I‘ve heard it said that “once you love someone they stay in your heart forever”. I’m not really sure who exactly to attribute the quote to, so I’ll have to give it it Nita’s father in Brother Bear 2… that was kind of the theme of the film anyway, and like almost anything I hear or experience I am sure to apply it to Reiki (or apply Reiki to it, as the case may be) at some point or another and this time around it yielded a most fascinating perspective on things.

If this is true, as I’m convinced it is, that is, if once you love someone they stay in your heart forever, than that seems a most convenient place to find them, all together at any time. Think of all the people you have loved in your life, check your heart…yup… they are all there! Here’s the kicker… by sending Reiki to your own heart, you are sending Reiki to everyone you have ever loved, all at the same time! I think that’s just like one of the coolest things I’ve ever thought about. In one fell swoop we are not only giving a Reiki treatment to one of most most important vital organs, as well as the core of our emotional being, but also to everyone we have ever loved.

Taking this one step further, if you apply Reiki to someone else’s heart, you are not only applying it to their heart, but since everyone they have every loved is in there you are sending it to them as well. If you happen to be one of them you are getting an extra bonus! Try this one on for size…. give Reiki to your parents and (assuming they loved their parents) the Reiki will be passed through their hearts all the way back to Adam and Eve. Amazing, eh? Told you this Reiki stuff was cool!

Whether this Reiki is traveling through aka cords (as the Hawaiian Shamans would have you believe) through a wormhole in another dimension (as quantum scientists would have you believe) or whether Reiki does indeed make you a hand of God (as Catholic Bishops would NOT have you believe) I don’t know… what I do know is that initial testing on this has yielded some amazing results and I intend to keep right on testing it.

So the bottom line is… focus on the heart… there is more going on in that particular chakra than meets the eye… much more!!!

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

Recently I’ve been receiving a lot of questions from extreme beginners. A lot of them relating to the best way to actually get started with Reiki. Where to begin… so to speak. So I thought I’d jot down a few things here for those wishing to to get you off on the right foot with Reiki but really have no idea where or how to begin.

To get started you might also want to take a look at my post on The Top 10 Things to Consider when Choosing a Reiki Teacher for some specific advice relating to getting a teacher… although finding a good teacher is not the only consideration for beginners. There are many different types of Reiki, many different types of classes, and many different types of teachers… and not all of them are created equally. So before even considering a teacher, you need to know something about Reiki.

For beginners, I would recommend a basic Reiki class. Either Western Style or Traditional Reiki are fine for getting started and names like Usui Reiki, Reiki Ryoho, Usui Shiki Ryoho, Gendai Reiki, Komyo Reiki are all basic Reiki classes that are the type of thing you want to start with. Styles of Reiki such as Karuna Reiki, Lightarian Reiki, Angelic Reiki, Dolphin Reiki, Violet Flame Reiki, Kundalini Reiki, etc. are all Reiki variations, and you steer away from them until you have reached a certain comfort level with basic Reiki.

You also need to make a decision between a distance attunement and training and face to face. I’d venture to say that 95% of the distance Reiki classes out there are shams with a few exceptions. Contact me directly if you’d like my opinion on a distance class or teacher. Most of these Reiki ‘Masters’ offer no support, really have no idea how to actually send a distance attunement and/or are just in it for the money. In there defense I have to say that its not their fault, they learned this way and consider their learning valid. It may very well be… but in most cases I have my doubts. In any event I would go for a local teacher and a live class if at all possible and leave the distance classes for those that are really desperate to find a teacher.

So deciding live or distance, which style you want and which teacher are the first three steps that you should not rush into. Take your time and find the right class and the right teacher and you’ll be quite happy you did in the long run.

A few other things you might wish to consider are reading a good Reiki book (I recommend William Rand’s Reiki: The Healing Touch for getting a good introduction) joining a few online Reiki forums, and browsing some Reiki Websites for some unique and interesting viewpoints. A very good idea would be to start keeping a Reiki Journal even before you get started to keep track of and help you notice changes along the Reiki Path… again, further on down the line you’ll be quite happy that you did.

Of course you are free to contact me with any questions or concerns you may have and I’ll be more than happy to help you get started. I am not teaching distance classes at the moment but I’d be quite willing to support you any way I can.

Best of luck with your Reiki practice… again, don’t rush into it… you only get one chance to start off on the right foot.

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

At long last Reiki - What It All Be Like is moving out from under the WhatItAllBeLike umbrella to a home of its own. <insert SOUND OF APPLAUSE here> By the time the move is complete nothing important will (hopefully) have changed.. all the posts, pages and comments will be transferred and you will even be automatically redirected to the new site should you decide to continue typing in reiki.whatitallbelike.com to get there (here?). For those of you looking for a sneak peak you can check things out as they are underway at TotalReikiMastery.Com and please do send me comments, suggestions, recommendations, etc. on how the site can be better. The old page format was just too restrictive and the title was (admittedly) a bit odd.

In addition to sporting a sleek new look, the new site will have a bunch of new bells and whistles that should satisfy even the most discriminating Reiki palate. So take a look at it… give it a good testing and let me know if you find something that needs changed.

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

Have you ever noticed how some of the littlest things in life make such a big difference? On the surface I believe Reiki to be one of those little things. Of course, deep down we soon come to realize that its much, much more… but for most of us it began as something so small… almost an afterthought of something that someone mentioned during the day that we just shrugged off as more of that new age mumbo jumbo. Again, for many of us, that initial understanding, or simple introduction, festered until we just had to do something about it.. and then… oh boy… it was almost as if we were given a new lease on life… I mean, think of the possibilities! Endless miracles in the palm of your hand…

The golden gate to Reiki lies in the promises made by its healing potential. That’s usually the hook that brings newcomers to Reiki Shares and the more introverted ones directly to a private class with a Reiki Master. Whether healing ourselves, healing others, or even healing at a distance, the healing part is fascination embodied. An understanding of how it works is not necessary… just like an understanding of the mechanics involved in a combustion engine is not necessary to drive a car. It works and it doesn’t need gas… that’s all the information I need.

Reiki energy is also unfathomable in its mechanisms, but it works (and it doesn’t need gas) and that’s good enough for me. As we delve deeper into the mysteries of Reiki, one of the first areas of interest is Reiki energy. It so fun to play with and exercise, that we don’t need a book to tell us how powerful or how special it is.

Spiritually speaking, when Reiki comes to most of us, we are not really looking for a new spiritual discipline. For many, that never really even enters into it. But for quite a few its almost like a calling. Something familiar, yet so strange. Something amazing, yet so ordinary. And before we know it we are namaste-ing all over the place (at least in the countries where it is legal).

In these three areas of healing, energy and spirituality there is something for everyone, and room enough to grow our own Reiki practices into something special and unique. Practicing Reiki truly does give us a new lease on life… and there is very little else that compares (except perhaps the receipt of a Reiki treatment from someone else).

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

I‘d like to take a moment and offer my condolences to the family, friends and students of the remarkable Sri Krishna Pattabhi Jois, one of the great spiritual leaders of our day, who passed away yesterday at the blessed age of 93. Pattabhi Jois was the creator of Ashtanga Yoga and is one of those responsible for reviving and popularizing the lost practice of Yoga.

As a student of Ashtanga Yoga, Pattabhi Jois holds a special place in my heart and it was long my desire to go to study with him in Mysore. Events kept me from doing so and now I will not be able to study with him as I planned… at least not on this plane.

I highly recommend his book Yoga Mala for anyone interested in expanding their awareness of Yoga. For me, there is quite a bit of overlap between Reiki and Yoga, and once you get to the higher (spiritual) levels of either, they look remarkably similar. Both are first and foremost, spiritual paths… so I guess its easy to picture these paths leading to the same place.

In closing, here’s a short video of Pattabhi Jois covering a few of the finer points of Yoga… notice how so much of it is quite similar to Reiki. R.I.P. Guruji!!!

Click here to view the embedded video.

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

Quite a few people believe that thought is not really necessary in Reiki… that it has its own intelligence and even if you did try to tell it what to do, it would do what it thought best regardless. While this may be true, far be it for me to mess with people’s beliefs, and it may actually work (one of the finest Reiki Masters I know actually teaches this and his Reiki abilities are extraordinary) in my own experience, however, I have found something that works better… allow me to share it with you.

A lot has been said and written on the power of positive thinking and I think that basically, its probably all true. As Henry Ford is attributed to having said, “Whether You Think You Can or Can’t, You’re Right” and this has its place in Reiki as well. I believe that most Reiki Masters teach you to set your intention at the beginning of the healing, draw your symbols and stand back and let Reiki do the rest. As I said above, this works… and if your current level of Reiki effectiveness is enough than you don’t even need to read this. If you’d like to up the ante a bit though… read on.

I have found that focusing on the positive things in my life tends to attract more positive things. The lowest times in my life were when, for whatever reasons, I was focusing on the negative… and in return, like a magnet, more negativity ensued. How this works with Reiki is that while you are performing any type of healing, attunement or meditation, if you remain doggedly focused on your desired outcome, there is a higher possibility of achieving that outcome with the least possible resistance.

For example, if you are healing a toothache, remain focused on healing the toothache… on restoring the energetic balance needed to relax and enjoy that health. If its for yourself, focus on the pleasure of chewing your favorite foods or the enjoyment of dining out with friends. Notice in all of these images there is no negativity at all. DO NOT focus on NO PAIN, or any other negative image as the mind has a very difficult time processing negatives. Tell a five year old to NOT eat a cookie, for all intents and purposes is exactly the same as telling him to eat a cookie.

So you need to conjure up positive thoughts and focus strictly on them with no interference of any kind by any negative thoughts. Reiki may be intelligent, but sometimes while it is in search of a healing for the highest good it neglects to consider the pain that accompanies that search. This technique shows it exactly what you want, and nine times out of ten it will connect the dots and give you what you want.

For your next healing try this and see if you can feel the difference. It requires more effort… but I think the results are well worth it.

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

Just a quick heads up for my faithful readers that there will be a limited release of an eBook version of the 30 Day Reiki Challenge set for release within the next few weeks.

It is basically a reprint of the online version, with a few modifications here and there, downloadable for easy and continuous access. So if you missed the challenge… or you want a permanent memory of it… you will soon have your chance!!!

Click on the image above for a clearer image you can print and hang on your refrigerator and stay tuned to this channel for further developments.

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

Over the years I’ve met Reiki Practitioners from all walks of life. I’ve listened to story after story of what attracted them to Reiki in the first place. Virtually, every case involved a calling of sorts… an event that caused the seesaw to teeter in the direction of learning Reiki. I’ve noticed some similarities in these stories and some repeating themes and thought I might bring them to your attention to do with what you may.

First, I believe that true Reiki Practitioners can be divided into healers and teachers. Quite often the healers are great teachers, and vice versa, but generally speaking, some are natural healers (with all the benefits thereof) while others are great teachers (again, with all the benefits befitting those of that status). Far too often there are those who are neither great healers or great teachers, but they are making a great effort to find their way on their chosen spiritual path hoping eventually to be one or the other. There are also a few that are neither great healers nor great teacher but they don’t seem to care… they keep on doing whatever it is that they are doing regardless of the consequences.

Reiki Healers and Teachers have a healing disposition. Just like all the great doctors, priests/monks, policemen/firemen (and women), etc., all receive a calling to those professions and possess a seemingly innate sense of what they are doing (as opposed to the non-great doctors, priests/monks, policemen/firemen (and women), etc., that is almost like a sixth sense, or a well of hidden knowledge that lies dormant until the moment it is needed.

Reiki Healers not only have the Reiki attunement and training to guide them in their practice, but they also have that healing mentality, disposition, mindset, etc. that is needed of a great healer. They have the ability to trust to their Reiki to carry out the healing, while they sit back and guide the session. There is something unique about these people that goes above and beyond Reiki… and whatever it is is present in all the great Reiki healers I know.

Reiki Teachers, on the other hand, have the ability to transfer their knowledge and passion for Reiki to their students and the most important of this knowledge seems to be passed non-verbally… almost telepathically. Again, all great teachers have this ability and can transfer their thoughts, attitudes and beliefs whether through metaphor or storytelling or a profound knack for making difficult and often abstract ideas logical and understandable.

True healing and teaching cannot easily be learned… it is a calling, it is a natural ability that some folks have and some folks don’t (many folks tell me I’m full of it) and early on Reiki Masters can detect those with these natural abilities either one way or the other although in quite a few cases it is not the way the practitioner would prefer it be.

I say ‘easily’ because it is possible for every Reiki practitioner to be a good teacher and/or a good healer but some folks might have to put a bit more effort into it to get the same results some of the other students seem to get effortlessly. So don’t despair… if the healing or teaching isn’t coming easy you might have to question whether or not Reiki really is your calling and if its right for you… and if you determine that it is… then you might want to find out if your calling is towards healing or teaching. The results may surprise you.

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

The move to TotalReikiMastery.Com is now complete. Reiki - What It All Be Like will slowly fade into the dust, so please be sure to update/redirect your browser, RSS feed, and whatever else you need to do to make your own personal move so that you don’t miss anything. Also …

I’m serious! Kind of…

At times it staggers me the negativity that some people shower on their spiritually minded brethren. Here in Japan especially, just the word Reiki conjures up images of the walking dead, seances and other supernatural hocus-pocus. I mean, what ever happened to live and let …