Filling in the blanks

Today was the first day of my Reiki Master/Teacher re-training with Chyna Honey, author of Understanding Reiki; from self-care to energy medicine. On this day one of nine, it felt like we barely scratched the surface, at the same time as beginning to fill in some blanks that I hadn’t known were there. I feel so excited to be learning this last and final piece. Although, when I say final that isn’t really the case.

The process of learning Reiki, like many things, is a bit like learning to drive a car. At each of the levels we receive the information relevant to that level, a bit like taking lessons and passing your driving test. Then we go away and really learn how to become a driver through a process of practice and repetition. This helps to build our experience and along with it our confidence. As this is happening we gradually learn how to lift our eyes and our attention up from all the mechanics of what we need to do to get a car to start moving, to speed up, to slow down, to turn and of course to stop and start being able to consider our surroundings and other drivers in a much more comprehensive manner. It isn’t until we can do this part that we can start to hone our skill. I’m not sure that there will ever be an end point to that part of the learning.

I have been a Reiki teacher and, indeed, have taught Reiki, for nearly 15 years and I am still learning. Reiki has much to teach us, both directly about Reiki but also about what wellness really means and about self-care in a wider context. I often say to my clients that I truly believe that the practice of good self-care is a life-long journey. Life keeps happening so, as a human being, there will always be things that will challenge us. What is important is our commitment to ourselves, to keep working on it, to keep circling back when we have slipped a little, to catch those slips sooner and, maybe most importantly, to not judge ourselves for those slips. If self-care was easy no one would take drugs, stay up too late, eat too much chocolate or berate themselves inside their own head. Reiki can help us both directly and indirectly on the road to better self-care and ultimately to better wellbeing.

One of the reasons that I have chosen to re-do my Reiki training is because I want to be able to teach people about Reiki in as pure a way as possible. So much has been added and misinformed over the years and there were times when I felt that my explanations for what Reiki was and wasn’t wouldn’t hold up to too much questioning. I no longer feel that. Whilst I can’t promise that I can answer every question that a student might ask me I wholeheartedly trust the explanations that I have. At each step of my more recent trainings I have found, over and over, moments of clarity, moments of relief and many moments of joy.

I hope Reiki brings to the students I teach even just a fraction of the many good things it has brought to me. I can’t wait to discover what happens as the next days of our training begin to unfold.