Connectedness at a share - I need to take more photos over coffee

When I used to teach Reiki on the side of a full time job in consulting, I always felt a bit bad that people would have a great experience of learning Reiki but then go out into the world and have to use Reiki on their own, sometimes struggling for months or occasionally years to get their Reiki 2 casework done.  So when I became self-employed so I could devote more time to Reiki teaching and projects, one of the first things I set out to do was access a good Reiki share forum.   Fortunately, Fiona McLaren had set up the Glasgow Reiki Meetup Group and while it had gone quiet when its venue shut, she found a new venue and happily handed over the group to me.  What a gift it has turned out to be!

An appetite for camaraderie among Reiki people – My instinct that Reiki people should have camaraderie has been confirmed by the growth and enthusiasm of the members of the Glasgow Reiki Meetup. I remember one day in the early days of the Learning and Development Hour (which became the Japanese Meditation Hour).  We spent most of the hour sharing experiences that participants couldn’t share with their friends or family because Reiki sounded just too amazing to get their heads around.  “Oh, have you experienced that too?!” echoed many times that day.

The experience of coming together with people from a common interest and background seems to create instant glue, and it’s always a delight to me to watch people who may have never met before collaboratingn around a Reiki table and excitedly debriefing after a treatment.  And then there’s the chat that erupts between the Japanese Meditation Hour and the share – and the groups of people who drift off to An Clachan for a coffee together after a Sunday share.  People love to make connections, to be part of something bigger, to see people they’ve got to know over time and say, “Hel-lo! How have you been getting on?”   Smiles and warm hearts all round!

More shares, more people, more delights – Since we’ve had the Reiki Master Shares, the Weekday Reiki Shares and the monthly workshops, new people have appeared whose diaries allow for these other options, and the camaraderie has become interlaced between the different events.  There’s such warmth, familiarity and cosiness.  The peak of the month’s Reiki cosiness has to be the Reiki Master Share on a Friday night with nibbles, chat, cosy cats and loads of empowerments, all with the relaxation of a Friday night.  The Swedes have their “fredag mys” – Friday cosy, and I reckon the Reiki Master Shares have to be the perfect fredag mys for a Reiki person.   That’s why I am so delighted to teach more Masters and welcome them into the group… and the pleasures of doing Reiju empowerments at the normal shares.

Progressing with Reiki skills and experience – As well as the benefits of Reiki fellowship, the mix of events have given a lot of people the chance to develop.  So many stories of learning new tools, strengthened intuition and more peace in life, of greater confidence and moving forward. And those who were leaving other work to start therapy businesses have found they are taking off.  So satisfying to hear about – and to see!  I’ve been running the share long enough now to see people come along timidly at first, some not yet attuned to
Reiki, and then go on to progress to Reiki Master and Karuna Reiki.  Imagine how many lives are being transformed in this process!

It’s not just other people who have progressed, but me too!  I’ve had the chance to meet new people, learn new skills from the people who have led our workshops (many thanks, Jane Forrest, Lorna McLean, Fiona McLaren, Patricia Iris and Pauline Wilkie!) and from Graeme Leckie who’s always bringing along new things to try at the shares, including sharing Karuna with the Masters group.  My approach to Reiki has evolved a lot to incorporate these new things.

Personal progress since learning Karuna Reiki – Since learning Karuna Reiki in August, things are shifting usefully in my own life as well.   I’ve tidied up a significant relationship that was not quite working (my friends will know how giant this is!) and am enthusiastically looking at admin systems that will make things run more smoothly and help me overcome a bit of an aversion to paper and timesheets that developed in my last job.  The great thing about Karuna is that it’s got “emotional anaesthetic” that you can use to clear out old issues.  I have been quite amazed to see myself being unfazed as I take a different approach that I couldn’t have imagined being comfortable with before.  There’s a heightened sense of open-mindedness and curiosity to see how life unfolds.  I’ve also noticed stronger feelings of gratitude about people and opportunities that I’ve been blessed with, which haven’t been lost in my clearout.

There’s more on the horizon, but part of my new efforts to live better this year is to filter the loads of good ideas, and concentrate on the
satisfaction on bringing the most useful to fruition.  So watch this space (or better yet the Light on the Path Facebook page, which will have new things on it regularly now.)

And in the meantime, enjoy the camaraderie of the Glasgow Reiki Meetup Group and keep progressing!