Reiki Healing
Holistic energy healing for physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing
What is Reiki?
Reiki means spiritual energy and this word also describes a Japanese spiritual practice for self-realization, created by Mikao Usui over 100 years ago, which includes a holistic approach to health and healing. There is a vital energy in our universe that flows in all living things and Reiki healing accesses different aspects of this universal energy. This energy has always been available to all for healing. You may know this energy as Chi or Qi. The Japanese word is Ki.
When Mikao Usui began his work with Reiki over a hundred years ago, he discovered a way to use the vital, flowing energy of the universe for healing and self-development. He passed this ability on to his apprentices through training and attunements; a process of using intent to empower someone to access the energy for themselves.
His students trained many others and now Reiki has become popular all over the world as a healing method that is accessible to all and complementary to medical treatment and other therapies too. It is still learnt in same way, through a series of attunements from a Reiki Master, who has a lineage of Masters going back to Mikao Usui.
All the many branches of Reiki have their roots in Mikao Usui’s teachings, all growing from that single connection.
Reiki Principles
There is a scroll of calligraphy describing the precepts that form an integral part of Usui’s method. These seemingly simple affirmations are referred to as Reiki principles and are known to bring great benefit when we follow them as a way of life. As a Reiki Master, it is part of my daily work to incorporate these profound words more deeply into my way of being, by sitting quietly with hands in a prayer position and recalling these words with feeling. The Japanese description of this practice can be translated as the Usui system for connecting with your ancestral self through the body-mind.
Just for today:
Do not anger
Do not worry
Be grateful
Be diligent
Be kind
How does Reiki work?
The Reiki practitioner uses intent to connect to universal life force energy and flow that spiritual energy through them to you, as they gently place their hands in a series of positions on or over your head and body. During a treatment you are invited to lie or sit comfortably and enjoy the different sensations as healing takes place from within on a physical, mental, emotional and spiritual level, harmonizing mind, body and spirit. You may feel warmth, tingling and pulsing as well as lightness of being or your body sinking into the treatment table as you go into deep relaxation.
To flow Reiki is to enter a clear and vessel-like state, similar to the hollow bamboo water pipe in a Japanese garden through which much-needed water flows to each thirsty plant.
Just as water can flow gently to wherever it needs to go to nourish a garden and can also carve great changes in our landscapes, so Reiki can find its way gently to where healing is needed and support deep transformation.
The practitioner senses where healing is most needed by the pulling sensation from the recipient’s body. This is because it is the client who subconsciously controls the flow. For those sensitive to touch, treatments can be done with hands just above the body and the effect is the same, if not greater. It is so enjoyable and effective, that clients often choose to complete a weekend of level one Reiki Training in order to be able to self-treat at home.
All you need to do is relax in an armchair or on a treatment table and open your mind to receiving the Reiki as it flows through me to you for your highest good.
My powers of intention and intuition are the tap that opens or closes the flow of energy from the universe through me, as you unconsciously soak up the energy from my hands to quench the thirst of your mind, body, heart and spirit, in support of your deep healing process.
My Reiki Story
My first Reiki treatment was from Monette, who had been taught Reiki by her own mother. This was when I was living in Bangladesh, teaching English study skills at the British Council. I was amazed at the deep relaxation and the blissful feeling that all was well with me and the world after each treatment. I wanted to learn so that I could help my son with his emotional ups and downs. Both my ticklish children could enjoy the benefits as Reiki can also be done without putting hands on the body. It worked so well that I felt compelled to learn, so that I would be able to carry on helping my children after my friend had moved away. I was thrilled when her mother ato teach me Level One of Reiki when she came out to Dhaka on a visit.
My Usui Reiki Lineage
After a few months, I wanted to go on to Level Two and treat others professionally. Imagine my feeling of amazement when I found out there was actually a Reiki Master at the Anglo-American School of Dhaka! It seemed meant to be and so I did my Level Two as her private student and then became her apprentice for the Reiki Master level, assisting her with Reiki courses before I left Bangladesh for my next posting in Bulgaria. This wonderful teacher’s name is Priya Sethi and she is a highly intuitive, spiritually-gifted Reiki Master who now has her own Reiki Practice in America. Her lineage of teachers include Mikao Usui, Chujiro Hayashi and Hawayo Takata. This is a lineage otherwise known as Western Reiki Teachings. You can see on the right-hand column in my lineage chart below.
Every Usui Reiki practitioner will have a lineage chart like this to prove their teachings came down from the founder of the system, Mikao Usui.
The universe answered me yet again and I found a Reiki teacher just round the corner from where I grew up in Sheffield. Richard Jones came from a scientific background and yet was incredibly intuitive and had a gift for spirit release work. He certified me as a Reiki Master in 2011. He also had a Western Reiki lineage, but he had studied with several other well-known Reiki Masters, learning Taggart King’s Original Reiki, Tadao Yamaguchi’s Jikiden Reiki and Frans Stiene’s Usui Reiki. You can see his training in the four left-hand columns in my lineage chart above. I am able to include this wide range of knowledge in my Usui Reiki courses.
Reiki in Cambridge and Internationally
My first Reiki Healing Practice was in the foothills of Mount Vitosha in Sofia, Bulgaria where I began teaching small groups of students, treating clients and sending distant Reiki treatments all over the world. I have treated clients from many different faiths and cultures and I have learnt a lot from each one of them. Reiki is a practice which celebrates difference and helps people grow in their chosen way or path. I settled back home in the UK in 2014, after 20 years of living all over the world, and my practice is now in Hardwick, just outside Cambridge. I have been a teacher member of the UK Reiki Federation since 2014.
Ready to start untangling?
Loosen the knots, and untie the string to release the blocks and heal from within.