After months (possibly even a year) of Pat Longo telling me that I need to be using my hands to heal people and several months of researching various methods of healing (both traditional and non-traditional), I took a leap and decided to pursue learning the System of Reiki. On May 6, 2017, my Reiki journey began. I was nervous and excited about learning this ancient Japanese healing art. I was one of the first students to arrive. In this first of four classes, spanning almost two years, there were six of us; only four of us would complete this entire process together. We were to become known as the four musketeers and I’m happy to report that we’re still good friends.
Like with any personal and self-discovery journey, everyone in class was there for a different reason. At the time I was in an abusive marriage. I wasn’t sure how Reiki was going to help me in this situation, but I knew it was something I needed to pursue. In the past I had taken several courses on developing my intuitive abilities, building self-confidence, and learning different methods of gentle assertiveness. While each of these courses helped me, Reiki is what helped put it all together. But it didn’t happen overnight.
As this was our first of four Reiki training classes, this class was strongly focused on the history, development, and self-healing component of the System of Reiki. Our day started off by learning about how Dr. Mikao Usui created the System of Reiki. Lorraine told us two versions of this story, which was great because what I learned during my research was different from the first story Lorraine told us. After the first story she told us I must have looked very confused because it was quite different from the version of the story I had discovered when researching the System of Reiki. She then went on to tell us the true story of how the System of Reiki was created. She explained that the first story she told us was actually the alternate story that was created for western society. The reason for this alternate version was to help western society accept the System of Reiki as a way of helping people be at ease with Reiki and its benefits. I was relieved when she explained the reasoning behind the alternate versions of the story because I was beginning to rethink my choice of healing modalities.
After learning the story of how the System of Reiki was created, we spent the remainder of the morning learning the traditional techniques and meditations a beginner must know when starting his or her Reiki journey. This included understanding the difference between the System of Reiki and the Chakra System. They are different but blend nicely together. We learned proper breathing techniques for chanting and meditating. We’d all meditated before but learning the breathing techniques for proper chanting was something I’d never experienced. It reminded me of being in choir when we had to take deep breaths in order to sing out long notes smoothly and in one breathe. Just before lunch, we were introduced to how Reiki is all about energy.
The concept of Reiki being all about energy was one of several talking points during lunch. It’s important to understand and remember that everything is energy and it’s the connection to energy that makes the System of Reiki a gentle, yet powerful healing modality. This concept resonated with me almost instantly. It’s hard to explain, even now, but this concept just makes sense to me. I didn’t know it at the time but understanding this concept quickly has had an incredible impact on me and how I approach healing my clients, myself, and the world around me.
After lunch we started to dive deep into how Reiki works. The System of Reiki was originally created as a way for individuals to heal themselves. It evolved into a system that is used to aide others in their healing as well. At its core, the System of Reiki is a self-healing system. We learned how to use Reiki to heal ourselves (we touched briefly on how to use it on others). We dove into why it’s important to focus on healing ourselves first and why this method of self-care will actually assist us with being better practitioners of Reiki when working on others. As a healer, the concept of healing the self before healing others can be a struggle. If we’re in pain or struggling and we see others in pain and struggling, our first instinct is to help the other person first. However, like the many clichés out there, we can’t help others if we don’t first help ourselves. So, our homework for the next four months was to focus on the self-healing that the System of Reiki was created for. During the four months that followed I discovered the discipline, courage, and compassion it took to take care of myself in the midst of a dangerous and abusive situation.
