Copyright

Published by Hachette Digital

ISBN: 978-1-405-51531-3

Copyright © 2008, 2010 by Penelope Quest

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

Hachette Digital

Little, Brown Book Group

100 Victoria Embankment

London, EC4Y 0DY

www.hachette.co.uk

This book is dedicated to my mother, Irene Monica Harris (1913–1999), who taught me to appreciate life and live it my way.

Disclaimer

This book gives non-specific, general advice and should not be relied on as a substitute for proper medical consultation. Reiki does not replace normal allopathic medical treatment. Reiki helps to enhance the process of harmony of the mind, body, emotions and spirit, and is a means of supporting and complementing medical treatment. If you have any acute or chronic disease you should consult a qualified medical practitioner.

While all suggested treatments are offered in good faith, the author and publisher accept no liability for damage of any nature resulting directly or indirectly from the application or use of information in this book, or from failure to seek medical advice from a doctor.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the many people who have helped, directly or indirectly, with this book, especially to my friend Revd Simon John Barlow, for allowing me to adapt some of the material we wrote together for our workshops on consciousness, meditation and visualization. I would also like to thank my son Chris and daughter Kathy for their unfailing love and support in everything I do, and my many Reiki friends and students for the love and learning they have brought me. In addition, thank you to Helen, Gill, Krystyna and Rebecca from Piatkus, for their enthusiasm and help, and to my readers for all the wonderful emails you send me, which are always greatly appreciated and very inspiring.

Of course, special thanks go to my Reiki teachers Kristin Bonney, William Lee Rand, Andy Bowling, Richard Rivard and Robert Jefford, who have been so instrumental in my own Reiki journey. Thanks also go to the many other teachers and writers who have advanced my knowledge and experience in the various other subjects, such as psychology, NLP, EFT, abundance theory, meditation and spiritual development, which have been such a useful foundation for writing this book.

INTRODUCTION

Reiki has been an essential part of my life since 1991 when I attended my first Reiki course, and I have been trying to ‘live the Reiki way’ ever since. I worked part-time as a Reiki practitioner for a number of years, alongside my work as a lecturer and senior manager in a college, and in 1994 I qualified as a Reiki Master – the term that describes a teacher of Reiki. By 1996 I knew that practising and teaching Reiki was what I really wanted to do, so I left my job in order to devote more time to teaching and writing about Reiki.

However, along the way, in addition to learning more and gaining further qualifications in Reiki and writing a number of books on the subject, I have followed many other interests and gained knowledge and experience in a wide range of topics, including psychology, meditation and visualization, Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), Native American and Celtic shamanism, abundance theory and cosmic ordering, and other areas of study that promote understanding, personal growth and a holistic view of the person. My special interest in healing has also led me to learn a number of other healing methods, such as Hawaiian Huna and Karuna Reiki®, and recently I added to my academic qualifications by gaining a Masters degree in Health and Healing Science.

It was this wide-ranging background that led me to want to write a book about living with the Reiki principles in today’s hectic world. For me, living the Reiki way hasn’t just been about Reiki, although Reiki has certainly been the most important aspect of my personal spiritual and healing journey for nearly twenty years. But I believe that Reiki has also been instrumental in guiding me to other methods for personal growth and spiritual development, as well as to various self-help techniques for my own healing, and this is why I have incorporated some of these within this book. While I think Reiki is fantastic, I am aware that it isn’t the only way forward, so I wanted to present some other methods for people to explore. Sometimes Reiki is all you need, and at other times another method, such as NLP, EFT, or working through a visualization, will help to produce the shift in perception or energy you need to help you to deal with a problem.

Nearly a century ago Dr Mikao Usui, the founder of the healing system we call Reiki, encouraged his students to live by the following precepts:

Just for today, do not anger, do not worry, be filled with gratitude, devote yourself to your work, and be kind to people.

Reiki students today are advised to live by the same principles, but perhaps these present even more of a challenge in the 21st century. Nevertheless, I believe they can be a great help and support to people in their everyday lives, as well as offering a way to a more spiritual path of personal growth.

Living the Reiki Way isn’t just intended for people who already use Reiki, although I hope they will find plenty within its pages that is both helpful and inspiring. It is a book for anyone interested in personal growth and spiritual development – so whether you’ve just done your first Reiki course, or have practised or taught Reiki for years, or even if this is the first you’ve heard about Reiki, you will find something here for you.

Living the Reiki Way includes suggestions for using Reiki (or healing energy) to help you to cope with strong emotions like anger, or to understand how being grateful can bring a lot of joy and happiness into your life – although these methods can only be employed by those who have undertaken at least one Reiki course. However, there are plenty of other techniques that anyone can use, whether they have learned Reiki or not. These include meditations, visualizations and self-help techniques utilizing NLP and EFT, all of which you will find beneficial.

For those who may not know very much about Reiki, Chapter 1 covers the Reiki basics, including what Reiki is, where it originated, how it works, what a Reiki treatment consists of, what effects Reiki can have and how you can learn to do Reiki yourself. If you need more detailed information about Reiki, you will find it in my other books – The Basics of Reiki, Reiki for Life and Self-healing with Reiki (see Further Reading, page 255).

While this is therefore a book based on Reiki, it embraces a great deal more than Reiki alone: it provides information, advice and useful techniques to help you navigate through strong emotions, negative thinking habits, fear, worry, lack of self-belief and other issues that might be holding you back from achieving your true potential. It offers principles for living today that are every bit as vital as they were when Dr Usui was alive, and that can help you to change, let go of destructive patterns of thinking and feeling, and develop your own positive attitudes, beliefs, concepts and philosophy for life.

Living the Reiki Way is about living thoughtfully, kindly, generously, gratefully, calmly, confidently, considerately, diligently, conscientiously and happily. If those are aspects you would like to demonstrate in your life, read on!

part one

REIKI BASICS

The secret method of inviting happiness;

The wonderful medicine for all diseases.

Mikao Usui

chapter one

WHAT IS REIKI?

This book is about living the Reiki way, or, in other words, living with the Reiki Principles in today’s modern world. Anyone who has taken part in a Reiki course or workshop will know what the Reiki Principles are, but there may be readers of this book who haven’t heard of them before, and perhaps, more to the point, don’t really know what Reiki is. To set the scene, in this chapter I describe briefly what Reiki is and where it came from – this will make other chapters in this book easier to understand. However, if you have already read one of my other books, especially The Basics of Reiki or Reiki for Life, or have taken part in a Reiki course, you can probably skip this chapter and go straight to Chapter 2. For anyone else, please read on!

THE ORIGINS OF REIKI

We may never know the exact origins of Reiki as a healing system, but it probably dates back at least 2,500 years, as we know that the Buddha used something similar, and it is likely to be even older than that. However, the healing system we use today in the West, which we call Reiki, was developed initially in the 1920s by Dr Mikao Usui (1865–1926), a Buddhist priest in Japan, and further developed by one of his students, Dr Chujiro Hayashi (1879–1940), who passed his teachings on between 1936 and 1938 to a Hawaiian woman of Japanese parentage, Mrs Hawayo Takata (1900–1980). She was responsible for bringing the teachings to the West, initially to Hawaii, the USA and Canada, and through the 22 teachers (Reiki Masters) she taught between 1972 and 1980 to the rest of the Western world.

WHAT IS REIKI?

The way in which Reiki is seen in the West today is primarily as a form of complementary therapy – a safe, gentle, non-intrusive, hands-on healing technique that uses spiritual energy (the Japanese word reiki means spiritual energy or universal life-force energy) to treat physical ailments. It is, however, much more than a physical therapy; it is a holistic system for balancing, healing and harmonizing all aspects of the person – body, mind, emotions and spirit – promoting relaxation and a sense of well-being.

It is therefore healing in its most all-encompassing sense – healing the physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual aspects enables a person to become whole, or ‘holy’ in what was possibly the original sense of the word. Unlike other complementary or alternative therapies, the practice of Reiki is also a spiritual discipline that includes meditation, energy-cleansing techniques and spiritual principles for living, and practitioners are encouraged to use Reiki on themselves daily not only for self-healing, but also to increase self-awareness, personal growth and spiritual development.

THE WAY REIKI WORKS

Life-force energy (Ki or Chi) flows within the physical body through energy centres called chakras and pathways called meridians, as well as flowing around the body in a field of energy called the aura. This energy field responds to everything we think, say, feel and experience, and it becomes disrupted or blocked whenever we consciously or unconsciously accept and absorb negative words, thoughts, feelings or experiences. If these blockages are not dispersed, their energy can gradually become more dense, which is when they can transform into physical illnesses. Reiki is a spiritual energy vibrating at a very high rate that helps to break through these blockages, flowing through all the affected parts of the aura and the physical body, charging them with positive energy and raising the vibratory level of the whole energy field. It clears and balances the chakras, and straightens the energy pathways (meridians), allowing the life force to flow in a healthy and natural way around the whole body. This strengthens and accelerates the body’s own natural ability to heal itself, and opens the mind, emotions and spirit to an acceptance and understanding of the causative issues that have led to ‘dis-ease’ in both the physical and energy bodies.

Because Reiki is guided by a Higher Intelligence (God, the Universe, your Soul or Higher Self, or whatever description you feel comfortable with), it always finds its way to the areas of the physical body and/or the energy body most in need of healing, without any conscious direction from either the healer or the person being healed, and it adjusts to suit the recipient, so that each person receives as much or as little healing as they need.

A REIKI TREATMENT

Many people first experience Reiki when they receive a Reiki treatment from a holistic practitioner. Reiki treatments take about an hour, and are usually carried out with you lying comfortably on a therapy couch, covered with a soft blanket. You remain fully clothed (except for shoes and coat), and the practitioner’s hands are placed and held still for 3–5 minutes in each of about 12 specific positions over your head and body. There is no pressure, manipulation or massage, and no sensitive or intimate areas of the body need to be touched.

The most usual hand positions are:

Four on the head – the back of the head, over the ears or temples, over the eyes and on either side of the neck.

Four on the front of the body – the upper chest, solar plexus, navel area and pelvic area.

Four on the back of the body – the shoulders, middle of the back, waist level and buttocks.

You usually feel very relaxed, warm and peaceful as the energy flows through you – people often fall asleep during the treatment – although sometimes you might feel heat, coolness or tingles where the practitioner’s hands are placed (this is quite normal). It is also quite normal for people to feel a bit emotional sometimes, as the Reiki releases blocked energy and brings to the surface old issues and patterns to be released, so memories might come flooding back. After a treatment some people feel super-energized, while others feel very tranquil and sleepy.

TREATING YOURSELF WITH REIKI

Once you have learned how to use Reiki, being able to treat yourself is one of its great advantages, because it encourages you to take responsibility for yourself and your own health and well-being, and most Reiki practitioners use it on themselves every day. A full self-treatment involves the same 12 or more hand positions on your head and body as those described above, but you can also give yourself Reiki at other times – while watching television, for example – by simply placing your hands on any part of your body and holding them there for as long as it feels comfortable.

Reiki can also be successfully incorporated into many of the healing arts practised by health professionals, such as reflexology, aromatherapy, shiatsu, osteopathy, etc, because the Reiki energy can simply flow out of the practitioner’s hands during the treatment, to promote even greater healing effects.

THE EFFECTS OF REIKI

Most people who go for a Reiki treatment want help with a specific physical problem, from frequent headaches or a frozen shoulder, to more serious complaints, although some simply want to be able to relax and cope better with the stresses of modern life – you don’t have to be ill to benefit from Reiki! The potential with Reiki is unlimited, so anything can be treated, but it is important to rid yourself of specific expectations of what it will do, and how fast it will perform. Many physical symptoms can be eased very quickly, while others may need a lot of Reiki before starting to respond, but it is essential to remember that it is your own body that is actually doing the healing.

The human body has an amazing ability to regenerate itself, as most of the cells in your body are replaced each year, which is why physical healing can happen – as an example, if you cut yourself, new skin cells are produced to heal the cut. Some people report amazing, even miraculous, effects from Reiki treatments, but ‘healing’ is not always the same as ‘curing’, although we tend to use the words interchangeably, which creates misunderstanding. Healing doesn’t always occur on the physical level first. Because Reiki works holistically, it may be that healing needs to happen first at the emotional level, with the releasing of anger, guilt or hatred, or it may be required first at the mental level, releasing negative thoughts, concepts or attitudes, or at the spiritual level, developing self-awareness, self-understanding and self-love, before the physical symptoms can be addressed.

If you are open-minded and willing to receive the Reiki (belief in it is not a prerequisite) healing will take place, although it may not always be in quite the way you expect – Reiki goes where it is needed, not always where you want it to go! Ultimately, if you want the healing to be permanent you have to take responsibility for healing the cause. This may mean changing how you think or the way you relate to other people, or even altering your whole lifestyle, from your diet and home environment to your close relationships, job or career. Surprisingly, perhaps, Reiki can help with these adjustments too, allowing you to approach the changes in a relaxed way.

LEARNING HOW TO USE REIKI

Reiki is probably the simplest and easiest holistic healing method available to us, so anyone can learn to use it, whatever their age or gender, religion or origin. No specific previous knowledge or experience is required – only a desire to learn, willingness to let this healing energy flow through you and a little time to attend your first course. The ability to channel Reiki can only be acquired by being transferred to the student by a qualified Reiki Master (Teacher) in a special ceremony during a Reiki course, called an attunement, which is a form of spiritual empowerment based on ancient Buddhist techniques. This attunement process makes Reiki unique and is the reason why the ability to heal can be developed so quickly yet so permanently. It activates a Reiki channel through which the Reiki healing energy can flow, and once you have been attuned you will be able to use Reiki for the rest of your life – the ability to channel Reiki doesn’t wear off or wear out. From then on, whenever you intend to use Reiki, simply thinking about it, or holding your hands out in readiness to use it on yourself or someone else, will activate the flow of Reiki energy.

There are three levels of training, usually referred to as ‘degrees’. These do not refer to (or confer) any academic level or qualification; they are just used to describe the different training levels.

At First Degree, which can be a one- or two-day course, you normally receive four ‘attunements’, which gradually open up your inner healing channel, allowing Reiki to flow through. The emphasis at this level is on self-healing, although you will also be taught how to carry out a treatment on family, friends and animals.

The Second Degree course usually takes one or two days, and includes another attunement that enables you to access even more Reiki. You learn three sacred symbols (shapes that you draw in the air with your hand) and their mantras (sacred names). These are called the Distant (Connection) symbol that allows you to connect with anyone or anything in any time or space; the Harmony (Mental and Emotional) symbol that helps to bring peace and harmony to a person, animal or situation; and the Power (Focus) symbol that brings extra Reiki energy into whatever it is focused upon. You will also learn some special ways of using them, including a form of distant healing that enables you to ‘send’ a Reiki treatment to anyone, anywhere, with the same effectiveness as if that person was with you. This is sometimes referred to as practitioner level, although it is possible to practise Reiki professionally at First Degree level.

The Third Degree is the level of a Reiki Master (Teacher), and involves essentially making a life-long commitment to the mastery of Reiki, which requires a lot of personal and spiritual development and learning, in addition to working with Reiki every day. Reiki Master training can be a short course, or it may be an apprenticeship over a longer period of time with an experienced Master. At this level you learn another symbol and mantra, some advanced healing techniques and how to attune others to the Reiki energy.

In the rest of this book you will find many techniques that will help you to ‘live the Reiki way’, but I should point out that if you haven’t yet undertaken at least a Reiki First Degree (Reiki 1) course, you won’t be able to carry out any of the Reiki techniques, as you won’t yet have established a flow of the Reiki energy, which can only be acquired by receiving a Reiki attunement from a qualified Reiki Master. However, the other self-help methods that are described in the following chapters are open to anyone, whether you have learned about Reiki or not, so I hope you will give them a try.

The next chapter details the Reiki Principles that Dr Usui passed on to his students to help them to live a good life, which are the major focus of this book: just for today, don’t get angry, don’t worry, be grateful, work hard and be kind to others.