Be Kind To Every Living Thing

I remember in my Reiki 1 class when we were discussing the Precepts and, as I looked at this one, I thought "Of course, that means we take care of the environment, be nice to people and animals and treat them with respect, etc. etc." Imagine my surprise when my teacher suggested that, first and foremost, we needed to be kind to ourselves!


I guess it came as a surprise to me because, frankly, I'm not very good at it. I referenced a book in my last blog post called "Radical Acceptance - Embracing Your Life With The Heart Of A Buddha" by Tara Brach and she begins the book with this statement "Believing that something is wrong with us is a deep and tenacious suffering." Yep. That describes me to a T. Both the belief AND the attendant suffering.

But it makes sense, doesn't it? Until we can be gentle with ourselves and treat ourselves with kindness, we cannot be gentle and kind to another living being. Especially around our shortcomings. We all have them. It’s part of being human. When we can have compassion in the face of our own mistakes, we will know what someone else is feeling when they mess up and can treat them with loving kindness instead of derision and disdain. I know for me, that derision and disdain that I often feel towards others is really about me.

That said, I think we have to be careful because kindness, doing for others, doing for this cause and that movement, can also be a cover up for our own feelings of unworthiness.

So what does this mean in terms of our day-to-day lives? Remember the Golden Rule we all learned in grade school – Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? That might be a good place to start. What about animals, pets or otherwise? Plants? Bugs? Personally, I have a difficult time looking the other way when there is a spider dangling from the ceiling in front of my face as I’m working out on my elliptical. But why? What am I afraid of? Well, what if it was poisonous? Hmmm. That’s a tough one, though I don't think there are any where I live...

I think the difficulty is that when we give ourselves permission to kill that spider or fly, or whatever, it’s easier to give ourselves permission to not care about the bird who flies into a window or the bear caught in a horribly painful trap, the homeless animals, the homeless people…and then where does it end?

Does that mean we beat ourselves up if we accidentally step on a bug? No, but it might mean that we stop for a moment the next time we encounter one and consider whether we might be able to shoo it out the door or...just let it be.

What about learning to sit with and breathe through those uncomfortable feelings instead of trying to avoid them or cover them, make up for them, by numbing out with a substance or an activity? When we can do that, we learn that feelings pass. We learn that our feelings are not to be feared and they are not necessarily the truth of who we are. We learn that often, underneath the most uncomfortable feelings, there is something that needs our love and acceptance.

Being kind to all living things. Revering life, all of life, in all its forms. Especially our own.

Namaste,
Janet

I Will Do My Work Honestly

On the surface, the fourth precept seems to be about doing an honest day's work and we can take that to mean several things: Putting our best effort into each and every task, paid or unpaid, and treating those whom we encounter in the course of performing those tasks with integrity and respect. Sound advice to be sure when we consider the benefits to our self-esteem and the resulting healthy relationships that will flow from doing so.

Given that Usui's original intention was that Reiki be a spiritual path, I'd be willing to bet he had something else in mind with this precept.  My guess is that we are being instructed to put some effort each day into working on that spiritual growth by setting aside some time to self treat, meditate on the precepts and what they mean to us, and meditate simply for its own sake, since that was and is a big part of Buddhist practice and we know that Usui was a Tendai Buddhist. 

But where does the "honestly" fit into working on our spiritual path?  Since many of us find it difficult to to squeeze yet another demand into our already crowded days, it might mean that we need to take a look at our need to be so busy.  Are we afraid to face what might surface if we slow down and get quiet?  Anger, perhaps, or worry?  Feeling less-than?  The Chinese pictogram for "busy" also means "heart-killing" - and we can take that literally knowing what we do about the effect of stress on our body, as well as figuratively when we consider the effect of being disconnected from our inner self and not taking time to properly rest and rejuvenate. 

Being overly focused on spiritual growth and development can serve the same purpose, though, by distracting us from what is really going on inside and giving us another way to numb out and/or feel "superior-to".

Incorporating the precepts into our daily lives and using them to guide our thoughts and actions doesn't mean that we beat ourselves up when we fall short - and it's almost inevitable that we will.  It takes courage to honestly face those shadow aspects of ourselves and bring them into the light, where we can hold them tenderly and allow them to heal.  Keeping them hidden only allows them to grow bigger, more menacing and more destructive to ourselves and others.

For anyone wishing to explore this theme even further, I highly recommend reading "Radical Acceptance - Embracing Your Life With The Heart Of A Buddha" by Tara Brach, Ph.D.

Namaste,
Janet

Reiki: A healing touch

Wonderful interview with Reiki Master Pamela Miles, author of "REIKI, A Comprehensive Guide"

Reiki: A healing touch

I Will Count My Many Blessings

My long overdue thoughts on the third Precept:


I'd intended to write this at least in time for the Canadian Thanksgiving last weekend, but I had a terrible case of the blahs which had me feeling less-than-blessed about much of anything but maybe I needed that experience in order to remind me what this Precept is really about for me...


Gratitude.  For everything.  Not just the "good" things because more often than not the "not-so-good" things have something to teach me as well.  Take my "terrible case of the blahs" last weekend.  I wasn't feeling well (and not because I'd eaten too much turkey either!), my sweetie was studying for mid-terms and I was feeling sorry for myself because I still don't have enough clients to quit my oh-so-frustrating job and practice/teach Reiki full-time.  I should mention that my oh-so-frustrating job helps me pay my mortgage, put food on my table, help my sweetie with his studies, take courses myself, buy more books than I can read....)

So, what did I learn from my focus on the "not-so-good" things last weekend?  That I really do have a lot of things in my life to be grateful for - even if practicing/teaching Reiki full-time isn't one of them - yet.  It's still a dream and I still have hope, which is more than a lot of people have.  I also learned (okay, re-learned, for the umpteenth time!) that I have the power to make my day happy or sad, frustrating or not, boring or exhilarating.  I had three days in a row during which I didn't HAVE to do anything! What a luxury!  I got to read to my heart's content (I love reading because it represents so much for me - escape, freedom, knowledge, entertainment) and it was just the two of us for Thanksgiving dinner, so I really didn't have to fuss (I hate cooking and could quite cheerfully exist on President's Choice All Natural Peanut Butter, Country Harvest 12-Grain Bagels and red delicious apples...).

Counting my blessings and feeling grateful for everything that happens in my life doesn't mean that I can't feel sad or angry when I experience a loss or someone crosses a boundary, but it does help me to look at the bigger picture and see it in a more balanced way and for me, Reiki is all about bringing balance to my life (in addition to unconditional life and light, but I'll save that for another day!)

Namaste,
Janet

I Will Let Go Of Worry

The second Precept, for me, is very much a reminder to stay in the moment, in the now. When I do that I'm not fretting about what happened yesterday or what might happen tomorrow.

Without minimizing the difficulties that we all face on a day-to-day basis, when it comes right down to it, worrying does absolutely nothing to eliminate any of them, does it? It can increase our heart rate, make our head spin, keep us awake at night, make us forget to do the things we need to do, make us less effective at performing the task at hand, make us irritable -- in short, it expends a lot of valuable time and energy that might be better spent tending to each moment as it comes.

I recently heard something that really helps me with this: If there is something I can do about a situation right now, go do it. If not, then let it go. Another thing that helps me is setting aside a period of time each day, say an hour, during which to worry. If a worrisome thought pops into my head before that, I shoo it away until the designated time. Guess what? Nine times out of 10, when that hour that I've set aside arrives, I've often forgotten what it was that I was worried about or the reality hits me that I can't do anything about it - or any of the other things that were vying for my attention - at that moment and I'm able to either let it go or, if it is sort of an ongoing worry, I can make a plan to do something about it.

How about some examples...

Let's say I'm worried about a family member's health, but I'm at work and will be for the next 7 hours or so. There isn't much I can do is there? I can make a mental note to check in on them during my "worry hour" later in the day, or perhaps spend some of that hour planning for all of the what-ifs and maybe underneath those what-ifs there lies an issue that I can do something about.

Perhaps I’m tossing and turning at night because I’ve got a presentation to make. If the presentation isn’t finished, I might decide to get up and work on it for a few minutes, but if it’s ready and I’m just fretting about how it will go and whether people will like it, a better choice might be to do some deep breathing, place my Reiki hands on my solar plexus and just trust that all will go well.

Whatever the situation, those last few words make a fine mantra: “Just trust that all will go well."

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the second Precept!

Namaste,
Janet

I Will Let Go Of Anger

Continuing my focus on the Precepts, I remember the first time I saw this one and thinking "Excuse me?!"  My Reiki teacher said she had a similar reaction - must be our similar backgrounds in mental health! 

It's not that anger is bad or that we should never feel angry.  Emotions in and of themselves are not bad - they just "are" - it's what we do with them that gives them their destructive or constructive power and I'd like to think that the meaning behind this Precept relates to not using our anger destructively. 

What do I mean by that? Well, the last time I chose to spend an entire day seething, gritting my teeth, clenching my jaw, swearing under my breath, slamming doors, throwing insults and/or objects, I didn't accomplish very much other than giving myself a terrible headache by the end of the day.  To top it off, my coworkers were tiptoeing around me, my partner and my dogs were doing the same, and I felt ashamed of myself.  Whatever it was that I was angry about was still there to boot.

One of the things that I've learned over the years is that when I feel that heat rising it usually means that somewhere deep inside I'm feeling threatened, not necessarily physically, but perhaps in my sense of self.  If my partner has, for example, chastised me for spending too much money and I react with a nasty comment, it's usually because on some level I know that that particular purchase was impulsive and I feel "exposed".  So, my nasty comment might help me to avoid feeling guilty or ashamed, but it will hurt someone that I love dearly and we'll spend the evening in opposite ends of the house, avoiding each other, licking our wounds and feeling alone and isolated. 

In addition, as much as I do work hard and could argue that I have a right to treat myself, my partner also has a right to expect that I will honour my financial committment to our relationship by not blowing the budget.  If I hold tightly to my "rights" and try too hard to protect that image of myself, I risk getting caught in a cycle of being inauthentic, feeling guilty and ashamed, trying to assuage/distract myself from my guilt and shame with yet another impulsive purchase and around and around I go.  Not helpful to either one of us (or our dogs who sense the upset and react to it just as a child might).

What would happen if, instead of hurling my nasty comment his way, I had said "You know what, honey, you're right. I bought that book (usually books!) because I'm feeling overwhelmed at work this week and I was trying to distract myself from that." Well, usually, I feel a sense of relief because I've named and honoured that sense of overwhelm and in doing so I begin to feel less overwhelmed. That's a bonus right there!  My honesty also allows my partner and I to connect on an emotional level.  He may be able to offer reassurance or insight.  He may even feel safe enough to look at and acknowledge a similar behaviour (or similarly motivated behaviour) in himself.  Win-win!!

So, "I will let go of anger" is not about stuffing our feelings or letting people walk all over us.  It's about standing up for ourselves in ways that both honour us and respect the people around us.  It's about using that energy to effect a positive outcome instead of a negative one where that is possible.  It's about acknowledging that sometimes the situation that angers us isn't likely to change very much and deciding what our best course of action will be in the face of that reality.

Namaste,
Janet

Just For Today...

Ah, a few minutes to sit down and gather my thoughts.  It's been too many days since I've done that!

I've been thinking a lot about the precepts this weekend - perhaps because I had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day at work on Friday and I think I "broke" every one of them! I was projecting into the future, I was very angry, I was worried, I was thinking some very unkind thoughts and not feeling particularly grateful.  I wasn't applying myself to my spiritual work very well either on Friday afternoon and maybe for several days before that.  Maybe if I had sat down sooner to gather my thoughts, they wouldn't have been so all over the place......

Sometimes I think that if Usui Sensei had given us only one precept, Just For Today, we'd still have a pretty good foundation on which to build our spiritual lives and around which to structure even the most mundane tasks that we face each day. 

When I reflect on those three little words, Just For Today, I feel empowered, confident - I can do most anything for 24 hours (not even, because I try to spend at least 7 of those sleeping!).  I'm also reminded that I can't go back and undo yesterday and, as much as I hope that it does, I really have no guarantee that tomorrow is coming, so this day, the one that is unfolding right under my nose, is all I have. 

Does it really matter if one of my superiors was incredibly rude to me? It certainly felt like it at the time and I really wish that I had responded differently than I did but I can learn from the experience and think about a more light and life-giving response for next time, but the experience need not define me and it certainly need not take up any more space in my head than it already has.  If it keeps happening, I may need to revisit the wisdom of staying in that situation, but that is a decision for another moment in time, not this one.

At this moment in time, 8:34 pm on Sunday, September 13, 2009, I am sitting at my desk, typing a blog entry.  My dogs, Smokey and Shadow, are curled up on the floor beside me.  My partner is watching TV downstairs.  I can hear a cricket chirping outside.  All is well and that is all that matters.

What are your thoughts on "Just For Today"? 

Namaste,
Janet

Connection

Just when I thought it couldn't get any better....

This week in the Usui Virtual Retreat our facilitator, Pamela Miles, asked us to think about Reiki as connection, "connection to that which connects us"  and again, she has put into words something that I have felt ever since my Reiki 1 class, but couldn't find the words to express.  Thank you Pamela :)

I don't know that I had ever felt connected, a part of, one with much of anything, at least not on a visceral level, until I became Reiki.  In fact, I often felt the opposite - disconnected, isolated, alone.  And it showed - in the way I viewed myself and the world and in the way treated myself and sometimes others.

Of course there are still moments in my day when I let myself feel stressed in response to something that is going on around me, but when I'm able to step back for moment (even if it's just in my head) and place a Reiki hand on my solar plexus or heart, I feel grounded again, safe, at-one-with, and that feeling allows me to proceed/respond in a way that is life-giving, light-giving and love-giving for myself and whomever else is involved.

Could it be that the sense of disconnection and isolation really is the basis for all that is wrong in our lives, in the world?

Could it be that Reiki is the answer?!

Namaste,
Janet

I Have A Dream...

....in which the system of Reiki becomes so widely accepted and so widely practised that there is a Reiki practitioner in every family. 

...in which we all know and claim the unconditional love, light and healing energy that already exists within each one of us.

...in which Reiki teachers/practitioners the world over work together to make this wonderful life-giving system easily accessible to all who wish to work with it.

You are in that dream!

Can we make it a reality?

Namaste,
Janet

Just Being

This morning as I sat listening to Pamela Miles' superb guided meditation for Week 2 of the Virtual Usui Retreat the following suggestion jumped out at me: "don't try to fix it....just be present with it" and it got me thinking about all of those times in my life that I have felt an uncomfortable sensation, be it emotional, physical or spiritual, and have gone out of my way to try to "fit it" rather than just be still, sit with it and really feel it, really listen to what it was trying to tell me.  More often than not, I made "it" worse with my efforts, rather than better! 

I wonder what would happen if we were all able to just sit with "it" - whatever "it" may be at any given time - and stopped expending so much energy trying to make "it" go away?

I'm nowhere near the expert that I would like to be on just sitting with my stuff but I do know that when I choose to let it, Reiki will ease the discomfort and soothe my senses.

Namaste,
Janet

Reiki As A Spiritual Practice

This is our focus this week at the Usui Virtual Retreat and because it is a topic that is so close to my heart, I wanted to share it here as well.  Our facilitator, Pamela Miles, gives us a working definition of spirituality as follows:  "...that part of us where we sort it all out, where we work out our relationship to ourselves, one another and to life itself...where we cope with uncertainty, where we go beyond the anxiety and the anger that uncertainty can trigger.....our place of inner retreat..."

I couldn't even begin to come up with a better definition of what Reiki is to me other than to add that:

Reiki for me is about stillness, whether I'm doing a self-treatment, treating someone else, meditating on the precepts and/or doing breathwork, it is a slowing down and going within, observing and connecting with what lies there.  Even more than that, though, for me Reiki is about taking that stillness into the world, a world that, for the most part, seems anything but still .

Feeling very grateful today to be taking part in the retreat and to be walking this path.

Namaste,
Janet

Usui Virtual Retreat

For 3 weeks, beginning August 15 and running through to September 4, Usui Virtual Retreat

This first week has been a wonderful reminder for me of the value of Stillness as I focus on being present during my daily Reiki self-treatments.  I'm eager to find out what Pamela has in store for week 2!

The Reiki Precepts

The Reiki Precepts - the foundation around which the system of Reiki was built.  There are several versions but this is the one that really resonates with me:

"Just For Today...

I will let go of anger
I will let go of worry
I will count my many blessings

I will do my work honestly
I will be kind to every living thing"

A wonderful reminder to be in the present moment, to be calm, to use my emotional energy productively, to be grateful, to do my best in all my endeavours, to be compassionate and gentle - with myself and others.  Easier said than done some days, but a very valuable blueprint for living and walking The Reiki Path.

Is there another version that speaks to you?  Tell me about it!