Category Archives: Reiki Information

Backs to Basics: The Reiki Precepts

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A client just told me that he felt so amazing after the last treatment, and it was so good that he wondered why he hadn’t explored this practice before, so he wanted to know more about reiki.

This makes me realise that I usually do blog posts about specific issues or topics, and I haven’t been explaining reiki more broadly. To do so, it’s really important to just go back to the basics.

Reiki is a spiritual practice developed by Mikao Usui in the early 1900s in Japan, which has since spread around the world, starting through Hawaii and the West Coast of North America, and it’s now practised all around the world, though is more popular in some places than others.

Usui established foundational precepts for reiki. The dictionary defines a ‘precept’ as ‘a general rule intended to regulate behaviour or thought’. The five precepts of reiki are:

For today only:

Do not anger.
Do not worry.
Be humble.
Be honest in your work.
Be compassionate to yourself and others.

Because they were in Japanese, they are sometimes worded in slightly different way. For example, instead of ‘be honest in your work’, some say ‘be true to your way and being’.

The hands-on healing practice that most people around the world know as reiki is only a part of the overall spiritual practice of reiki, which is founded on the precepts, and includes practices like meditation and chanting.

For me, a reiki treatment is facilitating a client to be in a healing space where they can be in touch with their true, higher self and their light. In this state of presence, you are naturally following the precepts: not angry, not fearful, humble, honest and compassionate. And if clients can touch that, or be in that space, they feel good.

For me, reiki is not that about something being wrong with you, or energy blockages or imbalances, or something wrong with your chakras. It basically all goes back to the precepts!

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 over 3,400 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.

Extra benefits of a reiki treatment

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While the practice of reiki and reiki treatments may have a specific shape and form, I’ve been thinking this week about the extra benefits from coming to a reiki treatment, which aren’t about reiki itself.

While it’s hard to generalise about my reiki clients, I can say that everyone comes to support their well-being. So, a first benefit is about a positive mindset. The action of coming to a reiki treatment means that you have decided that you want to take care of yourself. You want to see what reiki will do for you in a positive way or you may hope that it will address a negative situation in your life, such as stress or anxiety, or even a physical issue.

I also think it’s very important to be able to identify how we are feeling and then to say how we want to feel. We’ve all heard stories about how some people won’t admit to themselves how they’re feeling and then that sadness or anger or stress erupts or turns into a bad situation. Moreover, if we’re not feeling at our best, it’s useful to think about how we are feeling when we are good in ourselves. How do you want to feel?

So, some reflection is accomplished, which I think is very positive. Then, reiki clients turn intentions into action by booking and coming in for an appointment. I think this is also a positive gesture. A main challenge for some of my clients is that they know what they need to do (e.g. make time for themselves, work less or think about work less) but they don’t do it. By deciding you want a treatment and coming in for one (and making the time), you are breaking indecision, inertia or a lack of motivation to doing something you want to do.

Basically what I’m saying is that before the reiki treatment has started, you’ve put yourself on a positive course to feeling better. There are other benefits, which could be said to be part of the treatment, but I think of as extra benefits. Being welcomed into a peaceful, quiet and non-judgemental space. Being invited to say your intentions for how you’d like to feel. Being listened to and seen. Listening to music, which I hope you find beautiful. A cup of tea, if you’d like one, and perhaps a different sort than you’re used to.

One of the biggest benefits, I think, is being able to be quiet, in a space all to yourself, with time for yourself, free of obligations of work and family and the need to think about problems and other people, time to not receive phone calls and not be connected to our smartphones. Some clients tell me they never take or get this quiet time for themselves.

So when I say that I think that a reiki treatment is beneficial for almost all of my clients, it is not just the reiki treatment itself, but also the extra benefits!

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 over 3,400 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.

Come for a treatment

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A night blooming cereus.

I invite you to come for a reiki treatment. If you’d had a treatment before and found it useful or that it felt good, I invite you to consider how often you might want to come. You see, whether it’s meditation, yoga, exercise, eating well or reiki, when you find something that is good for you, I think that you should make it a regular practice. This is much preferable to waiting until a situation is so bad that you feel you need an emergency treatment!

I had a revelation about my practice only recently (and after so many years!). I think that I may have not been as encouraging as I could have been when people asked how often they should come for a treatment. The reason for this is twofold. When I started learning about reiki, it was a widespread practice among some reiki practitioners to tell clients that they needed to have three treatments in order for reiki to work at its best. But when I started giving treatments, it felt to me (and still does) that this was just a way to try to get clients to come more often. I think you should know after ONE treatment whether reiki works for you or not, and it’s no use coming again if it didn’t bring you any benefits. Reiki works for the vast majority of my clients, but not everyone.

And while I think and hope that a reiki treatment will be beneficial each time, it is NOT true that you MUST come more than once. So, I really didn’t want to come across as one of THOSE practitioners. Similarly, during a long period when I had problems with my lower back, it took me a long time to find the right physiotherapist who told me that his goal was NOT to see me again and that he’d do all he could to fix the issue in one session and then give me home exercises to do to support this. This was after I’d had a number of physios and chiros who gave me mediocre (or bad) care and told me that I had to come in again a week after. So, I think quite subconsciously, I have over many years been reticent to tell clients to come on a regular basis though I do tell them that they should come back if it the treatment worked for them and that some of my clients do come on a regular basis.

So, I should make it clear: I think that regular reiki is very beneficial to some clients, and I think that it would benefit quite a few clients (those who felt good effects) if they came more regularly, than say, the night blooming cereus, photo above, that recently bloomed, at night, as it does ONCE A YEAR. 😆

Food for thought, I hope, and I’ll see you when I see you! Hope you’re well.

Andy

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 3,300 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.

What might I feel from a reiki treatment?

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I think that one of my most common questions that a reiki client will have for me is: ‘What will I feel?’ Lately, this question comes out in a funny way, when clients ask, ‘Is it normal to feel this way?’ You know, I’ve always hated that idea of ‘normal’ being something that we should aim for. But that’s besides the point. I think in general and specifically related to reiki, we are all very individual. There is no normal. So, while I can tell you that some clients feel the energy in different ways in their body, some clients do not feel it. Some people feel heat and a few people cool, and others experience the energy as like electricity or magnets, sparkling or like it is a pulling sensation.

Some clients go into a place very similar to meditation, and others cannot stop their minds from racing. Many have both happening during a treatment: relaxation AND busy thoughts. A few people see colours. Some people have very interesting images and visuals of things they’ve never seen before, while others have memories which may be significant and may not be! Some clients describe the thoughts and memories as ‘really random’. Occasionally, clients have images of relatives, loved ones and friends, sometimes those who have passed. And others don’t feel anything or think anything special at all, though hopefully they feel relaxed. Rarely, clients feel unpleasant sensations: pain, perhaps in a place where they have had an injury, anxiety (sometimes because it is a new experience) and one client even reported a prolonged feeling of fear and darkness.

There is also a difference between clients who have reiki regularly with some who say that treatments are nearly always the same (with some variation) and others who report that the treatment are different every time!

A similar variation would apply to how clients feel afterwards and for how long. Very occasionally, clients say they feel the effects for a long time! More often, it’s just the day or two afterwards, or maybe a day or two after that. And others say they don’t feel much different right afterwards. I also try to warn clients that they might feel worse before they feel better, as some clients feel really tired, or even like they are catching a flu. A recent client told me they broke out in some acne on their face, which doesn’t happen to them.

I wanted to share a few recent reports with you. One client who was suffering from depression reported after the treatment:

‘I took some time over the past week to pay attention to the way I was feeling and I have to say I am amazed … Right off the bat right after I left the session I felt as if my senses were renewed, my senses felt sharper and much clearer. Admittedly I was a bit skeptical that the deep pain I’d been experiencing in my chest would go away with one session so I gave it some time. I’m happy to say that that pain has been lifted significantly. I still can feel upset, but that aching physical sensation is nearly gone – which is just incredible because previously it held me down so much ..
I’m thinking to come in again in a few weeks – I’m not sure how long this lifted effect will last, but for now it feels great.’

On the other hand, a client who came because they feel they cannot be focused and are always daydreaming and distracted reported:

‘No, I did notice any difference in me. My mind is always distracted.’

If there are messages from this, for me, it is that it’s worthwhile to try out reiki and see what it does for you. Then, it’s useful to not have any expectations but to simply be open to what happens (or what does not happen). If you are hoping to feel like someone else has felt, or are expecting to feel a certain way, you may be disappointed and you may not notice what is actually happening, with your expectations in the way. And finally: nothing is normal! You will feel how you feel and that is all good. Comparing ourselves to other people is usually not very useful.

Good wishes to all!

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 more than 3,000 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.

Book review: Justin Stein’s Alternate Currents: Reiki’s Circulation in the 20th Century North Pacific

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I do book reviews sometimes on my personal website, but this review more appropriately belongs here on my reiki website!

I’d certainly recommend it to anyone who practices reiki, though I think it’s too comprehensive for people who are reiki clients or who have just a passing interest in reiki.

I really loved it!

*****

Alternate Currents: Reiki’s Circulation in the Twentieth-Century North PacificAlternate Currents: Reiki’s Circulation in the Twentieth-Century North Pacific by Justin B Stein
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’ve practised reiki for probably over two decades, and have been giving treatments for over a decade. I didn’t expect to be so engaged by what looks like a fairly academic book about reiki. Stein tells the story of reiki’s development with a focus on Hawayo Takata, who really was the person who brought reiki from Japan and then seeded it through the North Pacific, from which it has now gone worldwide. And he tells it so well that it is accessible and engaging, and felt to me at times like a good novel!

I was actually quite challenged by the book, in a good way, to realise that the way I have been explaining reiki to my clients has particular historical roots and that the notion of a ‘traditional’ or ‘Japanese’ reiki is too simplistic. Reiki developed in many locations and many ways, so I think we really can’t say that there is one form that is more pure than others. I also realise that some of the way that I explain reiki seemed to historically come from a desire to promote reiki and get its acceptance. I think I’m going to embrace more and accept the mystery of reiki henceforth.

Congratulations to Justin Stein for such a fascinating, engaging and useful book. I definitely recommend it to any reiki practitioner to have a better understanding and context for their own practice.

View all my reviews

What did you expect?

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For Christmas this year, I was in Hawaii, on Oahu, where my brother lives with my family. I flew with Hawaiian Airlines. On the way back, this was one of the meals! I have to admit: I was disappointed. I generally love airplane meals, the jigsaw of how they’ve fit everything onto a tray. So, based on previous meals, I thought this was a pretty poor showing.

So, I was looking for a photo for this blog post as I don’t like using stock photos and almost always use my own. This came up as a recent shot (I was complaining to my brothers about the sandwich) and while I didn’t mean to talk about my airplane meal in this post, the idea behind it is pertinent to what I want to write about.

When you come for a reiki treatment, what are your expectations? 

I think it is unavoidable to have at least some expectations, and that my clients should be able to expect a few things: that I will treat them with respect, that it will be a safe environment, that I will provide an honest service.

The big majority of my clients don’t know a lot about reiki, so most will not have specific expectations about the treatment.

But some do, and I find it interesting how this affects the treatment. I found it especially illuminating when a recent client was describing his treatment afterwards. He said that for the first part of the treatment, he was trying to figure out what he might expect from it, he was trying to feel *something*. And he didn’t.

But then, he said he started to feel things when he stopped trying. When he let go of his expectations of what might happen, he was able to feel something.

I think that my least successful treatments have been when clients expected a specific result. One client stopped me after a fairly short time by saying that it was nothing like her previous treatment. Another client was disappointed because the treatment wasn’t in a spa-like environment like when she’d had her previous treatment in Bali. Some clients have heard from friends about THEIR treatments and wonder if they will have the same experiences, either physically or mentally.

I think that all of this mental chatter interferes with being able to notice what might happen during a treatment, or might happen later. One client, in a follow-up email, said that after their treatment, they had a really good night of sleep, but ‘that was all’. But I thought that a good night of sleep sounds pretty good. I wonder what they were expecting.

I think reiki is a little mysterious and that it is generally positive. All in all, it’s best, when coming for a treatment, to try to be as open as possible to what might happen (or might not happen) and to have minimal expectations, which can then allow you, after the treatment, to gently and objectively ask yourself: Do I feel different? Have I noticed any changes?

… rather than: Did reiki meet my expectations?

For after all, what did you expect? 😃

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 more than 2,900 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.

Jordan Kissner: Reiki can’t possibly work. So why does it?

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The Atlantic is an American magazine that had a circulation of nearly 500,000 in 2018. I think it’s a great thing, then, for an article about reiki to appear in it. Still, there was a lot of criticism, apparently, when it was published, that its publication would legitimise a practice that some people don’t feel is legitimate.

REIKI CAN’T POSSIBLY WORK. SO WHY DOES IT?

I think it’s a really interesting article and perspective, as the journalist, Jordan Kissner, trained in two levels of reiki, and so has direct experience of the practice, but is writing with the objectivity of a journalist: she wants to know if reiki works and how, and if we really need to know. She says, ‘Many medical treatments are adopted for their efficacy long before their mechanisms are known or understood. Why should this be different?’

Sometimes, reiki clients ask me how reiki works and I offer them various possibilities (and the way I think reiki works), but maybe I should reply instead that I really don’t know how it works and it’s more important to ask how a reiki treatment worked for them.

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 more than 2,500 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.

Radio interview: Is reiki legitimate if it can’t be proven to work?

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I think I’ve only ever posted writing about reiki, and maybe a link to a video or two, so it’s good to be able to share this radio interview with you, in case that’s the way you like to receive information:

Can Reiki be a legitimate treatment if no one can prove how it works?

It’s an interview with Jordan Kisner for CBC radio (from Canada, my homeland). Kisner is a journalist and was really interested in finding out how reiki works, and did reiki training along the way. I think the interview is really interesting in that Kisner reports on her findings in a balanced and objective way: she didn’t find a clear explanation for how reiki works, but she also asks if it’s really necessary to know. I don’t think most people know exactly how aspirin works or a vaccine, and yet most of us put our trust in them.

I also love her reporting of the answer to the question, ‘During a reiki treatment, what are you supposed to be thinking or doing to the person being treated?’ Her reiki teacher said ‘Nothing. You’re just supposed to love them’.

I’ve found the article in The Atlantic that Kisner wrote and the interview is based on, but I’ll save that for another post!

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 more than 2,100 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.

Is that it?

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What if a reiki treatment is just relaxing to quiet music in a room for 50 minutes?

A person standing next to you who wants you to feel better?

Time when you’re not thinking?

Or time when you’re only thinking about yourself instead of other people?

The only time in the day (or week) that you’re not thinking about what you’ll do next?

Or worrying about a problem or hurting because of something that happened?

What if a reiki treatment is just making a decision to try something new, or to feel better, and then actively making the time to do so, and then going to do it?

One of the only times that you’re awake but not checking your phone?

A conscious act to take care of yourself?

What if that’s all reiki is? Would you find it helpful?

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 more than 2,100 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.

Don’t come to reiki!

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Not long ago, a client called up about her treatment. I had worried about her, since she made the booking at 2am for the morning after, but then she rescheduled to the next day. But she called in the morning. Should she come? She was feeling absolutely terrible, and couldn’t get in to see her therapist, and was tired and just wanted to sleep.

I was glad she asked. I think if you’re in a crisis, reiki isn’t really going to help. If you know that it will help you in a situation like this, then by all means, book in for a treatment. But otherwise, I think that if a client is too upset to really function then a reiki treatment, which is about tapping into a quiet, healing energy, isn’t going to be possible. And as I’ve written before, reiki is a collaboration. I can’t make you heal, or make you feel quiet or relaxed. You have to be open to healing and being in a state to receive that healing.

Another client weeks before had come, actively hurting from a relationship breakup. While I hoped that a treatment could help ease her pain and relax her, she said there was too much quiet and too much time to think. She spent the whole treatment thinking about her breakup and I’m not sure if the treatment helped in any way.

As a final scenario, I’d recommend not coming to reiki if you’re not familiar with it and you’re hoping for a very specific result (particularly in terms of a physical issue). This reminds me that I had a client years ago who felt a cold coming on and came in to try to prevent it from doing so … which didn’t work. But what I’m thinking of is a person who called up because their parent’s cancer treatment wasn’t working. As we chatted, it became clear that they had no idea what reiki is: they were wondering whether people get blocked energy which causes illness (I’ve written about this and believe no) and it sounded like they desperately just wanted something which could work for their parent. Reiki should never substitute for medical treatment and I also never want to give someone false hope. A person recently called who wanted a cure for terrible headaches that he’s had for four years, that doctors and therapists haven’t been able to help. But he had no idea what reiki was, and I advised him not to come since it didn’t sound like he would be satisfied unless he found his magic cure.

Most of my clients find reiki beneficial and some think it’s wonderful. But I can’t guarantee specific results and you have to be in a state to be able to receive it. So, if you sound like any of these scenarios above, don’t come to reiki! But if you’re interested in a treatment for other reasons, or you’ve had reiki before, do come to reiki! I look forward to seeing you.

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 more than 2,100 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.