So I've started doing reiki with people and some pretty wild stuff has been happening.
Years ago I took a reiki training because my hands had started getting all tingly and I thought I should learn how to do something with that energy. The training involved classes, a workbook and lots of hand positions that there was no way I was going to remember without practicing a lot—and there was no way I was going to practice that much—so I gave up.
And then few months ago I met someone who straddled an interesting intersection of corporate and energy work. As we chatted, she mentioned that she'd been playing around with the idea of "Reiki for Leaders." She wasn't even sure what it meant or what it looked like, but she sensed it could be game-changing.
My whole body lit up.
I said, "I don't know what that is, but I want it."
Then we both got giddy and brainstormed the course into existence.
This week I completed that course as a student, and have been practicing on anyone I could get my hands on.
One of the best things about the way Ashley Barnes teaches reiki is that you don't have to learn any hand positions. You learn a basic structure and then do what feels right. You can do it over zoom or over the phone, you can do it in any way that makes sense to you.
This approach was so freeing! And it's the reason I've felt so good experimenting with people all week--it was an invitation to trust myself and just see what happens.
And here is one of the things that happened:
While I often saw images as I was doing the reiki, with one person I heard words.
These words emerged one at a time and repeated themselves in an evolving pattern until all ten words came out. My sense was that these were the things that this person needed to either receive, create, experience or simply know to be true in order to move into the vision he held for his work.
With permission, I'm sharing those ten words here because they feel like an effective guide for all of us:
Simplicity
Clarity
Direction
Ease
Love
Peace
Grounded
Capable
Held
Source
And here are some ways you might invite them to work for you…
What if you simplified? What if you chose ONE thing to focus on, and put your attention on it until it was completed?
What if you asked the buzzing voices in your head, with all their ideas of other things you could be doing and ways you could be doing them, and their opinions about the potential success and failure of every venture, to quiet down for a few minutes, and then invited clarity in? What if you asked yourself, "What would I really love to be doing right now?"
What if you chose one direction and followed it for a stretch of time to see what unfolded?
What if you believed things could be easy? What if you asked before you started something, "How can this be easy?" (Thank you Angella Johnson for that question!)
What if you believed you were loved? Exactly as you are? What if you believed you were worth being loved, exactly as you are?
What if you invited peace into your heart, your body, your work? What if you sought peace in your relationships and in your mind? What if you created a peaceful space in which you could sit and be and wait to see what shows up?
What if you made a point of grounding yourself before you began your work? What if you decided that you were a grounded person with excellent intuition and the ability to follow through?
What if you believed you were, in fact, capable?
What if you discovered that you were being held? All the time?
What if you realized you were partnered with Source? What if you knew that your work is, as the amazing Jennifer Urezzio puts it, simply to take the next inspired inner and outer actions, and to remember that Source is handling the bigger picture?
I have these ten words written out and sitting on my desk so I can remember the things that will likely make my life easier and open up more flow. I've suddenly become weirdly excited about simplifying and focusing. I've been much clearer this week about what I do and don't want, what I can and can't do, and about the fact that I'm allowed to feel these things and make these decisions.
I hope you find something valuable in these words too. And if you need permission to believe that something it's OK to do something in your own unique, intuitive way—permission granted.