#12 Reiki Energy Healing
Jumping ahead to the present day, Kelly shares what happened this month when she went on a two day Reiki course whilst visually impaired from eye surgery.
This episode includes a top tip for what not to eat when you're heading into a live classroom, and what could happen when you accept a lift home from a stranger.
Kelly's course was with the Reiki Academy London. www.reikiacademylondon.com
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Read the Transcript for this Episode below:
Episode 12 of the Project Me podcast. Welcome back. I mentioned in the last episode that I was having eye surgery, and that was now about three weeks ago. It's been a very humbling experience to be sight impaired and not be able to live my life the way I'm used to and to need to rely on others so much for help.
But it's also been enforced opportunity for a digital detox, which of course is no bad thing. It's made me hyper aware of my autopilot habit of constantly picking up my phone to check what's up messages, emails, and then clicking through to all my social media channels. I literally could not even decipher a text message for the first week, so I broke that habit of picking up my phone constantly.
Of course, it's easy to stay off tech when your eyes aren't working, and when you've given everyone in your life the heads up that you won't be on tech, and you've set your email autoresponder to say, contact your assistant if they need anything. In hindsight, I wish I'd figured out audiobooks before my op.
But I've been doing a lot of meditating, guided shamanic journeys, random podcasts where I just press the podcast app and then press play on something that I can't even see. I am loving the heavyweight podcast. It's got a different human interest story every episode and the host is Jonathan Goldstein and he helps someone to lift a heavyweight off their shoulders.
I'm finding it very entertaining and insightful. But the coolest thing that's happened in my life this month is that I did a two day level one Reiki course, which is what this week's new episode is all about. Normally in this podcast, I go in a chronological order with all the different woo woo modalities I've dabbled in over the years, but I'm going to skip straight into present day while all of this is still fresh in my mind and because I didn't take any notes or write my journal the way I always do.
So I need to capture it all while it's still fresh. Now, I will point out that I've never been quite sure if it's pronounced Reiki or Reiki. And so even now that I know it's Reiki, I'm sure I'll flip back and forth between them as I'm sharing this story. So forgive me. Okay, here we go into episode 12. I'd heard of Reiki over the years, but never really knew much about it beyond it being some kind of an energy healing modality.
When my friend Anna moved to Singapore for a couple of years, she came back as a newly qualified Reiki practitioner. I got to try out a mini session with her when she attended the Project Me retreat in 2015 in Ibiza. Other women on the retreat had gone first with their sessions with Anna, and they were coming out of the room and saying how amazing it was that she wasn't even touching them, but they could feel where her hands were working on them because of heat in their body.
I wanted to have a go to, of course, and so Anna asked me what I wanted to work on, and I really didn't have anything like an injury or an emotional situation. So it was a very general session where I laid on a massage table and she kind of waved her hands across my body, and I think I did feel heat in places, but my prevailing memory of that session was Anna afterwards saying, How she'd never worked on anyone before who gave off rainbow colors.
She said she kept getting rainbows as she moved across my body and I came away feeling really chuffed that I was a walking rainbow. I've always loved rainbows and of course the Project Me logo and branding is all in rainbow colors. But I think it was that session with Anna in 2015 that brought on my obsession with all things rainbow.
I got to a point where I had to stop buying things just because they had a rainbow on it. I mean, how many rainbow t shirts, socks, or umbrellas does one girl need? The next time Reiki came onto my radar was when I met a mother from school who mentioned she was studying Reiki and how super challenging her course was.
It was months long, maybe even years, I can't remember, but it sounded really intensive. It involves some kind of a huge manual, and her energy around doing this course was just really intense. And I remember thinking, wow, kudos to you for your commitment and dedication. So about four years passed. And in that time, I became super fascinated with learning all about energy, quantum physics, tapping into source energy and understanding that we are all energy.
I created my high vibe journey program to share this knowledge with others in a really understandable way and started getting tangible results from my students. I began to ponder if one day I'd dedicate myself to whatever it took to learn Reiki, to be able to tap into this energy on a deeper level, but I felt like it would require huge amounts of work and with so many other fascinating modalities out there, I'd need to be absolutely sure that Reiki was the one that I'd want to commit myself to.
It felt like a big deal to even consider, so I parked the idea. Then a couple of months ago, someone started following me on Instagram and her handle was Reiki Energy West London, which is where I live. So I sent her a direct message and I asked if she was still doing sessions during COVID times. And she got back to me.
Her name was Vanessa. And she said, yeah, business is tough right now. I just kind of made a mental note to book in a session once it felt safe to do so again. Then a few days later, because once you begin vibrating on something, you keep attracting it. My son's girlfriend's mother, Victoria, excitedly told me that she'd just done the most amazing two day Level 1 Reiki course.
She said she'd always imagined something like this would be months long and super expensive and require lots of commitment. But this course was affordable, local, and done over two full days. I was like, what? I always thought the same. Victoria was going back to do her level two and from there she'd be certified to practice on others and even begin charging for it.
I was like, what? And hang on, this is a live in person course during COVID times? What? I was so perplexed. Victoria explained that because it's educational, it's allowed to run and have vastly reduced class sizes. They've moved to a new venue so they can spread the chairs out for social distancing. And it's all mask and hand sanitizers.
And the class has been adapted. But hooray for getting to do something that's not online where you get to interact with people in real life. She was just absolutely buzzing over it. She sent me the link to this Reiki Academy London website and I watched some of the videos and saw that it all seemed to be legit.
Of course, now I realize it's the Reiki master level that's the harder core stuff. But for this level one, the price was low, the location unbelievably convenient for me. I mean, a 15 minute walk from my house. And it was running one last time in 2020 on the weekend following my eye operation when I wasn't going to be able to be on a computer at all.
It honestly felt like the stars were aligned for me to join this course. So of course I did. Well, A day before the course, I was practically blind from my eye surgery. I wasn't expecting that. I just was not going to be able to see at all. I spoke to Victoria and I said, are you sure I can do this course without being able to see?
And she assured me there were no slide presentations, no note taking, all just listening and often with your eyes closed anyway, and just giving and receiving the Reiki. She assured me I would be fine. She gave me some top tips like bring your own lunch and snacks, which was going to really help me. I wouldn't be able to have to go out during a lunch break and wander around kind of blind looking for food.
And she said bring water, bring a blanket, socks and slippers. The Reiki Academy London had sent me an email saying that I was advised to avoid alcohol or meat for at least a couple of days before the course, which of course I did. But here's a huge mistake I made. I had a home delivery vegetarian curry on the Friday night.
More on why that was a grave mistake coming up. On Saturday morning, I excitedly set off for the course. Literally a 15 minute walk door to door. I knew exactly where to go, but it wasn't until I was about to cross a busy road that I realized just how bad my vision was. I couldn't even see if a car was coming.
I had to make my way to a pedestrian crossing that thankfully had that beeping sound for the sight impaired so I could know when to cross. Despite living the closest to the venue, I was the last to arrive and take my seat. The others had traveled by car or train from far and wide to get to London for this course, and they'd all arrived in plenty of time.
And there was me, the closest one, and I was like arriving practically late. I sat down. I could just about make out nine ghostly figures in chairs and kind of two ghostly teachers at the front of the room. And I couldn't make out anyone's facial features, but here's what's cool. We were told we'd receive manuals covering everything about the course, and rather than taking notes, we were encouraged to tune in and simply listen and experience the teachings.
Normally, I'm a real note taker. I'm a visual learner. I like visuals to go with whatever's being said. I write everything down. This course, and my lack of vision, forced me to learn in a different style. As the teachers were a blur anyway, I oftentimes closed my eyes. I did explain in my introduction that I couldn't see, so nobody would think I was just there snoozing in my chair.
Rupert was an amazing teacher, and he made the history lessons about the Japanese origins of Reiki really fun and fascinating. I learned that the word Reiki can be best translated as spiritual energy or source energy. This really resonated with me as for the past few years I've been tapping into and fully experiencing source energy connection and my life has taken on a whole new dimension.
It's not something that anyone who knows me would necessarily notice, but it's a deep and profound shift within and how I feel about myself and life. Reiki works on the quantum level and the principle that everything is energy and we are all connected. Energy changes, but doesn't get lost. Life doesn't end with death.
Energy simply changes into another state. Healing means becoming whole again. Everything about this morning lesson of Reiki resonated with me deeply, but here's what was going on at the same time. Remember that curry from the night before? Oh my god. It must have had copious amounts of turmeric in it, and my body and turmeric don't mix.
I was in my chair with my buttcheeks clenched so tight because I knew from experience what would happen if I didn't. It was excruciating. Anytime we were given a toilet break, I was joined by other women queuing for the same three cubicles, so there was no chance of any relief there either. I know I could have excused myself during the lesson, but A, I was so engrossed in the lesson content.
B, I knew I'd have to put on my mask and get across this room without bumping into anyone. And C, there were often these meditations and I couldn't just leave during these silent moments. So, I used all the power of Zen to hold onto the discomfort and make it a part of my practice. Top tip people, don't eat a curry before going on a Reiki course.
Rupert was telling us about our multiple layers of auric fields, and to demonstrate, he stood against a white wall, and we were invited to look out for an outline around his head. Well, I'd only ever been able to see him as an outline. My eyes couldn't even make out his facial features. And in that moment, I looked around the room and realized my vision only allowed me to see people's auras.
I reframed my inability to see facial features as a sudden ability to only see people for their auras. I love it when the universe lines everything up like this. One of the very best parts of the course was receiving four attunements over the two days. This is where you're kind of bestowed Reiki energy powers from a Reiki master, in my case from the two teachers, Rupert and Alex.
During this ritual, the Reiki master brings a student into their own energy field and shares the experience of Reiki. As a result, the student subconsciously realizes that they can make this connection themselves. There are four attunements during a Reiki one course that gradually deepen the receptiveness for Reiki.
By the time you've had these four attunements, you yourself have the ability to call in and connect to Reiki absolutely anytime you need it. So during my first attunement, I saw amazing purple glowing lights behind my eyelids and in later attunements, it was more of a white light. It was like being bathed in deep peace.
They attune you for five minutes each time, and it's wonderful, and I'd say it's worth doing the course just for this alone. After each attunement, everyone in the class gets an opportunity to describe their experience. Some people saw purple lights, too. Others had visions. One cried from sheer joy and bliss.
By lunch break, I was starving. The others, you know, the ones with full eyesight headed out to eat lunch. This is before level tier three, whatever we're in in London now. So you could still like go out and go to restaurants and things. So they headed out to get a bite to eat. I was now eager to take Victoria's advice and head upstairs into this incredible building to find a cozy spot to eat my packed lunch.
This building Collette house was built in 1885, and it has a fascinating history. Amongst other things, during World War II, the house was occupied by naval intelligence as the D Day planning headquarters. So I made my way up to the top floor, opened a door, and found myself in what was once home to the Royal Ballet School.
It's the largest single studio in London, long enough to hold a cricket pitch. I entered into this majestic space. Found it to be thankfully empty, and with sweet relief, I finally released all of the pent up curry energy. Oh my god, I could have been used as a military strategic weapon during World War II to clear out the enemies.
I quickly got the hell out of that room in case anyone else came in and I found another area to eat my lunch. So, I sat down, I eagerly opened my rucksack, and then the horror hit me. My pack lunch was the leftover vegetarian curry from the night before. Oh my god, what was I thinking? Now with the benefit of hindsight, my future self would have said, Kelly, better to be starving the rest of today than to go in for more of that curry.
But my starving self in that moment decided I needed to eat. So it was another butt cheek clenched afternoon back in class, but I learned a lot, including self reiki treatment and how to give a treatment to others using a seated chair position. We finished up at 5. 30, and just as I was contemplating how I was going to get home after dark with limited vision, my fellow student Carl offered me a lift home.
I graciously accepted. It was only a 15 minute walk, but given how challenging it had been in daylight, at night my chances of being run over by a bus seemed very high. Once we stepped outside, the lights of cars and traffic lights and street lamps was like a kaleidoscope and I could barely walk to his car.
He plugged my address into his navigator and we set off. My mother ingrained in me, never take lifts with a stranger. And in that moment, I felt a bit reckless and vulnerable, which are not sensations I'm used to. My heart was beating a little faster and I made nervous small talk about how nice his heated seats were while still clenching my butt cheeks and praying nothing escaped.
I couldn't see where we were going. My eyes were completely dazzled by lights. I had to kind of close them, but I got the sudden sensation that we were going fast as in like motorway fast. You don't take a motorway to get to my house. He'd mentioned that he lived outside of London in Buckinghamshire. And in that moment, it hit me.
He's driving me towards his place. I said, Hey, what's going on? And he calmly said he'd missed the turning and he'd take the next exit and turn back. But he kept going. At speed. And I thought of my husband at home waiting for me. And I thought of everyone arriving day two of the Reiki course tomorrow and there being two chairs empty and everyone going, Hey, where are Carl and Kelly?
I thought, what if this is his game? And he goes to alternative healing events and preys on women there and takes them back to his cult. And then he reached the Talgarth roundabout and we headed back towards London. Back towards my home. I didn't have to release my stink bomb ammunition after all. On the way back, we had some great conversations.
Discovered we do the same online Kundalini yoga classes with Trish Whelan in Ibiza. And he's just a really super nice guy who genuinely missed the turning and went out of his way to give me a lift so I would return home safe and alive. Sorry, I doubted you for a second, Carl. Back home, Hubby went out of his mind.
What was I thinking, getting left home with a complete stranger? And I was like, oh come on, who goes and does a Reiki course only to kidnap and harm a fellow student? Get real. You're so paranoid. To ease his stress, I offered him a seated Reiki treatment, which he initially declined, until I told him my homework assignment required it.
I guess I could do it on a pet or myself if nobody else is available, he reluctantly agreed. I had my first case study, yeah! Let's find out if I have healing hands after my two attunements. He sat in a chair and I stood behind him. I did a quick ritual called dry brushing on myself to clear my own energy field.
And then I connected to Reiki and I began. Starting with his head, I felt a lot of heat in my hands when I reached his ears. Even though my hands were inches away from his head. I was meant to do three minutes on each point, but I couldn't see the clock that was only a few feet away. So I guessed, and I think I rushed it so he wouldn't become impatient, but in the end, I cleared out his auric field, I gave thanks to Reiki, and he smiled, and he was in a super good mood the whole rest of the evening, and he dropped the whole Carl incident.
I tried to give Reiki to my cat Mandu, but he was having none of it. You have to have permission to give Reiki to anyone, even an animal, so I let him off the hook. Our other homework was to practice giving Reiki to a glass of London tap water to purify it and then do a taste test. I did Reiki on one of them and presented them both to my husband and asked him to say which one tasted purer.
He guessed the Reiki one! He pointed out that he'd had a 50 50 chance. I went to bed and slept super deeply, but I woke up in the morning to a very unhappy, bloated, gassy, constipated tummy. I have the world's best digestion normally, so this was not the way I wanted to spend day two of my course. Clearly, my lunchtime leftovers were now going to be the bane of my existence for another day.
Ah, except I could do a Reiki self treatment that actually was the next part of my homework. So I began at my head and I moved my way down and when I got to my tummy, my hands burned up as did my tummy. I sent that Reiki energy to it and it worked. My tummy action completely cleared up. Yeah, the energy in the room on day two was transformed from the previous morning, whereas we'd all been complete strangers 24 hours earlier.
Now we were all still socially distanced, but chatting away in our chairs. Rupert had to break us up so he could begin. He asked how our homework assignments went, and it was fascinating to hear different experiences of people trying out their newfound abilities to direct healing energy on themselves, their family members, their pets.
Everyone noticed the difference in the Reiki London tap water. One woman's daughter said, Oh mummy, this one tastes like the water that we get when we go to the mountains in France. Many said it was less of a taste, but more of a purity. It felt smoother and nicer on the tongue. Later in the day, five Reiki massage tables were set up.
We were told to pair up and decide who'd be giving Reiki and who'd be receiving. I paired up with the gorgeous Simone from Romania. Well, her aura was gorgeous and as I got closer to her masked face, I could see that her eyes were too. I took the laying down option first and I put my blankie over me.
We've been told to bring our own blankets due to COVID and mine felt very snuggly and comforting. 50 whole minutes of lying down with my blankie in peace was sounding very good right now. Oh, I have to mention the lovely woman on the course whose name now escapes me. She had a three year old and twin babies at home with her husband so she could do this two day course.
And I was like, you rock. So many mothers tell me they can't possibly find the time to do anything for themselves at all. And here she was, poster girl for Project Me. And what an amazing husband. Due to new safety restrictions, we were not allowed to do any hand positions that would put our faces too close together, but there was still plenty to do.
So I laid back and I allowed Reiki energy to flow through me via Simoni and it felt lovely. When she hovered her hands above my solar plexus sacral area, like my belly area, it felt really intense. Afterwards, she said her hands felt super hot in that area too. Clearly, the curry energy was still hanging around in my gut.
When my lovely time was up, I loaded up with hand sanitizer and we switched positions. I called in and connected to Reiki, I closed my eyes to begin her treatment. I could tell Simone had suddenly fallen asleep when I reached her sacral chakra. And when I got down to her thighs, my hands were burning hot.
Then my whole body went like an inferno. I felt suffocated by my mask and I wanted to whip off my sweater, but I didn't want to spoil the flow. Thankfully, when I moved further down her legs, my temperature dropped again. There is this really weird sense of imposter syndrome. We kind of talked about this a lot of us afterwards.
It kind of flits in and out as you're giving a treatment like, Who am I to be doing this? I don't have a special gift. I don't have magic hands, do I? But then you have to remind yourself that you are the conduit. It's not you. It's the Reiki energy coming into you and passing through you. When you stop questioning yourself and you release your ego, you relax into this more and you trust that you and anyone else can do this.
I'm like, who am I not to do this? I like that about Reiki. It's simply showing you what you're innately able to do when you get out of your head and you allow source energy to flow through you. We had two more attunements with the Reiki masters that day, and we were presented with our beautiful Reiki level one certificates, which means we're now allowed to practice for free on anyone.
To charge money, you need to complete level two, and it's the Reiki master training that takes it to all the highest levels ever since the course. I wake up every morning and I put on a YouTube of Reiki music with a chime every three minutes, and I do my self practice. I move my hands to different positions every three minutes.
And I did a full body session on my 21 year old son. He'd burned his finger on a hot pan at dinner, and he'd done the exact same thing two weeks previously, touched the handle of a pan that had just come out of the oven. Despite running under cold water for ages when it happened, it was throbbing and painful that night.
So, when I did his full body treatment, I added in three minutes of Reiki to focus on healing his burnt finger. And he said, it completely stopped hurting as soon as I directed the Reiki to it. And it didn't ever go back to throbbing or hurting whatsoever the way it had when he'd burned his finger a couple of weeks earlier.
So this is my first actual Reiki healing. I was like, yeah, I'm doing this. I'm really looking forward to having Reiki in my toolbox now and just continuing to practice with it. I'd love to do the Reiki Level 2 course for sure. I highly recommend anyone interested in understanding energy better to just do a Level 1 Reiki course.
Just do it for yourself. You don't have to even think you're going to be doing this, you know, on anyone else. Just do it for yourself. If you can get yourself to London, I really do recommend this Reiki Academy London. They take great care in preserving the original teachings, and they can show that their Reiki lineage, which is like a family tree, it can be traced all the way back to its original founder.
I want to say a big thank you to Victoria for recommending the course and encouraging me to go even when I doubted I could do it because of my poor vision. I'm so happy I went. And I want to say thanks to my teachers, Rupert and Alex, and to my classmates, who I hope to see on level two. And Carl, I'm sorry I ever thought for a moment that you were a serial kidnapper.
Thanks for the lift after day two as well.
Thank you for listening to the Project Me podcast. There's no PDF of journal prompts for this episode as my eyes can't work on a screen, but if you've missed any of the previous episodes or you haven't done the journal prompts for those, I really encourage you to do so. Journaling is such a powerful tool for unlocking your personal power and you don't know what's going to come out until you put a pen to paper and allow it to flow out.
These PDFs of journal prompts are there to help you with this. You'll find them in the show notes for each episode in the podcast section of myprojectme. com. While you're there, get the free Project Me Life Wheel tool. It comes with helpful prompts to get you to explore your eight key life areas. And I'd love to welcome you into Project We, my online Power Posse of women who are all working on our project needs Together.
Join before the end of 2020 to get the design, my year 2021 workbook and to get yourself into a fresh, new mindset for this new year. Now, more than ever, we need to surround ourselves with positivity and project. We is the best online community. Come and find out for yourself. Go to my project me.com/project.
We. In the next episode, I'll be able to share news of what's coming up for me in 2021. A new chapter of my life is opening up and I'm pondering what my word of the year will be. I may need to do the sway test again to decide which word to go with. Subscribe and stay tuned to the Project Me podcast. Let me take this opportunity to wish you happy holidays.
I know it's a weird one this year and I really hope you allow the energy of Christmas to flow through you no matter what the outer circumstances are. Sending you lots of love until next time open your heart, open your mind and stay curious. We all need some space in our lives for the magical and unknown.