Tag Archives: reiki

You can feel yourself getting sleepy…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Nentatsu Ho #1:

The Fundamentals


Experiencing mindfulness

Developing your intuition

Building energy sensitivity

Price: £19.99

To order by PayPal, use this button Add to Cart

Nentatsu Ho #2:

The Reiki Precepts


Releasing worry and anger

Humility and honesty

Compassion and forgiveness

Price: £19.99

To order by PayPal, use this button Add to Cart

Nentatsu Ho #3:

Spreading your wings

Building your Reiki confidence

Make your Reiki routine more consistent

Finding your own way with the energy

Price: £19.99

To order by PayPal, use this button Add to Cart

 

Try our distant empowerments

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distant reiju empowerments, attunements
Distant Reiju empowerments for you to tune into every Monday

Hidden away on an obscure page on our web site (I now realise!) is something that I would like to make a bit more prominent, and that is that I send out a distant Reiju empowerment that any person who has learned Reiki can ‘tune into’. You can tune into the empowerment any time on a Monday, wherever in the world you are (I send out the empowerments in advance with the intention that they can be received the following Monday, whenever that might be local time, you see; intention is the key!). You can tune in more than once on a Monday if you’re feeling so inclined. 🙂

There are definite benefits associated with receiving regular Reiju empowerments, and indeed regular attunements. In fact, for a long time, International Reiki Master Teacher William Rand has recommended that Reiki Masters get together to attune each other, not because the effect of attunements wear off (they don’t) but because being re-attuned gives a lovely ‘kick-start’ to your system, hitting the ‘reset’ button and helping to clear stuff out: rather like a spring clean.

And it’s the same with Reiju: the effects of Reiju don’t wear off, but there are definite benefits associated with receiving this lovely, energising and balancing gift regularly if you can: not essential, but beneficial to receive nevertheless.

What is Reiju?

You could see Reiju as a simple, Japanese version of an attunement, which was used by a group of Usui Sensei’s surviving students to transfer what Usui used to bestow on students using intent. In the original Japanese form of Reiki, empowerments would have been received week in, week out, throughout a student’s life with Reiki, at First Degree, Second Degree and beyond. Some people are making Reiju empowerments available at their Reiki Shares by way of echoing this tradition, but not all students can attend evening get-togethers. Many people within the world of Reiki do not have access to empowerments at all: maybe their Reiki Master has not learned the technique yet, or maybe they have lost contact with their teacher.

Distant attunements or empowerments work incredibly well, and of course there is no difference between an attunement or empowerment given in person or given at a distance; distance is not relevant to the practice of Reiki.

Procedure

Each week I will perform a distant Reiju empowerment, done with the intention that it will be received by any Reiki person who wants to ‘tune themselves in’ to the ‘broadcast’. The empowerment can be received any time on a Monday.

This is what you can do to receive your empowerment:

    If you know about Hatsu Rei Ho, the basic energy exercises of Japanese ‘Gakkai’ Reiki, then go through the sequence as normal. When you have performed Seishin Toitsu for a few minutes, stay with your hands in Gassho and say to yourself ‘I will receive my empowerment from Taggart now’.

    If you are not familiar with Hatsu Rei Ho, simply get yourself comfortable in a chair, with your eyes closed and your hands in the prayer position. Take a few deep breaths to calm yourself, and then say to yourself ‘I will receive my empowerment from Taggart now’.

You may notice a lot happening; you may notice very little. What you notice may continue for less than minute, or you might be experiencing things for 5-10 minutes. It is quite variable… see what happens, and post a comment below to let us know what you noticed!

Reiki Evolution teacher get-together

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reiki master teachers from reiki evolution

On June 1st we held our first get-together of Reiki Evolution Reiki Master Teachers, in central London. About half of the team were able to meet and it was a real pleasure to spend time with a group of such lovely, talented, positive, creative RMTs. I feel really honoured to have these people as part of my team. The room fairly crackled with energy as we did a Reiki circle, chanted the kotodama and gave each other empowerments, and it was great to chat, share ideas and experiences, to get to know each other and to plan how we are going to move Reiki Evolution forward together.

We talked about blogging and creating podcasts, shared ideas for courses and explained the ways that we made our own courses distinctive. We laughed, we chatted, and we really came together as a group, which was excellent. We all learned from each other and it was great to be amongst people who were so open and accepting.

The most amazing experienced was when we chanted the kotodama together (Reiki mantras that pre-date the use of symbols within Reiki and which were taught by Usui Sensei to most of his students). I didn’t realise how many strong voices there would be, and there were such harmonies! It was gorgeous to take part in and listen to, and we would have carried on forever I think, though eventually people would have fallen off their chairs from the hyperventilation! Sitting, basking in the energies we had elicited, I certainly just wanted to stay there undisturbed with a silly grin on my face. What an experience! So powerful.

We finished the day giving empowerments to each other and it was a very special time, supporting and empowering each other as a team. The room was sizzling with energy! Everyone decided that they wanted to meet again, and not in a year’s time, so looks like we shall be getting together later in the year.

The Power of Nature

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Before Reiki came into my life, I used to connect to nature to help heal, for example, I noticed that the powerfulness of a thunderstorm could be felt through the body and this energy could be ‘harnessed’ to help heal myself and others.

I noticed that sitting and clearing your mind by the roots of a tree allowed the body to become at one with the energy of the earth.

I found that whatever the weather, you could tune into the power of nature to help with healing qualities – the power of the sun, the force of the wind, the ability to wash away negativity and pain with the rain.

This is a practice which I still intuitively use in my Reiki sessions and I would like to share with you a meditation to connect with whichever source you would like to, for example, the earth, the sea, the moon, the sun and any other weather elements.

1)      Sit or stand quietly. Allow your mind to become still.

2)      Become aware of your body, on each exhale let any tension gently release.

3)      Become aware of your surroundings, listen to the sounds around you, whilst still keeping your mind clear, so for example, if you are listening to a thunderstorm, just listen – try to allow any thoughts which label the thunderstorm to disperse. Just listen, be there in that moment, so that your senses and body are truly feeling what nature is giving.

4)      Allow your body to connect with the elements of nature, feeling the power right through your body, feel as it invigorates your energy, passing through your body, you are sharing energy with everything around you.

5)      Be still and allow the powerful healing qualities of the earth bring your body to a higher level, whilst in return your body shares and strengthens the wonderful earth energy. You are at one sharing with your soul and nature.

I hope you enjoy the above meditation. By practising connecting to earth and the elements of nature we can help improve our sense of oneness as well as feeling the energy of the earth.

Sarah Berrisford is one of the team of Reiki Evolution teachers, she offers Reiki and Equine Reiki at Epona Equine Reiki Centre in Lincolnshire. Course participants gain confidence, clarity and self development.

Sarah’s popular book ‘The handbook of Equine Reiki’ is available to order through www.reiki-evolution.co.uk and amazon.

Visit Sarah’s website www.epona-equine-reiki.co.uk

A Reiki Chakra meditation for you

reiki chakra meditation

All a bit New Age?

Working with the chakras has ended up being taught quite commonly on Reiki courses, mainly because Reiki spent a long time travelling with the New Age movement and picked up various New Age ideas like working with chakras, and Angels, and Spirit guides and the like.

There’s nothing wrong with working with these ideas or principles, of course.

But they’re not anything to do with Reiki, so these things wouldn’t have been part of the original system that Mikao Usui taught, or even the system that Dr Hayashi passed on to Mrs Takata, or even what Mrs Takata taught.

They’re not really anything to do with Reiki but they end up being bundled with it.

And for that reason, we don’t really focus on chakras at Reiki Evolution: we focus on the Tanden (Dantien in Chinese), an energy centre in the abdomen, the centre of your personal Universe, the place where your creativity and intuition reside.

But let’s do something with chakras anyway!

In any case, lots of Reiki people do chakra meditations and like chakra meditations so I thought I would be fun to put together a guided meditation for you, but with a bit of a “Reiki Evolution twist” to it.

You can find it below and I hope you like it.

Listen to my Chakra meditation

Get yourself comfortable, click ‘play’ and close your eyes. I’ll do the rest!

Over to you

Once you’ve listened to my Reiki chakra meditation, please post your feedback below to let me know how you got on, and what you experienced.

It will be great to hear what you thought of it.

I have loads of Reiki meditations for you

reiki audio cdsIf you liked that meditation, I am sure that you will love some of the other meditations that I have for you.

If you head over to this page, for example, you will find another free meditation called the “Releasing exercise“.

Try that.

And if you’d like to dive in a bit further, how about these Reiki meditations?

  • Distant healing meditations
  • Self treatment meditations
  • The “Reiki inner smile” meditation

 

 

Picture credit: Adamo Corazza

Tree Hugging Abroad

reiki energy,


McRitchie Reservoir Singapore

 

 

It happened quite unexpectedly as I walked in wonder along the pathway in the warm, damp heat of the tropical rainforest. The foliage dripped with early morning dew and the soft sound of butterfly wings gently clipped my ears.

We were walking in the largest patch of green that Singapore has to offer, the MacRitchie reservoir. The walk itself is about 15km and a welcome break from the concrete jungle that is Singapore, as more and more construction work replaces mother nature.

My husband, Ian, is ex-military and generally likes to ‘yomp’ as opposed to walk. My regular reciting on our walks of the poem ‘what is this life if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare…’ generally falls upon deaf ears! This time I was not going to be rushed and let him yomp on ahead with my 2 children Hannah and Alex.

We had already met the resident group of Macaque monkeys,  who have a penchant for grabbing anything that vaguely resembles a packed lunch and also the turtles in the reservoir who swim at speed to greet you in the hope you may have something edible for them too. I was rather disappointed at the humanisation of the local wildlife, but understandable on such a small island I suppose!

We were now venturing as deep into the rainforest as the small pocket of forest would allow. I was enjoying the warm shade that the trees allowed and delighting in the dappled sunlight as it split the trees and alighted on the footpath ahead of me. The birdsong was sweet and the exotic aroma of damp earth and leafy vegetation was almost good enough to eat.

As I walked I suddenly felt a very strong feeling of energy coming from a tree on my left. It was palpable even from a couple of feet away. I stopped and wondered if I was simply going mad. I’ve always loved trees but have never truly conversed with one before, but this one was definitely calling my name!

I had to explore this new phenomenon and, of course, I worked my way through the undergrowth toward it. Its strong buttress-style trunk allowed me to get quite close between its roots and I gently placed my hands upon its trunk and whispered my greetings. Immediately the sense of an energy exchange began, the Reiki simply poured through me into the tree.

As we shared this joyous exchange of energies, we spoke of nature and nurturing all life with reverence and Grace. This beautiful tree was revealing to me its sense of oneness with all creation and its delight in finding someone who was sensitive enough to share time and Reiki with it.

It taught me that Reiki is an energy that all nature knows of intimately. It is part of their daily sustenance, as one frequency amongst the plethora of frequencies that we, and all living things, require to maintain a healthy balance and equilibrium.  It told me that nature, as one cohesive consciousness, was overwhelmed with joy and gratitude that so many humans were now awakening to their own Divine nature and that soon, very soon, we would all be singing the same song in harmony – the song of Ascension.

I felt so far removed as I merged with the essence of the tree, a blissful harmony of frequencies as we ‘danced’ together in time. But I was soon disturbed from my humbling and beautiful interaction with this amazing Being as a call to arms jolted me back into 3D reality. My family were waiting for me to catch them up and patience is not their strong point!

I bade my farewell to the tree and stepped back into my life.

But I will always remember this as one of the most truly amazing and powerful experiences of my life in a place I had not expected to feel such immense and Divine power where concrete reigns supreme.

My advice: always, always, expect the unexpected and be prepared to be amazed, particularly in these times of incredible changes on Earth and for humanity!

Namaste

Debbie McDougall

March 2011 Salisbury, Wiltshire

————————————————————————————————————————-

Debbie McDougall is one of the Reiki Evolution team of teachers offering training in the beautiful city of Salisbury, Wiltshire.

Debbie began her Reiki journey in 2004, eventually leaving the NHS in 2008 after nearly 30 years as a Nurse, and more latterly, a Midwife. Debbie has also trained in other forms of Holistic healing and runs regular workshops and groups aiming to empower others to heal themselves. She also runs Munay Ki workshops to pass on the beautiful and profound Ascension Rites of the Incan Shamanic lineages and writes her monthly ‘Earth Change Updates’ available on her website.

Debbie’s website can be found here: www.heaven-wisehealth.co.uk

For the SoulGroup Facebook page click here

 

 

 

Workshops for National Gathering 2011

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reiki share, reiki gathering, reiki festival
2011 Gathering in Regent's Park, London

Right, that’s sorted out now. For our first ever Reiki Evolution National Gathering at Regent’s College, London [October 29th] we are having six workshops, three in the morning and three in the afternoon. We had offers of eight workshops from my team of teachers, so I canvassed all 80 people who had booked to see what their preference was, and this was the result. The six workshops at the 2011 gathering will be:

Discover your intuitive self (Tina Shaw)
Health at your fingertips (Hannah Shine)
Working with sound (Mel Diamond)
Taoist yin yoga (Sue Norman)
Shamanic healing ritual (Kay Gillard)
Reiki and crystals (Linda Vickers)

All I need to do now is to work out who is going to attend which workshop, based on their preferences, which is giving me more of a headache than I had anticipated, so I know what I am going to be doing this Bank Holiday weekend: sitting on the floor surrounded by little pieces of paper, shifting them around from one pile to another as I try and accommodate everyone’s preferences as far as I can without blowing a gasket! 🙂

And I still have to announce what speakers we are going to have. There will be one or two. So watch this space!

We were overwhelmed by the response from Reiki Evolution students who wanted to attend. Since this was the first event of it’s kind we didn’t know what size venue to book – there’s no point in booking the Albert Hall if there’s just going to be tumbleweed drifting across the empty rows! – so it was a big surprise to find that all 80 tickets sold out in three days. In 2012 – and I’m fairly sure we’ll repeat the event – we’ll book a bigger venue!

Standard Hand Positions or Freestyle?

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how to start a reiki treatment advice

One of my favourite topics when I’m teaching my Reiki First Degree students is the subject of ‘standard hand positions’ or ‘freestyle’ treatment techniques.  By this I mean whether to work on a client with the 12 standard hand positions taught on most Reiki courses, (often, it seems as the be all and end all of conducting a Reiki treatment), or whether to go with the energetic flow of the treatment and flow through an intuitive, ‘freestyle’ session. I have seen therapy centre and health spa websites which describe Reiki as a treatment whereby the practitioner channels Reiki into the client in 12 different positions… fair enough, if that’s the system their Reiki practitioners choose to work with. But… guess which style of treating I prefer? I’m a person who doesn’t cope too well with the grind of a dictated routine; I’m creative and intuitive, and I’m afraid that I have a relatively low boredom threshold. Some or all of these qualities probably apply to you as well, so perhaps you can see where I’m going with this. Following 12 standard hand positions is great. To begin with. While you’re learning Reiki it’s a really sound idea to give some standardised treatments, it truly is. You really should know what they are and get comfortable with them. The hand positions are pretty convenient, they work well on clients on a treatment couch, and they are the basics that you ought to know. Definitely. But don’t feel that is all there is, please! Those hand positions can start to feel mighty restrictive when everything in your head, or indeed your hands, or heart, is telling you that the Reiki needs to flow to a different area from those standard positions.

Far more fun is there to be had, far more opportunities for amazement and challenge and ultimately learning, are to be gained by going where the energy guides you. I love the feeling of exploring the client’s energy system and supporting it by providing the Reiki as I feel it flow more strongly. I love not knowing where I will be lead for that period of time. Trust me, you have the ability to feel the flow of Reiki, to notice the varying qualities of what you are feeling in your hands. I’ve seen it hundreds of times on my Reiki courses; students are regularly startled by what they find they notice, even on day one of working with Reiki. They very quickly learn to be guided in this way. I really hope that, if you’re a Reiki person, you’ve had this experience as well.

My favourite way of working on clients is by what I call ‘listening with my hands’. I always advocate for my students to listen to their intuition because, yes, that’s what is directing you, along with being merged with the energy of the person before you. Now there are so many ways that intuition can manifest itself that I can feel another blog, or even a book coming on! But hey, you don’t have to call yourself clairvoyant, be a medium or read the tea leaves to be able to pick up intuitive information from the person you’re treating with Reiki. I have had a lifelong a passion for psychic work and have had a wonderful range of formal and informal teachers over many years, but I still maintain that anyone can learn to listen to their intuition during a Reiki treatment, with none of this kind of experience, training, or background whatsoever. And through my experience of working with my students, this has been born out over and over again. The approach is really very simple when you’re starting out: where your hands feel busy with energy, that’s where the client is drawing more Reiki through you, so stay there longer. Where your hands feel nothing much, move on and scan somewhere else until you find a busy area. Go with your gut instinct. With practice, this simple method alone will grow and evolve into a more sophisticated, intuitively informed treatment approach. And your approach will quite possibly be unique to you once you’ve learned to listen to the language through which your intuition is communicating. Keep an open mind, and explore what happens when you go with your instinct.

The vast subject of working with intuition is something I’d like to tackle in subsequent blogs, so please watch this space. In the meantime, (if you don’t already,) please, listen with your hands as a starting point for developing your own freestyle Reiki treatments. If you’ve never tried it before, you have an exciting journey ahead of you! Just get your hands on some folks and put in some regular work. You’ll teach yourself so quickly, and in any case, the Reiki will flow to support your learning. And you’ll always find giving a Reiki treatment an adventure. Trust the intuitive process and enjoy the ride!

 

kent reiki training courses

Louise Heseltine is one of the Reiki Evolution team of teachers, running courses in Kent.   Louise began teaching Reiki in 2005 and has worked as a complementary therapist, offering Reiki, aromatherapy (Tisserand trained), reflexology and Indian head  massage. Louise also runs Reiki Retreats and has taken Reiki people to Egypt and run regular retreats to Spain to develop their healing  skills.

Her website can be found here: www.silvermoon.org.uk.

Click here to ‘like’ Louise’s Facebook page!

On anger

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to start a Reiki treatment

reiki treatments,

how to start a reiki treatment advice

A simple ritual to get your Reiki treatment started

People in different lineages are taught different ways of starting off a Reiki treatment – the ritual(s) that you carry out to get things started – and I thought it would be useful to share with you the sequence that we teach on Reiki Evolution courses, so that you can compare it with what you were taught.

It might trigger off some ideas and help you to develop your own way of doing things if you wanted to.

When standing by the recipient, our students are taught to go through a sequence represented by the letters A, C, B, M, F.

A = Affirm
C = Connect
B = Build
M = Merge
F = Flow

Below I describe these stages in a bit more detail…

Affirm

It’s quite common, I think, for Reiki people to make some sort of affirmation or dedication before starting a Reiki treatment, and we have students silently affirm, “I dedicate this treatment to the highest good of [client’s name]”.

It’s just a nice way of reminding yourself that when you carry out a Reiki treatment, you do so in a ‘neutral’ way, with no expectation of a particular result, metaphorically standing aside to allow the energy to be drawn by the recipient to where it needs to go. So you’re setting the right intent.

Once you have gone through this process again and again with different clients, you probably don’t need to keep on reminding and re-reminding yourself at the start of each session: you know what your intent is.

Connect

Here is where we focus our attention on our ‘connection’ to the energy, and we have our students imagine that energy is flowing down through their crown, down through the centre of the body to the Tanden.

And just focusing on that for a little while can bring a lovely meditative state, ideal for carrying out a Reiki treatment on someone.

Build

Now we direct our attention towards the Tanden, that energy centre two finger-breadths below your tummy button and 1/3rd of the way into your body.

This is the centre of your personal universe, the location of your intuition and creativity, a part of the body that is focused on in many traditional practices, for example martial arts, flower arranging, even the tea ceremony.

Here we notice that the energy starts to build here, strengthening and intensifying.

Merge

Having focused on our ‘connection’ to the energy and the building up of Reiki within us, now we move our attention to the recipient on the treatment table before us, imagining that we are merging with them, becoming one with them, experiencing a state of oneness.

We are neutral, empty, with no expectations, a necessary bystander in the process that is to follow.

Flow

And finally, we allow the energy to flow, drawn by the recipient to the most appropriate places for them on that occasion.

We have established ourselves as a clear channel, a free-flowing conduit, stepping aside metaphorically to allow the energy to be drawn by the recipient, creating a ‘healing space’ that they can use for their highest good.

We follow the flow of energy, resting our hands in the areas that are drawing the most energy, staying there for as long as the energy needs to flow there, resting our hands in just the right places for that person on that occasion.

Though intuitive working is something that we focus on mainly on our Second Degree courses, some of our First Degree students find that they are already feeling guided by the energy and we encourage them to go with the flow, ‘getting out of the way’ – not worrying or trying to puzzle out why you are being drawn to a particular area, just letting it happen.

Nice and simple

So there is a simple sequence that you can follow.

I really like the way that it flows from a simple affirmation, noticing your connection to the energy and building the energy within you, moving your attention towards the recipient, merging with them and allowing the energy to flow.

It’s like a lovely meditative dance with the energy.

Over to you

If this sequence differs from what you are doing currently, why not try it and see how you get on with it. And post a message below to let me know how it went.

Maybe there is something that you could incorporate into your own ritual, whatever that might be.

None of these things are set in stone, of course, and you can find your own distinctive way, so I hope the above has been helpful to you.

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: 

	

	
	


							


	

		
				

			The “21-Day thing”
		

		
		

			self healing, , , , 					

	


		

		
reiki 21 days twenty one


Where did the 21 day thing come from?


I wanted to talk a little bit about the “21 day thing”: the 21-day self-treat or the 21-day clear-out after attending a First Degree course.


I’m a bit puzzled by this and I’ve been trying to fathom where it came from, and why it should be recommended.


I think this idea probably came into being because it echoes the story told about Mikao Usui’s discovery of Reiki on Mt Kurama where, according to the story that Mrs Takata passed on, Usui Sensei went up Mt Kurama and fasted and meditated for 21 days, culminating in him being hit by a bolt of light, seeing symbols, and Reiki was born.


We know now that this isn’t actually what happened: Usui didn’t fast for 21 days up the mountain, though he did carry out something called the “Lotus Repentance meditation”, and this did last for 21 days I believe.


But this was quite a formalised process – an established Tendai practice – and he went home at night after each day’s meditation. In any case, this did not lead to the ‘eureka’ moment that Mrs Takata spoke about since Usui was already teaching his system before he carried out the first of his Lotus Repentance meditations, and he performed these meditations several times during his lifetime.


7 x 3 = 21


People have speculated and taught that the 21 consecutive days of self-treating is required because the energy makes a visit to each of a person’s chakras three times during this period.


The emphasis on chakras within Reiki seems to have originated within Reiki’s journey through the New Age movement, where some lineages have incorporated various New Age practices like crystals, spirit guides and Angels etc. Chakra work wasn’t part of the original system.


And this three-times-through-your-chakras seems to me to be a bit of ‘reverse engineering’, where you have something that you’re supposed to do, and then you back-track to try and find a justification for it, to make sense of it in your head.


Some suggest that if you carry out a practice for 21 days then you will have established it as a habit, and there may be something in that, actually.


Don’t stop after 21 days!


The problem that I have with this idea of a 21-day practice is that some people “do their 21 days” and then stop, or have only a sporadic practice afterwards, as if once you’ve done your 21 days… that’s it, you’ve cleared yourself out and you don’t need to work on yourself so dedicatedly afterwards.


And I also have a problem with the idea that you have a clear-out just during that 21 day period and then you’re sorted.


In my experience, the way that people react to Reiki in terms of ‘clearing out’, whether that be in terms of physical reactions or states of mind or emotions, seems to vary greatly from one person to another. And while Reiki doesn’t seem to give people an experience that they can’t handle, some can make a great big fast clear-out initially, some have it happening in dribs and drabs, while for others the process may be delayed for a while.


Everyone’s different. And there’s always something more to clear out!


We all live lives, we have stress, we suppress emotions, we fail to deal with things, so if we carry on working with Reiki, there will be stuff that we will need to shift in the future to bring things into balance for us, not just in those first few weeks.


And just wait until you start attuning people: you may have a mega-clear-out waiting for you!


So while I don’t object to people working on themselves dedicatedly for three weeks – why would I? – I’d rather emphasise that if you’re going to gain the greatest benefit out of your connection to Reiki then you need to work on yourself regularly.


You don’t have to self-treat (or carry out Hatsurei ho) every single day (and then beat yourself up for not being perfect if you have to miss a day sometimes) but if you can make Reiki a regular part of your life then you will reap the rewards.


And that’s not just for 21 days: that’s for life.


Over to you


So, do you have a regular practice of using Reiki on yourself?


And, if so, what have you noticed in terms of the way that your mind/body has responded to that ongoing energy work?


Did you have a bit of a clear-out to begin with, or a great big clear-out, and then occasional ups and downs after then?


Need a hand with your Reiki habit?


If anyone does want to carry out some task or practice for 21 days in a row, here is a free online service that will keep track of what you have been doing, sending you an e-mail every day to see what you have done. It’s called Habit Forge.


Did you like this blog?


If so, you are going to love this book…


 










“Whether you are at Level 1, 2 or Reiki Master Teacher Level (regardless of the Reiki flavour you are trained in), this book is very much for you! Within hours of starting to read this book, it has rejuvenated and enriched my own practices with a wealth of information and useful examples too.


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.


Finally, read Taggart King’s “10 Rules of Reiki”, the essential principles for a powerful and fulfilling Reiki practice.


This professionally-printed Reiki manual has 370 A5 pages, a glossy soft cover and we will send it to anywhere in the world!


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


Book: 370 pages.


Price: £15.99 + p&p







Or Download a PDF version now for only £12.49










 


 


Author: 

Picture Credit: Martin Fisch


 

	

	
	


							


	

		
				

			Be like water
		

		
		

			simplicity, , , 					

	


		

		
reiki simplicity bruce lee




“Be formless, shapeless… like water”

“True refinement seeks simplicity”




 


…if you are wondering who said these things, you might be surprised to hear that they were spoken by Bruce Lee, film star and famous martial artist who developed Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial arts method that took the best approaches from different fighting systems and synthesised them into a flexible and effective fighting art. Jeet Kune Do is referred to as a “style without style” where, unlike more traditional martial arts which Lee saw as rigid and formalistic, JKD is not fixed or patterned: it is more of a philosophy with guiding thoughts, a “style of no style”. Bruce Lee often referred to JKD as “The art of expressing the human body” in his writings and in interviews.


And those comments got me wondering about Reiki, especially when Lee identified three different stages that someone’s practice could go through. He said that before training, people had a natural ability, something that was unformed and unfocused; training begins and the student learns how to follow the instruction, they are restricted to the framework that they are taught and many practitioners might not move beyond that stage, following the system almost by rote. The third stage is where the practitioner moves beyond the rote learning to embrace simplicity and flexibility.


So how does that echo one’s development with Reiki? Well before some people learn Reiki, they already have a healing ability, maybe unstructured or unconscious, unfocused, but a natural healing ability nevertheless. We have taught many such people, who have found that Reiki gives them a framework or a structure to work through, focusing and channelling and enhancing what they already had.


The student learns a particular approach, with some rules and standard hand positions and in some lineages quite a long list of things you can and can’t, should and shouldn’t, do with Reiki. Some practitioners remain at this stage, following the instructions they were given and remaining content with that way of working.


But you can move beyond that framework, simplifying your practice, altering what you do to the needs of the recipient. You can embrace intuitive working, where you leave behind those basic rules to go ‘freestyle’ and, where Lee describes his system as “The art of expressing the human body”, we could see intuitive working as “The art of expressing the energy”. Here we are empty and formless, flowing like water to where the water wants to go, joining with the energy and following it, directing the energy to where it wants to be directed, emphasising aspects of the energy that need to be emphasised. We stand as a flexible conduit between the source and the recipient, empty, formless, fluid.


I believe that clutter-free Reiki is the best Reiki, and that by cutting away the rules and the dogma we can ‘refine’ (to use Lee’s word) our Reiki practice. Emptiness is the goal here: no planning, no thought about what you might do, just being there with the energy and the recipient; your treatment has no form, no structure and you simply follow the flow of energy, becoming the energy, merging with the recipient, with no expectations other than to just ‘be’.


 


Picture credit: IQRemix




If you like the sound of this approach then you might consider doing some training with Reiki Evolution. We have live Reiki courses running throughout the UK and Taggart teaches one-to-one through his special Reiki Home Study courses. For more information, click on the links below:


Live Reiki courses

Home Study courses