Choosing a Reiki Practitioner or Teacher

handsThere are over 140 different styles of Reiki out there and so
appreciably it is difficult for anyone looking for a Reiki practitioner
or teacher to know what sort of criteria they need to be looking out
for.

A Reiki practitioner or teacher should ultimately take responsibility
for giving their clients the best treatment they can offer, whilst
under their care, with due regard to the client’s medical condition and
implications of any medications the client is taking for their
condition. A good Reiki practitioner or teacher should also have
honesty, integrity and underpinning knowledge of their subject. Don’t
be afraid when you ring up for a treatment or Reiki course to ask
plenty of questions about how the practitioner or teacher works with
Reiki. If the answers they give you seem ambiguous and forced, then
look elsewhere.

The main thing is to trust your intuition, it does not matter how
knowledgeable someone may seem, if you feel that something is not quite
right then trust your instincts. It is irrelevant if someone says they
have practiced Reiki for 20 years if they don’t understand what they
are doing!

Below you will find some criteria to look out for when deciding where to go for Reiki.

Make sure the practitioner or Reiki teacher belongs to an accredited
Reiki association and teaches an accredited course. Also be aware that
different associations follow different codes of practice and their
members teach in different ways.

Speak to the Reiki practitioner first by telephone to be sure that
you feel comfortable with the practitioner. Make sure that they are
empathetic, candid and can readily answer any of your questions. If a
Reiki healer cannot make you understand what they are talking about
they don’t understand it themselves.

Ask the practitioner lots of questions about how they work with Reiki
to make sure it suits you. Many practitioners are not willing to work
on specific conditions which is fine if all you want is a treatment
purely for relaxation, but if you have anything that needs treating
make sure you go to a practitioner who works actively with Reiki and
will work directly on your condition(s).

If you are going for a Reiki treatment and you are female it is
probably safer to either go and see a female practitioner or take a
friend with you for the first treatment.

Some Reiki websites offer distant treatments or attunements. This can
be extremely misleading. The qualifications will not be recognised and
you don’t know what sort of treatment or course you will be getting.

It is much better to see a practitioner directly and if you are
learning Reiki it is important to learn from a qualified teacher who
will offer you the support you need during and after the course.
Distant attunements can be at the very least completely ineffectual and
at the worse very dangerous. Remember that you are letting someone you
have never met before make changes to your energy field, so make sure
you feel safe with them.

If you are undertaking a Reiki course make sure that the course is
certified and that manual and post course support are included. Some
Reiki teachers do not provide you with a manual and it will be hard for
you to remember everything you have learned and practice Reiki
effectively after you have completed your course.

Be very wary of Reiki teachers that offer bargain’ deals such as
learning Reiki I, II and III all in one weekend. You cannot become a
good Reiki Master in one weekend. It is a huge responsibility to teach
Reiki and to practice Reiki on others. Learning all the Reiki levels in
one weekend will leave you deflated, frustrated, lacking in a good
foundation of knowledge and most probably completely unable to use
Reiki effectively.

Reiki Level I if it is traditional Usui Reiki should have 4
attunements, Level II should have 1 attunement and Master level should
have 1 attunement. These are the number of attunements the founder of
Reiki Mikao Usui used.

Some Reiki teachers say it doesn’t matter how many attunements you
have, you will still be able to use Reiki but this is nonsense. The
attunement process connects you to the source of the energy and raises
your frequency as well as placing the Reiki symbols into various parts
of your body to enable you to be an effective channel for the energy.
They are a vital part of a Reiki course and it is imperative that you
are attuned properly if you want to be an effective Reiki practitioner
yourself.

Reiki attunements should not involve singing bowels, Tibetan bells,
gongs or any other unnecessary paraphernalia unrelated to Reiki. You
are not receiving a traditional Usui attunement if any of the former is
involved in the attunement process. It might be best to ask the Reiki
teacher before you sign up for a course what is involved when they give
you attunements.

Be very wary of Reiki teachers that offer Reiju or empowerments
instead of attunements. Reiju or empowerments are what Mikao Usui used
to give to the students he saw daily or weekly and they raise your
frequency in tiny steps, enabling you after years of practice to use
Reiki for healing purposes. Usui gave attunements to the students he
only saw once or twice to dramatically raise their frequency in one go
because he wouldn’t be seeing them on a regular basis. This enabled
Usui’s students to use Reiki instantly to heal.

If you have Reiju/empowerments you will feel dis-empowered because you
will not be able to give effective healings to yourself or others
unless you spend hours a day doing specific meditations taught by Mikao
Usui such as Hatsu rei ho.

If a Reiki teacher tells you that there needs to be a gap between
Reiki Level I and II you would be better off looking elsewhere. It is
in fact much better to learn Reiki I and II together. The reason for
this is that Reiki Level I only enables you to heal on a spiritual
level and everybody has physical and emotional traumas that need
healing. By learning level II straight after you will be able to heal
yourself on every level so if during your cleansing period anything
physical or emotional surfaces you will be able to heal it effectively.
You will also be able to heal others on a physical and emotional level,
working on conditions directly. With level I you can only heal
spiritually so you may be left feeling frustrated that you cannot heal
more effectively.

Be sure to check that the Reiki teacher or practitioner has a lineage
which extends all the way back to the founder of Reiki, Mikao Usui.

Ask the Reiki practitioner if they have ongoing treatments or would
only treat a client for a certain period of time. A good ethical Reiki
practitioner should not see a client for more than around 6 – 12
treatments (unless the client has a serious or terminal condition that
requires ongoing treatment). Some Reiki healers will treat someone for
years but a good healer should help you to empower and take
responsibility for yourself and get you back to good health in as few
treatments as possible, rather than taking your money for years on end.

Beware of Reiki practitioners or teachers with big egos! Reiki is a
gift from God or the Universe (whichever label you prefer) and a wise
healer is humble and accepts that the energy of Reiki is infinite and
limitless in its potential. A Reiki practitioner should accept
responsibility for their client and treat whatever their client comes
to them for.

A good Reiki practitioner/ teacher should accept that Reiki has
contraindications and be willing to discuss these with their client or
students. Reiki cannot be given in certain circumstances, for instance
someone with a pacemaker should NOT have Reiki because the pacemaker is
electromagnetic and so is Reiki, therefore the Reiki may potentially
alter the speed of the pacemaker.

If a Reiki practitioner/ teacher claims that Reiki has no
contraindications they may be putting your health at risk if you suffer
from certain conditions or take certain medications.

These guidelines are by no means exhaustive but they should give you an
idea of what to look for in a Reiki practitioner or Reiki teacher.

Copyright Dawn Mellowship 2005.

 

Dawn Mellowship is a qualified Reiki practitioner and teacher who has
taught active Reiki, in the Usui style to hundreds of students. Dawn is
a member of the Reiki Healers and Teachers Society and her website can
be found at http://www.activ-energy.com

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/alternative-medicine-articles/choosing-a-reiki-practitioner-or-teacher-94851.html

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