by LightBody Thu Jun 28, 2012 9:05 am
My method today is significantly different than the way I was taught back in 1993, with only one exception.
Back then, I was taught to begin with a meditation that invites Reiki energies to the treatment area where I was, and then using my imagination to surround the person to be treated with those energies. Next, I was to repeat the words, "I invite (client's name) to receive a Reiki distance treatment" three times. Once the third repetition was complete, then, using my imagination, the person's higher-consciousness was to be asked "do you wish to receive a Reiki treatment?" The person's higher-consciousness always replied "yes," and then the formal (technical) part of the treatment began.
The formal part of the treatment began with imagining the person laying on a Reiki treatment table, followed by tracing a large Cho-Ku-Reiki symbol over the size of their entire body while chanting the name of the symbol three times. Next, Sei-Hei-Ki was traced and chanted over the persons head three times. Once that was complete, the "big symbol", a large version of Hon-Sha-Ze-Sho-Nen, was traced and chanted three times. HSZSN could be traced as a small symbol, or as the size of the person's body in whatever location that was felt to be appropriate.
Next, I was taught to perform the distance treatment by imagining it to take place in the exact way that we would perform an in-person Reiki treatment. We would imagine our hands beginning on the persons heart, traveling downwards on the abdomen, then to the throat, then to the legs, the feet, and closing with the head.
Closing the session simply involved imagining taking a step away from the table, placing our hands in gassho, bowing with gratitude to the person who received the treatment and to all Reiki energies that participated in the treatment.
With respect to executing the methods I described above, today I perform distance treatments (and distance attunements) in a completely different way with only one exception.
The exception is a concept that all of us in the Reiki Level 2 class were taught that seems to have worked its way out of a lot of the Reiki classes I have attended since that time.
The concept is to treat the source, not the illness.
We were taught that in the same way the body reflects phantom pains as identified through myofascial and trigger point bodywork, the client's mind may present a symptom in the body and hide the source (for reasons no one other than the client would know). For that reason, we were taught to treat the source of the pain and not the symptom.
How was I taught to treat the source and not the symptom?
By not consciously directing Reiki where I wanted it to go into the client's body and mind.
I was taught to serve as a vessel for Reiki energies, and to allow the client to automatically draw the Reiki that their higher-self knew was appropriate to help them heal. It made sense, because in some ways if I consciously directed Reiki energy into a person then it's like I'm saying "I know what's better for you in your life than you do." I am humble enough to admit that I don't know what is best for the client, and humble enough to trust their higher-self to know what's best for them.
Serving as a vessel simply involved relaxing into the process and being in the present moment with Reiki as it flowed through to the client. I remained neutral. Aware of what was going on, but the emphasis on my state of mind was not removing and replacing negative energies that so many do today but rather remaining neutral and in the present moment as much as possible.
That concept is the only thing I use that originates from one of my earliest Reiki classes, but after that, everything is different.
Today I will sometimes use the symbols in a way that I feel is appropriate if I feel that it will help the client meditate and tune-in to the process, but more often than not I simply begin to meditate to tune-in to healing energies and then gently invite and hold the client in my awareness.
I do not force – do not consciously direct – treatment energies to the client, or attunement energies for that matter. I hold the client in my awareness and allow them to resonate with the healing energies that are most appropriate for them. From one perspective, the client determines what energies they experience at the time that is right for them to experience them. From another perspective, they self treat! ;-)