I talked a bit about the importance of delivering a quality Reiki service the other day in How much should you charge for Reiki. We also talked about how if you strive to exceed your clients expectations that will leave them with a positive outlook on your reiki service and reiki in general.

So, I wanted to offer some tips for HOW you can exceed your clients expectations:

In the beginning there is PREPARATION..

1. Materials

Organizing the tools of your trade is what this tip is all about. Think about, contemplate, the things you might need during your reiki session or workshop. Do you use an overhead projector, are you going to need an extension cord? Do you have all your handouts ready, how many people are coming. This sort of thinking.

2. Environment

This step is twofold.

Step 1 is really concerned with familiarity with your chosen location. How well do you know the space you are going to be giving reiki in? For example if you are hiring a hall or room to give treatments or facilitate workshops you might want to go over there before hand and check it out, make sure you know where the toilets are! If it has tea and coffee facilities, that sort of little stuff. And then also the big stuff, is it going to be warm enough, is there enough space for all your students/clients?

Step 2 is the preparation of the space. If you are giving a treatment then a simple 5 minute clearing before hand of the room might be enough. But, if you are running a workshop (and then further if you are REALLY clever and conduct your workshops under retreat conditions, live in..) you might want to consider spending a lot more time preparing the space. I would recommend a minimum of 5 minutes clearing per one hour spent facilitating reiki activities.

3. Water

Whenever we run train the trainer sessions at my REAL job (tongue firmly in cheek), we ask what people think are the important things in training sessions? And without fail refreshments always ranks right up there.

This is even more the case with spiritual and energy training and sessions. Why water is good and helpful for reiki sessions is a whole post on its own, but quickly it has alot to do with our bodies being made up of over 70% water, with helping flush out toxins and with energy healing being like having run a marathon lying down (on occasion).

4. Room Setup

This could probably have gone in with number 2, Environment. But, it is such a great part of what makes a good reiki session/workshop that I wanted to give its very own number!

Gentle and peaceful is what you want to go for. With a dash of inspiration for good measure.

You can achieve this through the senses of sight, sound and smell.

Gentle music playing while giving reiki treatments, inspiring spiritual images in the healing space. Or cystrals, or water or whatever inspires you. Having things that inspire the practitioner helps them get into their healing space mentally.

But, I also think it is good to go easy. Simple is better. Because, what appeals to you may not appeal to all your clients. If it is too “full-on” then it may become an issue/obstacle for those that are inspired by different things.

First off I wanted to say sorry it taken me so long to post this week, Donyo and I have been looking after our neighbor’s kids, because their father passed away this week and they needed to get away a bit and have some respite.

Do you need to Know the Why?

When it comes to Reiki clearing is it important to know whether what you are experiencing is directly related to your reiki healing path, or some other karma manifesting?

I think this is a very interesting question and idea to contemplate. What do you think?

Personally, I think the answer is not a simple one. For me, one of the greatest things about reiki training is that it “just works”. You do not need to be gifted in analysis of psychological patterning. You just need to stay the course. You just need to “hang in there”. Reiki heals whether you understand it or not.

But, I am also a great fan of self awareness. Knowing thy self. And I know from personal experience that the better I understand my own mental habits and tendencies the more lasting the healing process.

I put it to you that reiki, to be a complete healing path, needs to consist of a harmony between the actual hands on healing with Rei-ki and the gentle, but focussed and consistent contemplation and practice of the Reiki ideals. That is to suggest that it is not enough to merely practice reiki healing, blindly, without any “mind training”.

It is not your fault

Interestingly for alot of us western Reiki people we get trapped between not enough self responsibility and too much. For most of us we take on too much blame when it comes to things like clearing symptoms.

We get lots of guilt.

Perhaps this is our cultural inheritance.. perhaps part of a “collective unconscious” bubbling to the surface.

I for one think this is a good way of thinking about it. We all share a strong underlying expectation based on a world view that is steeped in early Christian notions that anything bad that happens to us ultimately can be traced back to when we misbehaved and were kicked out of the garden of eden. (I know I am grossly over simplifying..)

Pure in Essence

But, the fact remains that we seem to have great difficulty accepting the notion that we are inherently perfect beings (or at the very least have the seed of perfection within us) and that pure nature is merely covered over.

We seem to struggle with the idea that when we run counter to our “healing” path (now or long ago in the past) we have simply lost ground against our not-so-helpful habits which have “swayed” us. These “habits” have influenced us. And, so, the “us” remains pure. Just influenced. But, we struggle to balance this idea, without losing the sense of self-responsibility, and start to think the fault lies elsewhere.

Balance in Healing

This balancing act is particularly hard when it comes to clearing symptoms. How do we accept responsibility for what is happening, without becoming demoralized, without letting guilt “sway” us?

One of the original Reiki Blogger posts on clearing symptoms we talked about an example of a friend of mine whose mother was violently ill after her first Reiki session. In the post I was critical of the practitioner and said they should have been more sensitive to how things were going and either made the session shorter or focussed more on grounding (giving reiki to her feet). At least the practitioner should have asked along the way “how are you feeling” I wrote.

I think in that case those points made sense. But, I think it is also important to consider the situation where the clearing symptoms are something that really does need to be gone through if the energy block is going to be gotten past, and the person make progress on their healing path.

One reader commented in that post that she had experienced a situation where someone threw up the very second she placed her hands on them.

First thing I thought when I read that was “gee that is pretty full on”. And then I started to wonder how the practitioner felt about that happening and how they coped with that situation. Because, this idea of dealing with clearing symptoms is not only relevant for the practitioner as it relates to their own personal healing path, it also relates to how they are going to cope with other people’s clearing and healing process.

Truth in Clearing

One thing that will always be the same when it comes to clearing, is that the clearing is always about truth. It is always about the clear, open and honest nature coming out more and more.

It seems “hard” because we feel very vulnerable during a period of intense “clearing”.

The old ways of “coping” with the world are no longer able to help us.. we feel like a fraud when we try to use them. But, like a butterfly emerging from the cocoon we have not quite found our flight yet. We are in that transition period.

Tips for navigating intense clearing symptoms

Okay smarty pants, I hear you say, so what can I do? And my answer is going to be a sincere one that I do not have all answers, I do not even have most of them.. but I can humbly try to offer a few things that have worked for my wife and I when we have been through (and we have been through a bit) intense clearing periods..

1. Do not take it personally

Obviously we talked alot about this above, but, please do not take it personally that you are experiencing clearing symptoms. If for no other reason than it does not help. I always try to remind myself that the whole idea of a “path” is that I am not expected to already be at the end of it! If we were already perfect, we would already be perfect. So, do not worry about it. Just do it. (geez sorry for sounding all pep-talk)

2. Drink lots of water

Drinking water seems to help.

3. Cut down on your social life

When you are feeling vulnerable it may be wise to be a little less involved socially. Give yourself some time. Do not put yourself under too much pressure. And especially socially, where you have to use energy to relate and give to people. Try to keep your energy inside your body as much as possible while you are going clearing related to reiki healing.

It is an excellent opportunity, because of the heightened sensitivity with your personally energy, to see your energy flow. How your energy goes out to things, and how when you do not maintain your energy presence in your Hara you lose your center, and your security/power.

This is all very hard, if you have to so lots of socializing. I know this is not all that realistic for most of us who have to go to work. But, it is just a suggestion, and where possible (say the evenings and weekend) it might be a good idea just for a little while.

4. Keep practising

If you are going through a period of intense clearing it is really helpful to keep practicing. Keep giving yourself treatments, keep giving people treatments, keep receiving treatments, keep contemplating the reiki ideals morning and night.

It may be tempting to completely throw the practice out the window. And justify it to yourself by saying “oh i just really need to do some earthly normal things for a while”. And that is true. No argument here. Number 8 in fact is that point exactly. But, you need to stick at your practice, if you want to make the healing stick. Otherwise you are training your mind to know that all it needs to do is push you hard enough, and you will throw in the towel.

5. Find a friend to talk to

Having a friend who is a good listener. Who can just let you share your experiences without too much comments and opinion, is really helpful if you can find one. And, if you cannot, you can chat to me, feel free to send me an email.

6. But, keep your own counsel

You are the person that understands you the best. Never give up that wisdom to someone else. Especially during clearing times. This is the time when the path is a personal path. You need to go through it and you need to learn from it.

Accept others support, and use that support. But, be self reliant. Do not lean emotionally on others. No one, although ever well intentioned, has the “answers”. They rest within your own heart.

7. Pray

Ask the Universe to be gentle with you. Set the intention that your healing will be gentle. I will tell you a funny story. When I was first starting to practice Reiki, about 6-7 years ago, I was about 22-23 years old. I was a young man, full of beans, and I wanted to really get stuck into healing my energy. I do not know if you know the movie “fight club” with edward norton and brad pitt. But, being a young man and thinking I was pretty tough, this movie quite appealed to me at the time (also because I really connected with the self-sabotage theme which ran through the story), well there is a line where edward norton (i think) says “i want you to hit me as hard as you can”. That so appealed to me that for a time it became my mantra with healing. I almost taunted the universe to really give it to me, let me heal everything all at once, to hit me as hard as it could. Well.. it did. And, I was a sorry boy.

8. Lots of grounding helps

Go walking, do gardening. Get your feet dirty. Sit in the rain. Anything that will connect you physically with nature seems to help to ground clearing.

This too will pass

The last piece of useless advice I could offer to you during a period of intense clearing (and lets hope not many of you have to have “intense” clearing periods at all!) is that this too will pass.

Just hang in there. The only unchanging thing is that everything changes. (So, if you are having a tough time, that by law of nature, must also change..)

Secret signs and hidden mystical paths are not something you will hear me talk very much about here at Reiki Blogger. Because, it is very easy to get side tracked like a kid in a candy store with that sort of thing.

But.

There IS a hidden path. And there ARE secret signs.

Synchronicity

Synchronicity as defined by wikipedia as “the experience of two or more occurrences (beyond coincidentally) in a manner that is logically meaningful- but inexplicable- to the person or persons experiencing them”.

Synchronicity is the easiest way to access the underlying secret signs and hidden path of everyones life. If you have not read The Celestine Prophecy it is a must read on energy and meaningful coincidences.

Becoming mindful of your life

One of the keys to understanding your life and letting the hidden messages that are around you all the time flow into your consciousness is to start to become more mindful.

Most of the time we only experience a fraction of what happens during a regular day. We can walk from here to there and have been completely absorbed by what we were thinking about or talking about that we just completely missed everything that went on around us.

We also become busy. Physically aswell as mentally. Our day is so full that there is no room for the life force of the universe to squeeze its way in.

Creating more space

If you want to start to see the hidden messages the universe has for each and every one of us then you also need to start to create more space in your life.

You need to create both physical space as well as mental space.

One of the best ways to do this, mentally, is to practise meditation. Simple sitting meditation where you just allow your mind to rest. Not actively using your mind for thinking or problem solving. But, too, not letting your mind “veg out”. Keeping a nice even balance between losing focus and holding your mind too tightly.

That will help create space mentally.

And physically, we need to let ourselves have time to just be. I know that sounds all new-agey and navel gazing, but it is the thing we need. That does not have to be lying on your back watching the clouds (although you should definitely do that and some star gazing again soon!) it can be as simple as not planning your day too tightly.. and allowing some flexibility into your routine.. allowing some time for things to just “pop up”.

Notice Patterns

Part of starting to understand the symbols and signs the universe uses to communicate with you is to start noticing patterns around you. Things that are familiar. Does a particular bird or butterfly come to rest each day on your window sill. Does the same color truck always seem to be parked next to your car at work? That sort of thing.

Do not worry.

Remember the reiki ideals in all of this. Do not worry if you see no patterns, and you think the universe is probably talking to everyone except you. Do not worry if you think you see patterns everywhere and you feel like you might be going crazy.

It will all make more sense the more you try to do it. Nothing gets harder with practice. (Tibetan proverb)

Keep a Journal

Try to keep a daily journal or the things that seemed important each day. Things that made you remember signs, symbols and hidden messages. Things that awoke your intuition today.

I have found it very helpful to try and become aware of my thinking. And then to try and notice what I am doing at certain times, say, when I start thinking about signs. Or when another sign (for me it is often a white butterfly or a white feather for example) comes to mind. What am I doing? Right at that moment?

That seems to help.

Reiki Guides

Some people have emailed me and asked whether I go in for Reiki Guides or not. It is certainly an interesting question. My main Reiki teacher certainly did. But, some of my current Reiki friends do not.

So, I put it to you like this. There is an underlying wisdom and knowingness in the universe. That pure essence (for want of a better word, and to steer away from sectarian bias by calling it the holy spirit or Buddha Nature) I am without a shadow of a doubt convinced, seeks to support our spiritual development and aid our everyday happiness.

I think the pure essence is continuously talking to us, and guiding us toward spiritual development. And I think in reiki terms you could be pretty safe to call it the “heart” of the universe’s life force.

How does Reiki fit in

I think we are lucky. Very lucky. To know about reiki and to be able to use reiki, when it comes to this sort of thing. Reiki is HUGELY helpful in identifying meaningful messages.

You can be in a book store and pickup a book that is going to help you progress on your spiritual path, or aid your everyday happiness and the energy will start flowing. You will start to feel the energy in your hands.

Or you will be having a good conversation with a friend and the energy will start to flow in your 3rd eye chakra, or your heart chakra.. and it will give you a hint about what is helpful for you to see at that time.

One at a Time, adds up to Your Path

The trick to reading the secret signposts of your life is that you can only ever read them one at a time. Because they all happen in the present moment. There is no message to find in the past or the future, because that is all subjective and tied up with your ego.

Although this may seem a little frustrating, never knowing what is written on the next page. In the end whether you are in the experience of a meaningful experience or in the space in-between, when you add them all together they reveal the hidden path that is your destiny.

If you can keep your mind open and spacious you will uncover the greatest mystery of all. Your spiritual path.

We all have ups and downs, good days and bad days. It can be hard to keep our focus and our motivation high for our spiritual practise. Here are 10 things that help keep things on track:

1. Community

This list is not really is any particular order. But, if I had to pick the number one factor that will affect most of our motivation on a daily basis, whether we are talking about our spiritual path or our daily life situation, it is community.

I know there is some irony with this, because ultimately the spiritual path is not one that we can do with someone else. No one else can put the effort in, it has to be us.

But, along the path, there is nothing more valuable than good friends, who support you and help you maintain your inspiration. The Buddha said of friends that if you find good people, walk together with them, but if you find none about you, then walk as a King would walk through a forest alone.

2. Daily practise

I have found, in the periods where I have been able to sustain a regular daily practise, that my motivation is also sustained. It is very hard to follow your chosen spiritual path without the supporting energy of your practice.

In the context of our Reiki path, the greatest gift you can give yourself is the energy.

3. Familiar surroundings

Familiar surroundings is both internal and external. If you mental landscape has consistency, your outer life situation will have consistency.

Like elite sports people have triggers and routines that help them get into the “zone”, it is helpful as a spiritual person to similarly have rituals of your own that help you reconnect each day to your spiritual path.

And this ideally is an internally familiar surrounding. But, having familiar external surroundings can be helpful too. Using the same sacred space for your morning and evening meditation for example. Sitting in the same place to give yourself Reiki.

4. Inspirational Images

Inspirational images is something that I personally find very helpful to maintain my focus and motivation. On our fridge at home, on ledges near the windows, on shelves in the lounge are images of my “heroes”. Great practitioners like His Holiness Dalai Lama and His Holiness Karmapa. And both people I connect with at a heart level and who raise my energy when I see their image.

It also helps me to feel that my teachers are close to me.

But, you could you any image that inspires you. Mountains (like the Himaylayas or Mount Kalaish), Oceans, Rivers, Sunrises.. or it could be animals.. or even cars and bikes and computers.. I really do not think it matters what the image is.. just that it triggers your spiritual inspirations and nurtures your soul.

5. Healthy diet

Another biggie.

A healthy diet helps maintain your equilibrium. I do not think I need to say much about this one. I think we all accept the link with diet.

6. Exercise

Same for exercise. Healthy body, healthy mind.

7. Complimentary practices

If you are a Reiki person I would recommend you investigate other Qi Gong exercises that can strengthen you Ki. Tai Chi is an excellent compliment for a Reiki Person, it is low impact (no impact really..) and it can really enhance your energy intelligence. That is how much you understand and can sense your Ki.

8. Variety

Some people say variety is the spice of life. I think along the spiritual path there is a fine balance that needs to be struck between changing things up to keep our energy flowing and our enthusiasm high, and just making changes for their own sake. Almost as if we become infatuated with the spiritual path and need constant stimulation from it, so we keep changing our practice, changing our teacher, changing our meditation styles.

Variety can be very helpful. Just watch it does not spill over into spiritual window shopping or restlessness.

9. Sleep

Another healthy body, healthy mind tip. One of the biggest factors that has emerged in modern health is the vast benefits of getting adequate sleep.

This is perhaps even more important for someone actively engaging their healing path. Clearing energy blocks can be draining. So, make sure you are getting enough sleep. It will help keep you motivated, and you mind buoyant.

10. Take a break

Reiki healing, actually any spiritual practise and path should be fun. It should be enjoyable. If your mind is happy, you will find motivation comes easily. (Of course you have to challenge yourself along the way, and your mind is not always going to be able to be “happy” about everything.. but on the whole it is better if you do not “dred” your practice sessions.. not viewing them like “taking medicine”)

Watch TV. Go for a walk. Go see a movie.

Anything that helps you stay grounded and down to earth.

One of the dilemmas we face as Reiki healers is what to say and what not to say to our clients.

Here are 10 tips that hopefully might help you navigate these murky waters a little easily.

1. Do not offer advice

You do not need, nor perhaps should you try to solve your clients problems or questions for them. Insights and “ah-ha” moments come from inner inspiration. From the persons own innate wisdom. We cannot “give” anyone the answers. My advice would be to study and learn as much as you can, increase your own understanding, so that if someone asks you a question you can give them good information, but, never an action plan.

2. Active Listening

What we can do, while not giving someone answers or tell them what action to follow, is to support them. We can do this by having strong attention and concentration when we are listening to them.

We need to be there with the person. Not off on lunch plans, or thinking about whether we need to buy more carrots. We need to be present and actively listening to the person.

And the active part of active listening is the concentration we put into processing what the person is saying, following and identifying the important themes.

3. Mindfulness

Mindfulness is almost the same thing as the active part of active listening. Except in the case of mindfulness it is a hovering inner attention energy that allows you to become aware of your own reactions and prejudices to what is being said. And, therefore (hopefully) better able to maintain a professional, objective and loving atmosphere.

4. Paraphrase

One very helpful tool to facilitate the person coming up with their own action plan is to paraphrase. Using both mindfulness and active listening you reflect back to the person an objective summary of the key points they have covered when talking to you.

5. Comfortable Silence

To help someone to come to their own natural conclusions, it is very good to become more and more comfortable with silence.

Silence gives the person space.

Space to think. Space to feel. Space to experience their own reality. It is most effective (allowing silence to happen, if it does) when we are able to maintain a loving atmosphere within ourselves. Which, thankfully for Reiki people is not so difficult. We just need to keep the energy (Reiki energy) flowing. Simply returning our minds to Reiki.

6. Understand yourself and your biases

It is tempting to want to “help” someone get clearer about their issue. Offer our “two pennies” worth. And, this only becomes more challenging as our intuition grows stronger and stronger.

We should always believe in our own feelings (as part of training in intuition), but this should be tempered so that we do not feel so confident as to tell other people what to do. We need to trust others inner wisdom and the wisdom of the universe.. even when our intuition may be telling us their are making a mistake.

7. Be down to earth

Having said that though, I also think it is important for us to be down to earth. To live in the “real world”. If someone comes to you and says they are going to leave their husband, kids, job and everything they previously held dear and were responsible to in life, to go and live on an ashram in india, I think we need to feel it is okay to say “You Idiot”.

Not everything is okay. Particularly when people get caught up in the “magic” and romance of a spiritual path. I think it is our responsibility to be clear and down to earth.

8. Always finish sessions with grounding

Personally, I find that if a session ends with 5-10 minutes of giving Reiki to the persons feet, rather than say, the heart chakra, the person finds themselves more grounded at the end of the session.

All emotionally charged subjects are easier to cope with, and are reflected more clearly upon, when our energy is grounded.

9. Go slowly with sessions

Reiki is a gentle healing energy. It is not designed to clear away a persons energy blocks quickly. It is far more effective when done slowly over a period of time. (Which is why self-treatment is great..)

Taking it slow, for example like having a break between Reiki 1 and 2 of at least 3 months, makes it easier for the person to remain grounded.

10. Let them decide the action plan

The most important point in dealing with client issues that may arise during reiki training and healing is to let the person decide their own action plan. We should never decide for the person, nor should we allow ourselves to be coaxed into providing the person with an action plan.

We should actively listen to the person, remaining mindful of our own biases, paraphrase the key points for the person, be comfortable with silence and not feel that we need to offer opinions or talk, always remain grounded and down to earth ourselves, use grounding hand positions in our sessions to facilitate the grounding of our clients, always take the healing process slowly and encourage our clients to do the same, and always always let the person decide their own action plan.

I recently read what I can only say was a very disturbing account of a persons first ever reiki session. The person went along to a “friends” husband who was, aswell as a reiki person, a medical doctor.

Now, you would expect to be reasonably confident to follow this persons instructions. Well, think again. He asked this poor lady to undress, completely, and then proceeded to give her hands on reiki, everywhere.

This is perhaps an extreme example of things NOT okay for your first reiki session. But, here is a list of some others I have heard, not just in reiki circles, which if you are confronted with you should head for the hills.
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If you have received one or two (or three) of the Reiki Attunements do you need to be re-attuned? Is it important if you are or are not (re-attuned)?

This is a question that comes up from time to time in Reiki circles and forums, and people are generally in agreement about the answers. Which are simply, NO you do not NEED to be re-attuned to Reiki once you have been attuned (it does not go away). But. It is a really really GOOD idea!
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Just for today I will not worry.
Just for today I will not anger.
Just for today I will give thanks.
Just for today I will work hard.
Just for today I will be kind.

These are the Reiki ideals. But, what does it mean to practice kindness? What truly is kindness? And how do you know if you are in fact being kind? Or just perpetuating someone’s problems.

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