06/22/2009

Reiki Stories Project

Stories are important. Not the ones we tell ourselves to hide in, the dramas we perpetuate. Those are important too, for as Maya Angelou says:

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

In fact telling your story is the genesis of healing and growth. These personal stories collect to form a bigger landscape of the shared human experience. As C.S. Lewis has said:

Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.

We start there, unraveling the pain. This is the backstory. What’s ultimately healing and transformative is when we weave a new story, whether it’s personal or global. The transcendent story is the one that serves us best.

The transcendent story unites us and reveals the deepest mysteries of life.

Reiki Stories ProjectIt’s with this in mind that I’m starting the Reiki Stories ProjectSM (RSP). In 15 years of teaching Reiki, time after time it’s practitioners and receivers of Reiki who show and tell the most illuminating aspects of Reiki. Sharing Reiki stories is an amazing learning and validating experience. It deepens this path.

The Reiki Stories ProjectSM (RSP) is open to everyone. Please add your stories in comments on this post, or go to contact (top right) and email me. You can share anonymously, or with your initials and location, or full name and location. Share as many as you like over time. Stories will be curated by me and may be lightly edited.

Your Reiki story will be held in sacredness.

We begin with two stories from my own student practitioners. This first one is from someone who has been practicing Reiki for quite some time. I was recently interviewed and it prompted this sharing. Again, when we share and talk new associations are formed and we’re all elevated.

Pamir, your answers in that interview are beautiful and timeless. I even feel they are coming from your higher self. The most important part for me is that of shifts. I experienced a shift. I always loved everything around me and would even secretly talk to plants and animals. But I experienced a shift that came from great suffering to see my path more clearly (my desire to help people). So, my love and compassion was always there, but the decision to do something about it came later.

“It’s the emergence of all that you are, instead of only facets of a personality.” (From the interview.) This shift also brought an awakening to discover who I am and my ‘purpose.’ Of course, these realizations are still in progress since like you said, “I’m still awakening.”

My mom has been sick lately and I have been worried for her since she won’t go to the doctor or even admit she doesn’t feel good. Last night I took all my quartz and let myself be guided by them. I had never done anything with them but just have them in my room beside the picture of Paramahansa Yogananda.

I first filled a pot with water and put salt and Reiki’d it, then placed a quartz inside, then cleansed it with Jakikiri Joka-ho (a method for purifying inanimate objects). This I did with each of the stones. Then I placed them in a circle and put a card with my mom’s name and location and sent distant Reiki (crystals aren’t classically involved with Reiki). Finally, I placed the card under the biggest quartz which I feel was the one guiding me through it.

My mom called me this morning and said “I didn’t want to scare you but I have been very sick lately and today I simply woke up feeling healthy and strong.” All the pain she had disappeared and the vomiting stopped. Also, in a very odd way, $2,500 was sent to her today (and we really needed the money).

Like always, I want to thank you for being the tree for so many us who need you,

Namaste

This next one is a very recent excerpt from the 21-day report after Reiki Training I have in place to serve as a vehicle of accountability (both ways), and to further mentor my practitioners. What’s noteworthy about it is that even after a lifetime of habits and mental patterns, a mere 21 days of Reiki practice can have such solid benefits:

21 days looks like too little time, when you already have lived more than 16,000 previous days during your entire life. You can ask yourself how much more can 0.13 % of your existence do for you? Maybe nothing, but perhaps there was already a light switch waiting on the wall, and then the 21 days came as a space to do nothing else but turn it on.

To tell you the truth Reiki was not something that I was looking forward to practice before a couple of month ago. For the last couple of years I was too busy keeping myself entertained in a way not to see the falling bricks from the walls of my home. But finally the walls gave way to gravity, leaving me in the middle of what used to be my securities…now in ruins. That’s when I started feeling the need to clean up and rebuild and I started looking at one of the only things that was still standing there: Myself. Then, Reiki came to me.

When I first started the twenty minute meditations, my whole being jumped into it with great joy, it was something longtime missed and well needed, mostly for my never silent mind. I haven’t stop doing it, sometimes once, sometimes twice a day, and not precisely because I am doing it so well, but because of the opposite…With the hope of maybe one day being able to find the bottom that shuts down all the thoughts from my head, allowing the light to fill up the empty spaces.

I practice both Hikari no Kokyu-ho at night and Gassho Kokyu-ho in the morning (two Reiki-specific meditations taught in Level I). The first one opens me to the universe, the second one centers me into myself. In spite of the constant escape attempts from my mind, both have been slowly making things change around me. I can see the difference, I feel a lot lighter, I don’t worry that much, I don’t find myself immersed in the foggy cloud of day dreaming as much as I did before.

I started to visit some situations in my past, seeing them with other eyes and better understanding. Now I am more able to forgive myself and I am not letting others fill me up with guilt. I am finding great joy in things that I am rediscovering such as dancing.

06/10/2009

Let’s conjugate to “Heal”

HealI heal, you heal, she heals…Obviously, this isn’t a grammar lesson.

The Buddha’s first noble truth is: There is suffering. My modern version of it is: You’re born, you get wounded.

A healer’s first responsibility is to heal self. “Healer” is a noun but to truly fulfill that role, it has to become a verb. (Okay, maybe it is a grammar lesson.)

Since wounding is inevitable, a healer also starts there. The verb comes in when s/he chooses not to stop there, but plunges into the opportunity to transform self from wounded to healed.

For instance, Reiki is by its nature first an internal discipline for the practitioner and moves out from that cultivated center.

Healing is a relationship. If the healing relationship is stripped to its essential substance, what emerges is trust.

Trusting the possibility of healing.

Trusting the inner Healer.

Trusting the outer healing facilitator.

Once the inner self feels trust, cooperation is freely given and healing begins and progresses. This is true for self-healing, or going to a healer (which is ultimately also self-healing).

A healer has a unique orientation.

Healers are receptacles of stories. Healers hold for individuals, and by accumulation for everyone, the shared story of the human journey. It’s a great privilege to receive first-hand the details of a person’s life, their triumphs and defeats.

In the silent, compassionate and deeply connected space of the healing relationship, the mystery of being human is revealed bit by bit, and the healer also gains insight about her/his own process. This is richly satisfying and fulfills the edicts of rightful living. Everyone is helped and the global human experience is also transformed as all things are connected.

Healers become an ally only in proportion to the embracing qualities of attentiveness, true listening and understanding. People go to healers because they don’t feel heard or understood by spouses, family, friends, doctors, therapists, coaches or clergy.

True listening happens from a still inner environment of non-agenda and non-judgment, where ego isn’t involved. This model can be employed by anyone in daily living too. For instance, imagine what relationships would be like if both parties embraced this orientation.

Being truly seen is vital. People show you their best if you truly see and hear them. Whether you’re a healer or not, honor the person in front of you.

Seeing and hearing others starts with seeing and hearing yourself. If you don’t know yourself, how can you know anyone else?

Seeing and hearing go hand in hand. When you look at someone, do you see a personality or the self under it? Do you see the pain, or the healing possibility? The healing potential always exists, it’s a constant, but it’s up to each person to choose it.

Here’s a keyword: Acknowledge. It means ‘to know,’ ‘to recognize.’ Recognize the people around you. This has an enormous place in the corporate world for example and is often missed.

Recognize the power of healing inherent within you.

“Acknowledge” also means mutual honor and thanks. Does that exist in your marriage, your company’s mission statement, is it your personal orientation?

A healer is a story-holder. Being a story-holder is sacred. It’s an entrusted role.

Not everyone is called to be a healer. The world needs people is a great variety of roles. However, everyone can cultivate a healing worldview.

Ruminate, then journal, draw, and dance this prompt:

What are the ways in which I can activate the healing that’s buried but available in the layers of my suffering?

Related:

Healing aphorisms: A template for awakening

An interview about Self-Transformation

The Healer

The Healer II