Some days I just want to mainline chocolate and practice Reiki self-treatment.

And then there are the tough days…

Seriously, I realized long ago that life doesn’t get easier on its own. It needs my help.

Retreat. The word says it all. Treat, and Treat again. Yes, treat as in treatment. But also treat, as in delight. And savor. Like chocolate melting slowly in your mouth.

It’s true that my daily self-treatment is a mini-retreat everyday, but from time to time, I want more; I want to go deeper.

Just as the waves of my desire for retreat were crashing into the rocky demands of work/life, longtime Reiki master Mari Hall invited me to lead the 2009 Usui Virtual Retreat. Perfect! Instead of squeezing life aside to make room for retreat, here is a retreat I can add to my life as it is, right now.

And so can you.

All Reiki students, practitioners, and masters are invited to participate. The retreat starts on Usui’s birthday, Saturday, August 15. There is no fee, and you can engage from where you are, as you are able to. Shall we call it Retreat a la Mode?

I’ll post a weekly meditation, and we’ll use my blog as a forum to share experiences. I’ll blog more often during the retreat, and I hope you will join in by writing comments. And if I’m not writing about what you’re experiencing, email me directly to request a guest post.

Stop by the Retreat page on my website any time, or sign up at www.wisechoices.com and Mari will email you as each weekly meditation is posted.

In retreat we simplify, clarify, and deepen. And now we can do it together. Please join us.

Retreat a la Mode is a post from: reikiinmedicine.org

What was surprising—or some say, miraculous—was that in 2006, the then 26-year-old athlete was told to stop cycling after being diagnosed with arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia (ARVD), aka Naxos Disease.

This genetic disease often leads to sudden death from cardiac arrest, particularly in young people.

Four months after his diagnosis, Roulston connected with Julie Reid. New to Reiki practice, Reid offered the cyclist a 5 minute treatment. The experience was unremarkable, at least until Roulston next got in the saddle.  He continued receiving Reiki treatments and learned to practice himself.

While we salute our Reiki champion, let’s keep it in mind that the benefits of Reiki for athletes are not limited to such dramatic turnarounds. Even weekend warriors who receive Reiki treatment note that it seems to improve their recovery time. Beginning research has shown that Reiki can, in fact, normalize heart rate.

My (no longer) secret dream? To be the Reiki master for the Yankees.

Even the Mets.

Do you have a Reiki and sports story? Please share it with us in the comment section below.

Tour de Reiki is a post from: reikiinmedicine.org

Maybe it’s because I’m giving a Reiki Communication workshop at Tai Sophia Institute near Baltimore next weekend. Maybe it’s the aftermath of the Catholic bishop’s statement, or the recent Associated Press article in the Washington Post (and it seems, everywhere else). They say no press is bad press, but really, waving arms and humming?

How can we communicate Reiki in a way that communicates–that goes to people’s wants and needs and doesn’t scare them off with what looks to the public like New Age goobledygook? (Of course if you are presenting Reiki in New Age communities, that would be a plus rather than a minus.)

Many Reiki practitioners aren’t New Agers. We chafe under the New Agey-ness that’s been wrapped around Reiki. We yearn to share our practice with friends and the public, without embarrassment.

But when we open our mouths or our fingers hit the keyboard, something else takes over. You’ve been there. So have I.

It is admittedly a huge challenge to find the balance of passion and practicality that moves people to consider what we are saying. Yet when you love something as much as we love our Reiki practice, and when you see how quickly it relieves people’s suffering and reconnects them to their best selves, you can’t stop trying.

What is the hardest part of Reiki for you to communicate? Write a comment-maybe I have an idea that can help you.

Reiki Flakey? is a post from: reikiinmedicine.org

This unfortunate malaise is marked by the following symptoms, each of which develops quickly into the next:

• incomplete information
• inadequate investigation
• illogical conclusions
• finger-pointing
• arbitrary lines drawn in sand.

All the above symptoms were first evidenced by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), whose Committee on Doctrine issued a statement last month with this conclusion:

“Since Reiki therapy is not compatible with either Christian teaching or scientific evidence, it would be inappropriate for Catholic institutions, such as Catholic health care facilities and retreat centers, or persons representing the Church, such as Catholic chaplains, to promote or to provide support for Reiki therapy.”

WHAT’S A REIKI PRACTITIONER TO DO?
I propose seeing this apparent obstacle as a call to arms–or hands–and creating a Bishops Relief Effort–a community-based effort to relieve the suffering related to Bishops’ Syndrome.

A comment in the bishops’ statement speaks to all of us:

“While sometimes people fall into superstition through ignorance, it is the responsibility of all who teach in the name of the Church to eliminate such ignorance as much as possible.”

Those of us who teach in the name of anything–church or Reiki–have the responsibility to eliminate our own ignorance before we set out to eliminate that of others. The bishops failed to do this, therefore their statement is misguided. If Reiki practitioners can avoid making the same mistake, we can capitalize on the bishops’ error.

What if each of us who practice Reiki committed ourselves to eliminating ignorance about our practice? We could start by examining the accuracy of the “facts” we share about Reiki, and evaluating the skill and clarity with which we represent our practice to the public.

THEY USED OUR OWN WORDS AGAINST REIKI
The bishops’ statement was built from information that has been circulated about Reiki by the Reiki community itself. Many of the rebuttals to the bishops’ statement repeat the inaccuracies seen in the Catholic document. This doesn’t make for an effective counter-campaign, does it?

Rather than waste time in outrage, we can accept that it was just a matter of time before something like this happened. In fact, this is evidence of the rapidly growing popularity of Reiki practice, an uneducated power response to how deeply Reiki has already been embraced by mainstream health care. We can use this to move forward.

Beware apathy: Bishops’ Syndrome is spreading. Some hospital Reiki programs have been pulled. We need to engage.

Skillfully. And now.

Related posts: Want Reiki, Have Nun?; Reiki & the Bishops in the Boston Globe; Reiki and the Catholic Bishops, Again

Bishops’ Syndrome is a post from: reikiinmedicine.org

I worked a few hours before running to the subway for a midday dress rehearsal of Rossini’s La Cenerentola at the Met. Walked home up Columbus Avenue on an archetypally Spring afternoon. I swear everyone was smiling.

After writing the swine flu ReikiUpdate and meeting a few other deadlines, it was back to the Met for the evening performance of Trovatore. (Good thing I’m fasting, as I literally had no time to eat.)

Early the next morning I sat in on Richard Rosen’s classic yoga session sponsored by Urban Zen (we’ll be on a panel with Rodney Yee on Saturday), then walked to SoHo to run errands on another shimmeringly clear day in Manhattan.

What more could a gal want?

Hello World! is a post from: reikiinmedicine.org