11 minute read
Tools for Listening to Reiki Energy
by Dr. Duncan Cross
I’ve been an Usui Reiki Master Teacher since 2000, (through a Beth Gray lineage) and have also undertaken training through the John Harvey Gray Lineage with Lourdes Gray and have had training in Holy Fire® III and Karuna Master Holy Fire® III. I’ve also been a teacher of language and communication skills, medical education and teacher training since 2001 and teach at a University in the UK.
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During some of my other training, we were discussing teaching and supporting the development of sensing the energy during the Reiki 1 class and also when going into practice. I brought in my experience of teaching and supporting learning using metaphysical causations of illness (metaphysics for the rest of this article) as a tool for developing listening to the energy, yourself, and the client.
Some may be familiar with this idea from Louise Hay and her books ‘You Can Heal Your Life and You Can Heal Your Body’, but I’m writing to share with the community who may not be familiar with this concept. I also presented about this at the 2021 Reiki Rays summit.
Learning to listen to (or perceive) the energy with the hands and intuition can be difficult for many who are coming to Reiki for the first time. It can also be difficult for those who have been practising for some time but don’t know how to express, interpret and communicate what they are sensing. This difficulty can lead to lots of confusion, anxiety, and feelings of inadequacy, especially if others in a class or Reiki share are discussing sensations, perceptions, or intuitive responses. Regardless of what we teach regarding listening to perceptions or intuition, some find it harder to hear or understand the guidance they may be receiving from the energy. Also, some have an ingrained fear of what we are teaching and of listening to the energy. Moving beyond this obstacle can be tricky, but it’s important to provide a scaffold for our learners to grab onto to support their development.
One of the first things I discuss with my students is knowing when to move hand positions, which can be tricky even for those who can feel the energy. I always tell them to ask the energy, “Is it time to move on?” and go with that first strong answer of yes or no. For some, this question can be the first building block of developing their skills, but what next? For those of us who are teachers, our job is to give some direction or guidance to our Reiki students to find a way for them to process and understand what they are receiving. Practitioners may just want another tool or technique to support their development. Metaphysics is one tool that we can use to give a framework of understanding that can be built upon during further practice.
Dr. Duncan Cross
What are Metaphysical causations of illness?
talks about the positive and negative “mental thought patterns that form our experiences” and how the power of words and thoughts impact us. Those consistent patterns of words and thoughts create our experiences, with the negative repeating patterns potentially going on to cause dis-ease in the body. In Heal Your Life, Hay discusses the need to understand whether the mental cause could be true for you and to explore what may have caused those thoughts and then to release those thoughts using affirmations, as she states ”What we think about ourselves becomes the truth for us” . As Reiki practitioners, we have additional tools to support healing for clients and ourselves.
How do we teach them?
The easiest way to teach metaphysics is when we are teaching the hand positions for treatment on somebody else or when we are running a reiki share with students and want to give them some tools. Whilst we are taking the learners through a treatment, we may be talking about anatomy and what is under our hands. We can also talk about some of the emotional responses (metaphysics) that may present in the physical body as we move through the positions. For some it is better to do this during a self-treatment, as they can start to gain an understanding of what they are feeling and how it corresponds to their own situation (though they may not necessarily share what they find), giving them confidence when they then treat someone else.
I think it’s important to note that in the context of teaching, they can use this tool to develop their energetic listening skills and intuition. You may not want to go into a lot of detail about the causations. For some, this exercise will be a moment of clarity and insight into their own situation, but it might not be appropriate, or fair, to explore further in a classroom environment. I listen to the energy when teaching this technique and ensure that I’ve met a necessary threshold of understanding.
As we move through the hand positions, not only can we start to understand what may be happening in an immediate area, but we can begin to piece together a more holistic story of experiences. This insight can also be achieved more swiftly through byosen scanning as you feel drawn to multiple areas before you start the treatment, which allows additional insight into the treatment and allows for potentially a more holistic response to the client.
How do we understand what we are hearing?
When we are treating a person, the body usually gives multiple sources of information that we can interpret to support the healing. Memorising the emotional causations for the standard hand positions gives your session that extra tool, but we still have to put together this information.
For example, in one position, your hands are likely to be covering the liver, stomach and gall bladder, depending, of course, on the size of your hands. The thought patterns associated with the stomach are around nourishment, new ideas and potentially fear of new ideas; the liver tends to represent anger and the gall bladder bitterness. Independently, this information might not make much sense if we have byosen scanned. However, another area may give us more information into the situation, such as the shoulder, which represents our ability to carry our experiences, and the neck, which represents flexibility.
So in this example, you might feel the energy pull to the stomach, the right shoulder and the right side of the neck. From this information, we could say that there is anger (stomach) towards a situation or responsibility (shoulder) that is inflexible (neck). There are two more things that can help us with understanding the situation. Firstly is the side of the body or organ.
Generally, the left side represents a female perception and the right a male perception. Secondly, perception of the person is key to them releasing a thought pattern, alongside a “willingness to release” .
Tools for Listening to Reiki Energy...continued
by Dr. Duncan Cross
(Continued from page 9)
So without speaking to the client, you could assume that they are holding anger about a male in their life that is not taking responsibility and is being inflexible or fixed about the situation. Sounds simple, but there are nuances that we have to take into account. What if the client we are treating is male? Are we putting together a picture about someone else in their life, or is the anger at themselves for how they’ve handled a situation? You have to use your intuition for clarity.
How Do We Use It in Practice?
We can use metaphysics in 2 ways when we are treating or working with others:
1. To enhance our understanding of the energy and the healing the clients may be undergoing, which the example above demonstrates 2. To support and listen to the clients through conversation as they are verbalising and/ or releasing negative thought patterns that may be impacting their energetic field. This listening is not counselling.
So how do we know which one it is? Firstly, we take note of the clients. Very often if the clients are chatty when they are on the table or during the treatment, then I weave this listening practice into the session; if they are silent, I don’t use this technique at all during the treatment, as this generally signals that they either don’t want to release this thought pattern yet, or I’m not the person they want to release with/to.
We also listen to Reiki, and we trust our instincts on what we do, and if we don’t know, we ask the energy a question: “Is this for me or for the client?” If the answer is that the information is only for the practitioner, the energy is presenting a learning opportunity and indicating very strongly that the client does not want to discuss this problem with us. When this scenario happens, I tell learners to think about what they are feeling, and if they are not sure to ask the energy a question, e.g. “Why am I feeling this?” If I get that the information is for the client, I gently test the waters of conversation, and if I’m not getting engagement in the conversation, then I stop.
Here is an example of when I used metaphysics in a session:
Sam was a woman in her forties, married with three children. She had come for a Reiki session because she had felt stressed, and a friend had recommended Reiki for relaxation. Sam was unsure of Reiki and was quite nervous when I asked her if there were any areas that she felt needed attention; she was adamant that she was fine. I got her settled in and described what would happen and put my hands in the first position. There was an immediate draw of energy into her stomach. I was then able to check in energetically for areas to go to. What came through very strongly was the right shoulder and the left side of her neck.
I continued through the positions, and she was quite chatty about life generally, which gave me an opening to a conversation. I gently dropped in her reason for coming and asked what was stressing her out so much. She gave quite a vague answer, but I was able to relate to her story with an example of my own linked to anger, responsibility and flexibility (I was annoyed at my boss, for dumping responsibility on me and being inflexible about my vacation time). At this point, Sam opened up.
With three children, she was finding it difficult to
work, support her three children especially as one was going through a tough time (Shoulder), and she was angry her husband wasn’t helping her, she was tense every time he got home, and they were arguing more and more (stomach). As she talked, the energy shifted, and some of her tension started to bleed away. As she slowed down, I asked her questions as part of a conversation, e.g. “What wasn’t he doing? Why was she doing it all? Was she asking her husband to support her?” As the conversation unfolded, it became clear to her that her husband was supporting her, and that she was shutting him out of supporting her daughter (she felt it was her responsibility only - Neck) It was her perception that he wasn’t helping because she had become so focused and fixed on one solution. She was angry at her husband for not supporting her, but it was her perception that he wasn’t doing enough. Through the rest of the treatment, she talked and verbalised what she was going to do when she got home. When she got off the table, she was apologetic for “offloading her problems” - but she’d been so relaxed by the heat in my hands that she’d had the space to think properly, and she felt that I wouldn’t judge her. She came back several times for sessions and stated that the Reiki had relaxed her so much, and she thought it was fantastic, but she couldn’t convince her husband to give it a go. The Reiki energy gave Sam the relaxation and healing she needed in a safe space, and the metaphysics gave me a tool to facilitate a release. This technique isn’t always appropriate, and I avoid going into specific details about body parts and emotions. I tend to find that shared experience or story that resonates with the client gives them the opening they need to fully experience the power of Reiki.
The Reiki energy is our prime teacher; we just have to learn the right tools to learn to listen to it more closely and be willing to “go within” to support our clients healing, and perhaps more importantly our own healing. Sometimes the difficulties that we have in learning to listen to the energy and our intuition are related to our own ability to love ourselves. Do yourself a favour, put your hands on for a self-treatment and re-affirm that love with Reiki.
Look out for a webinar or workshop soon.
Duncan Cross PhD, PgCert, BSc (Hons), PGCE, PFHEA, NTF UKRF Reiki Research Coordinator
Duncan Cross is a Master Teacher Member of the UK Reiki Federation. Duncan practices and teaches Usui Shiki Ryoho Usui in Manchester, UK. He is an Associate Teaching Professor and National Teaching Fellow.
Hay, Louise; Heal your Body. California: Hay House Inc. (Page 5) Hay, Louise; You can heal your life. Middlesex: Eden grove Editions. (Page 1) Hay, Louise; Heal your Body. California: Hay House Inc. (Page 7) Hay, Louise; Heal your Body. California: Hay House Inc. (Loving treatment, Page 84) Hay, Louise; Heal your Body. California: Hay House Inc. (Page 7) REIKI WORLD MAGAZINE - UKRF 11
