Reiki Evolution: Versatile Approaches For A Modern Practice

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Reiki Evolution: Versatile Approaches For A Modern Practice Webinar Transcription

Awesome, great, we have people kind of trickling and welcome, welcome everyone.
As you're coming in, feel free to use the chat.
We'd love to know where you're logging in from, what you're most excited to learn about
today.
Awesome, hello, awesome, some people from Florida, Vegas, great, oh yeah, all over, it's
beautiful.
Yeah, amazing, great, well I'm going to kick it off.
Hello everyone and welcome to the Massage Magazine Insurance Plus webinar series in session.
My name is Shannon and I'm the Business Development Manager at MIP.
I'm excited to be your co-host today.
For those of you who are not familiar with MIP, we are an all-inclusive liability insurance
provider for massage therapists, bodywork professionals, brachy practitioners, and more in the US.
Our primary goal is to support you with quality coverage.
Along with our insurance, we also pride ourselves in offering a range of member benefits tailored
specifically for our insurance, including exclusive discounts and rates on products,
continuing education, and much more.
These benefits are exclusively available in our member portal.
To learn more, I will drop the link to our website in the chat.
Just a couple housekeeping tips, a reminder that the webinar today is one hour and is
being recorded.
The recording will be sent to everyone via email within the next day or so.
We also encourage questions, so please feel free to use the chat or the question feature
and I will monitor them.
We will also reserve 10 to 15 minutes at the end of the webinar for a quick Q&A session.
With that said, we are very excited to welcome our guest host today, Andrea Kennedy.
The topic of today's webinar is regular evolution versatile approaches for modern practice.
Andrea Kennedy is a full-time Reiki master teacher and owner of mainstream Reiki for
over 25 years with over 25 years of experience.
She is dedicated to bringing Reiki further into the mainstream and empowering others to
confidently practice this modality for better living.
With a Bachelor of Science in Physics and extensive experience in various holistic modalities,
Andrea focuses primarily on Reiki and spiritual development.
She teaches all levels of USI slash Holy Fire 3 Reiki and ICRT Animal Reiki, offers mentoring
sessions and shares her knowledge through her mainstream Reiki YouTube channel, Beyond
the Reiki Gateway Podcast and the mainstream Reiki Community Membership.
When we perform thousands of Reiki sessions for people and animals, Andrea prioritizes
quality ethics and professionalism in all she offers.
Please welcome Andrea and thank you for tuning in to MIPS in session webinar series.
Thank you so much, Shannon.
It's just a joy to be here.
I love to talk about Reiki and thank you again for inviting me.
And yeah, I guess I just want to welcome everybody here.
I see in the chat feature so many different locations, you know, not here in the U.S. but
really around the world as well.
So I want to say welcome.
Thank you for your interest in Reiki.
I think it's really exciting.
And I also think that it is a thrilling time to engage with Reiki, learn more about Reiki,
and perhaps bring Reiki into your personal life or maybe even your professional practice.
And so I guess I'll kick off my session with you today by saying, imagine a healing practice
that's so versatile it can calm a panic child, ease chronic pain, and even accelerate post-surgery
recovery.
Now, imagine this practice doesn't require you to have any special talents, any particular
beliefs, and it cannot even cause harm.
This is the power of Reiki and today we're going to explore Reiki, what that really is
because there's a lot of different ideas out there, but I'm going to simplify things
and boil it down for you.
And we're going to also talk about how Reiki and how we practice it is evolving to meet our
needs today.
So I know a lot of you may be a massage therapist, a lot of you may not, just as some of you
may be familiar with Reiki, even practice Reiki, and some of you might be new to Reiki.
So that's a big span of different ideas and knowledge base.
But I want to start today by simply talking about what Reiki is, and a lot of times if
you listen to people talk about Reiki, there's actually two things that they may be talking
about.
Reiki is a word when you break it down, it means universally guided life force energy.
And now life force energy is our aliveness.
It's that energy that we have that flows in and around our bodies.
And our bodies are designed to move that energy, to regulate our systems and when that flow
of that energy does so in a manner that it's designed to do, we feel good on all levels,
physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
But you know what?
Life happens and we have stress and traumas and things that we deal with and conflicts.
And so the flow of that energy can get out of balance and not flow the way it's intended
to.
And when that occurs, we don't feel so good.
So we can suffer anxiety or, you know, scatteredness.
We could be on edge.
We could feel more emotional.
We can even experience pain and other symptoms and over time, if left untreated, actual disease.
And so that life force energy and how it flows in and around the body is vital for our health
and our well-being.
Everybody has life force energy every single person.
And so if we look at what Reiki is and that it helps balance this life force energy, we
can understand this immense potential to help people because everybody has this energy
and everybody's here dealing with life.
Now the other way that people might be talking about Reiki is the system of Reiki.
And the system is based upon how it started about 100 years ago.
And so we have Reiki as an energy and we have the system of Reiki, which has techniques
and has instruction and also has something that's unique to Reiki and it's called an attunement
because we don't learn Reiki by reading a book and then practicing.
We actually undergo a change in our energy field, our energy system that carries that
life force energy.
We actually undergo a change in that system for us as practitioners that allows us to
tap in to the unlimited supply of Reiki and administer it to ourselves as well as others
to help balance that flow of energy like I talked about a moment ago.
So there's Reiki as an energy and Reiki as this system of energy healing.
And what I'd like to really talk about next would be the accessibility of Reiki.
Many people feel as though Reiki is one thing or another.
And I really want to convey to you today, Reiki is so simple, we've overcomplicated everything
about it, I will say in general as a society.
I guess I took my first Reiki class back in 1995, that's almost 30 years ago.
My understanding of Reiki and what I've seen in the Reiki community and Reiki practice
over the years has changed immensely.
And as Shannon mentioned, I came to Reiki from a scientific background.
I had recently graduated with a Bachelor in Physics, I was very analytical and anything
I was going to do, I was going to do step by step.
Now the beauty of Reiki being so simple is that it didn't matter if I was coming to Reiki
from a science mind or someone else coming into Reiki from, let's say, a holistic background
already where they were more accepting of, and I'm going to say alternative therapies,
Reiki is complementary, which is another fantastic benefit of Reiki.
So it didn't matter where I was mentally and how my brain would process things as a scientist,
it didn't matter.
I didn't need to be a meditator for 10 years or anything before I came to Reiki and I could
learn it and successfully offer it to myself or others.
So I really want to bring home this idea that Reiki is very simple and that people can
learn Reiki no matter who they are.
So they could even be children.
It's so simple children can learn this.
Now some of us here in this event, I'm sure have heard different things about Reiki and
there are a lot of different ideas about what Reiki is and what it isn't.
And where I see a lot of the, I don't know, I would say confusion is about beliefs.
And you know, Reiki energy doesn't require you to have any belief.
So a person who's very religious can learn Reiki and help themselves and others with Reiki.
So a person with no spiritual beliefs whatsoever or perhaps an atheist can come and learn Reiki
and successfully practice it.
And so Reiki can be so many things because it is so simple, but that unfortunately can
cause some misinformation out there about what it is.
So I would like to invite you to, I guess, open to the possibility that it doesn't matter
who you are, how old you are, it doesn't matter what your beliefs are, none of that matters.
You can learn Reiki and you can help yourself as well as other people and even animals with
Reiki.
And that's, I think, the foundational characteristic of Reiki, I think that really transcends
everything else because no one is excluded.
No one's excluded in learning it and being able to fully utilize it for maximum benefit.
And nobody is excluded from receiving it and benefiting from it.
And so it is universal.
And here we see the potential of what Reiki is.
And so what I would like to talk about next is our world today.
Because if we think about Reiki and I haven't gone into the history, a lot of people have
heard things about the history and its origins and maybe some of you have not.
But before I really talk about that, our world today is very different than it was 100
years ago.
And I think we could all agree, people are much more in tune today with themselves, with
maybe their life's purpose, maybe they're exploring that kind of thing.
I think we're much more curious today about where we fit in to society and to the universe
and the larger questions.
And we have that innate curiosity.
We have an innate vision about our lives wanting to make a difference.
And of course, I'm speaking a bit in general, but 100 years ago, that's where we typically
attribute Reiki, the origin of Reiki about 100 years ago, originating in Japan.
And the story in a very quick nutshell is that there was a gentleman who was searching
for enlightenment and he tried for many years to find enlightenment and he was unsuccessful.
And then his teacher suggested that he be willing to die to achieve this enlightened
state.
And so he went to a mountain there in Japan and he fasted and meditated and on the 21st
day he had an experience, we might also describe it almost like lightning struck him, but he
fell unconscious and if you can imagine fasting for 21 days, he was quite weak.
And then when he awoke from being unconscious, he felt revitalized, he felt amazing, he had
so much energy and he felt a peace within himself, a peace and oneness with the universe.
And he realized he had in fact found that enlightenment.
He was so overcome with excitement.
He wanted to rush down and tell his teacher about it.
On his way down the mountain, he stumbles, he injures his toe quite badly, he instinctively
covers that toe and he felt an energy within him flow through and through his hands and
the pain went away and bleeding stopped and his toe was better.
And it was in that moment he realized he had the gift of healing as well.
Now if we think about this in terms of Reiki, what we might have heard or what our understanding
is, it's pretty remarkable, right?
And when I first learned Reiki all those years ago, that's the story I was told.
And I operated with that knowledge for a long time.
And as I said, I came to Reiki as a scientist.
And so the story helped me sort of put Reiki in context, I guess.
But it's interesting that how Reiki is different and how we pass it on from Reiki master teachers,
what it's called to student.
And that has been a tradition over these 100 years.
But we have seen a lot of changes in the Reiki world.
And so Usui, that style of Reiki is still taught in practice today.
But what we've also seen is that as we practice Reiki, as we learn, as we have that attunement,
which is what again, what I called that process of changing our energy system to be able to
offer Reiki to other people, as we undergo that, we actually heal certain things in our
selves to open up our senses, to create more peace within ourselves.
And if we think about that, it ties back into Usui and his experience.
And so along that line, people have been following their intuition as they practice Reiki.
And this is why we have different styles and lineages.
This is a common question about Reiki practice.
And that is, why are there all of these different styles and lineages?
In the introduction, Shannon mentioned Holy Fire Reiki.
Well, I teach Usui, Holy Fire Reiki is different than what happened on the mountain with Usui.
But I told you I wanted to keep it simple.
And with that in mind, I'm going to bring it back a little bit.
And I'm going to say Reiki is an energy, an energy.
And so all of the other things that we might associate with Reiki, different techniques,
some people associate spirit guides with Reiki and angels and all kinds of things like that.
All of those things are extra, all of those things are in addition to what the definition
of Reiki is, which is this energy.
And I think that's very, very important.
You know, I've had students in class and they've said, I don't believe in angels and
spirit guides and, you know, all of that stuff.
Can I do Reiki?
And my answer is absolutely.
And I've had other people who come into class and they are very much in tune with who they
refer to as spirit guides and angels and things like that.
You know, Reiki is remarkable in that it works for people across the board.
And as a matter of fact, I have a graduate of mine who went on, she had a religious practice
attended church every week and she now works offering Reiki and other holistic modalities
with a pastor, a pastor that she knew from her church.
Now, Reiki gets a lot of, I guess I would say people think a lot of different things about
Reiki and sort of limit what Reiki is.
Reiki's religious, you have to be religious or whatever else that is, but I want to illustrate
for you in this way with these examples that it doesn't, it actually works for all
of the spectrum of belief, religious, non-religious, angels and spirit guides, nothing.
And so do you see how Reiki meets you where you are as an individual and revisiting how
I came to Reiki as a scientist, we can even take it into that realm.
When I came to Reiki with that background, I was very skeptical.
I didn't even believe in Reiki, but yet it worked.
You know, it really does sound too good to be true, doesn't it?
I can explain Reiki with science.
I don't need anything spiritual.
I don't need anything unfamiliar.
You can boil it all down to science.
So whatever it is that you seek in your life, whether it's more well-being for yourself,
maybe you have a wellness practice already and you're seeing clients and helping clients
in a certain way, where Reiki can come in, be added to that as a compliment, and you can
address every client exactly meeting them where they are.
I mentioned also at the beginning Reiki doesn't do any harm, and I don't know about you.
I don't really know anything else that we can say that about.
And that's another reason to be excited about Reiki, because we always know we're helping.
We always know that we are offering natural help for whoever it is we're sharing it with.
And for people more medically inclined, perhaps you're a nurse or in the medical field, I do
always underscore Reiki is a complementary therapy.
It does not replace other treatments that we may seek out or need.
It is a compliment and for medical oriented people or biology teachers and things like that,
we can describe Reiki as a modality that shifts the nervous system from the fight or flight
mode into the parasympathetic mode, which is the rest, digest and restore mode so that
the body reaches that state of relaxation where the cells and the systems of the body actually
relax and they can do the other jobs that they have to do for our body.
And that is repair and restore, take care of ourselves.
So that is vitally important.
In the stress state, our bodies can't take the best care of ourselves.
And so, wow, I've kind of gone on a lot about Reiki and the history of Reiki there.
And I guess what I would say is what about that 100 years ago?
What about that story?
What about Usui?
For myself, I came to a time where I learned that in Japan, before Usui ever went to that
mountain and discovered Reiki for himself and then built the system of Reiki, as we know
it today, before he did that, there were at least four other styles of Reiki being practiced
in Japan.
Now, this literally blew my mind because I had been told all these years that Usui Reiki
was the Reiki and anything else wasn't true Reiki.
And that always kind of bothered me, you know, to be honest.
And then I heard this and I thought, that makes perfect sense because if Reiki is at its core,
this energy hasn't been around forever, not just 100 years ago.
And so, if we widen our gaze, if we widen our perspective about Reiki practice, we might
be able to see that it is more universal than we even thought a few minutes ago.
Because if Reiki energy is from, I don't know, the origins of Earth, I mean, I don't
know, but well before Usui, if Reiki cannot be quantified on our human timeline and it's
been practiced for many, many, many years, many more than we ever imagined, then what
are the limitations?
And who's putting the limitations on how we might work with this energy?
So tradition is often regarded and with a respect and we're invited to honor tradition.
And I understand that and I respect Usui and all of that.
But circling back to this notion of we are not the same people as we used to be 100 years
ago, does it make logical sense that how we might engage and utilize this energy is different?
And should that be celebrated?
Or should that be dampened?
Because it goes in a different category maybe than Reiki 100 years ago?
Well, my answer to that is nothing in nature stays the same.
Everything that is natural is stagnant.
We can look out our window and we can see the seasons change.
Even the largest boulder in a stream is changing.
It's eroding, it's changing, it's if the current is strong enough, it will be moved.
Nothing stays the same that's natural.
Reiki is natural.
And so why not embrace the fact that the possibilities of what we can do with Reiki
energy and how we might benefit from Reiki energy is unlimited.
We attribute the source of Reiki energy as something greater than what we know of.
And some people might call that God or universe.
Some people may not even know and we don't really have to quantify what that is.
It's just a place larger than we're aware of here.
And this energy comes, what are the limitations and who's placing those limitations on it?
So for myself, I've embraced the idea that if Reiki is an energy that does no harm and
helps us rebalance and recalibrate our energy for wellness, why would there be a limit on
that?
And so for the last couple of decades, that's kind of my outlook about Reiki.
And we've gathered here together to really talk about being authentic in a Reiki practice
and how you might become empowered with Reiki in your personal life, but also in your professional
life.
You know, if you again are a massage therapist or any kind of wellness practitioner.
And so I would like to talk a little bit about that because as I mentioned earlier, I mentioned
intuition and there's something really quite fascinating that I've seen throughout all
of the years, I've practiced Reiki and taught Reiki.
And I've talked to a lot of people who have learned Reiki and you know what is so interesting
to me, they will completely agree.
I don't think I have met anyone.
I don't think I've met one person who says that after learning Reiki, their intuition
did not expand or get better.
Okay.
Now, in and of itself, that might not sound like a lot, but imagine if you were more intuitive
going through your day, if you were more in tune with what your next best step is, couldn't
that really just change your life?
So this is a common thread that I've seen with Reiki people throughout the entire time I've
practiced Reiki.
Reiki students continually report this.
People not in my classes I talked to.
So it isn't about me, it is about my classes, it is a Reiki thing.
And intuition heightens, our perceptions heighten.
And I feel as though this can be instrumental in transforming our lives.
Even if we don't share Reiki with other people, to be more tuned in and plugged in to what
resonates with us as individuals can help orchestrate a life that we're more aligned to,
that we're more comfortable in, that is a more authentic out picturing of who we are.
And I find that super exciting, super exciting.
And so my practice, the way I would practice Reiki has changed immensely over 29 years.
And when I first came to Reiki, I needed step by step guidance, you know, it from the manual,
from the book step one do this, step two do that, and we can do that, and we can meet
that sort of student at that place.
We can also meet anyone anywhere, because we teach step by step, we also teach more intuitive
methods.
And so whether a student coming into the class needs one or the other, they can begin on
day one, helping themselves and others with this energy.
So Reiki is a wellness practice that I kind of look at it, this is maybe a strange analogy,
but vanilla ice cream.
Vanilla ice cream is great, right?
And you can just have a bowl of vanilla ice cream and it's awesome.
But maybe one day you want sprinkles or you want chocolate sauce or something like that.
And so that vanilla ice cream can accommodate all kinds of other additions to it, that complement
it, and that different people will find yummy, right?
And so Reiki is sort of this blank canvas that we can bring into other modalities.
And not only that, but it's so versatile that we can offer Reiki to different kinds
of situations.
And so we might offer Reiki to someone who is actually in surgery, in the operating room.
Now we could be there present in the operating room, and that does happen out there in the
world.
But more commonly as a practitioner, I would sit outside in a quiet area of the hospital
and I would administer Reiki from a distance for that patient undergoing surgery at that
time.
And earlier when we got started, I mentioned there are scientific studies that actually
do uphold the idea that, or not just the idea, but the actual results of patients recovering
from surgery more quickly and with less pain medication when they receive Reiki.
It's pretty remarkable.
So this Reiki energy can have such a profound impact.
Okay, so back to what I was saying.
We can administer Reiki like that for someone undergoing surgery.
Perhaps we have animals in our lives and don't even get me started on animals and our connection
with animals and how there is a oneness.
There is a, this is no accident that we're here with these amazing species on the planet.
So again, don't, you know, that's a whole other topic.
But Reiki with animals, we can offer Reiki to animals and help them.
We can offer Reiki to ourselves first and foremost.
I find this is the place where so much change can happen because through self practice, we're
creating that piece within that Usui was after all those years ago.
But Reiki does do that.
It relieves stress.
It brings the body into that relaxation state, as I mentioned.
And so it's from that place of more calm and peace that our own issues are healed and that
we're in resonance, more in tune with who we truly are.
And it's through that practice.
Also coupling with that intuitive sense, heightening that we become empowered navigators in our
own lives and imagine if more people did that only the self Reiki to become more proficient
in manifesting the lives that they want and helping and serving others in the way that
gets their hearts attention.
And so what I would say about that is if you have an interest in Reiki and haven't learned
it yet, if for nothing else, I would hope that you would pursue it for your own healing,
for your own enlightenment, so to speak, and to get more in tune with who you are in this
lifetime and why you're here on the planet, what's important for you and for help in meeting
the goals that you have for yourself in this lifetime.
And then of course after that, we are helping animals and people and the earth, you know,
we can always find an application for Reiki.
Some people who learn to administer Reiki will go on and offer Reiki sessions as a Reiki
practitioner, or perhaps combining that with another modality.
And I mentioned with massage therapy.
I know a lot of people that incorporate Reiki into their massage practice, and this can be
hugely beneficial, not only for the clients, but for the massage therapist,
because massage can be taxing on the physical body, and so Reiki's gentle.
We administer Reiki just hands lightly on or off the body.
There's no tissue manipulation, no work that you have to do, but yet the benefits are so great.
And as I mentioned a minute ago as well, we can offer Reiki over distance.
And I just want to make a little side note here that with the pandemic,
distance Reiki isn't something we came up with for the pandemic.
Remember how everybody needed to pivot, you know, and find a different way to do things,
because we couldn't get together in person.
Well, from its very beginnings, distance Reiki has been taught to Reiki practitioners.
So this was nothing new.
It was a natural thing, part of the system of Reiki, and what a blessing that is.
And so again, another way Reiki isn't limited in how we practice and also how we receive and benefit.
So, yes, so back to massage therapists and incorporating Reiki into that.
It's less taxing on the body, and you can combine Reiki with massage or do standalone sessions.
I mean, really your creativity is really the only limit I see with how you might incorporate Reiki
into your wellness practice.
Reflexologists use Reiki, and you know, I also want to bring this up, volunteering.
Years ago, I volunteered at a cancer hospital in New York, and this was utilizing Reiki.
It was a healing touch program.
Most of us had Reiki energy, and we were invited to help the patients and their caregivers,
and even survivors of cancer.
Reiki allows us to help in so many different ways, whether it's professionally seen clients,
volunteering for different organizations, different populations that could benefit from Reiki.
And also, you know, our friends, our family, things like that.
And of course, ourselves, we're not going to forget ourselves and self-care, which is hugely important.
So, other modalities that might incorporate Reiki, I mentioned reflexologists.
Also, yoga, yoga people, that's probably not the right terminology, yoga, yogis,
yoga instructors can incorporate Reiki into what they're offering as well.
I'm seeing it more and more and more across the board.
So, you see the creativity aspect is really your limit on this.
And now, some people might say that some people might say that, well, what about the tradition,
and it needs to look a certain way and that kind of thing.
And I would say that if you learn Reiki, if you're following that intuitive guidance,
if you're being true to what feels right for you, what you're called to be doing with Reiki,
I just don't see that there's a wrongness there.
And of course, it lies with the individual and it's their responsibility, of course, to
listen and to take that action that is helpful to themselves and others.
Sound healers, yes, I just peeked into the chat there and saw Tanya's answer there.
Occupational therapists, yes, the list goes on and on and on.
And also end of life, end of life.
So hospice centers often will have Reiki people come in.
Reiki is, I see it almost like a common denominator kind of modality.
And that sounds kind of weird when I say that.
So let me explain that.
You know, that common denominator of our life force energy, we all have that.
It all gets out of whack.
We could all benefit from Reiki.
So you see, Reiki practice then is that common denominator modality.
Because it fits, it fits with who we are in this day and age.
It fits with our needs.
And remember, it cannot do harm.
And so as a practitioner, I have studied many different modalities.
Why I have very much connected with and invested myself with Reiki?
Why I've done that is the no harm aspect.
I want to be able to offer and to help something, help with something that I know.
Is helpful.
And Reiki is that.
And so there is really no downside to Reiki.
No downside at all.
Yeah.
The good news is that so many more people are open to Reiki these days.
When I first started, it was crickets out there.
I mean, I knew one person on the planet that did Reiki back in 1995.
And that was my teacher who was a family member.
And look at over these years, what has changed.
I mean, it's incredible.
The number of people now who have heard about Reiki is enormous.
And I will say Reiki's got another really great thing going for it.
And that is it's not regulated like a lot of other modalities are.
And so again, that's where your creativity can come in.
Of course, some places have regulation.
And of course, we always need to follow that, of course.
But in general, there is no overseeing body of regulation.
And so again, this allows you to be creative and how you weave this into your practice
or what you might do with Reiki.
And I find that so exciting.
Are we not in a time where we're being called to trust in our own guidance?
Instead of placing our trust in our, I will say placing our trust in following
so many of the things that, you know, our parents and grandparents
followed and trusted in, we're undergoing a change here on the planet.
And I'd love to hear your thoughts on that in the chat, but times are different.
And Reiki is a way that we can access that intuition, that connection that helps us
navigate our lives, that helps us trust our guidance and places the importance on
our highest good.
Instead of looking for all the answers out there, Reiki helps us find the answers in here.
And I think when enough people are doing that, some really amazing things can happen.
In Reiki, when we're offering Reiki to ourselves or others,
you might not realize this, but the brain waves slow down.
And we enter a meditative state and it's in that state.
Inspirations come through, ideas come through,
solutions to things that you've been struggling with working out in your waking mind,
solutions to those things come through.
And all you're doing is offering Reiki, you're in that energy.
And so how natural and wonderful is that?
I just think it's quite remarkable.
And I've talked kind of on and on about this and I really would much rather hear from you
and your questions on the topic.
But if you've ever needed permission to think about Reiki in a different way
or reevaluate Reiki, take a second, third or tenth look at it, whatever, please consider this
and this time that we've spent together as that invitation to take another look at Reiki.
It's very simple.
Some people would even say it's basic, but I'm telling you, it is a gateway into so much more
for yourself, for others, and again, there's no downside at all.
It's perfectly natural and the invitation is yours.
So with that being said, I would love to
begin taking questions, Shannon, if you're ready.
Yeah.
And I'm just going to say, oh, yeah, just one second, Shannon.
Christopher said, get our body and mind in theta state.
Absolutely.
I've taken the theta classes and the silver classes and all of that.
And that's all about lowering your brain waves, your brain activity.
And I'm telling you, Reiki is like meditation, but you don't even have to try.
You know, it just naturally takes that down to that level and so much can happen
in that state of brain activity.
It's really remarkable.
Anyway, I could go on and on, Shannon, but yeah, do we have some questions?
Of course.
Yeah.
And I encourage everyone in the chat.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop them now as we go into our Q&A.
The first question that we have for you, Andrea, what's the protocol when someone who needs Reiki
isn't in the condition to consent to receiving Reiki?
Should we send it anyway?
Thanks and much love.
Oh, that's wonderful.
This is a great question.
And what I would say is Reiki has a certain quality about it.
And that is it always respects free will,
which means as a practitioner, I cannot impose Reiki on another person
if on some level they don't want to accept it.
And so with that being known about Reiki, I would invite you to offer it.
And I would offer them the Reiki if they can't consent to it with love in your heart
and the idea that they can accept it or not, it's fine with you if they accept it.
And it's fine with you if they do not accept it.
No strings attached.
Just offer it.
And if they don't want to receive it, it won't have any effect on them whatsoever.
Awesome.
And we have more of a comment in the chat.
Would love to know more about healing with Reiki distance
over the screens on our cell phones and or computers.
Oh, yes.
Yeah, I just had a flash of that first distance Reiki video I ever did on my YouTube channel.
And when I made that video, it was back in 2019.
And I'm telling you, I was actually making a video wondering in my mind as I was doing it,
is this even going to work?
But that's totally true story.
Six hundred and something thousand views later and all those comments, it works, you know,
and that's why I made so many videos and continue to on the channel.
So it's interesting, isn't it?
This concept of distance Reiki.
And so the comment was about over video and zoom and all of that.
Cell phone.
On cell phone, yeah.
So it's so what I what I want to say about that is
our intention is hugely impactful.
And so if I'm intending to offer Reiki over zoom, whether it's live or recorded or
it doesn't really matter, but if I have that intention and then the person wherever they
are and whenever they are, if they have the intention to receive it, that's all that's needed.
Isn't this remarkable?
It really shows us.
How powerful we are because it is simply about you deciding that you are receiving.
You you are intending to receive or you're intending to send and guess what?
It happens and we might think about it, even though we're talking kind of about video,
but yeah, I'm going to go ahead and use this example and that's radio, right?
Because I'm old enough.
I remember in the car, we would turn the dial and the little red thing would go and we'd
tune into the station that we wanted.
So we would decide this station.
We're going to listen to what's broadcast on this station.
Well, depending on what that station was, there was a certain frequency of energy coming
through radio waves.
Well, Reiki is frequency of energy.
And so through your intention, you're tuning in to, I'm going to receive Reiki and it's that
easy. It's like an agreement that happens between the two parties.
Now, the previous question was about permission.
At some level, whether or not or not to us, that person who hasn't consented will accept or not.
And that's kind of above my pay grade at this moment to explain all of that or even ponder
about that. I mean, that gets into some really amazing and, I don't know, head scratching
sort of subject matter right there.
But all in all, it's about intention, intention to send, intention to receive.
And that's really all that's needed for the connection to take place.
Wonderful.
We have another question to ever incorporate gemstones into your Reiki practice.
Yeah, that's a great question.
So I'm a self-described Reiki purist, or at least I used to be okay.
So when I was seeing my clients in my office, I never would use crystals.
And here's why.
Not that I have anything against crystals, or I didn't at the time either.
But mainstream Reiki, and my office was in a medical building.
And so when I had my door open, the hospital, or it wasn't quite a hospital,
we had doctors offices and therapy and things like that.
But the administration would walk down the hall.
And mainstream Reiki, my goal is to help Reiki become more mainstream,
meeting the mainstream people right where they are.
And maybe they're not so into crystals.
So when those administrators had walked down the hall or potential clients,
I wanted my room to look very zen and peaceful and not to put crystals out,
because that might make them form a judgment about Reiki's kind of woo-woo or whatever.
So that's why I did that.
But I have to tell you, crystals are allies
for our healing.
And so what I did was I found a mat, a crystal mat,
and it had different stones.
And they were tuned into the different energy centers or chocolates of the body.
And I put that underneath my top blanket on my Reiki table.
And so this was a way I could add crystals to my practice in a very mainstream way.
Didn't look any different, but yet my clients could benefit from the crystals and the heat.
It was a fancy mat that I used to do with that.
And I say used to because I don't not sing clients anymore for individual Reiki sessions,
but that's why I'm talking like that.
Many Reiki practitioners do utilize crystals in their sessions.
I think that's amazing.
Crystals are powerful allies for us.
And they're of the earth, and that's like a whole nother topic we could talk about.
But crystals and Reiki go very well together, most certainly.
Awesome. We have a question from Maria.
Was there a moment when everything clicked for you about Reiki and was it in school or in the field?
Oh, wow, that is really, that's a great question, and it's a tough one,
because I would have to say Reiki for me has been a constant unfolding of understanding.
So I don't know that I have like a moment to share.
There are certain moments that I still remember that are very clear to me.
One of them actually has to do with crystals, and so I'll share this,
but it'll be an example of what I've seen over and over and over through the years.
I was in my Reiki office, my Reiki room, and I was offering Reiki to a woman,
and I was in that state because I'm offering Reiki and so relaxed,
and I started, this was before I had the crystal mat, and I started thinking about crystals,
and I started thinking about, hmm, you know, I don't know.
Should I add crystals to my practice? Because I don't know about that.
And then I had, I guess I would just call it a little vision in my mind.
Like this idea came up. It was this understanding.
And it was that Reiki practitioners are like gateways that bring in a certain frequency of energy,
Reiki energy, to help, to be of service, to help others.
That's what Reiki people do, this gateway and anchor on the earth to bring this through.
And then it shifted, and I had the understanding, that's exactly what crystals do.
So whether the crystal is, okay, so this is, I have one right here, this is fluoride,
okay, and then this, this one's quartz, okay? And so why are they different?
Well, quartz has a certain structure, certain color, certain energy about it that it's attuned to,
and so quartz will bring through, just like a Reiki practitioner, a certain frequency of energy.
That energy frequency is different than what fluoride would bring in, or what rose quartz
would bring in. And that's why we hear about, oh, if you have this certain issue, choose this type of
crystal. So when I saw that, a Reiki practitioner is a gateway to bring through certain frequencies
of energy to be helpful. And then I saw crystals are the exact same type of thing,
gateways to bring through certain frequencies of energy to be helpful in a particular way,
that was an aha moment for me. And all of the, all of the wondering about should I do the crystals,
what do I feel about that? All of that was gone with this one little glimmer of understanding
that came through. And so what I would say is, over the years, I've had different instances like
that, that were aha moments that really helped me develop as a practitioner. And lastly, I want
to say about that, we can't predict how a session is going to go with Reiki, because we're not in
charge. We're just offering the energy. Okay. And so I love that about Reiki, because I'm not making
those decisions about how it's going to help, or, you know, I'm not doing anything like that,
I get to witness what occurs, which is what a blessing and a gift that is. But I guess my point
here is that it's never the same. And so there isn't like one book you can read about Reiki and
then it's like, you know it all, because the knowledge comes in the practicing and the gaining
of experience. No two sessions are ever alike, because no two people are ever alike. And that
person, if they come back two weeks later for the next session, they're different than they were
two weeks ago. So everything's moving. There's an aliveness as we practice Reiki. And I love that,
because I think if it was predictable, and it was kind of the same thing every time, I think I would
have lost interest in it a long time ago. Yeah.
Awesome. We have time for one more question. I'm going to be dropping Andrea's contact,
her email address in the comments. So if you have any further questions, feel free to reach out
directly there. Lavania asked, can you please elaborate more on the personal effects of the Reiki
in chakra if the practitioner has a health complaint?
Oh, okay. Hold on. Just a sec. Can you repeat that? If the practitioner has a? Yes, has a health complaint.
All right. Let me just...
Okay. And I'm sorry, Shannon. Can you say that one more time? Of course. Can you please elaborate more
on the personal effects of the Reiki in chakra if the practitioner has a health complaint?
No. I'm not sure I completely understand that question. What I think I'm hearing is the,
because it's the practitioner has a health complaint, and Reiki in a certain chakra.
So I'm thinking we're talking about self-Reiki maybe. I would... Oh, okay. This is interesting.
What comes to my mind to say, we tend to get focused in on a certain chakra. And what I would
say is our energy system is just that a system. And so we really cannot isolate one chakra if there's
any kind of issue because everything's interrelated when it comes to our energy. So you might think
you have something going on at one chakra. By all means, you can administer Reiki there. The Reiki
will help you never, never feel as a practitioner that you have to be all healed and balanced in order
to offer Reiki because that's a whole nother benefit I didn't talk about. And that is Reiki meets
you where you are, whether you're receiving it or you're a practitioner. So everybody has issues.
Everybody is dealing with things and things in different chakras or whatever it is. Offer the Reiki
anyway. It will help you. But back to what I was saying, I would invite you not to focus in or fixate
on one chakra. administer the Reiki there or keep that knowledge there. But what I would invite you
to do is treat the whole system because of the interrelated nature of our energy and that nothing
is isolated. So whatever issue it is, I guarantee it's multi-faceted, multi-layered, probably
dimensional, and it's going to bring in other parts of your energetic system besides that chakra.
And where you might need to treat most effectively may not be where you think it is.
Awesome. So with that, we are running over just a little bit. I want to thank you so much, Andrea,
for your time today and for being here on behalf of Massage Magazine Insurance Plus.
Just reminded everyone that this webinar was recorded and it will be sent to you via email
as well as uploaded to our YouTube. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Shannon.
And everyone. Yeah, everyone for coming. Thank you so much.
Wonderful. Thank you. Goodbye.