Tag Archives: reiki

New Reiki Evening classes in London

August 26, 2012reiki courseslearn reiki, reiki, reiki classes, reiki courses, reiki trainingtaggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk

Hi,

I have some exciting news, which is that one of our team of teachers, Tina Shaw, will be running Reiki evening classes – for First Degree – from her base in Loughton, Essex (on the Central line), starting in NOvember of this year. First Degree will consist of five weekly sessions lasting for 90 minutes each, and the ‘evening classes’ will also be running during the daytime.

Learning Reiki in this way is a lovely way of echoing more the original Japanese system, where you got to grips with Reiki over time.

tina shaw

To find out more, hop over to Tina’s web site which you can find here: Absolute Reiki.

Best wishes,

Taggart

A simple way with Reiki symbols

December 19, 2011meditation, reiki energy, reiki sensations, reiki symbolreiki, reiki sensations, reiki treatments, simplicitytaggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk

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

If 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?

If 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

Author: Taggart King
Photo credit: zeevveez

Reiki people come from all backgrounds

December 15, 2011Uncategorizedreiki, reiki journeytaggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk

I think perhaps that when the ‘person on the street’ thinks about a Reiki practitioner or teacher, they will have an image come to mind of some New Age person, maybe in a kaftan, with incense, crystals, chanting something, and while this may be a valid description of some Reiki people (and I don’t have a problem with that, by the way), Reiki is actually something that is learned and practised by people from a whole load of different backgrounds. A while ago I asked people to let me have their occupations, so I could prepare a list, and I have included that below. If you practise Reiki and you have a job/background that isn’t on the list, let us know by posting a message at the foot of this blog. Here’s the list…

Account Analyst
Accountant
Actress
Airline Pilot
Applied Scientist
Archaeologist
Aromatherapist
Artist
Bank Clerk
Bathroom designer/installer
Bowen Technique Therapist
Builder
Business Manager
Butcher
Call Centre Training Coach
Career Adviser
Chemistry Teacher
Childminder
Chiropodist
Circus Performer
Civil Engineer
Civil Servant
Clairvoyant
Composer
Conductor
Counsellor
Credit Administrator
Croupier (Casino)
Database Administrator
Delivery Driver
Dentist
Disability Advisor
Doctor
Dog Trainer/Behaviour Consultant
Drama Teacher
Driving Instructor
Engineer
Farmer
Financial Controller
Florist
Hairdresser
Headmaster
Health Visitor
Healthcare Assistant
Herbarium technician
Holistic Therapist
Homoeopath
Housewife
Hypnotherapist
I.T. Manager
Inventory Controller
Insurance Consultant
Interior Designer
Iridoligist
Jewellery Quality Controller
Job Analyst
Journalist
Kinesiologist
Lawyer (USA)
Legal Secretary
Librarian
Life Coach
London Cab Driver
Lorry Driver
Magician
Manager/Teacher at Secondary School
Managing Director
Masseuse
Make-up Artist
Management Consultant
Market Research Executive
Martial Arts Instructor
Medical Rep
Meditation Instructor
Midwife
Molecular Geneticist
Musician
Network Engineer
Nurse
Nursing Manager
Nutritionist
NVQ Assessor
Occupational Therapist
Personal Assistant
Phlebotomist
Physiotherapist
Police Officer
Porter
Potter
Priest
Primary School Teacher
Principal Business Analyst
Production Manager
Program Manager
Professor
Psychologist
Publican
Receptionist
Reflexologist
Retired Teacher
Retired Lecturer
Revenue Controller
Salesman
Secondary School Teacher
Shop Owner
Social Worker
Software Tester
Speech and Language Therapist
Spiritual Healer
Student
Systems Analyst
Telephone Market Researcher
Translator
Travel Consultant
Tree Surgeon
University Lecturer
Veterinary Surgeon
Ward Manager
Web Site Producer
Writer

Author: Taggart King

Declutter your treatment rituals

November 24, 2011intention, reiki energy, reiki treatments, simplicityhand positions, reiki, reiki treatments, simplicitytaggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk

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.

Did you like this blog?

If so, you are going to love this book…

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The more you read the more you’ll have those wonderful ‘aha’ moments. I know I am already benefiting personally from the knowledge I’ve gained, but so will all my family, friends and clients too. Thank you Taggart for creating this incredible, uniting, enlightening book.”

Heidi Gaffney-Evans

Liberate Your Reiki!

86 Articles About Reiki: One Inspiring Vision

In this Reiki book you will find 80+ articles about Reiki, written by Reiki Master Teacher Taggart King. You will discover how to set your Reiki free, free from the constraints, dogma, rules and regulations of Western-style Reiki courses. Get back to Reiki’s original Japanese method and embrace simplicity, flexibility, creativity and intuition.

This book is suitable for people at all Reiki levels: beginners, those who are developing their Reiki, and Reiki Masters/Master Teachers. You will find advice about self-treatment meditations, energy exercises to build your ability as a channel, you will discover how to work with your intuition and embrace the power of intent.

Explore different distant healing methods and discover the beauty of Reiki’s original Japanese form. Learn how to use creativity and visualisation to enhance your self-treatments and treatment of others, and ditch all the silly rules and regulations that stifle the practice of Western Reiki in many lineages.

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

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Author: Taggart King
Picture credit: Kevin Utting

Treating both sides: is this necessary?

November 17, 2011reiki energy, reiki treatmentshand positions, reiki, reiki treatmentstaggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk

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

If 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: Taggart King

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

November 10, 2011reiki energy, reiki treatmentsfreestyle treatments, reiki, reiki treatmentstaggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk

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

If 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: Taggart King

How long should I spend in each hand position?

November 3, 2011intuition, reiki sensations, reiki treatmentsfreestyle treatments, hand positions, instinct, intuition, intuitive, reiki, reiki sensations, reiki treatmentstaggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk

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

If 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: Taggart King

Reiki Distant healing, Oneness and Usui’s system

October 20, 2011distant healingdistant healing, reikitaggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk

Distant healing in Usui’s time

Distant healing is an essential part of Reiki in the West. People on Second Degree courses are taught the ‘distant healing’ symbol and they learn how to ‘send’ Reiki to other people, in a way that transcends time and space.

But how was this done in Mikao Usui’s time?

Well, it seems that distant healing was not practised by Usui Sensei’s students, not in the way that we understand it, though they would have realised that such a thing was possible. And although we in the West are taught a ‘distant healing symbol’, these Reiki symbols were only introduced towards the end of Usui’s life, for the benefit of the Imperial Officers who trained with him, and thus most of the people Usui trained were not give symbols to use.

Most of his students used either Buddhist-style meditations or chanted Shinto mantras called ‘kotodama’ to get to grips with certain energies and states, and the work that they were doing was all about their own spiritual development and self-healing; treating others was not focused on or emphasised in the original system for example, and neither was distant healing.

So if the original students weren’t given HSZSN (the ‘distant healing symbol’) to use, and if they didn’t practise distant healing, what did they do that ties in with the idea of distant healing?

Reiki and Oneness

It’s all about Oneness, and this is a Buddhist idea: the concept that what we experience as reality is actually illusion, the idea that we are individuals, separate and distinct from other people is illusion, and that the true reality is that of oneness.

In Usui Sensei’s original system, some Second Degree practitioners who had worked for up to 18 months with the energies of earth ki and heavenly ki were given the opportunity to meditate on and chant kotodama that elicited a state of oneness, one of the goals of the original system.

For me, practising distant healing is a good way to experience a state of oneness because in distant healing you are becoming one with the recipient, you merge with them and the energy and you lose that distinction between the sender and receiver, subject and object.

It’s interesting that when we ‘send’ distant healing we are not sending and the receiver isn’t receiving: the idea is that there is no us and there is no them, and that’s why it’s possible.

A lovely conundrum!

Over to you

When you practise distant healing, what do you notice about the state that you experience?

Do you find that you’re in a space where you seem to transcend time and space?

What is your experience of oneness?

Post a message below to let me know what it feels like for you.

Want to find out more about Distant Healing?

A whole collection of distant healing methods are contained in the 110-page Reiki Evolution Second Degree manual. This isn’t just available to Reiki Evolution students: anyone can work with our manuals.

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

Here are the links that you need:

Reiki Second Degree manual

Reiki Second Degree eBook

Author: Taggart King
Picture Credit: Alice Popkorn

New Distant Healing meditations for you

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

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

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

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

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

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

Distant Healing meditations as MP3 downloads

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

Price: £11.98

To order by PayPal, use this button

To order by NOCHEX, use this button

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

Author: Taggart King

Sending Reiki to the future

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

Using distant healing creatively

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

So how might this be done?

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

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

Reiki your day

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

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

You can be endlessly creative with this!

Over to you

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

Want to find out more about Distant Healing?

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

Here are the links that you need:

Reiki Second Degree manual

Reiki Second Degree eBook

Author: Taggart King
Picture Credit: renatodantasc

Attunements, empowerments & contact lenses!

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

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

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

Introduction

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

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

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

What are “attunements”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What are empowerments

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

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

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

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

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

Now for the nonsense

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

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

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

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

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

A Reiki Diary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mon 17th
self-treatment.

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

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

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

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

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

Sat and sunday 22, 23rd
self treated,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sun 6th
self treated.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you for reading my story.

Peter Handy