Healing Hands (part 2)
Here comes part 2 of my Mum’s fascinating journey into her discovery of reiki healing and all things spiritual. This episode details her training with her reiki master, and initial experiences of honing her skill. Although Reiki can be performed at distance, I for one can’t wait to be able to have a real one on one session with her once we are allowed out of lockdown... July can’t come soon enough! I seriously need to get my chakras realigned!
My Reiki Journey - So Far (part 2)
written by Chris Daniels, Reiki Master.
“It’s now July 2015 and the day has arrived for me to start to learn about reiki. As with many reiki masters and practitioners Sarah (my reiki master) works from home for at least some of the time, so I made my way to her home arriving ten minutes early. I wanted to go dashing to the door and start without further ado, but I somehow managed to spend the ten minutes in my car knowing that I would be doing a last minute clean up and tidy if it had been the other way round!
As part of the two days training I discovered that there are three levels of reiki, usually called degrees (yes the three degrees, so many jokes and so little time...). The first degree teaches you the basics of reiki, what reiki actually is, its origins, how to start the energy flowing, where to place your hands, how to protect yourself and how to explain it to others …. plus much more; but the most important part is to allow the reiki master to tune you in (attunement) to the the energy available.
Without launching into a full-on training session, I feel that this is the right time to actually explain what reiki is. It is often described as a healing modality that allows the practitioner to work with the client's own energy system. Energy can be blocked, be sluggish or out of balance and sometimes needs a little nudge to achieve a smooth regular flow so that the client's own healing can be triggered. This is a very important thing to understand, the client does their own healing and the practitioner is just the facilitator – it is often said that the reiki practitioner just holds the space for the client. As a rule, cut your knee, it fixes itself, have an operation, your wounds heal. Sometimes you may need antibiotics to help to avoid infection, but the essence is that your body can and does heal itself. However, issues or negative patterns of behaviour that have not been addressed over a period of time can build up to a point that they manifest into something physical. At that point, whatever the case don't ignore the symptoms, get help! Always start with your GP or other health care provider but don't forget about the complementary options available for holistic care! If your car or your washing machine broke you would happily pay to get it fixed. Your body is for life, your car and your washing machine aren't. I should also point out that I have had long term clients who came because they had an initial issue but then continued to come to me on a regular basis as a well being exercise.. i.e. they just love the experience!
On a more formal note, the Usui Shiki Ryoho Reiki system, also know as the Usui System of Natural Healing was started by Mikao Usui in Japan in the 1930's and his teachings have been passed down through a lineage of reiki masters … I am an 11th generation reiki master. The aim of the system is to use the tools that you learn first for self healing (reiki one), then to help to heal others (reiki two) and finally for relatively few people to train and attune others (reiki three).
Described as an intelligent system, reiki works for physical, mental, emotional or spiritual issues and most people, if they are honest with themselves will at any time have an issue in one of these areas. More often than not, you will be able to resolve an issue yourself, but on the occasions that you can't you should seek help. As stated before, you should always start with your health care provider and treat complementary or holistic treatments as an extra bonus or in the experience of some of my clients, a successful last resort! More on that next time.
So back to my training experience. Over the two day course there were four attunements. The first two attunements were done on day one and the second two on day two. During these, as I had seen during my own reiki session weeks before, I experienced the wonder of seeing beautiful swirling colours, this time I also saw a few eyes, a kaleidoscope of different shapes in different colours floating by and a car shape zipping across a purple landscape! At this early stage I was amazed to have experienced so much so soon. (Five years on this still happens to me when I receive reiki and sometimes when I am giving reiki, I still absolutely love it!)
After the second attunement on day one, I got my first opportunity to be hands on with another of Sarah's students. As I worked around her body, both hands on and hands off, I could feel cold spots and my hands and fingers tingled at different stages, but more interestingly this lady was a mover! She was laid down on the table, but her arms, hands and legs lifted off the bed and moved around whilst I worked. I did find this both odd and distracting; at one point her legs were raised pointing towards her head at about 110 degrees. She assured me during the process that she was not responsible for any of these movements and indeed that she could not move like that even if she wanted to, as she suffered with arthritis. Now, I couldn't blame you for thinking that she might have been pulling the wool over my eyes, but I was given the explanation that she was being moved by her spirit guides as they helped with the healing. I should say that this was a good grounding for my future work as I have seen this happen a number of times since with other people, as I have conducted reiki sessions in my practice. What first seemed odd has now become my new normal!
As part of the wrap up for day one Sarah told me that 'my young man' had been with me again throughout the day. Whilst I was happy that he had showed up again, I was disappointed that I could not sense him myself. Maybe one day!
Day two was more of the same, but with a different body for me to work on. On this occasion I had invited Mary, a friend of mine, to come along for an hour for me to practise on. This was a very different experience to the day before. As soon as I started the session I immediately felt my eyes flittering about under closed eyelids and I felt quite emotional. At one point I also experienced my own hands being moved by other unseen hands, seemingly guiding me to where I needed to be. In addition, I came across what felt like a small bouncy beach ball across Mary's abdomen. The immediate feedback from Mary was that she could feel the energy very strongly. She also reported that she could feel more than just my hands working on her, i.e. extra pairs of hands and that she felt as if she was vibrating throughout her body and down both legs. Even as she was leaving Mary said that her body was still vibrating. I was ecstatic about the whole experience, as I really had not expected to experience so much so soon.
So at this point I had delivered just two reiki sessions and they had been very different experiences for both the receiver and for me. Sarah assured me that every session is different and that even if you are working regularly with the same client, they and you may well have a different experience every time.
There is another coincidence to mention here in that Mary was (and still is) my hairdresser as well as my friend. A couple of weeks before my reiki training, as I had my hair attended to, I was telling Mary that I was going to learn reiki and to my astonishment she said that she had been thinking of doing the same thing! At that point, despite the fact that we had know each other for years, neither of us was aware that the other had a growing spiritual side. As it turned out Mary did her reiki training a week after mine and since then we have not only delivered reiki sessions to each other (known as a reiki share) but done other training courses together where we have explored many other topics related to spiritual and psychic development. I am pleased to say that we have become closer friends and that it has been a pleasure to have her to share my spiritual journey with.
So what happens after you have done your reiki one training I hear you ask? Well, as part of your reiki one training you have to commit to doing an hours self healing every day, or performing a healing for someone else for 28 consecutive days. I admit there was no holding me back, I was immediately on it, asking my friends and family if they would like to be a guinea pig so that I could expand my skills and experiences further. Between my reiki one training in July 2015 and my reiki two training in November 2015 I had delivered 65 healing sessions to various friends and family. If I include self healing and reiki share sessions the number was over 100. During that period a practitioner does not charge for their services so getting volunteers was no problem at all!
More about those early client sessions next time...”