Yes, you know who you are. You’re the person with the collection of “How to Cook Supper in 20 Minutes or Less” cookbooks. You’re the person who’s wondering how to balance your root canal appointment with your child’s soccer practice schedule.
What about something that is simple and relaxing you can use to establish and maintain a more serene quality of life? Reiki Training and/or Reiki Therapy are two great options. Interested? Read on:
WHAT IS REIKI AND WHAT CAN IT DO FOR YOU?
Reiki is a natural healing art that reduces stress and, thus, can be very relaxing. It is a gentle hands-on therapy. This system, which impacts all aspects of life, uses energy to balance body, mind and spirit and is intended to help recipients realize their full potential.
EMOTIONALLY you get that “second breath” – the ability to cope with, not react to, trying situations.
PHYSICALLY the body’s self-healing mechanisms, such as the immune system, are enhanced to aid in increasing well-being.
SPIRITUALLY you become more in tune with yourself and realize the true meaning of love and forgiveness – for yourself and others.
Mikao Usui of Japan is said to have originated of the practice of Reiki in the 19th century. Different types and teachers have emerged as this healing modality has spread to other countries, as well. Two of the best known styles are Usui (the original Reiki) and Karuna. Usui Reiki works with the lower chakras and helps to ground, focus and enhance life balance. Karuna Reiki (developed by William Rand) works with the upper, more ephemeral, chakras and fills recipients with awareness and spirit consciousness.
HOW DOES REIKI WORK?
A session normally lasts about one hour and involves lying on a comfortable Reiki table fully clothed and relaxed while the practitioner aligns chakras and balances your energy fields. The Reiki practitioner is a conduit, not the source, of the healing energy. The Higher Self of each client determines where the energy moves within the body and/or aura, hence the word Reiki: RE – higher spiritual consciousness and KI – life force/life energy. Reiki means what it says and says what it means.
WHY ARE SYMBOLS USED IN REIKI?
There are Reiki symbols, which are ideograms, icons used as points of meditative focus and vibrational healing. Whether drawn, chanted, or visualized, each has a unique energy that affects a particular aspect of healing. Much like a mantra-on-a-mission, each symbol has its own focus and role in the healing process. For instance, unique to Reiki is a symbol that has the ability to move the healing energy to any time dimension: past; present; or, future.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS TO REIKI TRAINING?
Reiki Training consists of different levels of accreditation, depending on the style (e.g.: there are four levels in Usui Reiki). Each level is taught in a separate class by a Reiki Master Teacher. In each class, students are given not only energy work techniques, but attunement to the Reiki symbols appropriate for each level. Each Reiki training level can be considered an awakening – a further step on your path to enlightenment.
- The benefits of being a Reiki practitioner are twofold:
- Practitioners can share the gift of stress reduction with clients, friends, family members and oneself. Even pets and plants can benefit from Reiki interventions.
At each of the training levels, practitioners receive an attunement – a profound and self perpetuating balancing of body, mind and spirit.
CAN YOU ELABORATE ON THIS?
Attunement is the process by which a Reiki Master “imprints” Reiki symbols into the body, mind and spirit consciousness of a student. The purpose is to open the student’s energy pathways, called nadis, and make them better able to channel healing energy. It also creates, for the student, an inner, self perpetuating loop of positive energy that heals and renews, heals and renews…
WHY IS ATTUNEMENT IMPORTANT?
With this ritual, the practitioner becomes more than a technician trained in the nuts and bolts of how to give a Reiki treatment. This added process of renewable inner healing incorporates a level of spirituality that is unique to Reiki training.
AND IN CONCLUSION…
Today, there are many Reiki practitioners and teachers in the U.S. and worldwide. It is the alternative therapy of choice in many hospitals and hospices across America. In Connecticut, Reiki is being practiced on a daily basis at venues from Yale and the Smilow Cancer Center to convalescent homes.
Tomorrow? As Dr. Mehmet Oz stated “energy medicine is the medicine of the future.” We need only wait and be ready for the time when Reiki is practiced in medical facilities all over the world . . . along with traditional western medicine.
And, you might be part of Reiki’s future, as a client or practitioner or as a teacher. The choice is yours.