paid enormous dividends. In recent weeks, I can’t remember the last time I really felt angry or wanted to express anger. And it’s not that it’s suppressed — it simply doesn’t seem to be there at all. This meditation is a genuinely useful reminder of the futility of worry in many circumstances.”
SS, Cambridgeshire
” I am very pleased with the Reiki precept downloads. I have used them both personally and in group. I think what attracts me the most is their sincere simplicity. It allows one to relax and let the words wash over you. As my own Reiki path develops I am re-energized by new approaches.”
M J Perdue, West Virginia

It’s really fulfilling for me to be able to make a difference to people in this way. And so I moved on to a third collection of MP3s, this time dealing with:

  • Building self-confidence, confidence in your Reiki abilities
  • Establishing a good regular routine of working on yourself
  • Finding your own distinctive way with the energy, finding your own approach

 

Nentatsu Ho #1:

The Fundamentals


Experiencing mindfulness

Developing your intuition

Building energy sensitivity

Price: £19.99

To order by PayPal, use this button  Add to Cart

Nentatsu Ho #2:

The Reiki Precepts


Releasing worry and anger

Humility and honesty

Compassion and forgiveness

Price: £19.99

To order by PayPal, use this button  Add to Cart

Nentatsu Ho #3:

Spreading your wings

Building your Reiki confidence

Make your Reiki routine more consistent

Finding your own way with the energy

Price: £19.99

To order by PayPal, use this button  Add to Cart

 

On anger

Anger is something that will come up a lot on any path of healing and self development. It is specifically referenced in the Reiki precepts: Just for today, Do not anger. Well, guess what? This week, I’ve been getting angry.

I’ve talked about this before and I’ll say it again – getting angry doesn’t make you a bad Reiki person, it doesn’t make you a bad person of any kind. It just makes you angry, that’s all. Anger is a natural human emotion, and pretending you don’t feel anger, ever, because you think it’s not a spiritual thing to do is just a lie like any other lie, and it won’t move you forward on your path. This is something I know. I also know this: when you are on a path of self development, over time your anger (the things you get angry about, the way you respond to anger and the situation that made you angry) will change. 10 years ago I was angry about all sorts of things, I got angry about stuff that just doesn’t even touch my awareness these days. And I could carry that anger with me, and nurse it for the entire day, no problem. And then I could head off and do something nice and self destructive about it. Such is the pattern of impotent rage, when you feel powerless to change the situation that makes you angry.

These days, I mostly feel powerful, so as well as many things that used to make me angry seeming unimportant, the things that do make me angry can be seen as often serving a purpose. But this purpose isn’t always obvious. Sometimes, I am just angry because anger is the appropriate response to that situation. In recent memory a dear friend of mine was attacked. Yeah, I got angry, how else was I supposed to feel? I love her, and some predator attacked her. This wasn’t really anger I could use at the time, but it was still an important experience. This, for me, was a lesson in allowing. Allowing myself to be angry, feeling that emotion, knowing it, allowing the experience to happen without judging it. At the time, a friend tried to calm me, to say that being angry was wrong, thinking negative thoughts was wrong, that this predator was here to teach lessons and I must maintain a state of calm. This advice was well meaning, but it was wrong and unhelpful. Why? Because it made my very valid feelings wrong somehow, it made me wrong to have an emotional response, and judged me for it. I should know better, I am a healer and healers don’t get angry like that. Yes, we do! We are all emotional creatures, and our emotions should be honoured. It’s ok to be angry when we learn about morally indefensible torturing of animals for ‘progress’ (read: profit of corporations), when a friend is deliberately harmed by some awful damaged person, when people that we wish we could trust betray us and treat us badly. (Those are the things that make me angry, you can insert your own list here.)  In these instances, we can allow ourselves to experience the emotion, without fear or judgement, and just be honest about that. We can come to know anger, so it doesn’t have such power over us, and as we do this we make the first steps towards what Alberto Villoldo talks about in his book, ‘Illumination: The Shaman’s Way of Healing’ – letting ourselves feel an emotion so we know it so well we can experience it in its purest form, without cause, and so become more peaceful and powerful in ourselves.

Other experiences of anger are more common. It is easy when you live in the world to fall into a state of anger over the little things, no matter how well developed you think you are. Sometimes things get under our skin even though, when you really think about it, those things are not important. And here we have an anger that can easily and quickly be harnessed and used – not for some great spiritual purpose, but to see where things are not as you want them and make those changes in your life. If you can’t achieve that change in full right now, at least make the decision, put things in motion. Do it *now* and don’t let that realisation escape you, it was a gift. Honour it.

This past week or so I have been angry. Not righteous anger that shows me what is wrong in the wider world. Not anger that lets me know myself and create peaceful energy in the world to ultimately play my part in raising the vibration and dreaming a better dream of the world into being. I’ve been aggravated, annoyed, petulant, stompy, ranty, wound up. As my boyfriend so innocently put it yesterday, ‘isn’t PMT only supposed to last a couple of days? You seem to have had it for quite a long time…’

Abraham-Hicks, in the law of attraction, talk about emotions as an inner navigation system. Be grateful that you feel crappy right now, because it is teaching you something, it is telling you that you have strayed from your path and giving you the opportunity to put that right. So, let’s review some of my anger in recent days.

I’m doing a part time temp job at the moment, in an office. I find the work to be entirely unimportant, and yesterday I copped an earful (via email, luckily for the person involved) about something that I had already offered explanations and apologies for, that wasn’t in any way my fault, couldn’t be changed due to my unfortunate lack of time machine, and really wasn’t important anyway – it was more about this person making themselves feel important. Ooh, it wound me up! Why? It’s not important, it doesn’t matter… and there it is. I detest doing work that doesn’t matter to me, that I don’t care about, that is all jumped up bureaucracy and a vehicle for people to pretend they are important when in fact they are contributing nothing to the betterment of this world. Message: Kay, why are you here? If you shift your focus you can go back to full time self employment by the end of May, you just need to trust. Just trust. Why, thank you Mr Anger for that timely message of support!

Here’s another one. I live in a block of flats, my next door neighbours are the kind you don’t want to live next door to. They shout and holler at each other constantly (the best rows are first thing in the morning, next to my bedroom, next to my head), then have very loud make up sex a couple of hours later (again, right next to me) and this is how they choose to maintain their relationship. They smoke so much dope and the hall reeks of it, they have loud TV and noisy friends over, they have kids who are noisy and frustrated by being in that house and not being allowed to go run outside… they’re just noisy. This is the way of things, when you live in a block of flats, you will hear other people, and sometimes your neighbours will be inconsiderate noisy people. But I was doing a little bit of drumming, in the middle of the day, for some healing for a friend, and they had the nerve to bang on my wall. What? After what I have to listen to? I throw no big parties, have no TV, no arguments, no shouting, no loud music, all you get is a bit of chanting and some drumming, never for long periods of time and never in antisocial hours, and YOU dare to bang on my wall? Are you kidding me?? Anger. Well, I’ve moved my flat around, so I don’t sleep in that room anymore, and this helps. But also, it makes me aware that my needs as a person have changed. I love my flat, and I love living in Crystal Palace, but I am not built for close quarters living any more. My time living in London is drawing to a close and now I know and accept that, I can begin to manifest the space that I need in order to be healthy and happy.

So why so many lovely lessons for me right now? Well, at the moment I am doing a project called ‘The Artist’s Way’. It’s a book by Julia Cameron and is essentially a 12 week programme designed to unblock your creativity and improve your life as a creative person. I understand that, at the beginning of week 3, I am unblocking a lot of old things that do not nurture me as a creative soul, and this is why the anger is bubbling up. Anyone on a healing and self development path, whichever form it takes, will go through this at some point. It is part of the healing process, part of the cleansing, part of the step towards fully realising your potential. Here’s what Julia Cameron has to say about anger in week 3:

When we feel anger, we are often very angry that we feel anger. Damn anger!! It tells us that we can’t get away with our old life any longer. It tells us that old life is dying. It tells us we are being reborn, and birthing hurts. The hurt makes us angry.
Anger is the firestorm that signals the death of our old life. Anger is the fuel that propels us into our new one. Anger is a tool, not a master. Anger is meant to be tapped into and drawn upon. Used properly, anger is use-full.
Sloth, apathy, and despair are the enemy. Anger is not. Anger is our friend. Not a nice friend. Not a gentle friend. But a very, very loyal friend. It will always tell us when we have been betrayed. It will always tell us when we have betrayed ourselves. It will always tell us that it is time to act in our own best interests.
Anger is not the action itself. It is action’s invitation.

I invite you to take a fresh perspective on anger. On a spiritual path it is so easy to judge it, to dismiss it, to repress it. Not today. I would venture a more in depth interpretation of that Reiki precept: Just for today, do not be enslaved by anger. If you feel it, embrace it, be grateful for it. And for God’s sake, please use it.


london reiki plumstead courses
Kay Gillard is one of the Reiki Evolution team of teachers, based in South East London. She is also a shamanic practitioner, and often combines her Reiki work with her shamanic practice, such as in the Reiki Drum course offered through Reiki Evolution. As well as teaching healing work Kay is an author, blogger and broadcaster with a radio show on Radio Lightworker.

You can follow Kay’s personal blog and learn about her work at www.kaygillard.com or visit www.starfirealchemy.co.uk for information on her shamanic work and events.

Video: Reiki Precepts in Japanese

Hi,

One of my team of Reiki Teachers, Kay Gillard, recently put together this short video sequence to teach the Reiki precepts in Japanese. Kay said:

“I love to chant the Reiki precepts in Japanese when I am sitting in gassho – Usui would like us to do this every morning and evening as part of our practice… do gassho every morning and evening, keep in your mind and recite… Continue reading Video: Reiki Precepts in Japanese

Podcast: Release anger and worry

In all Reiki lineages, the first three precepts are shown as, “Just for today, do not anger, do not worry”, and they are a really important part of Reiki practice. Learning to fully embody these simple Reiki principles has the potential to really transform people’s lives and it’s very much a work-in-progress where, by reminding ourselves of these Reiki principles regularly, we gradually mould our behaviour and experience the personal benefits that come through engaging fully with the moment, experiencing humility, compassion and forgiveness.
Continue reading Podcast: Release anger and worry