One of the most frequent questions that I get is whether I work on a client’s chakras during a treatment.
Accordingly to the traditional Japanese energy systems, there are three centres of energy, at the third eye (or forehead), at the heart, and at the hara (a few inches below the navel).
My teachers, Frans Stiene and Bronwen Logan, call these the Three Diamonds, and encourage them as a focus for meditation.
The system of seven chakras that came out a few ancient Indian traditions is a different system. However, when reiki was popularised in the West, primarily in North America, in the 1980s, it was at a time when a lot of people were interested in the Indian chakra system, and the practices sort of converged. So, many Western reiki practitioners do like to use the system of chakras, and talk about reiki in terms of them.
I don’t.
It’s not that I don’t believe in them, it’s that I haven’t found them useful for my practice. Since energy flows in all parts of our body, I believe that a treatment should facilitate energy and healing everywhere, not just focused on or limited to the chakras. For example, some reiki teachers encourage a series of hand patterns that only cover the upper part of the body (as there are no thigh, knee and feet chakras). But as taught by Frans, I always work at the feet, and clients sometimes tell me this is where they feel the most energy, or they feel energy entering or leaving from their feet as it connects and flows to other parts of the body.
My other issue with all this talk of chakras is that many healers use them to tell clients things that I think are not useful or not correct. Does it really help to be told that your chakras are out of balance? Is it true? If someone tells you that your base chakra is blocked, what can you do about it? The prescription is often to buy a crystal, or to pay for a healer that believes they can unblock that chakra.
A few clients have come after being told or feeling that their heart chakra is ‘blocked’. But to me it seems more realistic that the person has suffered an emotional hurt, recently or in the past, and that they have access to the solutions themselves: practising self-awareness and self-enquiry, meditation, a good therapist, getting more sleep, eating better, exercise, spending time with friends and family, and learning to manage anxiety and stress. I think people have a much greater power for change and healing if it is something that they can do themselves and that is more easily understood, than, say using a rose quartz crystal to try to bring healing to the mysterious heart chakra.
Discover the gifts and benefits of a session of Japanese reiki therapy, healing energy from an experienced practitioner. Visit my website or Facebook page for more information and SMS, email, call me or book online if you’d like to make an appointment. Since 2011, I’ve given nearly 1,500 reiki treatments.
Clients come to relieve stress, anxiety and for many other issues, or to just give reiki a try to see what it does for them. Folks come from all over Sydney and elsewhere to see me. While it’s easiest to get to me from the CBD, Darlinghurst, Paddington, Kings Cross, Redfern and Potts Point, I’m pretty easy to get to from anywhere in Sydney.
I often have clients, at the end of a reiki treatment, ask me ‘what’s normal to feel?’ The answer, as in much of life, is that there is no ‘normal’. As human beings, we are a remarkably diverse group.