Category Archives: Reiki Information

What I say before each treatment

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If you’ve been for a reiki treatment with me, you’ll have heard this before… What I say to clients when they come for a treatment and before it starts. If you come for a treatment, this is what you’ll hear:

  • I’ll welcome you to the apartment, ask you to take off your shoes and if you need to use the bathroom before we start.
  • I’ll invite you to sit down and ask if you want water or tea.
  • Then I’ll ask you why you came for a treatment or if you’ve had reiki before.
  • I’ll respond to the explanation of why you’ve come with whether it’s common for other people to come for the same reasons, or I might ask you if there are other actions that you are taking to address the situation, particularly if a situation is complex or a problem longstanding.
  • I’ll ask if you have any other questions, and then invite you to lie on the table, with your head on the pillow, looking up, and that most people like the under-knee pillow to keep them straightened out.
  • If it’s cold weather, I’ll ask if you want a cover, and if it’s hot, I’ll ask if the fan is on a fast enough setting!
  • Then, this is what I say to start things off:
  • ‘I invite you to close your eyes and relax into this space that you’ve given to yourself.’ Not everyone closes their eyes automatically, so it’s good to say so. I have had some clients open their eyes at times, but I think it’s best to be relaxed to close one’s eyes instead of looking at the fan or ceiling, or trying to see what I’m doing. Then I like to acknowledge that clients have made done a positive act already by either wanting to address a problem, try out reiki, or just feel better. Even if the treatment was a gift, a client still needs to make time for themselves to come to the treatment. And it’s all part of the idea that the treatment is a partnership. I’m not doing reiki on you. You are joining me in a healing treatment.
  • ‘Take in a few long and slow breaths, and if that feels comfortable, continue to do for the treatment’. It’s amazing how little breath some people take. But it’s so important to relaxing and being still. You can feel it the moment that you take in a big, deep breath of air. Rarely, if I see someone having troubles with breathing, I might suggest taking in a breath of air to the count of four or five, and exhale at the same pace. Try it. It feels good, doesn’t it?
  • ‘You can allow your mind to wander, think of nothing, meditate or follow your breath, whatever feels most comfortable.’ So many clients early on asked ‘What should I do during a treatment?’ that I thought I should try to set the scene right away. I also want to counter the idea that to meditate, or receive reiki, or to be still, that your mind automatically clears and you stop thinking. Our minds are always in motion; that’s what they do. If you want to meditate, it’s not about clearing the mind completely for an hour. It’s noticing when the mind wanders away, and then bringing it back to the centre (or your breath). And do it again. And again. Many clients report that they had trouble stopping thinking about their problems or otherwise, or that the reiki treatment did help them to still their minds. I think what’s important is not to fight the thoughts too much, to either let the mind wander or think of nothing, in a gentle way and see what comes up. I used to say ‘You can think about the issues you’re facing’ because I do think that in a relaxed state, you can sometimes solve your problems or see new solutions; but I worry if clients get caught up thinking about their problems the whole treatment in a way that interferes with them relaxing. So I’ve stopped saying it!
  • ‘Finally, I invite to take part in healing yourself and to take from this treatment what it is that you need at this time. I’ll ring a bell at the end of the treatment.’ I’ve followed my teacher, Frans Stiene, with this line and I think it’s so important. Again, it’s about not just ‘receiving’ a treatment, but being active: asking your subconscious to heal yourself, and that you are taking an active role in taking what you need, not just hoping that someone else will do the work to heal you. I used to ask that you ‘set the intention to heal yourself’, but I found a fair number of clients got this mixed up with setting intentions, and then, instead of having an open and quiet mind, it seemed they were concentrating very hard on repeating intentions or affirmations. It’s better to just to be open to what the treatment might bring you. 

And then the treatment starts…

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 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.

Reiki, sleep and remote healing

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One of my regular clients, let’s call her Anita to keep her confidentiality, switched to remote reiki treatments during the lockdown. In case you haven’t heard of it, reiki practitioners can give treatments at a distance, to a client in another room, neighbourhood or even country. It is often called ‘distance’ healing, though, as my teacher, Frans Stiene, points out, the whole idea is to ‘be one’, and to share the energetic space, the opposite of distance. I usually use the expression ‘remote reiki’ instead.

If I wasn’t a reiki practitioner myself, I think I might find the concept hard to believe. But at the same time, when we talk to each other by phone, or see each other on the computer using Zoom or Skype, we may not physically be in the same space, but we feel each other. Most of us have had the experience too, of feeling someone we are close to, a family member or partner or friend, thinking about us, even when they are far away. The biggest reason that I believe in remote reiki though is because of my personal experience having them, and the experience of my clients.

In the treatments that I’ve given, I think 100% of my clients have reported ‘feeling’ the treatment and having good results. Because it is a bit more ‘out there’ than a treatment in person, I do check, before someone books for a remote treatment, that they’ve had reiki before and are open to it. I think if you are inexperienced with reiki and don’t know what to expect, or if you’re cynical in any way about it, it would be possible to not feel or block out the effects, perhaps like when you’re supposed to be on a Zoom work call, and instead you’ve turned off the screen and are checking your Facebook!

Anyways, for Anita, what I was excited to learn was that while she didn’t find the remote treatments as strong as in-person ones, she still felt effects. And the proof was in her health monitor, which she later showed me: an inobtrusive rather pretty ring, called an Oura ring, which monitors your heart rate, sleep and relaxation. Her ring told her that when she was having reiki, it was like having a nap: her heart rate slowed down, and her ring thought she was asleep.

More recently, Anita shared with me a screenshot of her Oura ring results, during an in-person treatment, and she gave permission to me to share it with you. I was very excited to see it, as it showed that not only during the treatment did the ring think she was asleep, but that the majority of the sleep (60%) was deep sleep, rather than light sleep. And that out of the 50 minute treatment, she was able to go into that sleep-like state for 43 minutes of it, which seems pretty good to me.

To me, this is a very good explanation of one of the ways that reiki works. It allows your brain to tune into the brain waves of deep relaxation and sleep, rather than the day-to-day brain functioning which helps us get to appointments and not bump into things when we’re walking!

And that place of relaxation is healing. I’ve read that sleep it is when repair and healing takes place. Some people believe dreams are the brain’s way of healing and reordering. When we don’t get enough sleep, we feel bad, and if we don’t get enough sleep over long periods, it can have really detrimental effects on our health.

Many clients say after a treatment, ‘I think I fell asleep’, and I think this is a good thing. Some might ask, why not just get some sleep instead of doing reiki? But I think a reiki treatment is intentional relaxation. It is rest with purpose and the best kind of sleep rather than sleep because you are too tired to stay awake, or because you have to.

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.

A reiki treatment is sharing

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I find it interesting explaining reiki to clients. Some clients have done their own research already (or have had treatments in the past). Some clients don’t really care to know exactly what reiki is: they are just open to trying it and finding out through experience what it means to them. Some clients hear about it from others.

I think the majority of my clients get their ideas of what reiki is by comparing it to other practices or what they’ve heard. So, because some practitioners combine reiki with massage, some call up for reiki massages. Some practitioners use crystals so I’m asked whether reiki is about crystals. And lots of clients (as I’ve written in other blogs) hope for some sort of clairvoyant ability to diagnose a problem and tell them something interesting or what they hope will be useful about them.

I try to gauge the interest of a client and I usually describe a reiki treatment as tapping into and looking for the same healing energy and space that we find in meditation, yoga and other practices, and when the brain is operating at that frequency, it feels good. It heals. In the quiet, present moment, it is different from worrying about the future or past. And the way the mind is connected with the body, clients often (but not always) feel energy and effects throughout their body, as well as usually feeling a deep sense of relaxation.

Bronwen Logan from the International House of Reiki recently wrote a blog post about how she describes reiki to clients: as ‘sharing’. I’d encourage you to read the whole post, since it’s really great and a nice perspective on what a reiki treatment is.

What I’d highlight are her words here:

In non-Reiki terms, you can also see that when we give a gift, for example, we also receive happy endorphins that support our wellbeing. At the same time the other person receives the gift, and they also give their thanks with their endorphins flying high too. So, giving and receiving exist in this same space, they share the space together with neither one dominating or standing out, just being. If you see it this way, then there is neither giving nor receiving, just sharing. And in the sharing space we can let go and just be together without fear or judgement or worry; a true healing space.

It’s such a beautiful, simple description, and I’m not sure all my clients will accept that reiki is or can be as simple as this. Some will hope there is a greater level of expertise or technicality. That I am doing something instead of just trying to be. But if you can accept the simplicity of the concept, that a reiki treatment is a shared experience between client and practitioner, and that simply being in a quiet, present place is healing, I think it is profound.

It also reminds me of another description I read, from a practitioner who was asked what she is doing to a client during a treatment. She said (I’m paraphrasing here, as I don’t remember the exact words) that she was not doing anything but simply loving her client, being there to love.

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 1,900 reiki treatments.
Clients come to relieve stress, anxiety and for many other issues, or to just give reiki a try to see what it brings them. Folks visit 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.

Chakra Con? I feel for you but do you really know what chakras are?

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You have to be a certain age to understand the joke I made in the title of this blog post. When I was a teenager, Chaka Khan’s most famous song “I feel for you” was released and while I usually didn’t love pop music that sounded like hers, I did like this song. I couldn’t deny how catchy it was, and that she was all kinds of fabulous. But really, she has little to do with this blog post except that her name can be contorted into today’s question. Is the idea of a system of chakras a con?

You see, it’s one of the most common questions that I get as a reiki practitioner. You work with chakras, right? That’s what reiki is, isn’t it? It’s also one of the most common issues that clients come for. They tell me that they feel their chakras are blocked or unbalanced. If I ask them how they know this, they have often been told this by a clairvoyant or psychic, or by a friend or stranger, or they have looked it up themselves on the internet, and their symptoms (lack of energy, not feeling great, romantic problems, not feeling fulfilled) match up to a website that says that the reason may be because their is a blockage at a chakra: at the throat or heart, the third eye, or head, the navel or root.

Someone on one of my reiki Facebook groups posted a link to an article about chakras, written by Christopher Wallis, a scholar and researcher who looks into meditation, yoga, tantra and other practices. The Real Story on the Chakras is honestly not an easy read, as it goes into careful and detailed descriptions of the six most important things that you never knew about the chakras.

But I think this is part of the point. How did a system about the subtle body and energy centres from 1000 CE or earlier from Tantrik Yoga get translated to what is understood or believed today?

If you are interested, I do encourage you to read the article yourself, but some of the things that I found particularly interesting are:

  • While most Western sources use a system of seven chakras, there were in fact many systems of chakras, using 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 21 or other counts.
  • While many present the chakra system as an ancient one, the way they are described in the West comes from a more modern time.
  • Rather than the chakras being descriptive (“your root chakra is at the base of your spine and is red”), chakras were envisioned as a focal point for achieving a goal, to meditate on or to visualise something at that place.
  • Most of the way that the West understands chakras seem to come from a 1987 book, Anodea Judith’s Wheels of Life, in which she assigns an association with each chakra to “a certain bodily gland, certain bodily malfunctions, certain foods, a certain metal, a mineral, an herb, a planet, a path of yoga, a suit of the tarot, a sephira of Jewish mysticism, and an archangel of Christianity!”. Others associate each chakra with different crystals, colours, emotions and essential oils. These seem like modern inventions. Now, it may be that there is some truth to these associations. Or they may be completely made up! You might have heard about a writer named Louise Hay who became very popular for her self-affirmations. Her ideas were very widespread that diseases came from bad emotions or attitudes (which meant that you could be at fault for being sick, for not being positive enough). I was shocked to read a number of years ago that she basically made up all of these theories herself, which have no scientific evidence. But, like the ideas of chakras, her ideas are widely believed and popular.

I’m not saying that in order to believe something is true, you need to research it and understand it completely. In fact, that would really be shooting myself in the foot, as I don’t think clients need to know everything or a lot about reiki in order for it to be beneficial for them. But I do think that if you have taken on a set of ideas, like chakras, and you are applying them to your own sense of self and well-being, then you might want to look into where those ideas come from, and whether they really ring true for you or not.

I don’t think it’s useful for clients to believe reiki is about the chakras, nor for clients to believe that they have chakras aligned with their energetic bodies that are “blocked” or “out of balance”. As I’ve said in another blog post, I don’t think your energy is blocked.

I do think that most people can benefit from reiki, and the best way to come to a treatment is with an open mind, without set ideas about what it is, or self-diagnoses of your energetic problems. My aim is for the treatment to bring you what you need at this place and time.

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 1,800 reiki treatments.
Clients come to relieve stress, anxiety and for many other issues, or to just give reiki a try to see what it brings them. Folks visit 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.

Are you cynical about reiki?

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I usually don’t worry about people who don’t believe in reiki or think it’s all a hoax. Nearly all of my clients either believe in reiki, or are open to how it might work. So, it doesn’t seem a good use of energy to worry about those who are cynical.

But at the same time, I think it is useful for me to be able to explain to clients the ways that reiki might work, even though I’m not 100% sure. And what I especially like about this article, ‘Reiki Can’t Possibly Work. So Why Does it?’ from The Atlantic is how balanced, thorough and personal it is.

The author, Jordan Kisner, who writes beautifully, points out:

For decades, experts weren’t precisely sure how acetaminophen (Tylenol) eases pain, but Americans still took billions of doses every year. Many medical treatments are adopted for their efficacy long before their mechanisms are known or understood. Why should this be different?

But while she argues that we don’t need to know precisely how reiki works, there are a lot of reasons why and how it might work. Her approach is very close to mine: the truth is that I’m not exactly sure how reiki works, and I recognise to outsiders there are aspects of reiki that could seem quite unbelievable. But I feel it works and my clients report that it works in different ways. If what I am offering is simply my time, attention and “an act of caring” and that works for my clients, I’m happy to go with that.

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 1,800 reiki treatments.
Clients come to relieve stress, anxiety and for many other issues, or to just give reiki a try to see what it brings them. Folks visit 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.

Do your research

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I don’t think that someone has to know anything about reiki in order to receive its benefits.

But I do think a person has to be open to the experience and willing to receive healing.

What I think could block being open to a treatment is having particular expectations about what the treatment will be like.

A while ago, two days in a row, I received two different enquiries about reiki treatments. One asked whether I do the seven-level system of reiki. I’ve heard of this but not paid much attention to it. My understanding is that someone created their own version of the traditional three levels of reiki. Why would they do this? A cynic might say that the more levels there are, the more courses you can offer your students, and receive more in tuition fees. And you can claim being better than others, because isn’t seven better than three? But I digress. My webpage and Facebook page are easily available, so if someone wants to know about the kind of reiki that I do (traditional Japanese reiki), I think the information can be found on my page. If you are looking for a particular kind of reiki, do some research and find the right practitioner for you.

Another enquiry, from someone who booked a session and then didn’t show up, was from someone who was very excited about reiki because a friend had told him to try it out, but he didn’t know anything about it. ‘Does it have hot rocks?’ he asked. In this case, I did ask him to do some research and look at my website, because I think if you really know nothing about what a reiki treatment entails, and then show up and wonder if you’ll have hot rocks (no) or have to take off your clothes (no) or expect particular results, I think that confusion or any expectations could interfere with relaxing into a treatment and being open to receive what it brings.

So, I hope that clients will do a little more than just google “reiki in Sydney” and contact me right away.

Those who want only a female practitioner, or who want two treatments at the same time, or who are hoping that I combine reiki with clairvoyance or chakra cleansing, will save themselves some time. But I do have a friend who does shamanic healing, if that’s what you’re after! I can send you to her. At the same time, with a little understanding of what reiki is and a treatment involves, you can arrive at a treatment feeling open and relaxed.

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 1,700 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. 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. A recent client told me she found me by googling ‘Best Reiki Sydney’. Come see for yourself. 

I’m not sure your energy is blocked

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If you type into Google ‘energy blocked’, depending on the day, it comes up with between 350 and 499 million results. Seriously.

A typical website, as from Integral Psychology, will tell you that people suffer trauma and the trauma gets stuck in the body. It comes from the field of Somatic Therapy, which ‘looks at the connection of mind and body and uses both psychotherapy and physical therapies for holistic healing’.

Many more websites will tell you how to find out why your chakras are blocked. How can you tell? A typical answer:

You may feel more tired or lacking energy, you may feel unmotivated or experiencing more anxiety 
and stress, dealing with digestive issues and just not feeling like your true self mentally, 
physically and spiritually.

I have to admit that when I first put up this website, and was trying to explain reiki, I explained reiki in this way too. I said that that we gather stress or blockages with time, and so reiki works to get rid of those blocks and help our energy move more freely.

I don’t know where I got that explanation from because I don’t believe it anymore!

I think my doubt started with so many of my clients coming for treatments for energy blockages and blocks in their chakras. But when asked how they were, the answers were much more simple. Rather than their heart chakra being blocked, preventing them from finding a good relationship or because they were hurt, it felt more true to me that they had been through a bad relationship, and that finding good relationships is difficult and needs work! Or that they were hurt, in a romantic or family relationship. When people said they are tired, it was likely that they live a busy life, or have young children to look after, or aren’t getting enough sleep. And the idea of ‘not feeling like oneself’? The older that I’ve gotten, the more I realise that we have many selves, and that it is a mistake to create a story about how we are always the same.

I feel a great fault of the new age movement and new age language is convincing so many people (and so many of my clients) that something is wrong with them: their chakras are blocked or not aligned; they have accumulated negative energy and they need a clearing. A few clients say they have negative energy and need it cleared, but this is a lesson, not necessarily easy, that we can learn for ourselves. If someone is angry at us, we can both see if there are valid reasons for it, and if there are not, to see that their anger is their issue, it is about them, not us, and try to not be affected by it.

What I also take issue with is the story that the older we get, that we accumulate pain and trauma and blocks: life is dangerous and we need to be healed from it. What if we told ourselves a different story, a more positive story? What if the older we are, and the more wise, the more we learn to be less stressed, less blocked and less troubled? I think that’s as good a theory as any. As my reiki teacher, Frans Stiene, says, if the energy in our body was truly blocked, we’d be … dead.

I should clarify what I’m saying. I don’t discount the idea that we can suffer trauma and that it can affect our bodies, and therefore our energy. But I don’t think it’s useful for most people to believe that we have suffered trauma and that it has affected our bodies. If you think this might be the case for you, DO see a somatic therapist or a psychotherapist or another counsellor, and uncover and define what trauma you might have suffered and address the issue directly. But don’t self-diagnose yourself and believe without questioning that you have something blocked in your body, which is the reason for not feeling great.

It’s just not healthy to walk around believing that there’s something wrong with us. There are a lot of good reasons why we might not feel great in our lives. Convincing people that our mysterious energy system is malfunctioning, I believe, takes away the power from people to address why we might not feel great. Many of the websites that tell people their chakras are blocked advise buying crystals or visiting someone who can clear their chakras. Has this all been invented as a commercial scam? I think it’s a terrible thing to convince people they are walking around with their chakras blocked and trauma stuck in their body. If you believe this, ask yourself why. How did you come to believe this?

If you know that work and life is busy, too busy for you, then you can consider finding ways of carving out time for yourself, of treating yourself well, and finding ways to slow down. If you feel tired, would taking time to yourself, or going for a walk, or doing some exercise, help you? It could be a physical issue that you should chat with a doctor or nutritionist about. If your heart is broken, perhaps talking to friends, or a counsellor, or treating yourself nicely, and also recognising that you are hurt and that there are good reasons for it, will probably help more than a rose quartz crystal for your heart. I believe that looking to ourselves to understand why we might be feeling low (or happy) is a way to give the power and responsibility back to ourselves to be able to do something about it.

A reiki treatment could be part of this. But rather than seeing a reiki practitioner to clear your blocks and align your chakras, I think the real healing comes in being proactive about wanting to feel better, gathering tools for your toolbox so you know what works for you in feeling better, and seeing your issues as something that, while they might not be easy to heal, can be healed with you taking an active part in making it happen.

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 1,700 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. 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. A recent client told me she found me by googling ‘Best Reiki Sydney’. Come see for yourself. 

How often should I get reiki?

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One of the most common questions that I get after a treatment is ‘how often should I have a reiki treatment?’

The easy answer is: it’s up to you.

The longer answer is:

After your treatment, pay attention to how you felt afterwards, and that night, and the next day. And if you can, continue to try to notice what changes – energetically, emotionally, physically, spiritually – might have taken place.

Some clients just ‘feel’ the treatment during the treatment itself, and that is enough for them, to feel quiet and relaxed in the midst of their busy lives. Some feel the effects for the rest of the day, and into the next day. Others report feeling the effects for a few days, and a few have told me that a treatment creates a long-term change that can last for a week or longer.

Then there’s the question of why you came for the treatment, and if the treatment had a good effect. If you came in to be more relaxed and centred before a job interview, then unless you have another job interview right away, perhaps your intention can be met in one treatment. If it’s a long-term issue, then perhaps regular reiki is a good way to heal if you found the treatment helpful. If you’ve had anxiety for many months or many years, it’s not realistic to think that just one reiki treatment is going to be a cure.

Then there’s the practical issues which shouldn’t be ignored. Is it convenient for you to come regularly? How can you make the time to do things you want to do? Can you afford the cost and the time?

But I know that people have read online or heard that people should come for multiple reiki treatments. Why is this?

There is one very prominent reiki teacher who advised all of his students to tell clients that if they really want to address an issue, they should have a minimum of three reiki treatments (in about three weeks). He taught a lot of people, so I’ve seen this repeated on many reiki websites.

But unfortunately, I suspect that this was as much about marketing and convincing clients to return than it was about actually finding out from each client what’s best for them. I personally disagree with the idea of telling a client that they need to come back or must come more than once. I think it really should be up to you.

  • Some clients are really interested in what reiki can do for them so come back multiple times.
  • Some clients find that reiki feels good and that they find it useful and helpful to have regular treatments.
  • Some clients find that reiki helps support their other practices, like meditation.

So, there’s a huge variation of how often clients come.

  • I’ve had a few clients who have come every week or two, for a period of time (maybe a few months), and then take a break or stop.
  • I have some semi-regular clients who come about every month.
  • I have one client now who tries to come up to three times a week.
  • Many clients I see once, and then not again for another six months or year.
  • Lots of clients I see once and never again (though maybe they will try reiki with someone else).

The only however that I have is that I have heard back from clients who know that a reiki treatment was beneficial to them but then get caught up in their busy lives or stress and anxiety, and don’t make the time to come in for a treatment. I hope that by keeping in touch with my clients by newsletter that I can remind them to come back sometime! If you know that it helps you, especially at times when you’re feeling low energy, anxious, sad or not quite in balance, do try to make the time. You’re worth it!

Anyways, if you’re still reading (I do go on, sometimes, don’t I?), as I said, it’s up to you how often you come for reiki treatments. I’d really prefer you to practise asking yourself, ‘When would I like another treatment?’ and then listening to yourself!  And when you’d like another treatment, I’m here! 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 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.

 

Learning reiki

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This is ‘Reiki’ in traditional Japanese characters.

Since Mikao Usui created the system of reiki in Japan in the early 1900s, reiki spread to North America and then around the world, and different reiki practitioners have created their own schools and styles of reiki. Many different forms and styles of reiki are found around the world now.

It is also taught in many different ways. While traditionally, it was taught in three levels, shoden (level 1), okuden (level 2) and shinpiden (level 3), it is now also taught in community colleges, and even at a distance in online courses. I’ve heard of reiki teaching retreats in Bali, I believe, where teachers have found it easy to attract students by teaching level 1 and level 2 without a break in between, during the same week. I’ve heard of reiki schools that have 7 levels, or is it 9? My gut feeling is that this is a way to get students to pay a lot more for a lot more courses!

My teachers were my brother, Walter Quan, in Canada, and Frans Stiene, who taught in Sydney and the Blue Mountains, and now teaches all around the world, from his home base in the Netherlands. Frans is renowned for researching reiki to try to follow its traditional origins (the traditional form is known as Usui Reiki Ryoho) which is different than newer creations of reiki styles where teachers focus on the chakras, or combine reiki with other practices, like crystal healing, or have even created their own new symbols and levels.

I enjoy giving reiki treatments, but I’ve made the choice to not teach reiki.

If you are in Sydney, I have two recommendations. They’re both a little far away from the centre, but it can be nice to get away! So, I’d recommend that you study reiki with the International House of Reiki in the Blue Mountains. Bronwen Logan is a good teacher, and Mount Tomah is a beautiful place to learn.

A fellow student of Frans Stiene and the International House of Reiki (IHR) is Vicki Huston who teaches reiki in Avalon in the Northern Beaches at Northern Beaches Reiki. Vicki is a wonderful person so she’s my other recommendation. If you happen to be in Melbourne, look up Deborah at the Melbourne Reiki Centre and if you’re in Cairns, you should study with Julie at Rainforest Reiki.

I don’t know and won’t say that the traditional Japanese system of reiki is better than other forms, just that I personally like it and it’s what I do. So, if you are interested in learning reiki, you should do some reading about the teachers available around you and what kind of reiki they practice and how their courses are structured. Level 1 is a really good way to find out whether reiki resonates with you as a practice. The course is short and affordable and focuses on you learning how to treat yourself, rather than on other people. It’s often two days long. I don’t recommend taking Level 2 (often a day long) right away after Level 1,  or Level 3 (often 2.5 or 3 days) right after that. After each course, I think it’s best to practice what you’ve learned and let the learnings settle into yourself rather than rushing to do more learning.

Finally, I recommend doing your own research. I was quite surprised lately, getting calls from people wanting to learn reiki and then have me explain as much as I could to them. Part of the joy of learning something is to start learning and to do your own research. Start now. Read about reiki on the web. There is lots of information available, including on my own website and that of IHR. Find out which teachers are available for you. Then look at their websites to see what kind of reiki they do, and whether the way they talk about reiki resonates for you. Do you like the way they present themselves on their websites? Do you like what you are reading about reiki? If you do, you can always get in contact with them and ask some questions before you decide to study with them. Also, if you are interested in studying reiki, please book yourself in for a treatment, with me or any other reiki practitioner that you find and like the sound of. If you can book in for a treatment with your possible teacher, that would be really great. Why jump into studying something if you don’t have an experience of it already?

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 try to be open

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The Pantheon, Rome

Clients often ask me what I am doing exactly during a treatment.

Basically, I’m trying to be open.

As I’ve explained elsewhere, I see reiki as the same healing energy or vibration that we might look for in tai chi, qi gong, acupuncture, yoga, meditation or other practices.

Particular frequencies of the brain’s vibration are found to bring us healing. Through my training and practice, I tune into those vibrations and facilitate a client to do the same.

So my aim during a treatment is to be open to that energy, healing and vibrations.

In contrast, I think that the part of our brains used for analysis and thinking are useful for our survival, but planning for the future or pondering something in the past is not particularly healing.

So during a treatment, I’m not aiming to think. I’m not trying to diagnose a blockage or analyse why an arm might feel warmer than a leg. I’m not trying to remember what I feel so I can report it back to you at the end of your treatment.

I do ask clients how they are before the treatment and if there are particular issues they’d like to address. I don’t believe that we can achieve something just by setting our attention on it (like the book The Secret promoted years ago, in an update of The Power of Positive Thinking, and stealing the ‘Law of Attraction’ idea from Esther and Jerry Hicks), but I think it’s a good idea to be aware of our intentions and to say them aloud.

But during a treatment, I do not think ‘Now, I am healing this person’s broken heart’ or ‘I am pouring reiki energy into my client’. Who knows what really needs healing? A client might talk about wanting to get pregnant, but before that happens they may have to learn to relax. Someone might need to let go of a feeling of being hurt in the past before their shoulders can feel less tense and painful. If I decide that a client needs to be healed in a particular way, it is not being open, it is putting my own beliefs or assumptions onto a blank page, so it is not blank anymore. You can’t write your own story on it.

Reiki is about unity, wholeness, and being one. It is not about separation. So, during the treatment, I am not thinking of my client and me as separate, that I, as a reiki master, is giving reiki, or doing reiki, on a client.

I’m just trying to be open. I may, at times, lose my concentration, and wonder what the noise is outside the apartment or wonder what I am going to have for dinner. And when I notice this happening, I try to set those thoughts aside.

And be open.

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 1,400 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.