This question was put to me during a recent Advanced Reiki Training and Master Class. The student explained that she flounders with an answer, “I’m just….I didn’t do anything, it was…”
Because we as Reiki practitioners allow ourselves to be conduits for healing energy, there is often a tendency for us to discount our role in the healing process. “I didn’t do anything.” True, we are allowing ourselves to be used as instruments of what I consider to be Healing Grace/Divine Love; however, we are essential to the process. It would not occur without us. We work in collaboration with the particular vibration of Universal Energy (the energy that flows through all of life) that is Reiki, a vibration that can be accessed for the purpose of healing. Each practitioner, each client, each Reiki session is unique. Without the practitioner the client would not have this unique experience. The client may have found another avenue or modality or practitioner and experience healing, but it would not be the unique experience provided by YOU. Therefore, it is important to honor the work that we do and what we bring to this sacred connection.
Remembering the sacredness of this connection is crucial. While we acknowledge and honor what we as Reiki practitioners and teachers bring to the table: our unique consciousness, our passion for our work, our knowledge, integrity, compassion, and non-judgment, we must also honor the client and our students. Failing to do so can lead to hubris, self-importance, and conceit. It can lead to attempts to “fix” the client or situation, or set ourselves up as the client’s guru rather than support them in awakening to their own wisdom and to the recognition that they have within them the answers they seek.
When a client or student tells me I am “amazing” or “wonderful,” my response is, “And so are you.” I believe this, and I say it with absolute sincerity. The client may be in pain, feel lost, angry, afraid, depressed, confused, sad, or grief-stricken. Nothing they may be experiencing obviates the truth that they are amazing human beings. So are all human beings amazing and all of life amazing. As Reiki reminds the body how to heal itself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, it opens the door for the recipient to recognize their own “amazingness.” Think of the world we would inhabit if every human being lived from that place!
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©2018 Marianne Streich, Reiki for Living. All rights reserved. For reposting permission, contact Marianne.
Marianne is a Seattle-Area Reiki Master Teacher and Practitioner. She is the author of Reiki: A Guide for the Practice of Levels I and II and a former editor, contributor, and columnist for Reiki News Magazine. See her current class schedule.