Declutter your treatment rituals
Time for a Reiki spring clean?
Reiki treatments are carried out in a lot of different ways and many rituals have been developed and passed on in different lineages.
Reiki has also been affected by the belief systems of people who are involved in other energy practices and it’s natural for Reiki teachings to become ‘coloured’ by a teacher’s personal quirks and idiosyncrasies too.
Trouble is, these practices end up turning into “this is the way that you have to do it” as they are passed on from teacher to student, teacher to new teacher, and that’s unfortunate since some people end up lumbered with quite complex rituals that they feel they have to carry out for a treatment to be done ‘properly’.
Reiki is greater than that.
Reiki works simply and intuitively and doesn’t need to be accompanied by a lot of dogma. There will be Reiki practitioners out there who treat their clients using a lot of rituals that other effective Reiki practitioners do not use, and there will be people out there using Reiki effectively while not carrying out stages and rituals that other practitioners regard as essential.
Let’s look at a few examples of ideas and practices that I regard as unnecessary.
If you were taught to do these things, why not experiment and find your own approach.
Keep at least one hand on the body at all times for fear of losing your connection
I have written about this one before, and if we can send Reiki from one side of the planet to the other just by thinking of someone, there will be no problem in ‘losing’ your connection to a client on a treatment table in front of you should your hands stray a few inches from their body.
‘Connection’ is a state of mind and comes through focusing your attention on the recipient. If you’re doing a Reiki treatment on someone then you are connected to them!
Treat from head to toe and then you must go back up the body from feet to head
Seems a bit clumsy to me, and is sometimes combined with the previous paragraph, so you end up with “always keep at least one hand on the body at all times and work from head to foot, and then back to the head again”.
The general approach within Reiki seems to be to work from head to feet, though working the other way might be the right thing to do sometimes.
My approach is to work intuitively so I don’t follow a set of rules that have to be applied to every client in the same way. Why should every client receive the same format of treatment? They have different problems, different energy needs.
‘One size fits all’ doesn’t fit very well with me.
Always throw out ‘negative’ energy at the end of treatment
If you believe that there is negative energy and if you believe that it will stay with the client (and presumably cause them problems) if you don’t throw it away, then I suppose you’d better throw it away.
And if you’ve got it on you before you throw it away then presumably you don’t want that stuff hanging around on you either, so you really need to throw it away.
But not everyone is taught that and not everyone does that, and some people believe that Reiki is a pure healing energy that is drawn by the recipient’s need, and gives the recipient what they need on that occasion, balancing and transforming in a way that is right for them.
And in that case, we wouldn’t need to think in terms of accumulating stuff that Reiki couldn’t get rid of, and dealing with it ourselves.
Always ‘ground’ the energy at the end of a treatment by putting your hands on the floor
Some people do seem to have quite a bee in their bonnet on the issue of grounding.
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They put almost every malady down to not being grounded, and have their students frantically grounding themselves.
On a personal level, grounding is easy: go for a walk, do the washing up, breathe in some fresh air and you’re grounded. Hatsurei ho — daily energy exercises — grounds you.
I believe that giving a Reiki treatment is a grounding exercise.
So what is this ungrounded energy that you have to deal with when you put your hands on the floor — is it your energy, is it the client’s “ungrounded” energy, and what would happen if you didn’t crouch down and touch the floorboards?
Isn’t Reiki a bit more effective than that?
Does it really need us to come along and sort out stuff that it hasn’t dealt with properly?
Recite a set of words at the start of a treatment that ‘have’ to be said
Many people have a set form of words that they say to themselves to get them in the right frame of mind for carrying out a Reiki treatment, and I have no problem with that.
This can be useful and helpful.
But some people are taught that “these words are THE words” that you have to say at the start of the treatment, with the corollary that if you haven’t said them, or if you mess up the words, then the treatment’s not going to go properly.
If you’ve said a set of words time and again before starting a treatment, don’t you think your subconscious mind knows what it’s all about, and that you have that intention ‘programmed’ into you already?
Intention is a very important thing with Reiki and I don’t think you need to keep on reminding and re-reminding yourself about what you want to happen.
Over to you
I hope the above comments have provided some food for thought and if you are currently using the practices described above, why not try a different approach, see what happens, and come to your own conclusions about what’s the best way for you to approach treating others.
Have you altered your own approach compared to what you were originally taught, and have you found that leaving behind some of those rules and restrictions has been fine?
Did you like this article and want to read more?
This book contains 86 Reiki articles written by Reiki Master/Teacher Taggart King, who founded “Reiki Evolution” in the UK in 1997. The articles deal with all aspects of practising this beautiful and simple energy healing system.
You will find running through these articles a vision of Reiki as an elegant and powerful self-development tool and treatment method, free from the clutter, busyness and dogma of Western-style Reiki practice.
Taggart roots his vision of Reiki in the original practices of Mikao Usui, Reiki’s founder, and he emphasises the need for simplicity, personal dedication and commitment in obtaining the many benefits that are available to the student through Reiki.
This book will be of interest to and of benefit to all Reiki people, at whatever Reiki level.
http://www.reiki-evolution.co.uk/reiki-manuals-books/
Taggart King
www.reiki-evolution.co.uk
Picture credit: Kevin Utting
