My Reiki Journey - Part 6: Reiki Classes vs. Reiki Practice
If you've read My Reiki Journey from Part 1, hopefully it's all starting to feel a little more familiar and less confusing now. It seems important to emphasize how different taking a Reiki class is from making Reiki a continual practice in your own life. Just like taking one piano class isn't going to turn you into a piano player and taking one yoga class isn't going to make your body more flexible. Reiki is a practice that needs to be experienced frequently in order for it to be better understood.
I often hear of programs that suggest fast-track progress, but then don't emphasize the importance of self-care or the dedication to the energetic journey after finishing a class. Based on my own Reiki journey, the work of Reiki is so much more than a methodology and set of tools. A class is just an introduction. It's really in the experiencing and practicing regularly that it becomes real and understandable. Without regularly applying it into our own life and in sessions with other people, it will continue to feel difficult to understand.
While you can technically do Reiki 1 & 2 in the same weekend with certain teachers, it doesn't seem to honor the time, space, and Reiki self-care work that really promotes a deep understanding and lasting set of experiences grounded in reality. So many energy workers and natural healers are drawn into this work because of their compassion and desire to help others, but there's also often a deep part of ourselves that needs some of the same healing we seek to share with others, and it takes time, practice, and dedication for that healing to be revealed and to unfold in a natural way. Deep healing and self-care takes more than a weekend- it's really a lifetime of practice.
A Reiki class and attunement can truly only introduce basic concepts, methods, and possible tools for healing. It's up to each individual as to how they actually put that into practice in their own life. If people go out into the world after taking Reiki classes and only seek to heal others without really do their own inner work, they'll spend a lot of their own energy trying to make things happen for others and wondering why healing work feels so draining for them, rather than tapping into a much larger source of energetic support and serving as a very clear conduit and multiplier.
Thankfully, I'd done a lot of self-care and karmic work in my life before I came to Reiki. In many ways, I felt ready for the Reiki Master level even before I started- and that's even with my own very skeptical nature, feeling unsure of what I was getting myself into. In writing, that might seem a bit bold to say, but in my experience, it just means that I'd done a LOT of energetic clearing work before entering the energetic practice of Reiki. That doesn't mean there isn't more ahead, it simply means I accepted a lot of my own karmic mess and dealt with it through many other methods before starting this particular part of my journey. Most of the very dramatic energetic shifts I've had happened before I even began Reiki- so my flow through Reiki 1, and then Reiki 2 felt very effortless and fun- and that was certainly not the case for everyone in my classes.
Some people did Reiki 1 and discovered that their whole life turned inside out afterward- so they took years figuring it all out before they returned, if at all, to pursue Reiki 2. Some sailed through Reiki 1 & 2, but hit a brick wall when it came to Reiki 3 and decided they were going to keep Reiki a personal and family practice. There were only a couple people in my Reiki 1 class who followed the same sequence and timeline that I did- feeling as though the flow was fairly effortless, interesting, and graceful for them. I could tell from the beginning that they were either natural born healers based on the energy they had, or they had already done a lot of personal energy work in their own life.
The great thing with Reiki work is that you don't need to do it on anyone else's timeline. If you feel called to it, it's best to treat it as a deeply individual practice that should be explored at a pace that feels right for you. People gain nothing by rushing to the next class and trying to reach the highest level quickly. In many cases, it seems that people who have rushed to the next class without really internalizing it and understanding it first, have also ended up taking certain classes over and over again with different instructors just to understand it better. The instructor can make a difference, but there's so much more information that comes from practicing it regularly.
As a musican, I understand how fundamentally important practice is to refinement and developing musical flow. As an artist, I know how much my own vision, understanding, and wisdom develops over time when consistently practicing and working on my craft. Reiki is no different in that it is not what you learn in class, but how you practice and apply it to your daily life and your closest relationships that will make the biggest difference and provide the deepest understanding.
I often hear of programs that suggest fast-track progress, but then don't emphasize the importance of self-care or the dedication to the energetic journey after finishing a class. Based on my own Reiki journey, the work of Reiki is so much more than a methodology and set of tools. A class is just an introduction. It's really in the experiencing and practicing regularly that it becomes real and understandable. Without regularly applying it into our own life and in sessions with other people, it will continue to feel difficult to understand.
While you can technically do Reiki 1 & 2 in the same weekend with certain teachers, it doesn't seem to honor the time, space, and Reiki self-care work that really promotes a deep understanding and lasting set of experiences grounded in reality. So many energy workers and natural healers are drawn into this work because of their compassion and desire to help others, but there's also often a deep part of ourselves that needs some of the same healing we seek to share with others, and it takes time, practice, and dedication for that healing to be revealed and to unfold in a natural way. Deep healing and self-care takes more than a weekend- it's really a lifetime of practice.
A Reiki class and attunement can truly only introduce basic concepts, methods, and possible tools for healing. It's up to each individual as to how they actually put that into practice in their own life. If people go out into the world after taking Reiki classes and only seek to heal others without really do their own inner work, they'll spend a lot of their own energy trying to make things happen for others and wondering why healing work feels so draining for them, rather than tapping into a much larger source of energetic support and serving as a very clear conduit and multiplier.
Thankfully, I'd done a lot of self-care and karmic work in my life before I came to Reiki. In many ways, I felt ready for the Reiki Master level even before I started- and that's even with my own very skeptical nature, feeling unsure of what I was getting myself into. In writing, that might seem a bit bold to say, but in my experience, it just means that I'd done a LOT of energetic clearing work before entering the energetic practice of Reiki. That doesn't mean there isn't more ahead, it simply means I accepted a lot of my own karmic mess and dealt with it through many other methods before starting this particular part of my journey. Most of the very dramatic energetic shifts I've had happened before I even began Reiki- so my flow through Reiki 1, and then Reiki 2 felt very effortless and fun- and that was certainly not the case for everyone in my classes.
Some people did Reiki 1 and discovered that their whole life turned inside out afterward- so they took years figuring it all out before they returned, if at all, to pursue Reiki 2. Some sailed through Reiki 1 & 2, but hit a brick wall when it came to Reiki 3 and decided they were going to keep Reiki a personal and family practice. There were only a couple people in my Reiki 1 class who followed the same sequence and timeline that I did- feeling as though the flow was fairly effortless, interesting, and graceful for them. I could tell from the beginning that they were either natural born healers based on the energy they had, or they had already done a lot of personal energy work in their own life.
The great thing with Reiki work is that you don't need to do it on anyone else's timeline. If you feel called to it, it's best to treat it as a deeply individual practice that should be explored at a pace that feels right for you. People gain nothing by rushing to the next class and trying to reach the highest level quickly. In many cases, it seems that people who have rushed to the next class without really internalizing it and understanding it first, have also ended up taking certain classes over and over again with different instructors just to understand it better. The instructor can make a difference, but there's so much more information that comes from practicing it regularly.
As a musican, I understand how fundamentally important practice is to refinement and developing musical flow. As an artist, I know how much my own vision, understanding, and wisdom develops over time when consistently practicing and working on my craft. Reiki is no different in that it is not what you learn in class, but how you practice and apply it to your daily life and your closest relationships that will make the biggest difference and provide the deepest understanding.
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