The Joy of Working as a Reiki Practitioner

This month it is 31 years since I learned Reiki and I have been thinking about how wonderful it is to be able to work as a Reiki practitioner.  Compared to many other jobs it has a lot of advantages!

Flexibility – as my own boss I can choose when and how much to work.  Although I am committed to seeing clients regularly, I find I am able to balance their needs with my own so that I can care for my own health too.  As a diabetic not on medication, it is important for me to be able to eat at specific times.  Being my own boss gives me the flexibility to make this possible.  Having heard how some NHS staff are expected to work without even proper breaks for meals I am very grateful to have this ability to choose my own timetable.

Necessity to receive Reiki treatments – I love receiving Reiki treatment, so it feels like a real benefit that those who are giving treatments to others regularly are expected to receive Reiki treatments.  I give myself Reiki treatment most days (an enjoyable way to prepare for work!). By self-treating I help to maintain my own health and well-being, so that people who come to me for Reiki meet a calm and happy practitioner who is in the best health possible.  I also find it both enjoyable and beneficial to receive Reiki from someone else on a regular basis to further support my well-being.  When I was less experienced about Reiki this was also a good way to learn more about how it works and what treatment can offer.

Mindfulness practice – I have noticed that giving Reiki treatment is a form of mindfulness.  As I treat, I pay attention to the sensations in my hands and body.  I also watch signs from the person I am treating such as sighs, twitches and facial expressions.  These things help me to maintain my attention in the present moment.  What wonderful work that requires mindfulness practice for an hour at a time!  It isn’t necessarily easy, but I find that reiki energy fosters a meditative mental state in practitioners as well as the person receiving healing.  As a result, I often feel calmer and more centred myself at the end of the treatment as well as having helped the person being treated to achieve deeper relaxation.

In service to others – there is something deeply satisfying about helping another person who is in some sort of distress to feel more peaceful.  The Dalai Lama points out that being in service to others is a way to achieve joy in our own lives.  Giving Reiki treatments is one way we can help to relieve suffering and improve the quality of people’s lives.

Simplicity – attending a webinar aimed at nutritionists recently which included a lot of technical information I felt grateful that I do not have to remember so much detail to give Reiki treatments.  With no diagnosis involved in Reiki, I don’t have to work things out and risk making mistakes.  I find that anything I need to know comes to me intuitively and I am grateful for the grace and ease of this way of working.

There are challenges too of course, such as deciding what to charge, being comfortable giving treatment and knowing how to maintain appropriate boundaries, but I value these as part of the personal and spiritual growth this kind of work offers.

I am grateful to be able to work as a Reiki practitioner and I hope more people will enjoy this way of making a living.

Self Care: Mindful Preparation

For many years taking care of myself was never high on my list of priorities, but learning Reiki brought me to the understanding that self care is worth spending time on.  At first I resisted this idea, being more interested in helping other people.  However Reiki would not let me persist in this! 

Eventually I surrendered to this simple practice of daily self care and it has had ripples that have affected the rest of my life.  Recently I saw that in fact the self care I had resisted is important for preparing myself to serve others.

Beginning most days with a self Reiki treatment I remain as present as possible as I hold my hands in each of the positions  – a mindfulness practice that helps me to begin the day centred and calm.  This has led me to be more aware of other aspects of self care as I go through life.

Being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes made me look more carefully at my diet and I now know that eating regularly and with protein at every meal helps me balance my blood glucose.  To achieve this requires mindfulness, however as it’s easy to get distracted and forget to eat.  It also requires preparation and planning to ensure I have the right kind of food to hand at the time I need to eat.  I know this can seem fussy and cranky to some people, but I’ve found that through balancing my blood glucose I have more energy and vitality (not to mention loosing 2 stone!).  What this means is that I can do more to serve others and do it better (more efficiently, more joyfully). 

I was recently selected by the British Lung Foundation to run one of their singing for lung health groups, which involved training in London.  In my previous state of health I think I would have struggled to achieve this and would have worried about whether I had the stamina to run the group every week.  Now I feel positive and excited about the prospect!  So improving my health and well being was good preparation to take on this new project.

Another aspect of my self care has been to improve my sleep.  I have Reiki to help me drift off

once I am in bed, but you won’t find me answering emails late at night unless I’m breaking my self care rules!  When I was less good at self care I’ve experienced poor sleep with all the predicted outcomes: irritability, higher stress levels, lack of co-ordination, reduced immunity, increased frequency of making mistakes etc.  Now I take more care to do and not do the things that will encourage good sleep – such as being in bed by 11pm when possible, not eating or drinking anything after 9pm and limiting carbohydrates in the evening.  As a result I sleep well most nights and have more energy to give my attention to planning and balancing my life, rather than struggling through the day, just longing for my bed!

So Reiki has taught me that self care requires mindfulness and is not something that comes last on the list of priorities, but is good preparation for living my life to the full, able to answer whatever Reiki asks of me each day!

Reiki and Mindfulness

I met one of my students when she came into the clinic in a stressed state, asking for a mindfulness course: I suggested she learned Reiki!

I've noticed that mindfulness has become very fashionable recently.  For me Reiki is a mindfulness practice.  Mindfulness is defined as "the practice of maintaining a nonjudgmental state of heightened or complete awareness of one's thoughts, emotions, or experiences on a moment-to-moment basis"

When I give Reiki, whether it is to myself or someone else, I automatically begin to pay more

What many Reiki practitioners have also noticed is that simply by doing a Reiki treatment we enter a state of mind that is like meditation.  It's one of the reasons so many people enjoy giving Reiki treatments I think - it's such an effortless way to reach a deliciously peaceful state of being. Worries and cares ebb away, it's a state of simply Be-ing in the Now.  The person receiving Reiki often experiences this letting go of past and future too, allowing relaxation of the mind and body.  Whether it's simply because we are being 'mindful' of our hands which brings us to this state, or whether something more is happening it's difficult to say, but the end result is clear.

A treatment can be given in a distracted and non-mindful state, but the best treatments are those when I, as practitioner, am fully present with the person I'm treating - mentally as well as physically.  This is also true of teaching and the opportunity to be present and aware as people learn Reiki for the first time is a real joy in my life!  It's so wonderful to see the changes that happen as people take this practice into their lives.

The Reiki principles also encourage mindfulness.  In order to not worry or be angry, as they suggest, I need to be aware if I am worried or angry - in other words: mindful of my emotional state.  In order to honour my parents I need to be aware of my thoughts and actions towards them.   To do my work honestly I feel that I need to be my authentic self, avoiding self deception and being conscious of how the ego may wish to trick me!

The last Reiki principle is "Show Gratitude to every living thing" - surely the clearest reminder to be consciously aware of all the beings who surround us, without judging them.  You can't judgmental about something and at the same time be grateful for it I find.

So whether it is through daily self treatment or receiving treatment from someone else, through treatment of other people or living with the Reiki Principles: Reiki practice brings your attention in a heightened and non-judgmental way to your body and mind.  This offer a way to have a heightened awareness and experience of life.  As many mindfulness practitioners of different paths have found, this way of being can increase happiness and physical well being.  And Usui Shiki Ryoho Reiki does this with elegant simplicity!
attention to what my hands feel like - in other words I have a heightened awareness of my experience of touch and other physical sensations.  As the treatment continues there are often other sensations in my own body that call my attention.  As I spend several minutes in each position, I'm practicing giving non-judgmental attention to those sensations.