I have always been fascinated by distance Reiki. When I first learned about energy healing, I read stories about people being healed through sessions where the practitioner and the client were in different places, sometimes even different cities or countries. The effect of those Reiki sessions was just as powerful and profound as when they were done in person. Now that I am a Reiki Master, I have personally experienced and witnessed amazing changes in distance Reiki Sessions.
As a practitioner, I don’t do anything differently when I do a distance session compared to an in-person session, except I am visualizing putting my hands on the person and we are chatting on the phone. It is fascinating to my science brain.
I fell down the stairs this summer. Actually, it was more like a carpeted ladder, and I more flew than fell. I was just waking up from a powerful dream where I was pulled into the time of Julius Ceasar. I wanted to creep downstairs (downladder) and steal a few morning moments of writing in peace before my son and husband woke up. Before all the bustle and holidaying would sweep me away from the memory of this powerful dream.
So, true confession time… I love statistics. I mean I really love them. I love data and analyses and spreadsheets. Yup.
I love it all so much that I created my own stress index, the Robins Holistic Stress Scale, and I have been collecting data in bits and pieces over the last few years on the effect of Reiki and meditation on self-reported stress scores. Oh yeah! How cool am I right now!!! đ
I am also so supremely happy that I have figured out a way of hosting this experiment on a broader scale here on my website. My plan is to take the aggregated data and determine if there is a difference between the effects of meditation and Reiki. I am so cool right now I can’t even stand it!
All the information you need is below. Just follow the instructions and you will get to test out what works best for YOU, five minutes of meditation, or five minutes of self-healing. The whole thing will probably only take 15 to 20 minutes and you can retake the quiz as often as you would like!
If you have any issues viewing the quiz, try clicking here.
Enjoy! Let me know how it worked for you. I would love to hear from you!
There I am. At the top of my mat. Again. Wobbling. Balancing. Losing balance. Resting. Trying again.
In a recent class, I got a whole new perspective on what yoga can do. It felt like I was inside the test tube looking out. I was in the practice but not in it. Observing the sway and swirl of emotions that scattered through me as I transitioned from pose to pose.
I felt like I was wringing the unwanted emotions right out of my cells, just like you would a cloth. Each pose shifted some new emotion to the surface. The breath, beautifully capturing and dispelling the unneeded thoughts, left me slightly emptied, like the somewhat hollow feeling after a good cry. A void where the old thought once lived. Now empty and waiting for the light to pour in.
Standing in Warrior, I felt weakness creep up my limbs. Not a physical tiredness, but an emotional one. Some small corner of my body was holding on to an old way of being. Even though my normal daily thoughts did not match what was now rising to the surface, the yoga practice shook it loose from my cells and allowed it to drift up and out. Riding the wave of breath and movement.
This powerful releasing is deeply healing. This is yoga. Union with the Divine. A surrendering and filling with spirit.
What does it take to be a yogi? Showing up. Surrender. Kindness.
That is it.
Make your practice simple. No matter what is happening, no matter what you are doing, if you strive to hitch yourself to the divine, you are doing yoga.
This is all that is needed. All that is required. Just a true wish to lean your cheek next to God’s. Letting the divinity sink in as you sink into the poses.
I also saw how incredibly powerful yoga and Reiki are together. Yoga knocks old patterns and thoughts loose. It brings them up and out. Reiki does that too and can help ease the process. Reiki smooths the rough edges of deep emotions as they are released from the body-mind. Reiki also adds in a massive influx of light, pure energy. It heals and fills you up with the essence of Divine Love. It establishes a new pattern of energy within you so that you can begin living from this new, healthier perspective.
Yoga and Reiki. A perfect balance. Yin and Yang. Active and passive. Between these two pillars, there is unity.
Gassho means meditation with hands together, a foundational practice of Reiki. Holding your hands together, in prayer position or anjali mudra, in front of your heart, signals the beginning of any Reiki session. It centres us in the Reiki energy and activates the flow of energy through the body.
This activation of energy in Gassho is amazing as part of a meditation practice, whether or not you know Reiki. Your hands and your heart are two important ways that you interact with your world. By taking a moment and stilling both in meditation, you are able to deeply transform yourself and your world.
Give it a try now.
Notice the energy between your hands. Listen to your quiet heart beat. This is the stillness your soul is longing for. Just taking the time to be aware of the the YOU that is beyond the physical you.
I always open my Reiki classes with a short guided meditation with everyone’s hands in Gassho. I close the meditation with Rei-Ji-Ho, a practice used in Reiki to set your ego-self aside from the healing that occurs and a surrendering to the Divine wisdom that you can sense with your hands.
Both Gassho and Rei-Ji-Ho are important to help build a strong focus and intention in the practice of Reiki. But they can be used by anyone as part of a meditative practice.
Rei-Ji-Ho is simply a prayer to put your mind, your intellect in the service of the energy in your hands. You bring your hands, still palms together, to your forehead as a signal that you are putting the wisdom of Reiki above your own ego-centric thoughts. Ego here means the part of you that views yourself as separate; separate from other people, separate from the earth, and separate from the Divine.
The prayer itself is one I wrote, using the principles of healing as guided by Master Usui. In the final line of the prayer, I use the word surrender. Here I am using the word surrender in the sense that we are letting go of our own ideas about what is needed for a person and solely focusing on where the Reiki energy is guiding us. It is listening in the deepest sense of the word.
Rei-Ji-Ho Prayer
You are perfectly healthy whole and complete.
You easily align yourself with your highest good and you work in harmony with the healing principle of the Universe.
Everyone and everything in the Universe is moving easily and freely toward perfect health.
Every motion of this Universe is towards pure love and light.
The Universe is moving steadily toward this state of pure being and you are perfectly aligned with this motion.
You move with love and light because you are love and light.
Every motion of your hands and movement of your energy is guided by the infinite wisdom of the Universe.
I surrender to the wisdom in my hands.
Amethyst is one of the best crystals to start your crystal collection. It is a most often a beautiful violet colour, but it can range from very pale lavender to a deep purple. It is easily found in natural points, clusters, and polished and tumbled shapes.
I compiled the main properties of amethyst from several crystal books. These properties are the most common ones that most crystal experts agree on.
What better way to start a new season than to create a new resource category: Crystals! I use crystals extensively within my meditation and Reiki practice. I find that crystals allow for an easier focal point in mediation and also set the energetic intention of a session. Crystals work on every level of your being: physical; mental; emotional; and spiritual. Crystals have been used for centuries and we are naturally drawn to these beautiful manifestations of the earth.
Crystals carry intention. Almost any crystal will work for you if your intention is strong enough. However, each crystal has its own energy signature that can magnify whatever is needed in your life. Knowing just a little bit about the basic nature of crystals will enhance your spiritual practice.
I have been working with and studying crystal healing for over 20 years. I have a large collection of books just on crystal uses. Through out my reading I found that each crystal book had different descriptions of what each crystal did. Pretty soon my head was swimming with information overload.
I solved that problem pretty much the way I always do. With statistics!!
I combined my big nerd brain and my love of crystals to explore crystal meanings from as many different authors and books that I could find. I put all the information together in one giant spreadsheet to figure out what are the main actions of each crystal.
I recently found the perfect software that can display the information in a pretty and easy to understand way. I will be adding a page for each crystal as I build and update my giant table. Maybe it will even be a book one day!
The sources I used for building my spreadsheet were:
Doreen Virtue and Judith Lukomski, 2005. Crystal Therapy, How to Heal and Empower your Life with Crystal Energy. Hay House: Carlsbad, CA.
Judy Hall, 2004. The Crystal Bible, A definitive guide to crystals. Walking Stick Press, Cincinati, Ohio.
Judy Hall, 2009. The Crystal Bible 2. Walking Stick Press, Cincinati, Ohio.
Judy Hall, 2000. The Illustrated Guide to Crystals. Sterling Publishing Co., New York, NY.
Judy Hall. 2006. The Encyclopedia of Crystals. Fair Winds Press, Beverly, MA.
Cassandra Eason, 2010. The complete crystal handbook: Your guide to more than 500 crystals. Sterling Publishing Co. New York, NY.
Robert Simons and Naisha Ahsian, 2007. The book of stones: Who they are and what they teach. Heaven and Earth Publishing: Berkley, CA.
Philip Permutt, 2007. The crystal healer: Crystal prescriptions that will change your life forever. Cico Books, New York, NY.
Simon Lilly and Sue Lilly, 2006. The Essential Crystal Handbook: All the crystals you will everneed for health, healing and happiness. Duncan Baird Publishers, London.
Diane Stein, 2008. Gem stones A to Z: A handy reference to healing crystals. Crossing Press. Toronto.
Melody, 1995. Love is in the earth: A kaleidoscope of crystals: The updated reference book describing the metaphysical properties of the mineral kingdom. Earth-Love Publishing House. Wheat Ridge, CO.
Dr. Flora Peschek-Bohmer and Gisels Schreiber, 2002. Healing Crystals and Gemstones from Amethyst to Zircon: A comprehensive listing of the therapeutic uses and healing effects of the most important crystals and gemstones. Konecky & Konecky, Old Saybrook, CT.
Jennie Harding, 2007. Crystals. Walking Stick Press. Cincinnati, OH
Michael Gienger and Wolfgang Maier, 2007. Healing Stones for the Vital Organs: 83 Crystals with Traditional Chinese Medicine. Healing Arts Press, Rochester Vermont.
This meditation was inspired by a dialogue with my higher, wiser self as a way to integrate spiritual knowledge into physical reality. It will leave you feeling refreshed and filled with Divine Light.
Please let me know what your experience is. đ
Illumination Meditation
This is a home recorded meditation, so please accept its highly original, hand-made quality. If you would like a snazzy, high quality set of my meditations, please check out my meditation CD here.