PollDaddy lists the number of votes rather than the number of voters. Many readers didn’t notice this detail, and some expressed dismay at what seemed to be a low percentage of practitioners giving themselves daily Reiki treatments. But the stats were meaningless.

Which brings us to Round Two. How many Reiki practitioners give themselves daily treatment? Let’s find out.

Please respond to this very short poll and share it widely. All practitioners from all lineages, at any level of practice are asked to vote.

Can we collectively bring in over 1000 votes? The more votes we get, the more meaningful the poll is.

Once you’ve voted, click here to comment why you do or don’t practice daily self-Reiki.

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Reiki Self-Treatment Poll is a post from: reikiinmedicine.org

The best scenario for learning to practice Reiki is an in-person class with a qualified, responsive Reiki master who is also a skilled teacher, and who offers students on-going support. A group class is a richer experience than going solo. Interacting directly with people in the same room, both the teacher and other students, enlivens the learning experience in ways even the most sophisticated technology cannot replace.

Here are some points to consider when choosing a Reiki class and Reiki master:

• The teacher’s Reiki competence–
  Does she practice daily self-treatment? What was her Reiki training? What is her Reiki lineage? Was she a Reiki professional offering treatment to the public before becoming a Reiki master? What teaching experience does she have? What avenues has she created to offer students continuing support? It takes time to become a skilled Reiki master/teacher–and I mean years.
• The quality of the teacher’s presence–
  Is she welcoming, non-judgmental, even-tempered, professional, and anything else you feel is important in a teacher? Does she have clear boundaries? Does she communicate clearly?
• Your rapport with the teacher–
  This is an important relationship, so contemplate your values. If you are choosing between a teacher you like vs. one with more experience or a bigger reputation, I’d go with the one you like, especially if she will continue to be accessible to you, as long as she is qualified and committed to her students.
• First degree-only class–
  Give yourself the benefit of taking a class that is devoted to basic hands-on practice, with a focus on daily Reiki self-treatment. The class should include the four First degree initiations; protocols for self-treatment and informally offering Reiki to others (this is not professional training);  an accurate overview of the history of the practice, starting with Mikao Usui; and ample in-class practice time. The goal is for you to feel comfortable continuing your daily self-treatment at home by the time the class ends.
• Time–
  Ten hours or so is a reasonable amount of time for a small group class. It’s preferable for the class to be spread out over two or more days, so you have the opportunity to practice at home and bring your questions to the next session.
• Accessibility of the location–
  Is it necessary for the class to be easily accessible, or is it possible for you to travel to study with a Reiki master you feel drawn to?
• Fee–
  Did your mom ever tell you (as mine did), “You get what you pay for”? Low fees may indicate low confidence, little experience, or lack of grounding. You want a teacher who appreciates Reiki’s value in the world. After all, you live in the world, don’t you? This is a one-time investment that brings dividends for life; it makes sense to be  generous to yourself.

What if you don’t find any appealing Reiki masters in your area, and you are unable to travel? There are still options. Is it feasible for you to organize a class and invite a Reiki master to travel to your area?

At what point might you choose to learn from a qualified, attentive Reiki master who is accessible only through technology? Each prospective student has to ask herself, what is the best learning opportunity for me?

Keep in mind that, should you leave your First degree class feeling unsatisfied for any reason, you can still practice daily self-treatment, and consider the possibility of taking another First degree class at some point. I know many people who have taken more than one First degree class and found it enriching.

Your First degree class will give you everything you need to practice daily hands-on self-treatment ,and to share treatment informally with others for the rest of your life, and that’s all most people need. So don’t feel pressured in any way to take Second degree (distant treatment). But if you want to learn distant treatment, give yourself the benefit of practicing daily hands-on self-treatment for a minimum of 3-6 months before signing up for a Second degree class.

I am a member of The Reiki Alliance, a global organization of Reiki masters who are committed to continuing Hawayo Takata’s standards of slow, thorough training. If you are looking for a teacher, I suggest you start there, but I still encourage you to go through the list of considerations above.

Ultimately, it all comes down to the teacher, her ability to carry the lineage and share the initiations, and to create a healthy relationship with her students.

RELATED POST: Recipe for Reiki Credibility

Reiki Classes: What’s Right for You? is a post from: reikiinmedicine.org

Since there are no agreed-upon standards for Reiki education, Reiki certificates are essentially meaningless. A First degree (beginning level) student might have more training than someone who advertises herself as a Reiki master. This creates a credibility challenge both for people who are new to Reiki, and  for  practitioners who want to showcase their credibility.

How can this challenge be met? If you are new to Reiki, what should you look for? And what can Reiki practitioners communicate to help someone new feel safe enough to follow Dr. Oz’s suggestion to give Reiki a try?

Usually a combination of gut feeling and information tips the trust scale in a Reiki practitioner’s favor. Here are some questions that can help gauge a Reiki practitioner’s credibility quotient, followed by my thoughts on the responses to look for. Most of the questions are a matter of gathering information that needs to be evaluated as a whole; to me, only one is a dealbreaker:

• When were you trained to each level that you practice?
  It’s optimal for each level of Reiki training to be given separately, with adequate time to practice before going to the next level. You need only a First degree practitioner to give you hands-on treatment.
• How many hours long was your training at each level?
  Eight to 12 hours of a group class is adequate for First or again for Second degree. There is much controversy about Reiki master training. Traditionally, becoming a Reiki master was a serious commitment to teach that was offered to only a handful of senior students. This is rarely honored today. Most Reiki masters don’t even teach, so you really have to consider what being a Reiki master means to the individual, and what’s important to you.
• Was your training in-person with a Reiki master?
  Internet training does not replace the onsite presence of a qualified Reiki master and her availability to provide you continuing support.
• What clinical experience do you have? Have you offered Reiki treatment to people outside your family and friends (and pets, if applicable)?
  This question will help you get to know the practitioner better, and provides valuable information for you to factor into your choice. Remember that a practitioner need not be a professional to give you a treatment, but if someone is advertising himself as a professional and charging you, he should have the training and experience to back it up.
• What happens during your Reiki sessions?
  I’d take it as a bad sign if the practitioner gets all cosmic on you at this point. What you’re looking for here is a down-to-earth description of the experience, that you will lie fully clothed on a treatment table, that the practitioner will place hands lightly and non-invasively, how long the session will last, that you will be receiving a Reiki-only session (no crystals, no massage, etc., unless, of course, that is your choice).
• Where will the Reiki session take place?
  Expect a professional to have a private, dedicated treatment space.
• What is the fee and how/when is it paid?
  Fees for Reiki treatment vary enormously depending on location, the practitioner’s level of experience, and whether she is practices Reiki full time or has another source of income. Keep looking until you find a situation that is financially comfortable for you. Remember you can also forego treatment from someone else, and choose to learn to practice First degree self-treatment, a one-time investment that pays lifelong dividends.
• What is your unique perspective as a Reiki practitioner?
  This is where the practitioner has a chance to shine and show you how professional he is, or you may watch him dive off the deep end…
• Do you practice Reiki self-treatment every day?
  Here is the DEALBREAKER. Daily self-practice is the most important way that we develop our understanding of Reiki. Someone who recognizes Reiki as a healing practice (like meditation and yoga) and who actually practices daily self-treatment, will be able to support you with greater depth and confidence than someone who regards Reiki merely as a treatment for others, or for when she’s not feeling well. Why would you want to receive a treatment from a practitioner who doesn’t value Reiki enough to use it to protect and maintain her own health and well-being?

Keep in mind that you don’t need a professional to receive a Reiki treatment. You can receive a Reiki treatment from a friend who practices. But if you are paying someone who considers herself to be a Reiki professional, make sure she meets your professional standards.

And use your common sense. If you don’t like a practitioner, go on to the next.

Any other points you would add? Please post a comment below.

Recipe for Reiki Credibility is a post from: reikiinmedicine.org

This question comes up often.

The answer is simple: We don’t know.

We don’t know.

I find those words liberating. They free me from the common explanation: “the Reiki energy comes through and goes where it’s needed,” and enable me to explore and contemplate my practice. The “Reiki energy” model is, to me, deeply unsatisfying. For one thing, it stretches credulity. And it doesn’t really match my experience.

Yes, when I practice Reiki self-treatment, I usually feel subtle movement, a sense of flow. I just don’t assume that flow to be “Reiki energy” coming through. I realize it’s my own biofield reorganizing itself the same way it does in response to other healing practices. (The biofield is what the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine calls the subtle vibrational body that purportedly surrounds and penetrates the physical body.)

I vividly remember my first Reiki treatment in 1986 (I took First degree training the following week). I had already experienced acupuncture and various hands-on healing. I had practiced yoga, pranayama, meditation, chanting, visualization—the list was long and varied. So I knew very well how balanced I felt when my biofield was flowing evenly. And I knew there were many ways to gently and effectively influence the human system toward a more balanced state.

As a Reiki newbie, I was given the usual rap about “Reiki energy.” I knew something good was happening during my Reiki practice–the experience was palpable and familiar enough to be beyond doubting–but the explanation didn’t make sense to me. It raised more questions than it answered, and it didn’t seem necessary.

After all, when the acupuncturist needled me, he wasn’t putting energy into my system that went where it was needed. He was stimulating my system, helping it reorganize itself so it could function more efficiently. And when I meditated, even when I felt an inner quickening and fullness, I never imagined an outside pump filling me full of whatever. I realized that meditation reconnected my awareness to a place which exists within all of us where we experience that all is well, and that through that connection, my system let go of the clutter that got in the way of my well-being.

So practicing Reiki didn’t feel like some outside “energy coming through me going where needed”–it was more like a trip to the ocean. When I sit by the ocean, I feel my system recalibrating itself. Simply being in the presence of the ocean deeply affects me, as if I were sitting in the direct presence of my inner wellness. The ocean is a reminder of that inviolable inner state, and my entire being responds to being reminded that, on a profound level, all is well. I walk away from the ocean feeling relaxed and refreshed–a lot like the way I feel after my Reiki practice.

Reconnecting with that inviolable core of wellness through my daily practice helps my system stay tuned, its self-regulating mechanisms whirring and functioning optimally. At least until the next big onslaught knocks me flat, or a steady stream of smaller insults disrupts that naturally rhythmic state. Then I may opt for additional care from a trusted practitioner, usually Reiki treatment, acupuncture, or homeopathy. (Seems like a good place to share this: My esteemed acupuncture colleagues tell me the meaning of the Chinese character qi, commonly translated as “energy,” is actually closer to flow.)

Have you ever longed for a more plausible model of Reiki? I know this perspective may seem radical at first, but does this line of inquiry help you conceptualize Reiki in way that is more empowering and satisfying, that reflects your actual experience of Reiki practice? Please share your comments and let’s chew on this together.

Toward a More Plausible Reiki Model is a post from: reikiinmedicine.org

That’s not to say there isn’t a talented scientist or two engaged in cutting edge investigation of these mysterious realities. The scientific community has fringe elements like any other community. But fringe scientists doing frontier science don’t get a lot of respect until their data–and cause–are taken up by the mainstream.

Science is a group conversation, and in any group, what matters is what most people are saying. That’s called consensus, and that’s what carries weight. Consensus can be wrong, but it’s foolish to buck it, especially when trying to establish credibility.

Unless done skillfully, reaching for science to bolster your presentation of Reiki will likely backfire. Only people who don’t need “proof” will be impressed; scientists are skeptical by nature and training, and readily find the holes in an argument. So until such time as doctors are ordering kirilian photographs instead of CT scans and MRIs, don’t risk running your argument aground by confusing frontier science and conventional science.

If you want to lean on science, be humble. Deflect attention away from biofields, and focus instead on the research into how Reiki treatment can benefit people. Acknowledge first that this investigation is just beginning, then state that preliminary data suggest Reiki can help improve heart rate, blood pressure, and immunity, and reduce pain, anxiety, and depression. We do not yet have enough research evidence to say more than that, and if you try to, you run the risk of discrediting yourself, and Reiki.

If you are communicating with physicians or other health care professionals who want more information, you needn’t do the heavy lifting yourself; just hand them the top three articles in the medical papers section.

*NOTE:
The section of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that studies the safety and efficacy of complementary therapies such as Reiki is the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM).

Here is what NCCAM says about biofields in the section on energy medicine: “Biofield therapies are intended to affect energy fields that purportedly surround and penetrate the human body. The existence of such fields has not yet been scientifically proven.”

I was the principal reviewer for the Reiki Backgrounder posted on the NCCAM website. This document has no copyright and you are encouraged to use it freely.

The Science of Biofields is a post from: reikiinmedicine.org

Reiki practitioners can relate. The question What is Reiki? floods them with such emotion and memories that they don’t know where to begin…or end, even though their friend’s eyes have long glazed over.

The question What is Reiki? is not going away, so let’s find a workable strategy to address it, one that is comfortable and serves the public, and our practice.

There is no shame in taking Mrs. Takata lead, saying, “I can’t tell you, but I can show you,” and sitting your friend down for a Reiki sample.

Or you could say, “I love my Reiki practice so much and experience so many benefits from it, that I don’t feel I do it justice when I talk about it,” and refer them to an accessible resource (may I suggest the UPI interview Reiki: A Healing Touch?).

Or you could imagine yourself as a parent whose child asks, “Where do babies come from?” Are you even tempted to tell your child everything you know about the subject? Of course not. Do you jump right in without thinking? No way.

You consider your child’s age, knowing a 3-year-old needs a different response than a 5-year-old. You might ask for clarification, saying, “What exactly are you asking, honey? What is it you want to know?” This could lead your child to clarify, “Jenny’s parents went to Chicago to pick up their new baby. Do all babies come from Chicago?”

Similarly, when a friend asks you what Reiki is, you could make it a conversation, and avoid a monologue, by asking, “There are so many ways to address that question. Tell me, what’s your particular interest?” Your friend may then say she has surgery coming up and is wondering whether Reiki treatment could help her heal faster (yes, it can!).

Faced with the question What is Reiki?, I encourage my beginning students to take the pressure off themselves and defer to a resource. My advanced students don’t get off so easily. Especially those who want to become professionals. I coach them to write a basic response that they memorize as a starting point, and customize to fit the occasion.

Here’s my basic response when I’m asked What is Reiki?: Reiki is a spiritual healing practice that promotes overall balance. If I think the person might not have considered the distinction between spiritual and religious, and I don’t have time to address that, I skip “spiritual.” When speaking to someone I know to be a meditator, “promotes overall balance” might morph into “encourages balance in body, mind, and spirit.”

And that’s as far as I go, unless the person asks for more.

That’s how I respond when asked, What is Reiki? What about you?

What Is Reiki?–What to do? is a post from: reikiinmedicine.org

Maybe you’re wondering, What’s the difference?

If you approach your Reiki self-treatment as a technique, then you likely have some concern–anxiety even–about doing it correctly, or well, or even–perfectly.

Then on any day that your Reiki self-treatment doesn’t meet your expectations, you struggle with that internal yardstick of praise&blame, looking so hard for evidence that you’re doing it right and so sure that you’re doing it wrong–that you miss the big picture: the all important fact that you’re doing it, you are giving yourself a treatment.

This approach leads many students to stop self-treatment, because in their minds, they can’t do it “good enough” to make it worth doing.

If, however, you approach Reiki self-treatment as a practice, then the goal is simply to do it. On days when your experience doesn’t match your expectations (these days happen), instead of assuming some variation of failure, you recognize your expectations as just that–expectations–and direct your awareness to exploring your current experience, or to simply being with it.

In Reikiville, instead of practice makes perfect, practice makes present.

Welcome to Reikiville.

Any of this sound familiar? If so, please tell us how you’re discovering your present, or ask a question in the comment box below.

Practice Makes Present is a post from: reikiinmedicine.org

But how can we tell if something is broken?

It’s unwise to assume that everything that hurts is broken and needs fixing. There is unavoidable discomfort and pain in life’s cycles, and we’d be in danger without the ability to feel pain. If not for the pain of feeling the heat, what would keep us from jumping into a mesmerizing fire?

Physical, emotional, mental and/or spiritual pain are often part of a natural healing process.

So how do we know if something is broken?

We have to listen, to find our stillness so we can truly hear. We need to be able to be with pain in order to know when to take action, and when to refrain from taking action.

When we are able to be with pain, we can see clearly whether there is anything to be fixed.

When we are not able to be with pain, our attempts to fix that which is not broken or which cannot be fixed, create more pain.

Good intentions are not enough.

Fixing Good Intentions is a post from: reikiinmedicine.org

Simple answer: as long as is needed.

But how frequently is that an option?

More often we’re looking at how much time we have. Of course, professionals need to finish before the next client arrives–and we’ve given enough treatments to know how far apart to schedule–but even sharing treatment with a friend can have scheduling constraints.

My totally unscientific poll of practitioners indicates that full treatments are generally forty-five to seventy-five minutes long. Treatments by staff to hospital in-patients are usually shorter.

Rather than looking for the ideal, consider what is a good fit for the situation at hand (pardon the pun). Do what you can and go on with your day.

And remember that Mrs. Takata frequently said a little Reiki treatment is better than no Reiki treatment.

How Long? is a post from: reikiinmedicine.org

All the changes that occur with Reiki practice—physical, emotional, mental, spiritual—come from connecting and reconnecting with the largest context, our immediate and ultimate connectedness to everyone, and to all that is.

As our hands lightly connect with our bodies in daily practice, the limits of our awareness touch infinity. We become more accepting and honoring of individuality, both our own and one anothers’, and more grateful for the world we inhabit.

This ability to enjoy ourselves, each another, and the world around us unfolds gracefully through daily Reiki self-treatment, as we repeatedly connect to that which connects us.

Reiki Connection is a post from: reikiinmedicine.org