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

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!