You Can Call Me Master

Just For Today

I will not anger.

I will not worry.

Honor your parents, teachers and elders.

Earn your living honestly.

Show gratitude to every living thing.

Four years after receiving my first Reiki treatment, I recently received my own initiation to Reiki Master. I flew up to New York to meet with my mentor and begin the two day process to receive the attunements to the Master level. I had absolutely no idea what to expect.

After receiving my level 1 and 2 advanced, I felt something had “shifted” as soon as I did my first self-practice. They say after you are initiated you are “empowered” to practice Reiki and that was certainly corresponding to what I was feeling. Yet, it was only through my daily practice in the months to follow that first training did I truly feel all the benefits of Reiki. One session made me feel great, but a few years of daily practice changed my life.

As the day unfolded, I found myself writing down the same phrase over and over again: “All work and no play make Jen a dull girl.” Just kidding. What I wrote on my hot pink moleskin notebook that I brought along to jot down any gems of wisdom that came to me, (Reiki is taught orally so you really are not required or encouraged to note take), was “A daily practice of Reiki is my commitment to healing.”

To begin the healing process, you have to decide whether you are trying to “feel Better” or trying to heal long term. If you want to feel better, you have a massage, get a drink, go shopping, take a pill, have a spa day read a self-help book, etc. If you want to heal, you have to be committed. It takes time and dedication to heal. I didn’t even know I needed healing when I first started this process. I just thought I was learning a new modality. But miraculously over time, I found that this new lens I was looking through had started to put things into focus that I couldn’t even see were blurry before.

After the Master initiation, I expected to feel “Reikfied” on a whole different level. For me that is a more balanced, relaxed state. Nice and easy. I usually explain the feeling Reiki gives me by telling people to envision themselves in their favorite weather.

For me that is sitting in a beach chair looking at the blue ocean, it is 76 degrees and sunny with a slight breeze and all is right with the world. Since Reiki goes where it needs to go and does what it needs to do, it had something else in mind for me that day.

As I sat in the chair to practice a few moments of self-Reiki after my Mentor had finished with the attunements, I felt my heart start beating faster and faster. A feeling of anxiety grew from the bottom of my belly and rose up like wildfire burning up through my chest into my throat and eventually encompassing me entirely. I was wracked with emotion and fear. I opened my eyes and started breathing deeply and evenly trying to calm down. It was if every buried fear I had ever pushed down to the depths of my heart over the course of my lifetime had risen to the surface. Pandora’s box was opened and I was stricken with panic. I collected myself as best I could and made my way across the hall to the discussion room where my Master was waiting for me with a big grin on her face. I don’t think she quite expected dilated pupils and white knuckles.

“Something very strange has happened!”

I looked to her and she motioned for me to sit down. As I shakily made my way to my seat she said, “Before you tell me what is wrong, I want you to realize that sometimes during attunements, you can experience quite a shift. Perhaps you have unlocked some things that had been suppressed for quite a long time. As soon as she said the words my breathing started to regulate and I immediately recognized that is exactly what had happened. Nothing Earth shattering was brought out of my memory banks. Just all of the everyday fears, frustration and worries that we keep tempered down because its just easier just said, time to go! I had turned the light on in the attic and mice were scurrying.

Occasionally during a Reiki session, you will feel a twitch or heat where the practitioner’s hands are or have been and sometimes you feel the urge to swallow or your stomach starts rumbling. Reiki is like a snowflake and no two sessions are alike so sometimes these things happen and sometimes they don’t. However, the Master attunements were so powerful for me that I had no room left for these buried hurts and I felt my soul purge itself of the waste I had been carrying around with me.

Nothing in my life has changed except the lens I am looking at the world through. And it ain’t really rose colored. Because healing doesn’t mean now I will float through life happy, calm and full of peace without a care in the world — I am a human being after all — I will still get frustrated and have fears, but I have the ability to come back to my practice and accept, not change, but accept whatever is happening and move on from there.

It is my hope that now that I have the ability to initiate I will be able to help others make their own commitment to healing. Reiki is a wonderful way for anyone to reconnect to who they truly are.  Not what other people’s perception of you is but rather the balanced and whole person we all truly are. Mothers, fathers, kids, whole families, people in the business world, absolutely anyone who through the course of everyday life comes out of balance, (so everyone!), would benefit from being able to practice Reiki on themselves and their loved ones. (Even pets love Reiki!)

I don’t feel that now that I have accomplished this level of practice that I have done it all. I truly feel that this is only the beginning for Reiki and me. I am filled with gratitude and excitement that I can pass along this miraculous gift to others and look forward to being a part of their commitment to heal themselves.

Just For Today

I will not anger.

I will not worry.

Honor your parents, teachers and elders.

Earn your living honestly.

Show gratitude to every living thing.