Christina's Reiki Story 

I first discovered reiki many years ago on a music course.  I’d been playing a big drum as part of a samba ensemble and after finishing playing, my new friends, two reiki master sisters from Ireland, turned to me and said “can’t you feel your heart chakra opening?” I had no idea what a chakra was at that time in my life but I could feel the sense of expansion, unity and pure joy in myself and in the faces of those around me.  The sisters went on and on about reiki for the whole course and eventually I decided that I needed to experience it for myself!

I booked on to a beginner’s reiki course, called level 1, and felt determined to find out what it was all about.  All these years later, I still can’t tell you!  Reiki is something that must be experienced as words are simply not sufficient to describe the depth, multitude and continual discoveries that the path of reiki leads you to.

Needless to say, I continued learning reiki.  In fact I took every course that was offered to me and eventually started practising professionally.  I offered treatments to private clients and started reiki-ing the guests on my coach tours (which was my main job at the time).  I reiki-ed the list of guests before they arrived, I reiki-ed the coach, I did self-treatments for myself at the front of the coach when they were snoozing, and I even reiki-ed difficult guests to try and smooth things over with them.  And it worked!  My feedback scores improved and I found that I was calmer and able to do my job with more ease.

For my winter ‘off-season’ I started volunteering as a reiki therapist at a local hospice. Wow, what a privilege and learning curve! I found that people who were experiencing a health crisis were a lot more open to trying reiki, even though some of them clearly had their doubts! All of them benefitted in some way, either from: an easing of physical symptoms, a lessening of anxiety, or an acceptance of their situation.  On several occasions, after their treatments, they commented ‘if this is what it feels like when I die, I won’t mind it so much.’  Talk about a humbling experience!  This is an example of exactly how deep reiki can go.

Since the pandemic, I have been afforded, as have most of us, a lot of time for reflection.  My focus now is totally on reiki and I am being drawn to focus solely (or ‘soul-ly’) on teaching.  They say that a true master teaches people to become independent from them.  This is what I am aiming to achieve.  We all have the apparatus to connect to reiki for ourselves.  We can all make the time to practice reiki daily, if we really want to.  A daily connection to reiki is what makes all the difference.  A weekly treatment, although helpful, is really not enough.  When my father was in hospital for a quadruple heart bypass, I sent him a distant reiki treatment daily (as I was not able to be there with him in person). I feel that this is the true measure for how much reiki is ‘enough.’

And so, my mission is to introduce as many people as possible to reiki, so that they can connect to reiki for themselves, and use it in all areas of their lives, not only for treatments.  The fundamental principles of reiki are: awareness, intention and connection. Imagine a world in which the majority adhere to those principles too.

Love and light,

Christina