Related reading: Well, how did I get into Reiki, part 1
I love it when every piece of the jigsaw fits. This is my experience with my Reiki practice. If you saw my cv, you’d be surprised at what may seem like a steep number of blind alleys and cul-de-sacs. Threads I’ve pursued for a while and then discarded. Or have I? The last thread before Reiki was particularly hard to let go of and cost me many tears. I was passionate about aspects of my research into Scottish Folklore at the School of Scottish Studies, and although if felt right to give it up for the sake of bringing up our children, this was a painful process that only feels complete now that I have made my peace with the fact that someone who could have given crucial support chose not to.
And with hindsight what a blessing that was, as the academic career I had dreamed of as a young woman would have deflected me from where I can perhaps contribute the most. When I first learned Reiki from one of the first teachers in Scotland who had trained in Reiki in Japan (in a westernised form) in the 1980s, I instantly fell in love with this simple healing practice and had sometimes remarkable treatment experiences. So much so that my Reiki Master commented he thought that with Reiki I had really hit on my path. Eight years later this feels more true than ever. My first Reiki teacher having gone abroad soon after teaching me the first two levels, I was then left looking out for a new Reiki Master, someone who I could fully trust to take the next step into the unknown with, as Reiki in its Western incarnation seemed a little mysterious to me and I had not yet found its more down-to-earth Japanese counterpart. A year or so of fortnightly meetings (I cannot be sure now, all I remember for certain is that I became a Western Reiki Master in early 2006) taught me to fully open my mind and my heart.
While I loved Reiki practice and had good experiences, I always keenly sensed what seemed to me like inconsistencies and contradictions in Reiki as it has become so well known in the West. And most of all, I longed for more insight into the Japanese roots of the practice, and as soon as I realised that these had just become accessible to Westerners through the Yamaguchi family, I jumped at the first opportunity that presented itself to train with Tadao Yamaguchi in Duesseldorf in 2006. And almost everything else that I have done or experienced before my encounter with Jikiden Reiki, be it teaching, journalism, media studies, exhibition interpretation, research, my family background or my psychological wiring all seem to come together to support me on my mission to make Japanese Reiki more accessible to the public. Even my early fascination with theorists such as Walter Benjamin or artists such as Brecht and Eisenstein comes in handy now, as I feel that their theories on building context from fragments have helped me grasp the potential of social media quickly and easily.
It’s not at all that it’s always been easy or that it is always easy now. Rather it is the deeply anchored sense that I am exactly where I want to be that sustains me in times when many people appreciate what I do as well as in those when it seems as if noone else cared. It simply does not matter, and when temporarily the going has been tough there is always my inner knowing that with Reiki I am on a path that is right for me.
Frank Arjava Petter’s workshop in Edinburgh
The incredible strength that comes with being aligned with a meaningful purpose, for me (and using me to demonstrate), was beautifully illustrated by an exercise we did last week-end at Frank Arjava Petter’s Japanese Reiki techniques workshop.
Or, in the words of the Dalai Lama: “When you do what you love, synchronicity starts happening. And because you enjoy what you’re doing, there’s less need to give up when your expectations aren’t met straight away. You have the will and the faith to keep going.” The lesson I learned from organising this particular workshop is that when I let go and trust, things fall into place as if by themselves.
View some photos of the workshop with Frank Arjava Petter here
Related reading: Well, how did I get into Reiki, part 1
Photo credit: Jikiden Reiki practitioner Zlatica Retzler (many thanks!)
Simply Jikiden Reiki 