Tag Archives: reiki treatments

Guest blog: “Champ”, the rescued Jindo

I thought you might be interested to read this blog, written by Valerie Mann, from Maryland…

 

“I have been a Reiki Master/Teacher in Fruitland, Maryland for about six years. It has been my pleasure to see any number of positive results with Reiki. However, when something which seems almost miraculous happens, I still feel a sense of wonder. This was the case with Champ, the rescued Jindo dog in Texas. This breed is not very well known in this country, as they are from Korea and many of them live on the West Coast. However, my good friend Jim Harvey of Flower Mound, Texas, who had one of the biggest hearts in the whole world when it came to animals, fostered Champ. Jim also had two of his own Jindo dogs as well as several others that he fostered and a total of seven cats. Champ had had a very rough start in life. He was originally found chained to a tree at the end of a dirt road in east Texas. All in all, there were over 60 dogs on the property, all living in appalling conditions with very little if any food, water or shelter.

 

“A regional dog rescue group stepped up and got all the dogs out of there and Champ ended up in Salt Lake City, Utah. That was just a temporary arrangement and he was soon back in Texas living with Jim, who was very protective of Champ, due to the fact that he had had such a terrible life to date. Needless to say, he was devastated when he found a tumor on Champ’s chest. It just seemed to be too much bad luck for any one dog. Fortunately, the vet said that the tumor was not malignant but that it would never go way.

 

“Jim and I talked on the phone several times about Champ’s condition. I could tell he was still worried and mentioned my Reiki background and how I seen and heard about some dramatic healings. In fact, a friend of mine actually was able to use Reiki to remove a tumor from her own dog. So I told Jim that I would give it a try. I set in place distant Reiki, but also put the request in my master crystal grid that the tumor would shrink. I could tell that Jim, a former Marine and construction supervisor, was open to the idea, believe it or not.

 

“Lo and behold, Jim called me within two days and said that it had shrunk to about half of its size. It had originally been about the size of a very large walnut and was now the size of a relatively small grape. We had a jubilant telephone conversation about this and really rejoiced. Keep in mind Champ was receiving no treatment whatsoever for this tumor. Another two days went by and the tumor had shrunk to the size of a pea. Jim is now beside himself. I think that between the two of us we developed some substantial positive healing energy which really amplified the Reiki and made it much more active than it would otherwise have been.

 

“At this point, I remembered that I had put in the Reiki grid the request that the tumor shrink. Intuitively, I knew that I would have to change what I had written on the grid in order for the tumor to completely disappear. I therefore changed the description on the grid to say Champ’s tumor would completely disappear. The very next day, it did disappear. This sold Jim on Reiki. He asked me on a more or less regular basis to send Reiki to various pets that needed it. I remember once sending Reiki energy to his back and having him call me asking if I was sending Reiki at that time because he was feeling beautiful warmth in his back.

 

“Sadly, Jim died suddenly at home in June of this year. He had no family or close friends in the area so his body was not found for about two weeks. All of the animals survived, except for the oldest cat who died several days after she got to the shelter. She just refused to eat.  Champ eventually was adopted by a wonderful family in Tennessee and has the most wonderful life now. If anybody deserves it, it is he. I wanted to tell this story to keep it alive because it was a watershed moment in the life of my friend as well as myself. I know Jim would have been very happy to see Champ finally settled and completely healthy.”

 

Valerie Mann

http://manifestinganewlife.wordpress.com/

 

A simple way with Reiki symbols

simple reiki symbol method

Why so complicated?

In the West we like to make things complicated, and the way that most of us now use symbols is a world away from the simple approach that Usui used.

So how can we work with symbols in a way that echoes more the way that Usui taught his students?

Well firstly, Usui taught symbols to a very small number of people, just in the last few years of his life. The vast majority of his students were taught in a very different way.

Most of his students were given meditations to use so that they could, over a long period of time, become more and more familiar with the three energies taught at second-degree level, for example. Once they were thoroughly familiar with the energies, once they had *become* the energies again and again, then they were given a shortcut – a trigger – to connect them to those energies.

The triggers that they used were mostly ancient Shinto mantras called kotodama or jumon, not symbols.

In the West we do it backwards by comparison: we are given a trigger (a symbol) to connect us to an energy that we are not familiar with, and with which we may never become familiar, depending on how we have been taught to use the symbols. Usui had his students become the three energies again and again and again, and when they were ingrained, when they were innate, only then would you be given a way of connecting to the energies that were already within you and thoroughly familiar to you.

The symbols’ energies were viewed quite differently

The first energy was not seen as some sort of ‘Power’ energy, in the way that the first symbol is seen as the ‘Power’ symbol in the West.

The first energy was simply earth energy, energy of the physical body, a physical healing energy. The second energy was seen as heavenly energy and the third energy was said to produce ‘oneness’. Usui’s students learned to get to grips with these energies through meditation, so how can we learn to experience earth energy and celestial energy?

Well, we can do this by using the symbols.

Try this Reiki symbol meditation

Sit comfortably in a chair with your eyes closed and your hands resting in your lap palms uppermost.

In your mind’s eye, visualise the first symbol up in the air above you, and say its name silently to yourself three times.

Now imagine that cascades of energy are flooding down onto you from that symbol, cascading into your head, your torso, your hands; endless cascades of energy or light keep on flooding into your body, flowing over you and flooding through you. Do this for several minutes.

  • How does that feel?
  • What impressions do you get of the energy?
  • Where was your attention focused?
  • What were your thoughts?

Now repeat this exercise using the second symbol, again visualising it up in the air above you, saying its name three times, and drawing down endless cascades of energy into your body.

How does this feel by comparison? What impressions do you get of the second energy? Where is your attention focused? What is going on in your head?

Try this with a Reiki friend

reiki symbol channel energy othersIf you have a Reiki friend to hand, you can do this exercise together: one person sits comfortably in a chair and the other stands behind. The person standing up is going to send energy from the first or second symbol in quite an intense way.

What they do is this: ‘charge’ your hands with the energy of the first symbol, say, by drawing the symbol over your palm, saying the name three times, and press your hands together to ‘transfer the effect across’ to he other hand.

Now in your mind’s eye draw out the first symbol up in the air above you and say the name three times.

Move your hands so that they are hovering alongside the recipient’s temples, and imagine that you are drawing down cascades of energy from the symbol above you, which flood into your crown, through your arms and out of your hands into the recipient. Keep on visualising.

  • How does the energy feel as it comes through your hands?
  • What impressions do you get in your body?
  • How does it feel for the recipient?
  • What adjectives can they use to describe the essence of the energy that they have received?

Now repeat this exercise using the second symbol.

How does this differ from the first energy?

Having carried out this exercise countless times and with many, many students, I can generalise about the sort of impression that most people tend to get from the two symbols, the two energies. Maybe you will notice some, though not all, of these experiences.

The first energy seems thick, dark, heavy, dense, solid, maybe oppressive or claustrophobic sometimes, hot, fierce, coarse, penetrating, with pressure and slow pulsation, your focus is on your physical body. The second energy seems soft, light, gentle, ethereal, like soft fluffy clouds or marshmallows, cool, blue, expansive, exhilarating, and uplifting.

What you have experienced is the essence of earth energy and the essence of heavenly energy, and these are two energies that you have available to you when treating others.

These energies are the essence of Usui’s system at second-degree level.

The first energy focuses on the physical body, and the second focuses on thoughts and emotions and our spiritual nature. They are so different, so distinctive.

Try using them on their own, just one energy, just one focus, without mixing symbols together. Keep things simple and uncluttered by focusing like a laser beam on one thing at a time, and see what happens.

And with time, and with familiarity with the two energies, try producing those energies directly, using intent, and see what happens.

Over to you

Carry out the meditations and exercises I’ve suggested above.

How did you get on?

Is it new to you to experience the energy of a symbol on its own, rather than mixing the symbol with others all the time?

How did the energies of CKR and SHK feel to you, or your Reiki friend?

Need help with your Symbol meditations?

reiki meditation audio cds musicIf you’d like some help with your Reiki symbol meditations, I have just what you need!

On my “Reiki Meditations” CD (or MP3 collection) I have these helpful meditations, which can be carried out by people at all Reiki Levels:

  • Hatsurei ho (daily energy exercises)
  • Self-treatment meditation
  • Symbol meditation
  • Distant Healing meditation

My “Reiki Meditations” CD is by far my most popular CD and is used by Reiki teachers all over the world.

Here are the links that you need:

Order the CD now for £15.49 + p&p


Download the MP3s now for £13.49

 

 

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Photo credit: zeevveez

Were you taught the correct ‘Power’ Symbol: Variations on CKR

reiki symbol ckr choku rei

Reiki started simply

Reiki is very simple, you know.

You start working with energy at First Degree and at Second Degree you’re introduced to three symbols that you can use.

These symbols were taught to the Imperial Officers and a few others by Usui Sensei, and Dr Hayashi passed them on to Mrs Takata, who taught them in the West.

One of those symbols was CKR, perfect and complete on itself – see above.

So we started messing about with it, which is fine – experimentation is a good thing – but some of the experiments have become ossified in different lineages and passed on as ‘the’ way to do Reiki, rather than being taught as interesting variations.

Let’s have a look at some CKR variations

CKR with a spiral going the wrong way

There was only ever one CKR and it had an anticlockwise spiral.

If you’ve been taught one CKR and it has a clockwise spiral then you’ve been taught something that is quite different from what Usui intended.

Different shapes can be used to represent different aspects of the energy, and they will all frame the energy in a particular way, and if you want to frame the energy in the way that Usui intended then you do need to use the symbol that he taught.

Use two mirror-image CKRs, not one

There was only ever one CKR and it had an anticlockwise spiral, so if you want to use an additional symbol that is a mirror image of the original then that’s your choice, but please realise that this is not what Usui was teaching and most Reiki people don’t do this.

Certainly don’t feel that you ‘have’ to use these two symbols for Reiki to work properly because that simply isn’t the case.

Use CKR to put energy in and reverse CKR to take energy out

CKR is an image that you can use to represent or elicit earth ki, one of the two basic energies or aspects of our existence: earth ki and heavenly ki.

The person who you are working on will draw that energy to where they need it to go, and in the right amounts for them on that occasion. If you’re stepping in to decide for yourself that they need more energy or less energy, you aren’t really allowing the energy to do what it needs to do, unless you are doing this intuitively, in which case you’re working in partnership with the energy, and it is guiding you.

Usui Sensei didn’t teach two CKRs, one of them to take out energy; there was a reason for that: Reiki will do what people need to have done, and if energy needs to be released then plain Reiki will help a person with that without you having to use a specific symbol to achieve it.

If you are currently using a reverse-CKR to ‘take out energy’, you might try dispensing with that for a while and see what happens.

So if you want to use the variations on CKR then that’s your choice, but please know that while this is a way that you can work with Reiki, it is not the only way, other Reiki people work in a different way from you, and these variations were not part of the system that Usui taught.

Over to you

If you were taught some of these non-standard versions of CKR as “the” way that you should practise Reiki, may I suggest that you experiment:

  • Use the CKR that you can see on this page, meditate on its energy to get to grips with how it feels, how it affects you
  • Draw it over your palm to experience its energy
  • Use it in practice when you treat someone, flooding yourself and your client with its energy

How is what you’re doing different in quality or nature from what you were doing before?

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Feng shui your Reiki

Many of you will be familiar with Feng Shui, the Oriental art of placement, where you arrange your living environment to allow smooth flow of chi through your home, eliminating areas where chi will stagnate, and slowing down the speed of fast-rushing chi. So what has that to do with Reiki? Well they both deal with chi, but what I am really thinking of is applying the basic principles of Feng Shui to our practice of Reiki. This may seem a little strange, but please bear with me.

The basic principle of Feng Shui, the first thing you have to do before you do anything else, is to get rid of your clutter, because a cluttered environment leads to a cluttered life. Only once you have rid yourself of your unnecessary bits and pieces should you move in to apply the other more specific principles of placement. So could we de-clutter our practice of Reiki, what would that be like, and how could we achieve that? Is our Reiki cluttered now? How could we pare it down to the essentials and leave the unnecessary stuff behind?

We do seem to have a tendency in the West to make things endlessly complicated, almost on the basis that if it’s more complicated then it’s better. We like to introduce rules and regulations and restrictions and dogma, maybe because rules make us feel supported and safe, or maybe because we just can’t leave a simple thing alone! Yet the system that Usui Sensei taught to his surviving students wasn’t complicated. It wasn’t cluttered. It was simple and elegant and profound, and I think that we’ve drifted away from that in many ways. We’ve introduced rules and restrictions and dogma into many aspects of Reiki practice: connecting to the energy, treating someone, hand positions, distant healing methods, situations where you ‘should not treat’. This is all clutter and we can do without it. Freeing ourselves from this burden of technique and method and limitation would be a great and beneficial clear-out. We don’t need it. It holds us back. Let’s look at a few examples of unnecessary clutter.

A while ago I was contacted by a poor girl who had been taught that she needed to go through a fifteen-stage ritual in order to ‘connect’ to Reiki. She and the other students on the course were quite worried, obviously concerned that if they didn’t get all the stages right then the energy wouldn’t come through properly and their treatments would be ineffective. Naturally they wanted to do the very best they could for the people they were working on, and they were focusing hard on getting all the necessary stages right.

Yet ‘connection’ with Reiki is simply a state of mind; you connect when you intend to connect. Some people will hold their hands in a particular position (hands above them with palms uppermost to the sky, hands to the sides with palms face up, hands in the prayer position, hands in their lap with palms up, hands folded over the Dantien). Maybe they will say a set form of words, but all these are optional. Bring the energy through your crown to your Dantien and bathe in the light, flood the energy through your body, be still; you are connected when you intend to be. It is a matter of focus, a matter of where your attention lies.

Some people are taught that they must always keep one of their hands in contact with the recipient when they treat, based on the idea that if you take both hands off then you have lost your connection to the recipient and the energy will not flow properly. But your connection to the recipient is a state of mind too: you focus your attention on them, you merge with them and become one with them, and that is sufficient no matter what you are doing with your hands. In fact your treatment starts as soon as you are standing by the table with your attention directed towards the person. Your treatment has already started when you are scanning, or feeling the energy field. Reiki works just as well when you have your hands off the body, though Reiki is basically practised as a hands-on method.

Some Reiki people are taught rigid ‘standard’ hand positions that have to be used every time you treat, and there is the view that if you are not using ‘the’ hand positions then you haven’t been taught properly. Some even have a rigid time limit that has to be followed, so you can only keep your hands in each position for so many minutes… you can buy Reiki CDs which make a little ‘ping’ sound every three minutes (or whatever), and everyone changes hand positions like a robot. Yet what if your hands are going like crazy, what if there energy needs to flood into a particular area for a long time and you need to keep your hands there for 5 minutes or 10 minutes or 15 minutes? The answer would seem to be that you follow the system rigidly and ignore your hands. How sad.

Now standard hand positions are useful when you first learn Reiki: it’s reassuring to have some sort of system to follow. But we can move beyond those standard hand positions in a couple of ways. When we ‘scan’ the body we night discover areas that are drawing lots of Reiki, but they aren’t covered by the ‘standard’ hand positions… we can alter our hand positions accordingly, or add extra positions, to make sure we’re directing the energy into the areas that are drawing the most Reiki. We can use intuition, too, to control our hand positioning, and this has great benefits for the recipient because we are directing the energy into just the right combination of positions for each person we are working on. We might feel inexplicably ‘drawn’ to a particular area, we might just ‘know’ that we ought to be treating a particular area, or we might be practicing “Reiji Ho” from Japan, where our hands are drawn by ‘invisible magnets’ to the right areas to treat. Again we are leaving the rigid standard positions to one side and going with the flow. That was Usui’s way: there were no real standard positions. You simply put your hands where they wanted to go.

Distant healing is another area where lots of rules and regulations have crept in over time. Some people are taught quite complicated rituals that they have to carry out when they perform distant healing, with a set form of words that ‘have’ to be used in a particular way, and with various required visualisations. Yet the bare bones of distant healing are to know where the energy is to go – to set a firm intent – to use the distant healing symbol maybe, and to merge with the recipient, allowing the energy to flow. Anything beyond that is optional. People have different styles: some like to actively visualise and develop a detailed ritual, and that’s fine, but it’s not actually necessary. Others like to keep it simple, and that works just as well. Even the use of the distant healing symbol is optional, though it does help us to focus on merging with the recipient, a way of experiencing ‘oneness’ with the person you’re sending the energy to. Distant healing is perfectly possible at First Degree level, too: it’s simple a matter of intent, of focusing your attention in a particular way. The energy follows your thoughts, it follows your focus.

The final area where we could give our Reiki a big ‘clear out’ is in the rules and restrictions that can control who we should and should not treat. Some people are given a long list of ‘contraindications’: situations where you should not give Reiki because it might be dangerous. Some contraindications that I have come across include: pregnant women, babies, people with pacemakers, diabetics*, people undergoing an anaesthetic, people wearing contact lenses, people with cancer, people suffering from stress, people with broken bones, people taking homoeopathic remedies, people undergoing chemotherapy, people with a torn muscle. There will be many more examples taught in different lineages. These restrictions are nonsense, they have no basis: there is no proper evidence – even anecdotes – to back up the restrictions that are taught in some lineages. Reiki is safe, the person’s body draws it to the right areas to treat, and Reiki is seen as divinely inspired, intelligent, it is seen as pure unconditional love. That view hardly sits too well with the suggestion that you can hurt someone using Reiki. We think too much, we worry too much, and we create problems where there are none.

So a practice of Reiki that follows the first principle of Feng Shui will be a simple practice, free from rules, restrictions and self-imposed limitations. Feng Shui’d Reiki will be free from dogma, and free from rituals that you ‘must’ follow for Reiki to work effectively. It will be a practice that is based on simple intent and intuition, where you merge with the recipient, where you become one with them, and where you let the energy guide you. Let’s get rid of all that clutter and free up our practice, and just let the energy flow.

[ * There appears to be some anecdotal evidence that some diabetics may experience a short term alteration in blood sugar levels following a Reiki treatment. They should be made aware of this possibility and monitor their sugar levels accordingly. In theory a course of Reiki treatments could alter a diabetic’s blood sugar levels long-term, and thus their insulin requirements, and again they should be aware of this and monitor their blood sugar levels accordingly. However, this does not mean that you should not treat diabetics using Reiki, as is suggested in some quarters. It just means that diabetics should keep an eye on their blood sugar levels following a Reiki treatment or a course of Reiki treatments, which is what they should be doing routinely, anyway.]

Do I always have to use the symbols?

reiki symbols in treatments use

So many Reiki rules!

In most Reiki lineages the Reiki symbols are taught on the Second Degree course, though some are taught one symbol at First Degree I believe.

A lot of rules have built up about what you can and can’t do with symbols, what you always must do, and of course these rules end up being contradictory.

The only rule that applies to Reiki is ‘there are no rules’ I believe, and what I’d like to do here is just run through a few ‘symbol rules’ that you can choose to ignore.

Draw the symbols over your palm every day or you’ll “lose” them

Some poor Reiki people are frantically drawing the three symbols over their palms every morning because if they don’t they’ll “lose” the symbols and won’t be able to use them any more.

I have to say that this is nonsense, and is something that most Reiki people will not be doing.

The symbols are graphical representations of different aspects of the energy, they are triggers that you can use to access and energy, to direct an energy, and you don’t even need to be ‘attuned’ to a symbol for it to work for you (but that’s another story).

Please don’t draw the symbols over your palms every day for fear of losing them.

You always have to use the symbols when you treat

Why?

Why would you always have to use the symbols when you treat someone?

You are attuned to Reiki, you have been working happily with the energy since your First Degree course, channelling it for your benefit and for the benefit of others, and suddenly someone does some mystical hand-waving over you and you can’t use Reiki unless you keep drawing out symbols?

That makes no sense at all, particularly when you realise that there are a lot of Reiki practitioners and Masters who have moved away from, or beyond, the use of the symbols and just allow the energy to do what it needs to.

The symbols are useful tools, a way of focusing your attention on and experiencing different aspects of the energy, but they’re not compulsory!

Try only using a symbol during a treatment when the symbol seems to ‘want’ to be used, when you feel it’s right to use in a particular hand position, when it ‘calls’ to you.

Go with the flow and let the energy guide you, so you’re gearing the treatment more towards the needs of the person you’re working on.

See what happens.

Always draw every symbol over each hand position

Oh dear, this would be so ham-fisted, to have to frantically draw out three symbols in every hand position you use when treating someone.

If you were taught to do this, I would like to suggest that you experiment, try out different ways of working that don’t involve this very busy, cluttered approach, and come to your own conclusions about what’s necessary.

It’s not a very Japanese approach, is it?

If you think about traditional Japanese arts they do pare things to the bone, leaving only the bare, elegant essentials.

Clutter-free Reiki is a much calmer, and potent.

Over to you

If you have been taught some of the rules and restrictions I mentioned above, please do experiment for yourself and come to your own conclusions about what’s necessary and effective.

You don’t need to slavishly follow all the instructions that you were given by your teacher; you can find your own comfortable approach with the energy.

Post a message below to le tme know how yoru practice has changed over time.

Want to find out more about Reiki symbols & treatments?

reiki book second degree manualsA whole load of info and advice can be found 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

 

 

 

 

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Picture Credit: Ashley Van Haeften

 

Mindfulness and compassion

In this article I want to talk about Mindfulness and Compassion, which I believe are two essential components of Reiki practice. Whether we are treating others, working on ourselves, empowering others or living our lives with Reiki, we should grow to embody those two states, the essence of the Reiki precepts.

Mindfulness

According to Usui Sensei’s surviving students, Mikao Usui introduced his students to the practice of mindfulness at First Degree level, and emphasised this more at Second Degree level. According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary (9th Edition), to be mindful is to take heed or care, to be conscious. Mindfulness or being mindful is being aware of your present moment. You are not judging, reflecting or thinking. You are simply observing the moment in which you find yourself, fully aware. Moments are like a breath. Each breath is replaced by the next breath. You are there with no other purpose than being awake and aware of that moment.

So mindfulness is a state of living in the moment, of being relaxed, calm and fully engaged in what we are doing. Mindfulness is being fully aware of what is happening right now and giving ourselves completely to our task without distraction. By learning how to enjoy and be in the present moment we can find peace within ourselves.

Like precepts, mindfulness is largely associated with Buddhism and it is a meditative practice that is not reserved for special meditation sessions: it is a practice that you can embrace as part of your daily life and when carrying out routine and mundane tasks.

The best guide that I have found to the use of mindfulness as part of your daily life is the following book, written by Thich Nhat Hanh: “The Miracle of Mindfulness” and I recommend that all Reiki practitioners and teachers obtain a copy and practise being mindful during their daily activities.

I believe that Mikao Usui’s precepts are all about mindfulness, and that when we are exhorted by the precepts to “just for today” release anger and worry, we are being guided to exist as far as we can in a mindful state. Anger and worry are distractions, you see, and if we can exist in the moment by being mindful then we will not dwell on the past and beat ourselves up for things that did not go the way we wanted, and we will not dwell on the future, perhaps worrying about things that have not yet happened. We can learn to release our attachments to the past and the future and just “be” now, content and accepting in the moment, by learning to be mindful.

Compassion

The final precept, that of being “compassionate towards ourselves and others” is for me an exhortation to be gentle with ourselves, to be patient, to be light-hearted, to not take ourselves quite so seriously and above all to be forgiving – first of all of ourselves but also of others. By accepting and forgiving ourselves we start to release our anger and our worry, and move towards a state of contentment in the moment.

The original system was a spiritual path, a path to enlightenment, and the precepts were what Usui Sensei’s system was all about. These principles are a foundation for everything we do with Reiki: the states of mindfulness and compassion arise from following the precepts and from working with Reiki.

For example, how do we feel when we carry out a Reiki treatment? Treating someone with Reiki is a special, special gift. We feel a closeness, an intimacy, a merging with the recipient; we receive trust and we experience compassion. Ideally we should just be there in the moment, with the energy, with the recipient, with no expectations. We do not treat someone with the intention to resolve their health problem or eliminate their headache. We just merge with the energy and allow Reiki to do its work; we create a sacred space for healing to occur. If our mind wanders, as it may do, then we notice this and gently but firmly bring our attention back to the present and what we are doing. We become one with the energy as it flows through us, we become one with the recipient, and we experience that blissful contentment in the moment. When we treat we are mindful: we are an observer, not a participant.

Though some are taught that you can hold a conversation with someone as you treat, or watch television at the same time, this really will not lead to the best being given to the recipient. To be the most effective channel we can be, we need to be there with the energy, fully and gently engaged in our work, giving ourselves fully to the task without distraction.

Those same principles apply when working on ourselves, whether carrying out Hatsurei ho or self-treating. The state we should seek to achieve is that of being fully engaged in the endeavour, of being with the energy without distraction, merged, aware and simply existing in the moment, with a gentle feeling of forgiveness, love and compassion towards ourselves.

So both Mindfulness and Compassion are fundamental to our life with Reiki, fundamental to the Reiki precepts, to working on others and working on ourselves. Not surprisingly they are also an essential component of the transmission of Reiki to another person through carrying out Reiju empowerments. Reiju is the ‘connection ritual’ that Usui Sensei used, and taught to his surviving students. It is simple, elegant and powerful, free from the clutter and detail that surrounds most Western attunement styles. When we perform Reiju we have no expectations: we are there in the moment with the energy, following the prescribed movements. We are relaxed and fully engaged in what we are doing, aware of what is happening right now, and we give ourselves completely to our task without distraction. That is the essence of Reiju, the essence of treatments, the essence of the precepts, and the essence of our life with Reiki.

Declutter your treatment rituals

declutter reiki treatment rituals

Time for a Reiki spring clean?

Reiki treatments are carried out in a lot of different ways and many rituals have been developed and passed on in different lineages.

Reiki has also been affected by the belief systems of people who are involved in other energy practices and it’s natural for Reiki teachings to become ‘coloured’ by a teacher’s personal quirks and idiosyncrasies too.

Trouble is, these practices end up turning into “this is the way that you have to do it” as they are passed on from teacher to student, teacher to new teacher, and that’s unfortunate since some people end up lumbered with quite complex rituals that they feel they have to carry out for a treatment to be done ‘properly’.

Reiki is greater than that.

Reiki works simply and intuitively and doesn’t need to be accompanied by a lot of dogma. There will be Reiki practitioners out there who treat their clients using a lot of rituals that other effective Reiki practitioners do not use, and there will be people out there using Reiki effectively while not carrying out stages and rituals that other practitioners regard as essential.

Let’s look at a few examples of ideas and practices that I regard as unnecessary.

If you were taught to do these things, why not experiment and find your own approach.

Keep at least one hand on the body at all times for fear of losing your connection

I have written about this one before, and if we can send Reiki from one side of the planet to the other just by thinking of someone, there will be no problem in ‘losing’ your connection to a client on a treatment table in front of you should your hands stray a few inches from their body.

‘Connection’ is a state of mind and comes through focusing your attention on the recipient. If you’re doing a Reiki treatment on someone then you are connected to them!

Treat from head to toe and then you must go back up the body from feet to head

Seems a bit clumsy to me, and is sometimes combined with the previous paragraph, so you end up with “always keep at least one hand on the body at all times and work from head to foot, and then back to the head again”.

The general approach within Reiki seems to be to work from head to feet, though working the other way might be the right thing to do sometimes.

My approach is to work intuitively so I don’t follow a set of rules that have to be applied to every client in the same way. Why should every client receive the same format of treatment? They have different problems, different energy needs.

‘One size fits all’ doesn’t fit very well with me.

Always throw out ‘negative’ energy at the end of treatment

If you believe that there is negative energy and if you believe that it will stay with the client (and presumably cause them problems) if you don’t throw it away, then I suppose you’d better throw it away.

And if you’ve got it on you before you throw it away then presumably you don’t want that stuff hanging around on you either, so you really need to throw it away.

But not everyone is taught that and not everyone does that, and some people believe that Reiki is a pure healing energy that is drawn by the recipient’s need, and gives the recipient what they need on that occasion, balancing and transforming in a way that is right for them.

And in that case, we wouldn’t need to think in terms of accumulating stuff that Reiki couldn’t get rid of, and dealing with it ourselves.

Always ‘ground’ the energy at the end of a treatment by putting your hands on the floor

Some people do seem to have quite a bee in their bonnet on the issue of grounding.

They put almost every malady down to not being grounded, and have their students frantically grounding themselves.

On a personal level, grounding is easy: go for a walk, do the washing up, breathe in some fresh air and you’re grounded. Hatsurei ho – daily energy exercises – grounds you.

I believe that giving a Reiki treatment is a grounding exercise.

So what is this ungrounded energy that you have to deal with when you put your hands on the floor – is it your energy, is it the client’s “ungrounded” energy, and what would happen if you didn’t crouch down and touch the floorboards?

Isn’t Reiki a bit more effective than that?

Does it really need us to come along and sort out stuff that it hasn’t dealt with properly?

Recite a set of words at the start of a treatment that ‘have’ to be said

Many people have a set form of words that they say to themselves to get them in the right frame of mind for carrying out a Reiki treatment, and I have no problem with that.

This can be useful and helpful.

But some people are taught that “these words are THE words” that you have to say at the start of the treatment, with the corollary that if you haven’t said them, or if you mess up the words, then the treatment’s not going to go properly.

If you’ve said a set of words time and again before starting a treatment, don’t you think your subconscious mind knows what it’s all about, and that you have that intention ‘programmed’ into you already?

Intention is a very important thing with Reiki and I don’t think you need to keep on reminding and re-reminding yourself about what you want to happen.

Over to you

I hope the above comments have provided some food for thought and if you are currently using the practices described above, why not try a different approach, see what happens, and come to your own conclusions about what’s the best way for you to approach treating others.

Have you altered your own approach compared to what you were originally taught, and have you found that leaving behind some of those rules and restrictions has been fine?

Post a message below to let me know how your practice has become simpler over time.

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Picture credit: Kevin Utting

 

Treating both sides: is this necessary?

reiki treatment both sides turn over backs

An unnecessary Reiki rule?

In many Reiki lineages, students are taught that they need to treat both sides of a client, asking them to turn over half-way through a treatment so that student can gain access to the client’s back. But is this really necessary?

Might the treatment be just as effective if we left them where they were?

I think that most Reiki people would accept that when we treat someone, the energy is drawn according to the recipient’s need to the right places for them on that occasion, to do whatever they need to have done on that occasion, so we aren’t ‘pushing’ the energy to where we want it to (or think it ought to) go.

We are a necessary bystander in the process: we need to be there for the healing to happen, but we have metaphorically stepped aside, created a ‘healing space’ for the client, and they do the healing that they need to do, in the way that they need to do it, experiencing whatever is appropriate for them to experience as this happens.

Could we just hold their hand for 60 minutes?

So, in theory, we could just hold someone’s hand for an hour and the energy would be drawn by them to the areas of need, and we’d need to do nothing further than that.

But given that when we work intuitively we can be drawn strongly to areas of need – ‘hotspots’ – and given that we can experience the flow of energy subsiding in those areas after a time, and given that when we work intuitively we can be guided to hold a series of hand positions, sometimes symmetrical, sometimes not, in a particular sequence, this suggests to me that there is value in allowing the energy to guide you (which is what I believe is happening when you work intuitively), and there is a value in placing your hands in different positions as you treat.

There is something special, I believe, in working in partnership with the energy and allowing it to guide you in terms of where you rest your hands, and for how long you hold each position.

So going through a series of hand positions, whether a set of ‘standard’ positions or intuitively-guided hand positions, helps to ‘fire’ the energy from lots of different directions, and it’s drawn into the areas that have the greatest need.

We don’t just treat the square inches underneath our palms

The energy doesn’t just go into a small area of the body underneath our hands when we treat: it moves through the body and you could imagine the energy travelling to chakras, through meridians, into the aura, into all the different aspects of the energy system, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, whether or not we ‘sent’ the energy there, because it’s being pulled by the recipient’s need.

Many of us will have experienced the situation where you’re treating one part of the body and the client comments that they can feel the heat, or coldness, or tingling or whatever in a different part of their body.

And because the energy will move from where we ‘put it’ to where it is needed, this suggests that we do not need to place our hands on every square inch of the body in order for a treatment to be successful, and I do not believe that it is necessary to specifically ‘treat’ the back in order for the energy to flow to the back of the body from wherever we place our hands.

Turning over routinely is so disruptive

On a practical note, disrupting the flow of a treatment so that the client has to wake up half way through, drag themselves half into the seated position and turn themselves over and get comfortable again, really does break the ‘spell’ that they are under and, since the relaxation that people experience when receiving Reiki is greatly beneficial, I wouldn’t want to wake them up and lessen the depth of their relaxation in this way routinely.

That’s not to say that I never treat people’s backs, of course.

No rules should be followed slavishly.

But I only do this when someone has a specific back problem and what I do is to start by treating the back for a while, and then turn them over into the ‘face-up’ treatment position, and carry on with majority of their treatment that way.

In fact, in my First Degree manual I provide a series of hand positions that you can use when treating backs. But I don’t recommend that you do that routinely because it’s not necessary.

Over to you

If you routinely turn people over half way through a treatment, why not try not doing this and see what happens?

And post a message below to let me know what happened and what feedback you received from your client.

Here’s lots of advice about giving treatments

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

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

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

Here are the links that you need:

Reiki First Degree manual

Reiki First Degree eBook

 

 

 


Author:

Back to basics: Reiki Second Degree

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

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

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

Second Degree is all about:

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

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

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

Enhancing your Connection to the energy

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

On your course you may have received some “empowerments” rather than attunements, though these are less common. The word “empowerment”, or “Reiju empowerment”, refers to a connection ritual that has come to us from some Japanese sources, and is closer in essence to the empowerment that Mikao Usui conveyed to his students. If you are receiving empowerments rather than attunements then you really need to have received three of them at least.

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

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

Being “attuned” to a symbol

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

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

“Sacred Symbols”

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

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

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

Using Symbols in practice

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

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

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

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

Why the symbols are there

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

Making ‘distant’ connections

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

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

Intuitive working

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

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

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

Finally

Reiki has the potential to make an amazing, positive difference to you and the people around you. Remember that Reiki is simplicity itself, and by taking some steps to work on yourself regularly, and share Reiki with the people close to you, you are embarking on a very special journey. How far you travel on that journey is governed by how many steps you take. Carry on with your Hatsurei and self-treatments, get to grips with the energies of CKR and SHK through regular meditation, find your own comfortable approach to carrying out distant healing, and open yourself to intuitive working. And have fun!

When I treat, do I need to keep at least one hand touching the body at all times?

hands-on-reiki-treatment

Keep touching or you’ll lose the ‘connection’?

In some lineages, students are taught that they always need to keep at least one hand resting on the body at all times because, if they do not, they will ‘lose their connection’ with the client, and then have to go through a ritual again in order to regain that lost connection.

But is this really necessary?

Do we have to have to touch the body every second, like a sort of Reiki tag-team, for fear of disconnecting, and is the Reiki ‘connection’ so fragile?

What’s the difference between hands-on and hands-off?

I believe that there is no difference between a Reiki treatment carried out when hands are resting on the body, and treatments where hands hover over the body.

Reiki is generally carried out as a ‘hands-on’ therapy and I think that this is a good idea: there is something very special and healing about human touch, with or without the addition of Reiki, and that closeness or connection that comes through making physical contact with another person is an important part of the Reiki experience.

Of course there are times – and hand positions – where it is better for the sake of propriety and respect to keep your hands off the body, particularly when working intuitively, when hands can end up wanting to go goodness-knows-where, and it’s not always wise to always put your hands down where they want to come to rest!

Basically Reiki is a hands-on practice

Viewing Reiki as a hands-on practice, though, does not mean that we have to keep our hands on the body at all times. We can mix-and-match, resting on the body sometimes and hovering over the body at other times during the course of a treatment, and we can do both at the same time: resting one hand on the body while allowing the other hand to hover.

If we are always keeping a hand on the body for fear of losing our ‘connection’, I wonder what we think that connection is all about.

Distant healing is a standard part of Reiki practice, where you can send the energy to the other side of the planet if we like, just by focusing our attention on the recipient. If we can do that then why would we believe that, at the same time, we can’t send Reiki to a person on a treatment couch in front of us – just inches away from us – unless we’ve made physical contact with them?

It makes no sense at all. 1,000 miles away and sending Reiki’s no problem… six inches away and we lose our connection if we’re not touching the body.

How can that be?

How are we connected?

So what is our Reiki ‘connection’ to the recipient?

I believe our ‘connection’ to them is based on our state of mind: by focusing our attention on the recipient we connect to them.

If we think about the Buddhist origins of Reiki and the concept of oneness, there is no ‘us’ and there is no ‘them’ anyway: this is illusion! We are already ‘connected’ to them because in reality we were never separated from them.

We are them.

So, in practice, by being with a client in the same room for the purposes of giving and receiving Reiki, we merge with them, we begin to become one with them. It is our intention that underlies our connection and the energy flows to where our attention is directed, whether our hands are on the body or not.

Over to you

Were you taught that you need to have at least one hand on your client at all times for fear of losing your connection? If so, what has happened in practice? Have you experimented with both-hands-on, one-hand-on and no-hands on?

What feedback have you received from clients where you didn’t follow the rules that you were given?

And what do you think about your ‘connection’ to your client? Do you think it depends on physical contact with them?

Post a message below to let me know what you think.

Here’s lots of advice about giving treatments

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

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

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

Here are the links that you need:

Reiki First Degree manual

Reiki First Degree eBook

 

 

 


Author:

How long should I spend in each hand position?

timing of reiki hand positions

Treat like clockwork?

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

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

Altering your treatments to suit the client

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

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

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

How to know how long to take in one position

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Over to you

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

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

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

Here’s lots of advice about giving treatments

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

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

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

Here are the links that you need:

Reiki First Degree manual

Reiki First Degree eBook

 

 

 


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Back to basics: Reiki First Degree

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

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

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

Connecting to the energy

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

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

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

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

Developing your Sensitivity to the energy

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

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

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

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

Working on yourself

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

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

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

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

Treating other people

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Reiki Precepts

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

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

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

The founder, Usui Mikao

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

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

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

Finally

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

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