The Value of Rest

 One of the great benefits of Reiki is that it encourages us to rest.  Reiki treatment, whether self-treatment, hands on or distant, is not generally received while doing something else or rushing around.  We are encouraged to lie down or sit for thirty minutes to an hour to receive the treatment.  One of the people I regularly send distant Reiki to commented that if nothing else it means she lies down and rests for half an hour.

We need to rest because it is during the body’s resting state that we heal, both physically and mentally.  When we are in a stressful state most of our energy is diverted away from our immune system and other important bodily functions such as digestion, to make energy available for fighting for our lives or running away.  When your life is at stake you have no time to digest a steak!  At a time when we need our immune systems to be strong in the face of the novel coronavirus, it is therefore more important than ever that we remain as much as possible in the resting state.

Sleep is the obvious time we rest and quality of sleep also matters.  A stressful day can cause poor sleep, because there is an echo of any daytime rise in adrenaline (the stress hormone) during the night, which can cause us to wake up and possibly find it difficult to go back to sleep.  We need a certain amount of deep sleep during each night, which is

the time when repair of the body mostly occurs.  We also need to dream, which is healing for the mind.  To strengthen my immune system, I always prioritise getting the best sleep I can and I find having Reiki in my hands very helpful for this.  I know that many of my students practice their self-treatment at bed-time because it helps them to drift easily into sleep (they often report falling asleep before finishing the hand position sequence).  Those who wake in the night also find that it is beneficial to be able to give themselves Reiki which, if it doesn’t help them go back to sleep, is at least healing.

It is important to ensure rest for the mind too.  Modern life is full of distractions that keep our minds busy even when we think we are relaxing.  Many people find it difficult to stop checking emails or social media on their phones.  TV programmes that are violent or where the characters undergo emotional stress, especially if it resonates with our own experience, will get our stress hormones flowing, even though we are slouched on the sofa.  This is not real rest.

Some people turn to mindfulness practices or meditation to help to relax their mind.  Reiki is often described as bringing peace of mind, with many people finding it calms their thinking effortlessly.  I remember the first time I experienced this in the early days of grieving for my father, whose sudden and unexpected death certainly caused me a high level of stress.  The first full Reiki treatment I received helped me to relax and bring my mind out of the stressful state into the resting phase.  I could not recall ever feeling so calm and peaceful.  It was wonderful!

Lockdown has offered some people a chance to rest, but for some this situation is creating more stress.  I hope you are able to find some time to rest and perhaps Reiki can help.

Wishing you Good Health in 2020

January is often a time when I reflect on the state of my health.  After all the temptations of Christmas I   For many years I would spend the next months trying to get back into balance.  I also assumed that the lack of energy, aches and pains were all signs of ageing and not to do with general poor health.  However receiving a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes made me pay more attention to my health and how I was maintaining it or otherwise through my lifestyle choices.  I am grateful for my Reiki practice which has, I believe, helped me to achieve much better health and to discover that energy levels can improve and pain be a thing of the past, as well as feeling happier.
usually find that my waistline has expanded and my energy is low.

I find that the daily Reiki self-treatment is a time in which I can pay attention to the subtle messages my body is giving me.  I have learned that my body has great wisdom if I am willing to listen, but it often speaks quietly at first.  As my mind becomes calm thanks to Reiki, I become more aware of the voice of my intuition.  Listening to this wisdom has enabled me to make better choices.  Reiki has also helped me to want to make those choices.

A good example is that when I first learned Reiki about 30 years ago, I used to smoke.  I had unsuccessfully tried giving up a few times.  As I gave myself Reiki treatments and received them from others, I began to be aware of the way smoking was affecting my lungs.  I also began to have the feeling that I didn’t want to do that to my body any more.  It was then easy to let go of the habit and I stopped smoking for good.

I have also learned how important sleep is to good health.  I now find that I really notice the difference when my quality or quantity of sleep is less.  Reiki is helpful to get to sleep if my mind is busy and I have had reports from several students who suffered from insomnia that a Reiki treatment at the end of the day helps them sleep peacefully through the night!

One of the other things I have learned about achieving and maintaining better health is that it takes consistency.  Once again my Reiki practice helped: through having something in life that I practice most days (my self-treatment), it was easier to introduce other healthy habits, such as walking every day for 30 minutes (as recommended by Reiki Grand Master Hawayo Takata).

Receiving Reiki also enables me to be less stressful, another key to good health.  I still find Reiki’s ability to calm my mind and bring me into a meditative state – including when giving treatments – quite amazing.

So in wishing you good health in the coming year I wish you good sleep, less stress and a growing ability to listen to and act on your body’s wisdom so that your life can be more joyful.

Comfort and Joy

If you are like me, November and December are busy months.  My community choir is in demand to sing carols and we put on a fundraising concert.  This year I was blessed with two Reiki classes and there have many demands on my time for voluntary work.  Thankfully the weather has been less challenging this December, with no snow and little frost, although today we have freezing rain, so I'm grateful to be inside with the comfort of a roaring fire!

What I love about this time of year, in spite of the pressures, is how many people seem to go by different rules to the rest of the year.  There is more generosity of spirit, reflected in the giving of gifts and cards.  Many people are kinder to each other 'because it's Christmas'.  Conflicts that rage through-out the rest of the year are put aside at least for a while, like when the British and German soldiers in the 1st World War called an informal truce to play a game of football between the trenches.  I imagine that game of football must have been a great comfort to them - a little bit of normality and fun in the midst of terrible suffering.

As Caroline Myss has pointed out, one of the messages of the Christmas story is that, like the birth of Jesus in a humble stable, miracles are not accompanied by a lot of fuss, but happen quietly and simply.  In a similar way, Reiki practice can be quiet and simple: all that is needed is a pair of Reiki hands and a willingness to give.  This simple gift can bring comfort and joy to both giver and recipient.

At the Community Reiki Clinic I am running in Ludlow we give short treatments in a very ordinary room in the community centre.  We don't have any candles or incense, the lighting is not soft, there is no music. In many ways it is not a particularly relaxing environment, but people who receive treatment - many of them experiencing Reiki for the first time - do find themselves becoming calmer, more relaxed and benefiting from Reiki's grace.  This month we treated the caretaker of the centre, who had just cooked Christmas lunch for 100 locals.  I found him doing the washing up and invited him to come for a treatment.  He was glad to lie down, but was also really surprised by how quickly the Reiki treatment calmed his feelings of stress and helped him relax (he nearly fell asleep!).

As Reiki practitioners this simple gift is a comfort available to us any time, through self treatment.  My Reiki self treatment practice has helped me to become calmer and more resilient, both mentally and physically, so that I am able to offer Reiki to more people. My life has become more joyful through giving my time and energy in this way. 

May you enjoy comfort and joy over the holiday season and I look forward to sharing more Reiki with you in the New Year.

Long Days

I hope you are enjoying the sunny weather as much as I am.  It reminds me of the summers of my childhood, when the days seemed long and contented.  In my adult life the days usually seem too short, with too much to get done and not enough time to do it all!  I know that this is one of the common challenges of being self-employed.

Thanks to my Reiki practice, however, I have found a way back to long days.  After my diagnosis of type 2 diabetes I learned of the role stress plays in tipping a body into insulin resistance and eventually diabetes if it’s ignored.  So I began to look at how to become less stressful in life.  One of the things I noticed was the importance of being able to relax – really relax, not just sit on the sofa watching TV. 

I learned that the mind needs to relax as well as the body.  Watching TV might be relaxing for my  body.  Reiki treatment, however, helps my mind to relax.  When I first received Reiki treatments it was the mental peace I experienced, at a time when my head was in overdrive, that most impressed me.   Somehow Reiki seemed capable of interrupting the stream of worried thoughts and allowing my mind to rest and my heart to be at peace.

body (although watching programmes that raised my anxiety levels would cause physical tension), but often was not relaxing for my mind.

Being self-employed, it’s easy to keep thinking all the time about what needs to be done and how to achieve the next step.  I’ve had to learn how to ‘switch off’ and it’s not easy.  I used to find this only happened when I went away on holiday – and it would usually take me about a week to stop thinking about work.  I was often ready to really relax just as the holiday ended!

To improve my relaxation, and help myself stop work mentally as well physically, I made more time for receiving Reiki – from my own hands or someone else’s.  I don’t always find stopping easy: because I am passionate about my work, when there is a long list of Things to Do it can take discipline to not do any of them.  

Then a very strange thing happened: as my mind became relaxed I found that days lasted longer!  I was amazed to look back on the day and have the feeling of disbelief that what happened in the morning was actually the same day.  It was just like those long, contented days as a child.  What I’ve discovered is that when I return to work the next day my mind is rested and I often have a clearer perspective about what really needs to be done.

What was even more surprising was that I found that if I allowed myself space during the working day to relax – with a little self-treatment for example – these days could also become longer and more efficient.  It reminds me of the Taoist saying “Do nothing and nothing is left undone”.

So with the weather so lovely (or too hot to do much) I hope you too can do nothing all day and see if you too can re-capture those long lazy summer days you remember from childhood.  Enjoy!