The Origins of Reiki

The Origins of Reiki

Mikao Usui was a Japanese Buddhist monk in search for enlightenment. The ultimate scope of Buddhist practice, as is the ultimate scope of spiritual practices, is transcendence, meaning going beyond the sole identification with a separate self, and thus ending the suffering related to separation and a contracted identity. Happiness is the realization of being at one with something greater than the self, an expansion that when realized through direct experience, not only as an intellectual understanding, leads to greater wisdom, compassion, purpose and resources than the small “I” self can access. 

When Mikao Usui achieved an enlightened state, following a lengthy fasting retreat in a temple, he used his previously acquired knowledge and skills of QiGong in integration with his new insights to establish a system of healing which he called the Usui Reiki Ryoho - the Usui Reiki system of healing. At the time when he lived, there were other systems of healing named Reiki, translating as “Spiritually-guided life force energy”, where the name Reiki was used to name those systems of healing transmitted from a Sensei (Master) to a student through a ceremonial initiation. The Reiki healing systems are different than the healing methods taught solely through verbal instruction, where healers use their thoughts, breath, movement and touch to move and balance the Ki (Chi, or Life Force Energy). The later methods can be learned from reading a book or watching a video class. The Reiki methods are passed on through ceremonial transmission. Mikao Usui named his method after his name: the Usui method of Reiki healing, and passed it on to his students through initiations, known in the West as attunements, and within a framework of apprenticeship, where the student healers were to observe the Buddhist percepts and live according to the Dharma, the Buddhist right way of life. 

Mikao Usui established a professional association for his Reiki practice, the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai, formed with his students - colleagues, and placed himself as chairman. To address the general skepticism about Reiki in his culture, Usui decided to conduct research; for research to be credible, it must be independent, so he asked a student of his, Dr. Chujiro Hayashi, to conduct the Reiki research in his home-based clinic. Hayashi was a member of the Gakkai - a medical doctor retired from the navy, whose clinic employed several Reiki healers, and whose patients were residents of his home clinic, receiving several short treatments a day from a number of healers at the same time, for as long as it was needed until they were well.

Later, when Mikao Usui died, and a new chairman of the association was named, a personality clash between the new chairman and Chujiro Hayashi led Hayashi to leave the Gakkai and continue teaching, training and treating people independently. To honour his lineage, as it is the custom within Japanese culture, both healing arts and martial arts, Hayashi’s graduation diplomas for his students always mentioned Usui Reiki Ryoho - the Usui Reiki system of healing. Hayashi modified some of the techniques in the method, removed some, and added some of his own.

When Hawayo Takata, an American woman of Japanese origin, travelled to Japan for medical reasons, to receive treatment for an illness, she was directed to Chujiro Hayashi’s clinic, where she resided, got cured, and received Reiki initiation and training, thus becoming the first Westerner trained in this healing art, and able to perform treatments. After a few years Hayashi travelled to the US and trained and initiated Takata to become a Reiki Teaching Master. Takata went to teach several students, of which twenty-two were trained to teach, and became Reiki Masters. Thus Reiki began spreading throughout the Western world, and everywhere else outside Japan. Like her teacher, Takata removed, modified and added techniques to the method; and since she and since she taught orally, without a handout, the various versions of teachings streaming out of her lineage led to a type of Reiki today which looks different than how Mikao Usui used to teach. In the West, the recommended positions of the hands roughly follow the chakras (energy centres along the spine), and most teachers teach their students to touch. A German Reiki healer, Frank Arjava Peter, and his Japanese wife, found and translated Usui’s teaching manual as well as Hayashi’s, and translated both in English, illustrating each hand position with photography. Usui taught a number of hand positions to remember by heart, prescribing a specific sequence of positions according to the disease addressed and treated. Contemporary Japanese Reiki is practiced hands-off, palms lifted above the body, to escape regulation, since all therapeutic touch is government-regulated in Japan. In most Western countries indigenous healing practices are not regulated and healers can perform healing sessions using touch. 

The Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai still exists and is active in Japan. Reflecting a philosophy of keeping Reiki in its purely traditional form, and maybe some of the traditional Japanese reluctance to mingle with non-Japanese cultures, the Gakkai does not exchange information with any Reiki healers from outside the association, let alone outside Japan. However, individual Reiki teachers in Japan are now teaching versions of Japanese Reiki in the West, and individual Reiki teachers from the West are now teaching their version of  Reiki in Japan, as is the case of Frank Peter. 

A thorough researched history of Reiki is found in the book “The Spirit of Reiki”, co-authored by William Lee Rand, Frank Arjava Peter, and Walter Lübeck. More information can be found in articles published in the Reiki News Magazine, published by the International Centre for Reiki Training. Some of the information in this paragraph is sourced in a Reiki News Magazine interview with Hiroshi Doi, a Japanese Reiki Master who used to belong to the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai and left, and who has been teaching Reiki in North America. His interview can be found on www.reiki.org.

Traditional Reiki or Western Reiki?

There are two major approaches to teaching, in general, and to teaching Reiki, specifically, to reflect to major human personalities. Conservative personality teachers tend to lead their classes true to the teachings of their own teachers, preserving the content and often the style. Creative - innovative personality teachers tend to integrate a variety of methods and approaches within their classes, which may include aromatherapy, yoga, QiGong exercises, colour therapy and meditation. Defenders of tradition see innovation as a way to wash down an otherwise pure method; defenders of innovation look at traditional teaching as dated. The middle path looks at what is valuable and worth preserving, and what is enriching and not detracting from the effectiveness of the Reiki practice. The history of Reiki teaches that the Usui lineage contains both preservation and innovation - Usui borrowed techniques from QiGong, possibly from massage therapy or Shiatsu; Hayashi modified the techniques as well, and so did Hawayo Takata. Takata embelished the story of Usui and his Reiki healing method, at least in part to make it palatable to the American public at a time of political tension between the U.S. and Japan. Later on, thorough research proved much of Takata’s related history of Reiki to be a creative straying from facts, like her claim that Usui was a Christian professor of theology at the Chicago University. 

When learning of the changes in the Reiki practices in Japan due to the pressures of governmental regulations, we learn that traditional Usui Reiki doesn’t exist anymore in practice. The most traditional that Reiki practice gets is what a Reiki Teaching Master can name his or her own teaching which preserves the teaching of his or her own teacher up on the lineage. If you learn Reiki with Master Tana Saler, you may as well call it “The Western Reiki” or “Tana’s Reiki”, and when you teach your own classes you can name it as you wish to reflect the unique flavour of your own teachings.

The Grocer's Headache - A Reiki Story

I was a new Reiki practitioner when I stepped into a small neighbourhood fruit and veggies store. The salesman was sitting on a chair, his head buried between his hands, a worried elderly woman running back and forth with water and pain killers, trying to help him. The man was in his thirties, and couldn’t lift his head up because of the headache. 

I went up to the man and said: “I just learned something called Reiki, and might be able to help. May I try? May I touch you?” The salesman mumbled a weak “yes, sure”. His suffering was at the point where he would have tried anything if it had a chance to help.

I walked and stood behind the man, and placed my hands on his head. Underneath the palms I could feel something bubbling like a bubbling spring, or water swirling in a hot tub. Having such sensations in my hands was a new experience for me, as a freshly-trained and initiated healer, and I was still learning to read and make sense of what I felt. 

After about ten or fifteen minutes, the man lifted his head up and said: “Wow! I can keep my head up! Before, I wasn’t able to.” He was functional enough to sell me his produce, and I was as glad as he was that Reiki worked, since as a new (and skeptical) healing student I was looking to road-test my new skills. 

The elderly woman was glad too, and poured a generous stream of blessings at me.

Transmission, Empathy and Power

I woke up laughing.

In my dream, a man tried to jump over a table and landed face down in a plate full of hummus. I looked at the beige paste smeared over the man’s mouth and face and exclaimed: This is the most original way to eat hummus that I’ve ever seen! And then I laughed, and laughed, and woke up. The night before, prior to falling asleep, I was watching YouTube episodes of the comedy show “Whose Line Is It Anyway”, and laughing out loud.

For a few weeks now I had been watching Jordan Peterson on YouTube, playing back-to-back recordings of his university lectures and his home office musings. Jordan Peterson, the recent social media star, is the psychology professor at the University of Toronto whose controversial views have made his videos viral. I found many of his life counselling pieces to be useful and applicable in my own life, including moving me out of procrastination, getting me to clear, declutter and update my living environment, and urging me to write down emotional memories and future plans. 

During the weeks that I have listened to Jordan Peterson’s talks daily until late at night, I also noticed something else: I watched my mood going down considerably, having bad dreams at night, and waking up tired and unhappy. I have PTSD and it’s tempting to attribute such low mood to the memory of past traumatization. But I became curious, and I paid attention not only to the content of Peterson’s talks, but also how I felt while watching and hearing him during his talks, and I noticed a knot in my throat, a frown on my face, and tension in my eyes. I hunched a bit forward, which is a tendency I have since using mobile devices, just like Jordan Peterson hunches a bit forward, his head and eyes pointing downwards. And something in his voice caused my throat to tighten up in a knot. 

In our communication, we transmit whatever verbal message we intend through our speech, but we also transmit specific qualities through our bodies. In my experience as a Reiki healer and teacher, humans transmit subtle qualities that imprint on each other, intentionally, for useful purposes, such as within the Reiki attunement ceremonies, or other types of spiritual, yogic and shamanic ceremonies, or unintentionally. That subtle “something” being transmitted is usually referred to as “energy”.

We influence each other not only with reasonable, logical verbal argument: we influence each other with the subtle transmission of our energy, through our bodies - stance, gestures, touch, look, voice, and maybe more, through our mostly invisible but perceptible glow. 

When you are a sensitive empath, like I am, you feel and distinguish such influences that we have on each other, and you can seek to cultivate a useful transmission in yourself, and open up to the positive influence of others. You also realize the importance of self-regulating your empathy and closing it down in the face of harmful influencers - a skill I am still working at cultivating.

When I lived with a man whose transmission was radically different than mine in intention and quality, I became curious to uncover the determining factors of influence: who will influence whom in a relationship, and who will mimic whom?

My question was answered with the help of my teacher, mentor and friend Paul Linden, founder of Being In Movement. Paul Linden is a martial artist who has introduced me to the reality or power in interactions. A person in a position of power is more likely to influence others. This is why speakers speak from a high stage and not from the audience. People assume power through physical positioning (up on the stage, the throne, or the soap box), through a socially accepted position (professor, politician, orchestra conductor) and through embodied practices (taking up space, projecting one’s voice). In any given interaction, the person in power will influence others on a lesser position, for better or for worse. 

What life advice I would give you (and myself!) based on these findings? Here are some points to consider:

• Clear your transmission, especially when you are in a position of power! When I teach Reiki, I tell my students that their job is to be as clear a channel for the Reiki energy as possible. No reading bad news, complaining and using intoxicants before working with clients! 

• Choose your influencers carefully! Pay attention to how you feel around your teachers, therapists, politicians and bread winners (money-making places us in a power position).

• Don’t go up on the stage when you’re cranky! Change your body-mind state before speaking, leading, performing, teaching or treating others.

• Regulate your exposure to harmful transmission, especially if you’re a sensitive empath! It’s less Jordan Peterson for me, more Joseph Campbell, Shinzen Young, and definitely good, cheerful (not victim humour sarcasm) comedy before bedtime! 

Victor's Frozen Shoulder

Sometimes people come to work with me after an accident or injury.  Sometimes what brings them to me is a chronic complaint, and what transpires in a session is an accident or an injury that preceded the appearance of the particular symptom the client complains about.

Such was the case with Victor (not his real name).

Victor was an active man who, like many Canadians, liked to spend his summer weekends at his cottage, puttering about (is this a word?) - doing things, chopping wood, repairing broken bits and parts of the cottage. Victor's frustration was that for the past twenty years he had a frozen shoulder, and he could only lift his right arm up so far, less than shoulder height, so he could not do all the things that he once did and loved doing. He tried every conventional and alternative method for his shoulder, from physiotherapy to chiropractic to acupuncture and nothing helped with his mobility problem.

When he came to me, he had given up hope, and the sole reason he tried my work was because we both belonged to a business by referral organization where members were encouraged to build relationships and get to know each other's businesses. In the group where Victor and I networked, I was known as the Reiki Lady, but the fact is that I rarely work with one specific method in my client sessions, such as Reiki or Reflexology, unless it is specifically required by my client; instead, I listen to the person's story and body and use an integration of methods to accomplish change. 

Using body awareness guidance, I walked Victor through a safe re-visiting of the accident, integrating mental images and sounds with feeling body-felt sensations. Victor was able to recall bits of the event that were previously blacked out.  After that I guided Victor through an imagination exercise of envisioning his life if the accident didn't happen at all. Each session ended with twenty minutes or so of hands-on Reiki focusing on his shoulder and upper back, while Victor was following my hands with his attention and breath. 

And then the "miracle" happened: Victor was able to lift his arm up above shoulder height with ease and comfort, and without pain. He was able to resume his favourite physical activities, and was so glad that his public testimonial in front of our networking group was an enthusiastic: "It fucking works!"

For healing to take place it is necessary that the methods used are comprehensive to integrate biology with psychology. Chiropractors and physiotherapists only address the body, while most psychotherapists only address the thinking, a fragmentation that doesn't solve psycho-somatic problems. Accidents and injuries are remembered by the body, and it is at the intersection of disciplines, in integrative methods, that healing can occur.

Reiki Dog

Was it a coincidence that the very same day that I was reading a book chapter about treating dogs with Reiki, was the day when my dog Dubi had indigestion? “If I had Reiki, I could help him!” I thought, and soon after that day, I went to be trained and initiated in the Japanese healing art, and I became a practitioner.

When I read the chapter about Reiki Mastery, I felt my chest open and lift up, as I imagined what it would be like to have this power of touching people and turning them into Reiki healers!

Hands treating dog with Reiki, from the book Bodo J. Baginski and Shalila Sharamon

December 1999: Following a few months of apprenticeship with my teacher Omri Blan, I officially became a Reiki Teaching Master, and went on to teach everyone that I could literally lay my hands on: my dad and my stepmom, my friends, my cousins, my cousin’s wife, my cousin’s wife mother, and of course, my dogs!

By the time I adopted Kinook, my adorable Akita-Chow girl, I was already well established as a Reiki teacher and professional healer, and the first thing I did was to squat near my dog and lay my hands on her. The first thing she did was to say: “No way, woman!” and move three meters away.

Akitas are independent dogs, a bit aloof, like cats, and given my super warm, sensual affectionate way of being, we had a bit of a personality clash – or was it cultural, Japan’s coolness versus the Balcanic / Middle-Eastern fire? If I massaged her, she would stay; if my hands stopped and beamed the heat typical to Reiki hands, she’d move away.

The years have passed, and I managed to attune Kinook to the first two levels of Reiki, using a plush toy for surrogate. I don’t have a way to know what this did for her, because she couldn’t tell me of any sensations that she felt or mental images she saw. I know that distance Reiki attunement works, based on my experience with people. One time I attuned from a distance an anorexic six-year old boy who was on his way out to the hospital: his mom, who was my student, put him in a chair for twenty minutes at our pre-agreed time, while I was in my home, using my teddy bear to represent the child. The boy told his mother of a great heat that he felt during the process; later, at the hospital, his spirits were unusually high, and he ate a great deal of food that he then kept! The doctors released him home.

In the years towards the end of her long life, Kinook had chronic pain, a knee that kept getting in and out of her joint, throwing her structure off balance, as she compensated for that leg; and she had back and hip pain, difficulty sitting down and coming up off the floor. And just like that, one day Kinook accepted my Reiki hands on her; at first her head was up and her ears were perked as if she was listening to the sensations in her body under the warm touch of my hands; then later, towards the end, when she was sixteen, she’d fall asleep under my hands. I did all sorts of things to manage her pain, mostly diet and supplements, but that was not enough. When pain kept her up and panting, I’d put my hands on Kinook’s back, feeling her body’s response to my touch; soon her breathing would slow down, and she’d lie on her side and sleep peacefully.

Reiki was good for her, and when she really needed it, she accepted the treatment. And it was good for me, because nothing is worse than helplessly watching a loved one suffer, feeling unable to help. Instead of helpless I was helpful, and at the wee hours of the night or in weekends, when there was no-one to call for help, Reiki kept saving the day for both of us.

Reiki: Are Skeptics Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater?

Reiki: Are Skeptics Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater?

Studying the AQAL Integral map for the evolution of consciousness has been the most sobering reality check that I have ever encountered, causing me to question and re-assess everything that I knew to be true, and moreover, everything I teach in my classes.

One of the aspects learned is the subjective and objective lens to reality. Individual subjectivity is what makes our human interiors: the world of sensations, feelings, emotions, drives, impulses, urges, values, concepts and various states of being. The subject “I” can only be known from these interiors, and even though subjectivity is real, it cannot be proven, quantified, measured or observed.

That which can be observed, measured and quantified is objective reality, the ‘it’. Subjectivity and objectivity are correlated: they co-arise simultaneously, the subjective ‘Why’ (motive) and the objective ‘What’ (behaviour). Being and doing happen simultaneously. There is no causality, but correlation.

I have been practicing healing arts, and teaching Reiki, meditation and self awareness for fifteen years now, and my subjective, interior life has been extraordinarily enriched by my practice. Reiki, contemplation, and embodied mindfulness are practices which address the subjectivity of the individual practicing it. If you have a direct experience with such practices, you may have noticed a variety of changes and responses to these practices in your interiors - perhaps fluctuation in your body temperature, or pulsation and flow in your hands and feet, or a sense of emotional peace and calm, an increase in self confidence, a sense of joy, greater mental clarity, or inspired creativity, or a ‘je ne sais quoi’ that you lack words for.

And we do look for words to describe the suchness of our interior experience, to connect with others, and be witnessed, or to make sense of it, or to communicate it and ‘share the love’. This, verbal communication, is when healers get into trouble – trying to map uncharted territories and explain the correlated objectivity of their subjective experience with inappropriate validity claims. Objectivity is the domain of science: it is science’s business to measure, count, weigh and observe; any objectivity claim that isn’t measurable and observable by science, is wrong. Many talented healers, including myself, are and have been scoffed at because of their clumsy attempts to communicate their trade, explaining the subjectivity of their, and their clients’ experience through concepts that don’t stand up to scientific testing, resulting in the discrediting and dismissal of their work. When altered states of consciousness are interpreted by an individual with magical or mythical worldviews, their interpretation of those states may look like visitations of unicorns and flying fairies. Interpretation is function of stage of development, level of awakening, personality, gender, culture etc, and unless it is proven (somebody takes pictures of that unicorn), it is just an interpretation – aesthetically pleasing, pleasurable and attractive, but not more real from an objectivity point of view than Santa Claus and his reindeer.

When I teach the first level of Reiki to a group of students, I precede the attunement ceremony with a  guided meditation where I introduce them to a mysterious benevolent figure, without giving a shape, face or a name to that being. After the ceremony, students take turn in sharing their experience with the meditation, and it turns out that the mysterious being they meet is someone else for each one of them. Christian students often see a Jesus Christ like figure, with long hair, a bead and white robes. Jewish students often see a deceased loved one, such as a grandmother or a departed parent. Hindu students see Hindu gods – one particular student, DP, kept seeing the same Hindu god sitting on my shoulder throughout her entire training, from level I to Reiki Master. Students who meditate and don’t affiliate with a certain religion often have the vision of a bright light with no face or name to it.

This caused me to become mindful of what I teach my students that Reiki is and does. If Reiki is a transmission which facilitates altered states of consciousness that look, sound and feel differently for each student, how ridiculous it would be if, based on their, or their students’ visualisations, the teachers claimed that Reiki were a method to connect with Jesus Christ, or with your deceased Granny, or specifically with Lakshmi! And yet, most of the healing arts teachings are constructed upon some individual or group’s interpretation and belief, causing valuable transmissions and inspired methods to be missed, obstructed by faulty maps which make the laughing stock of skeptics.

This situation is a lose-lose for all: healing arts fail to gain mainstream approval, separating healers from clients who would greatly benefit from their service. Science fails to explore a rich field of personal well-being and transformation, lacking the vision, the courage and the funds to chart new territory and conduct research with healing arts.

My advice to my fellow healers: when you speak or write about your trade, communicate that which you observe: what you see, hear, and feel that takes place with yourself and your clients, and avoid objectivity claims that cannot be measured by science.

As an example: the Reiki student learns about chakras, the energy centers referred to by healers, shamans and practitioners of martial arts and Qi Gong. Science hasn’t measured or observed chakras, and even though a few sensitive men and women can see them, unless chakras are seen by a majority of individuals, or at least measured by instruments, their existence will be denied. In my Reiki classes, I introduce the students to embodied awareness where they practice noticing breath, posture, and sensations. After the attunement ceremony, when the palms of their hands become sensitive and perceptive, the students practice ‘scanning’ each other with their hands, and, with their eyes closed, they are able to feel and locate each other’s chakras.

One interesting fact that I noticed is that whenever I think, speak or write something inspired by a deep wisdom within myself, I have warm, vibrating sensations between my eyebrows, and a reddish spot appears exactly where the Third Eye chakra is said to be. I can’t demonstrate scientifically that the Third Eye chakra exists, is real and activated, so saying anything about it might get me into trouble. But I can demonstrate the red spot appearing on my forehead consistently, and that’s what is safe to communicate.

I advise the same caution in regards with the health and well being effects of the healing arts: we are healers and not prophets, so don’t make promises or assumptions about future outcomes of your healing work. I noticed many times acute pain disappearing only after one or two sessions of Reiki, and at the same time, I will not promise or claim that this is a consistent, expected outcome of my trade. I will speak about what I have noticed so far, and by extrapolation I point towards a possibility, and not prescience.

Some say that spiritual healing is just placebo, and I have no way to prove that it’s not. On one hand, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; on the other hand it is safer to use a language that agrees with the current state of scientific testing in our field, if our field is to avoid ridicule, and gain mainstream acceptance.

Reiki is known and taught as a type of spiritual healing, with the life force energy ‘Ki’ being guided by ‘Rei’, the Japanese word for Spirit. While there is consensus for this to be true within the world of healers, for as long as there is no objective evidence of either Ki or Spirit, I’ll play it safe by calling my art a ‘laying on of hands’, which no-one, no hard science skeptic, can argue with. 

Eight Reiki Distant Healing Ideas

Across Time and Space

If you are a Reiki practitioner of the 2^nd level, you have the ability to send Reiki healing across time and space.

In the world of duality and the time space continuum, you perceive reality through distance and linear time. If an event took place long time ago, such as childhood trauma, or surgery, or a heart-breaking separation from a loved one, you think that what’s done is done, and there is nothing you can do about it now. You can’t change the past. And in the same time, you can’t foresee the future either.

As Eckhart Tolle, the author of ‘The Power of Now’ and ‘New Earth’ tells us, all you have is the ‘now’ moment. All that is real is what you see, hear, touch, smell and taste now. Everything else is mental images. The past is but memories, images in your mind. You can’t see, hear, touch, smell and taste the past – nor the future, for that matter.

But those memories of past events or mentally constructed images of an envisioned future are often attached to emotional charges in the unconscious mind. Present events often evoke emotionally charged thoughts and mental images either of the past (unresolved traumas) or the future (worry). Let me explain:

Let’s say you are driving on the highway, and listening to music on the car’s radio. You are in a cheerful mood. Then a song is being played, which used to be your favourite song during a romantic relationship that ended with a difficult breakup. In the split of a second, your mood changes, and you feel this deep sadness. There is no-one else but you in the car, so the memories of the ex-partner are just mental images. He or she is not really there. But the sadness is here and now, and very real.

A few years ago, a woman with a ‘bad case of worry’ came to see me for a series of Reiki and energy psychology sessions. She was a young mother, just about to travel to an exotic place with her baby girl and her husband for a few months. She was sick with worry, and couldn’t sleep a wink at night, thinking ‘what if’ – you’re probably familiar with it, aren’t you? She was ‘whatiffing’ herself to insomnia: “What if her daughter will catch germs in this new place, and get ill?” This was not prudence: prudence makes you plan for all possibilities, pleasant or not, out of reason, not emotion. This was worry, which is nothing but fear with a story about the future. Fear is an emotion that arises now. The story has little or nothing to do with reality. Prudence doesn’t keep you up at night; fear does.

Emotionally charged mental images impact you here and now because the emotions arising are here and now. Clearing the past and the future with the help of Reiki and other energy therapies neutralizes that emotional charge attached to the thoughts and mental images. The result, in the very least, is that past memories become as neutral as stories read or seen at the movies while future envisioning allows you to peek into possibilities. The best that can happen is learning wisely from the past and planning confidently for the future, while feeling grateful for all experiences.

The most used form of distant healing is across space, such as sending Reiki to a friend, relative or client in another city. I invite you to consider the possibilities opened by sending Reiki healing to past and future events, not only to those who are afar.

Here are eight ideas to work with, be inspired from, and built upon in your private or professional Reiki practice, to benefit you, your loved ones, your clients and anyone else:

1 1. Send Reiki to your future holiday. Send the Reiki Light to the entire event, which includes the time from booking and packing to the travel itself, to the return home.

   2  .  Heal any event that is unfolding, but you don’t know the result yet. When my father was in the hospital a few years ago, after open-heart surgery, there was a period of time of a few days when his health was unstable. The doctors weren’t sure which way my Dad was going to go. It was a very tense time for all of us, and my father and I were separated by a sea and 2 ½ hours by plane. I sent him Reiki, and enlisted the help of my own Reiki Master and a few healer friends to help him out. Eventually, my Dad gratefully recovered and was released home.

3.       Send Reiki to the moment of birth. You can send distant Reiki healing to your own birth, or to the birth of your children. Birthing can be traumatic for both mother and baby: pain, anesthetic, emotions – can leave an unconscious imprint on the psyche. Use the Emotional Symbol to clear any trauma, and the Power symbol to bless the moment of your arrival into this world.

4.       Send Reiki to each of the important events that have marked your life. Doing so, you alchemize the relationship your psyche has with these events.

·         Your first day of school

·         Your graduation

·         Your first kiss

·         Your wedding

·         Any major separation from a loved one

·         That special skill you learned

·         Any accident you or someone in your family had

·         The day you moved into your new home

·         The day you adopted your pet

·         … (fill in the blank)

 

5.       Send Reiki to a project you are working on right now. You can send Reiki to the project itself; you can also send Reiki to the future, to the best possible outcome upon the completion of the project.

6.       Send Reiki to your upcoming job or promotion interview. You can do this in the morning of, or time ahead. The very least that can happen is that you step in with calm and confidence.

 

7.       Give Reiki to anything you have, are or will be creating: your book, music, dance, food, any piece of art or craft. Let anything that comes out of your hands be encrypted with the Wisdom and Love codes of the Reiki healing!

8.       Treat relationships with Reiki. A relationship is a living entity in its own right: it has a beginning and an end; it can be dysfunctional or healthy, it can evolve or die, and you can neglect it or nurture it. There are many ways you can breathe Life into a relationship; sending Reiki healing is one!

A few tips for your Reiki distant healing session:

·         You can send Reiki to one moment in time (the moment you were born), or to a period of time (the two weeks your uncle was in the hospital)

·         Send group distant Reiki when focusing on collective events, for greater energy influence.

·         Always end the Reiki distant healing session with a positive envisioning of the person, place, event or situation you focus on. Go ahead and imagine a different scenario for your past. After all, your past influences your thoughts and emotions; allow Reiki to influence your thoughts and emotions in a new, inspired way.

·         After your distant healing session, release the outcome to the Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Love, or Spirit. Your intellect may know or not what the best possible outcome is; but Spirit always knows!