Self-compassion is recognizing our suffering and extending kindness towards ourselves to alleviate our suffering.

Self-compassion is internally based on the messages we tell ourselves through thoughts. We can externalize self-compassion through activities and outward expression of kindness through important physical self-care like looking after our health.

Self-compassion means being kind to ourselves especially when we are feeling vulnerable. During these times we already feel bad about our situation and consequently, we may feel bad about ourselves. At these times it can be difficult to extend a hand of kindness and compassion to our situation and our reactions to the situation.

It is helpful to develop awareness around the way we treat ourselves internally and externally. This awareness can help us develop more beneficial self-care actions to cope with our experiences.

Self-compassion helps improve our wellbeing and mental health by giving us skills to reduce our internal thoughts that contain negative self-criticism. Self-compassion encourages us to maintain an open mind about our circumstances and experiences and how we react to those experiences.

Through self-compassion we can view our thoughts and emotions as ‘normal’. This can provide a more accepting approach to processing difficult emotions.

If we extend self-compassion to ourselves when we make mistakes, we can see that acknowledging our mistakes helps resolve conflict quicker compared to holding a defensive and self-criticizing approach.

Self-compassion invites us to stop judging ourselves as ‘bad’ or ‘good’ and allows us the space to explore our understanding of our behavior and emotions.

To gain insight into how self-compassionate you are, review the statements below.

• When something goes wrong I blame myself
• I criticize myself even when things go well
• I don’t look after myself when I am experiencing a difficult time
• I focus on my faults
• I am disappointed in myself if I make a mistake
• I don’t treat myself with much kindness when I am struggling
• I find it difficult to accept my mistakes
• I think a lot about things I don’t like about myself
• I feel like I struggle with most things

Providing self-compassion can require a change from criticism to self-care. Engaging in self-compassion may be uncomfortable if you struggle with negative beliefs around self-pity.

With practice, you can make some improvements and increase your overall wellbeing by engaging in more self-compassion

The effects of a Reiki session can be felt immediately after the session as well as some time after. Each person’s response is different. Often, we will look for proof of mental or physical changes in response to Reiki treatment, however, much of our inner is conducted at the subconscious level. We typically use our conscious thoughts to inquire, investigate and rationalize thoughts. In the case of Reiki, much of the healing is done outside of our own conscious efforts and therefore can be difficult for us quantify.

The impact of a Reiki session may be felt in the way you feel about your perception of a situation or event that follows your Reiki session. You may feel more relaxed and calmer and more present with where you are. Your sense may be more heightened with touch, taste, and sight. If you are going through an emotional transition, you may feel liberated from emotional repression. You may feel dehydrated and tired and should hydrate with water soon after your session.

These effects can normally last from hours up to 2 days after your session.

Remain open to the effects of your Reiki session and understand that your body and mind are working in tandem with the energy flow of Reiki.

You can spend some time after your session reflecting on your emotions, thoughts and physical response to the Reiki session. Use this time to write in a journal or record your thoughts somehow. You may want to meditate, create art, go for a gentle walk in nature. Participating in kind and loving self-care for yourself after your Reiki session will help extend the benefits that you receive from Reiki.

This exercise is designed to help us become open to self-compassion:

• Start this session by engaging in mindful breathing using the 4-7-8 breathing technique. Inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 7 seconds, and exhale for 8 seconds
• Reiki provides a framework for us to develop our perspective in life through what is known as the 5 principles which are:
  • Today I will not worry
  • Today I will not be angry
  • Today I will work honestly
  • Today I will be grateful
  • Today I will be kind to all living things
• Repeat the following mantras to help improve your internal beliefs about your purpose:
  • I am worthy of self-compassion
  • I offer myself kindness
  • I deserve peace
• Use the Reiki symbol of emotions Sei He Ki (picture A below) over any areas where you might feel tension.

• After you have completed the Sei He Ki symbol, let your body relax and release all tension.
• Close out your Reiki session using the mindful breathing technique of 4-7-8.

One of the symbols you will learn in Reiki is called Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen. The symbol is pictured below:

This symbol refers to ‘having no present, past or future’. Symbolically it is used as a way of working with clients as they have existed in the past, as they exist in the present, and as they will exist in the future.

Practically it is also used when using Reiki over a physical distance. This means that you can provide Reiki without being physically present with a client.

Before providing Reiki by distance, you should seek permission from your client. Some practitioners will request that their client set aside time for a distance appointment whereby you provide Reiki and at the same time, the client will lay down or sit comfortably while you perform the Reiki session by distance.

The reason that some practitioners don’t set a specific time aside, is that Reiki energy is always around us. It is not a matter of Reiki energy only being available at 2pm on a Friday for 20 minutes. As Reiki energy is available, then the invoking of symbols throughout a Reiki session will not be affected by time.

Alternatively, other practitioners prefer that their client makes themselves available at a specific time for a distance Reiki session. They request this with the goal of helping their client activate a sense of calm and relaxation for the session to obtain the maximum benefits of the session. There is no doubt that in-person sessions are beneficial because the sessions allow for the client to engage in self-care where they can lay down or sit quietly and not be distracted by the stresses and activities that daily life requires. This self-care provides an ancillary benefit that can be coupled with the Reiki benefits that are provided.

Ultimately, it is up to the practitioner to set their guidelines for treatment. If you are a new Reiki practitioner and do not hold a set view on whether to set specific appointment times or not for your distance Reiki sessions, you may want to try both approaches. You could then ask your clients for feedback on any sensations or experiences they had during the session.

One situation where setting appointment times may be difficult is if you are offering Reiki sessions to clients in vastly different time zones. In that case, you may want to set a general date and avoid setting a specific time zone so you or your client don’t have to be awake at late hours.

Distance Reiki can also have other benefits for the client who can choose where to be during their distance Reiki session. Your client may feel most comfortable at home in their surroundings or they may want to visit a place that is special to them such as a park or beach where they can feel connected with nature while receiving Reiki.

Distance Reiki can be beneficial as it provides the client some control over the environment in which they receive Reiki.

If you want to provide distance reiki sessions in your practice, there are a few things to consider which we’ve detailed below:

ADMINISTRATION

• Booking system – you will need to set up a way for your clients to book a session with you. You may want to use a booking plugin on your website, or provide your clients with the ability to book a session with you via email or social media.

• Payment system – as your client won’t be paying in person, you will need to provide a way to collect payment from your client. Once the appointment is booked, you should request payment from your client. Some of the ways you can do this include PayPal, Stripe, direct bank transfer, or any other form of electronic transfer. As a courtesy to your client, it’s best practice to charge no more than 24-48 hours before their session date. This will help them feel like you are not holding their money for too long without providing the service. If there are issues with the payment being processed and no payment is received before the session begins, you should take caution and reschedule the session until payment is made.

• Client communication – before the session, you will want to communicate with your client to determine if they have any specific areas in their life that they want to focus on in their Reiki session. You can obtain this information either through a free-form email request or from your client using a client intake form where they can identify specific issues on the form. Some practitioners require a photo of the client to connect with the client. Engaging in communication with your client before and after the session will provide them with a sense that you value client care as part of your Reiki practice.

REIKI SESSION

When communicating with your client before the session, you should provide specific details on whether you want your client to prepare for their Reiki session. This might include instructions on finding a quiet space without distractions where they can sit or lie down.

You can provide instructions for them to begin the session well hydrated. You may also want to suggest they engage in some 4-7-8 breathing to invite a relaxed and calm feeling before the session begins.

You may also want to provide your client with an intention that they can repeat in their mind. This can be something based on the 5 principles which are:

• Today I will not worry
• Today I will not be angry
• Today I will work honestly
• Today I will be grateful
• Today I will be kind to all living things

Alternatively, you can provide an intention that welcomes Reiki and the life energy that provides health and wellbeing to all.

You can also remind them to stay hydrated after the session is complete.

After the session, you may want to follow up with any issues your client experienced during the session. You can send an email to your client identifying any specific areas that became obvious to you through the session as you were providing Reiki.

Providing Reiki by distance can open up your client list to people who live around the world. Before opening up your client bookings, make sure your insurance will cover you for any sessions outside of your Reiki room.

Marketing to clients around the world means you can expand any advertising on social media to include other countries or even regional locations just outside of your hometown.

Providing distance Reiki sessions is an answer to a problem that many remote clients experience. People who live in regional areas or small towns often don’t have access to specialist services such as Reiki. Providing Reiki distance sessions enables you to provide a service that some people may not be able to access otherwise.

For advertisements you create, be sure to include the benefits of distance Reiki, including some of the below:

• Accessibility for clients in remote areas
• Preference of location by the client who might want to experience Reiki in nature
• Cost savings for the client who does not need to travel to a practitioner’s office
• Ownership of location for those who experience social anxiety
• Healing sessions for those who are sick and cannot travel outside of their home or hospital

All marketing should attempt to convey the message that your services can help your potential client. By addressing the benefits of distance Reiki in your marketing materials, potential clients can feel confident that distance Reiki can help them.

Many of us go through life making decisions about our hobbies, careers, and family/social life based on what we have been exposed to through other people in our social circle.

When we are young we often make decisions based on the opinions and expectations of others, however, as we mature and gain more life experiences we might find ourselves looking at a broader range of views and wonder if what we’ve done so far has provided a purpose in our lives.

We might find ourselves asking some of the following questions:

• How can I bring more happiness and meaning to my life?
• How can I use my time to pursue a path that gives me purpose?
• What would I do if earning money wasn’t a consideration in my decision?
• What do I want to be remembered for?

Ironically though, sometimes these questions and the pursuit of purpose can instill as much expectation and obligation as doing the things we don’t want to do in our lives. With this in mind, seeking a bigger purpose in our lives should be something we pursue with openness and passion instead of expectation and obligation.

Finding purpose in life often requires a balance of seeking satisfaction through decisions you make to change your life. However, finding purpose isn’t a cure-all for resolving problems in your life with the belief that finding a purpose will eliminate those problems.

A life purpose can mean different things to some people. For some, it may mean all aspects of their lives are in alignment with a common goal. For others, it may mean a career that gives purpose. Alternatively, for others, seeking a purpose may refer to what they do outside of their career and other life obligations. The level at which you incorporate a purpose in your life, and its many facets, is always personal.

Generally speaking, your life purpose usually involves a common theme in your life that brings together all of your life experiences, skills, abilities, and things that hold your interest.

One of the most important tools to find your life purpose is the experiences you have had in your life. These experiences can inform us of what we love, what we hate, what inspires us and motivates us, and what gives us a deeper sense of purpose, contentment, and satisfaction.

It is useful to reflect on experiences that gave you a sense of joy and accomplishment, however, it’s also useful to identify the experiences that gave you a sense of fear, anxiety, and dread. Defining your life purpose involves knowing what motivates you as well as knowing what does not motivate you.

Reflection provides the space for you to gain important insight into what matters most to you and what drives your interests. This provides vital information as you work towards refining your life purpose.

This doesn’t mean we should avoid difficult things in life. Even pursuing things we love often requires effort and sacrifice, however, these moments often culminate in an outcome that delivers its promise of giving your life purpose.

EXERCISE

One useful exercise that may help you define your life purpose is below:

• Sit quietly and close your eyes if that helps eliminate visual distractions
• Contemplate the idea of your ‘perfect day’
• As you contemplate this idea, think about how you want to spend this day. Is this day occurring where you currently live or in another location?

You might dream of the perfect day as visiting bakeries in Paris or a week in the Maldives, however, for the purpose of this exercise, we want to focus on the everyday. What would a day be like that can form part of your everyday life.

Once you have created that perfect day in your imagination, use it to guide how you might define your life purpose.

Some aspects that might provide joy and purpose in your life:

• Working with people or alone
• Working with large groups or working with individuals
• Experiences with your family or broader communities
• Working with technology or not
• Working indoors or outdoors
• To nurture creativity

The above statements are presented as either/or decisions but often we can like two opposing ideas at once. For example, you may like working indoors as well as outdoors and can find a way that your purpose incorporates a balance of both options.

After reflecting on your past experiences, you can begin to formulate your life purpose statement. Below are some examples of life purpose statements that might help you create your own:

• To inspire children to develop self-belief and resilience
• To raise a family that thrives in nature
• To help small business owners create a multi-generational
• To engage in the world with a focus on nature, spirituality, and social equality
• To be a positive presence in people’s lives

It’s important to remember that defining a life purpose requires an openness to change – change to work towards your life purpose, and openness to change your goals as your circumstances change. For example, the life purpose you define at age 25 might look differently when you are 55 and have experienced more of life.

Remaining flexible, open, and positive will help keep you focus your attention on understanding a life purpose that means most to you.

Once you have identified your life purpose, the next step is to create an action plan that will help set a path for how you can achieve your purpose.

• Identify what depletes your physical and mental energy so you can be aware of potential pitfuls of pursuing your purpose
• Seek to reduce or eliminate any distractions that will detract from exploring or fulfilling your purpose
• Identify people in your life that support you or drain your energy
• Learn to say ‘no’ to obligations or requests for your time that doesn’t contribute to your purpose
• Undertake the exercise above mentioned in the DEFINE YOUR LIFE PURPOSE section of this post.

After you have identified your life purpose and the potential distractions and supports for pursuing your purpose, start to devise a plan that will help move you to the next step of action.

It is difficult to quantify a pathway in this post because each pursuit of a life purpose will require its own demands of time, energy, and other resources. Your purpose may require a change of mindset or it could require a more complex set of physical steps to take.

As with any set of actions, there are often qualifiers and nuances to how we can view aspects of our lives. Some people can throw caution to the wind and pursue their purpose without concern for tomorrow or any potential fallout. This doesn’t always imply irresponsibility as some people can boldly make decisions and believe they will be ok.

For others, certain aspects of their lives may significantly impact their ability to pursue personal goals of purpose. Each person must make their determination for what they can temporarily or permanently change in their life to pursue a path that helps develop their life purpose.

The difficulty of seeking a life purpose is the messages we carry about our worthiness and ability to achieve that purpose.

This mindfulness exercise is designed to help us become open to our worthiness for change and seek a purpose that brings us fulfillment.

• Start this session by engaging in mindful breathing using the 4-7-8 breathing technique. Inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 7 seconds, and exhale for 8 seconds
• Reiki provides a framework for us to develop our perspective in life through what is known as the 5 principles which are:
  • Today I will not worry
  • Today I will not be angry
  • Today I will work honestly
  • Today I will be grateful
  • Today I will be kind to all living things
• Repeat the following mantras to help improve your internal beliefs about your purpose:
  • I am worthy of my purpose
  • I can decide my purpose
  • I can pursue my purpose
  • I deserve a life of purpose
• Use the Reiki symbol of emotions Sei He Ki (pictured below) over any areas where you might feel tension.
• 
• After you have completed the Sei He Ki symbol, let your body relax and release all tension.
• Close out your Reiki session using the mindful breathing technique of 4-7-8.

A personal growth plan is a specifically designed plan for you that aims to help you develop your personal goals and add to the overall growth of your skills, knowledge, and values.

Your plan should focus on you which includes your personality, the obstacles you face, the goals you want to achieve, and the values you attribute to how you want to grow as a person.

Your plan should contain actionable items that help you make progress on your goals. There is limited value to a plan that outlines your goals but does not provide you with a map of how to achieve what you want.

A personal growth plan is not essential to your development and achievement goals as many of us go through life already setting and achieving goals. However, many of us also determine in certain parts of our lives that we haven’t achieved as much as we wanted to with our time. We may realize that we’ve become distracted by lesser important goals, and have not always put our goals at the center of our attention.

With this in mind, a personal growth plan can help set a definite pathway of how we can limit distractions, and put our goals at the forefront of our decision making.

The chance of your personal growth plan being successful will depend on:

• The realistic goals that you set
• The regular attention that you give to your plan
• Assessing your plan regularly to make changes where necessary

A personal growth plan can be as specific, broad, or detailed orientated as you like. For example, you can be very specific about what you do each Tuesday night that works towards your goals. Alternatively, you can set broader time frames that might not focus on every Tuesday but will result in you achieving the same goals by the end of a specific month.

Creating a personal growth plan has an enormous benefit for achieving short term goals, however, it also helps us explore our perceptions of our abilities as well as our capabilities. By committing to pursuing personal growth, we can test the limiting beliefs we may hold about ourselves and our capability to try new things.

By undertaking this challenge, we can build confidence and explore more aspects of this life that we have been given.

Your personal growth goals will depend on the final outcomes that you want to achieve. For example, if your final outcome is to be healthier, then you can break this overall outcome down into goals to work towards that are more specific.

• Your end result may be improved health.
• Your goal to achieve this end result may be to improve your fitness which impacts your health.
• This can turn into a smaller goal, or goals, which may be walking 20 mins 4 days a week and lifting weights 2 days a week.

As much as the goal of improving fitness will impact our health, it will also provide additional benefits such as improved sleep, increased socializing opportunities, and increased cognitive performance.

Some examples of personal growth goals include:

• Overcome a fear
• Improve communication within a specific relationship or generally
• Develop self-compassion
• Reduce procrastination
• Improve sleep
• Improve conflict resolution skills
• Move on from past hurts and difficulties
• Develop resilience
• Manage stress

The main goals we can set can fall within the following areas of our life:

• Health
• Wealth
• Mental wellbeing
• Relationships
• Career/work/school
• Social networking
• Knowledge learning and skill development

These are the most common areas in our life that we engage within. Most of our personal growth areas can fall within any of the areas.

The most simplified approach to identifying your goals includes:

• Identify your end result
• Identify the actions you need to undertake to achieve this end result
• Identify the skills and resources you need to implement this action plan
• Identify the action plan to gain the necessary skills and resources for your plan
• Implement your action plan once you have gathered the necessary skills and resources

Identifying your personal growth goals can often stem from dissatisfaction with specific areas in your life. We may feel that some areas can be improved and this can inspire an introspective inventory of all aspects of our life.

Alternatively, even if you are satisfied with the above areas in your life, you can still identify some goals that you may like to put in place now for your future self to benefit from.

When creating your personal growth plan, there is no set pathway that you can achieve the growth that you seek. Your plan should be specific to you, your personality, your time, and your intellectual, physical, and financial resources. Everyone must seek their own path to ultimate fulfillment.

With that said, we’ve created a generalized version of a personal growth plan that you can use as a framework to build your plan:

• Identify what your personal growth goals are based on your desired outcomes
• Identify the resources you need
• Identify the obstacles you need to overcome
• Identify the self-sabotage behaviors you may engage in
• Implement a plan for support – ask for help
• Document and review your goals, milestones, and achievements along the way
• Revise your goals where appropriate
• Celebrate and reward yourself for your hard work

We’ve included a template to use in developing your personal growth plan. Use this template or modify it to suit your pathway to achieving personal growth.

​When we think of inspiration, we often think in terms of creativity and artistic pursuits. However, inspiration doesn’t belong only to the pursuit of artistic endeavors.

Inspiration can center itself in our lives as a driving force for us to take action in areas of our lives. These areas can include our relationships, our career path, our daily living, and the way we perceive our purpose and value in life.

Inspiration can motivate us to set goals and undertake actions that can change our lives. We can forge new dreams about the direction our lives are taking when we allow inspiration from a variety of sources to enter our lives.

Inspiration can introduce us to new opportunities and possibilities and help alter thinking styles that seek to limit our involvement. Inspiration can motivate us and boost our mood so that we develop a strong sense of belief in our abilities.

In times when our energy is negatively impacted by physical fatigue or emotional distress, inspiration can provide a boost of motivation to help move us through difficult times and experiences.

One of the positive traits of inspiration is that is typically an act of spontaneity without any manufactured effort. However, this can also be a detracting aspect of inspiration, if you are moving through a difficult period in life and moments of spontaneous inspiration are alluding you.

Although inspiration is largely spontaneous, we can also encourage moments of inspiration by participating in activities and experiences that we know have motivated us or inspired us in the past. From this perspective, it is useful to determine what has inspired us in the past so that we can use this knowledge to guide our choices in the future.

Inspiration makes us open to experiences and ways of working towards our goals. Inspiration increases overall wellbeing as it helps us find the necessary energy we need to start acting on our deepest held dreams and ideas. Most importantly, while inspiration sparks new ideas, it often becomes the most important stage in helping us take action on making important changes in our life.

Inspiration does not need to be cultivated through only Reiki protocols. You can also use Reiki in other areas in your life with an overall goal of building upon your levels of motivation and inspiration.

Some areas where we can gain inspiration can include:

• Nature – can include both flora and fauna
• Movies, music, books
• Learning – increasing your knowledge about a topic you already know or learning new things
• Other people – people we know or others in the public domain that we don’t know
• News stories – people persevering despite adversity
• Hobbies – art, music, sports, gardening
• Social engagement – interacting with others socially
• Social activism – engaging in social justice activities
• Wellbeing – physical and mental wellbeing activities such as meditation, yoga, therapy, Reiki, self-care

During a personal Reiki session, we can connect with our innermost thoughts and emotions as we sit quietly away from distractions.

To understand what inspires you, use some time in your next Reiki session, to sit quietly and reflect on the moments you have felt inspired to take action at a previous time in your life.

Consider what inspired you at that time. Was it a situation or a person that created this inspiration? Can you cultivate some parts of your prior experiences to create additional inspiration in your life right now? Try to determine 2-5 things that have inspired you in the past that you may be able to use in the future to cultivate inspiration.

Reiki has a deep connection with cultivating energy as well as clearing blocks that would prevent energy from flowing through us. When we possess a clear flow of energy, we can tap into this resource to help guide us through our daily routines or occasional projects that require an impetus of energy and effort.

Reiki can help us let go of expected outcomes and embrace the imperfect process of working through difficult days. Reiki can help us move beyond the fear that might be limiting us, and help us push through the perception we hold of the obstacles that are in our way. This is not to say obstacles are not real, however, our perception of obstacles as being fixed or changeable can be understood better with deeper exploration.

It’s important to remember that as we seek inspiration for ourselves, we can also play a significant part in providing inspiration for others. As a Reiki practitioner, you will see clients in our practice with various degrees of motivation to pursue wellness goals. Through Reiki, you can help your client engage in inspiration-seeking practices through a process of Reiki treatments that will help your client become open to new experiences and opportunities.

Although inspiration is primarily derived from a moment of spontaneity, we can use Reiki to help create the conditions for inspiration to be fostered and responded to when it arrives. We can use Reiki to encourage a welcoming attitude to new things that will inspire us and motivate us to change.

Based on work by Positive Psychologist Martin Seligman, there are three main types of happiness:

1. Pleasure and gratification – where you try to do everything that makes you feel good and get immediate satisfaction. This type of happiness provides temporary moments of joy that may add to life.
2. Strengths and virtues – where things aren’t always easy, but you gain enjoyment from the involvement in work, relationships, and developing skills.
3. Meaning and purpose – where you challenge yourself and experience joy from the achievement of overcoming challenges. You identify and use your strengths for a larger goal instead of only your individual desires and needs.

The second and third definitions relate being happy to living a life according to virtues and achieving your potential. It includes personal autonomy and engaging in personal and community-based activities. They also help us aspire to a deeper purpose for living.

However, the achievement of engaged and meaningful happiness can sometimes require difficult choices, sacrifices, and challenges. However, through these challenges, we can experience deeper contentment that surpasses the quicker experience of hedonistic immediate happiness.

Within each of these types, there are many activities and beliefs that we can explore to help foster happiness. These activities and beliefs deliver the most benefit to us when they are incorporated into our lives as habits that we regularly undertake. This doesn’t have to mean a daily habit and in the case of beliefs, we are often battling other limiting beliefs that take time to overcome.

Included in this blog post are a few habits we can introduce in our lives that will help contribute to our experience of general happiness. You may have already mastered some habits. For the habits that are new to you, start small and take the tortoise approach over the hare to ensure a better chance of long-term success.

1. Be present in the moment

We can choose to have periods of quiet and stillness. This can be done through meditation or other activities such as swimming, walking, yoga, or having a cup of tea and enjoying the sanctity of nature. Being present can calm us and soothe our nerves and worried minds. It can also help us reflect on our intentions and purpose in a situation.

2. Embrace change

Change can sometimes instill an element of fear in us when it threatens to disrupt the comfort, predictability, and security that we have worked so hard to establish. However, although those elements provide us with a sense of stability, they can also invoke a fixed mindset that makes it difficult for us to experience personal growth. Furthermore, it can also embed us into an understanding that life should be a certain way, instead of understanding that life is sometimes unpredictable and requires us to adapt.

Change can also invite stimulation in the form of new tasks that are challenging, meeting new people, or experiencing difficult lifestyles and cultures that can broaden our horizons. These changes can be a motivating factor that helps us bring new ideas and understanding to our life. We can start to embrace change on a smaller scale by moving furniture around, cooking something different, or starting a conversation with a stranger.

3. Do things that make you happy

What gives you joy? It could be listening to music, going to an art exhibition, watching sport with your favorite team playing, dancing with your friends, gardening, going on road trips, video games, cooking, or swimming

The activities and hobbies that we engage in can provide a feeling of happiness for a variety of reasons including:

• Developing new skills
• Achieving a sense of accomplishment
• Connecting with others
• Releasing stress and tension through endorphins
• Disconnecting from work and other stressful environments

Try to set aside 30-60 minutes to focus on these activities – new music to listen to, walking outside in nature, cooking, reading, seeing a friend for a meal or a coffee, or watching a movie. If you’re creative and like doing projects, work a little bit each day towards it. This might be writing a novel, learning guitar, starting a vegetable garden, or cooking new recipes. You don’t need to do everything, just choose one thing you like doing and start.

4. Sleep, eat well and exercise

Eating a whole-food based diet can help your body function so you have more energy and a large capacity for focus. This can improve your happiness because you feel better and have more energy for your day. If eating well has not been a part of your previous regime, start with improving your choices for at least one meal each day.

For exercise, start with something fun and easy like dancing, yoga, or walking. You don’t need to start with high intensity and grueling exercises. You’ll soon notice that apart from having more energy and feeling less stressed, you want to keep doing more exercise. The endorphins and adrenalin we receive from exercise provide a natural high and can help us relax. Additionally, expending physical energy can redirect our attention so our minds can reprieve from ruminating on difficult situations.

Sleep is an important habit that the body requires so your mind and physical body can rejuvenate and repair before another day. Without adequate sleep, we can become stressed, irritable, and can make poor decisions. Sleep gives us the necessary respite to enable us to sustain life. Many studies have shown that sleep deprivation over an extended period of time can have significant consequences in both the short and long term for both our physical and mental wellbeing.

5. Express your feelings clearly

In our lives, we experience situations that trigger an emotional response from us. In many cases, people often respond in one of three ways: emotional outbursts, emotional suppression, or safe emotional expression. The reality is that for many of us who were not taught how to handle our emotions, we often swing between emotional outbursts or emotional suppression. We are not taught to identify and honor our emotions by safely expressing how we feel.

The most beneficial way of coping with difficult situations is through open, honest but amiable discussions that explore our expectations, perceptions, and assumptions that we hold. Communicating our emotions remains one of the most important pathways to fully developing strong relationships with our family and friends.

6. Understand what elevates your daily stress levels

Being aware of what elevates your stress levels on a daily basis is vital to understanding how to foster happiness in your everyday life. While there are big events that can occur in our life that are stressful, we also carry the impact of minor stresses that cumulatively impact our lives in a negative way. If you know that having a cluttered house makes you feel annoyed, or you find driving long distances to work irritating, then try to find strategies to eliminate or reduce this stress from your life. Tidy up the dishes even if you don´t have time to wash them, or make sure you at least put dirty clothes in the hamper even if you can´t wash them right then. You may be able to find a similar job that is closer to your house or take a route by public transport or carpool with a colleague.

If you aren´t able to effectively eliminate or reduce these stresses right away, then identify healthy comfort strategies to help you reduce the stress in your life. Put into practice some stress management strategies that help counteract these annoyances and don’t try to ignore them.

7. Focus on your purpose

Some days you may feel overwhelmed at all of the things you have to do in your life. But if you are finding yourself trying to attend to too many people, issues, and tasks then it might be time to take a breath.

Personal reflection for a few minutes every day can help you identify the important and less important tasks that are taking up your mental and physical time each day. This can help you identify what is going on in your life that serves your overall purpose of pursuing a happier and more content life. You may ask yourself, is what I’m doing and who I think I should be consistent? Are my values matching my actions?

Take the time to understand your values and how you can incorporate them into your daily life. This can refer to developing more kindness towards others or honoring your desire to be more truthful about how you feel.

8. Social connections

Social connections can extend across many identifiers including gender, race, sexual orientation, religious boundaries, geographical boundaries, and with shared interests. Establishing and maintaining social connections across all similarities and differences is important for our happiness levels by developing our emotional, psychological, and physical needs.

If we don’t create social connections amongst different groups, this can negatively impact our levels of happiness as we then focus on who is not similar to us. Reaching across demographic boundaries helps create friendships and positive relationships which impact our happiness and the happiness of others.

Social connections are an important component of developing happiness. Research shows that people who feel happy develop social connections that result in spending time with others and developing emotional connections. There is a strong link between social connections and physical and psychological health. Social connections, through the process of healthy relationships, positively affect the quality of life and life satisfaction.

Connections with family, friends, and community involvement provide a foundation of belonging, respect, and finding purpose in life. Social connections, along with health and security, form three important factors that contribute to healthy aging.

Research indicates that even superficial social connections such as saying hello to a stranger on the street or holding a door open for a stranger can boost our mood. Some other examples include engaging in conversation with retail workers, asking a coworker about their wellbeing, or talking to someone you sit with on public transport. Shared conversations can lead to exploring shared life experiences which then begin to deepen our perception of others around us.

9. Cultivate your sense of self-worth

Self-worth can be viewed as an intrinsic value that all individuals possess regardless of their own evaluations. Self-worth is connected with your value as a human compared to the self-esteem you may develop from your achievements, skills, and acceptance of social norms.

The level of self-worth that an individual possesses fluctuates across the lifespan as cognition develops. It follows a similar path to the levels of self-esteem that an individual develops over the lifespan. As self-worth is an existential concept relating to humanistic value, an individual will grasp the concept of self-worth with the assistance of personal exploration of the self.

An individual’s foundation of self-worth can vary across different aspects of our lives including:

• Biological – the influence of self-worth on establishing safety, security, and healthy living protocols in life
• Cognitive – the influence of self-worth on preserving memories, developing curiosity and understanding about learning
• Developmental – the influence of self-worth on progressing through the lifespan and embracing each stage of physical and cognitive change
• Social – the influence of self-worth on interpersonal relationships, social interactions, and emotional development

By understanding where we are positioned with regard to these domains, we can understand some of the motivations behind our held beliefs of self-worth.

10. Build resilience

Resilience refers to the capacity we have to bounce back from difficult situations. Resilience is not ignoring or suppressing the emotional effects of difficult situations, but instead, it is the ability to process emotions and thoughts and resume normal functioning despite difficult situations.

To be resilient means facing everyday stress as well as singular trauma events. Trauma events can present as a distinct event, however, daily stress can develop and grow in intensity as we go about our daily lives. For some people, this stress can build for a short period of time before an emotional break occurs. For others, the accumulation of daily stress results in exhaustion and begins to change the fundamental beliefs a person has about their ability to cope with life.

Life is unavoidably difficult whether it be through traumatic events or daily stress. To protect our overall wellbeing it is important to learn skills that will help us become resilient.

Experiencing constant happiness is not realistic and it is important to understand that the pursuit of endless happiness can create significant dissatisfaction in our lives. This is primarily because we are reaching for an unobtainable goal.

It is helpful to understand the concept of hedonic adaptation which refers to how we return to a stable level of happiness despite positive or negative events in our life. This provides us with insight into the pursuit of happiness where we may achieve a level of happiness due to an experience or event, and then our mood and perception of our happiness will soon return to our baseline level after some time has passed from that experience or event occurring.

This is not to suggest that setting a goal to be happier is futile. More importantly, it is a reflection on how pursuing happiness contains a list of caveats and perspective-taking to fully benefit from setting these goals.

The content for this blog post has been taken from your Understanding Your Emotions Guidebook. For more information about emotions and your Reiki practice, check out our Understanding Your Emotions Guidebook in the store here.

Emotions are typically described as an outward expression that occurs as a response to an external stimulus. In the context of how emotions are developed there is typically a process of three main components:

• neurological components – this is where the brain evaluates the event and creates the emotional response
• experiential component – once the event has entered the neurological component, experience beings to influence how these emotions will be interpreted and actioned
• behavioral components – after the brain has processed the event, humans then react with appropriate or maladaptive behaviors to help cope with the emotional overflow

None of the above components work in a binary manner as all components influence each other through feedback loops. These components are sensitive to changes in internal and external environments which result in an emotional shift in the person.

As emotions fluctuate and remain responsive to the environment, they remain a constant source of new information as opposed to providing concrete conclusions.

Emotions can sometimes be confused with the term mood. Emotions are seen as the source of a mood. Emotion is typically created based on the occurrence of a single event, however, a mood generally lacks a clear instigating event. A mood can last for days, weeks, months, or years as seen in the case of depression.

In the case of depression, sadness is the core emotion, however, the overall mood is depression. Depression itself is not an emotion that is exhibited, but instead a collection of emotions that forms an overall system to create a mood.

Emotions often develop into physical sensations such as our voice which can be raised when angry, or our facial expression and general body language.

Emotions can be both positive and negative and therefore affect the overall quality of life if our emotional reactions consist primarily of destructive emotional episodes instead of constructive emotional episodes.

In order to improve the overall quality of our emotional experience in life, we should aim to learn the situational triggers that initiate both positive and negative emotions.

Emotions are created as a response to events. These responses can be automatic or reflective. Automatic responses occur because we are constantly assessing our environment for danger or safety. As part of this assessment, our brain uses our 5 senses including sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste to evaluate situations. The senses send processing information to our brains and then we interpret the events and respond with an emotional response.

Our assessments are not always accurately based on judgments of safety and pleasure. We all have human experiences that create memories which then act as triggers that are uniquely based on our personal experiences. Universal triggers also exist that are shared by all humans such as the immediate threat of danger such as a car accident.

Reflective responses are closely related to memories as we actively engage in recalling information when assessing situations. We have more control over reflective memories and therefore have the ability to influence our emotions in these circumstances. Talking about emotional events can cause us to re-experience emotions which allows us to structure the conversation and influence the perception of more positive memories. This is particularly helpful in reframing memories and developing positive emotional connections. Re-experiencing these emotions can have positive benefits as we can influence the outcome of how we experience emotions again.

Reflective assessment is less automatic and instead requires purposeful recall by us which then initiates an emotional response. This could occur when looking at photos or hearing a song from our past. It may seem like our brain is processing that photo or song and providing an automatic response to them, however, in this case, reacting to the stimulus of the photos or song often requires us to recreate previous experiences and therefore our involvement is more active.

Aside from our automatic and reflective personal emotional responses, emotions can also be felt through events that someone else experiences. Observing someone else’s experience can initiate empathy as our own emotional response. Emotional responses that are instigated by empathy are much easier and quicker to resolve as the person does not have a personal connection to the dynamics of the situation that are to be resolved.

Emotions influence three main areas of our lives:

• Personal experience
• Physiological responses
• Behavioral responses

The interaction of these three areas dictates the frequency, duration, and intensity of the emotional experience. In addition to these primary areas of influence, emotions also activate other emotions that affect the overall emotional experience. An initial response of fear mixed with a specific personal experience can then activate anger. This is often seen in the simple case of pranking, whereby someone may throw a toy fake spider on a person which originally initiates fear from the spider. Once the person recognizes the fear was fabricated by another person, the personal experiences in the relationship can then initiate an emotion of anger towards the person who instigated the prank.

The case of a prank is a simple example, however, this also extends to interpersonal relationships where patterns of behavior between two people can act as a trigger for emotions to occur. This can become a complex issue to resolve when you have to determine whether detaching from the emotion will improve the relationship or whether improving the relationship will help improve the emotional response. In most cases, the lines are not clear and a process of unraveling multiple layers of emotion and personal experience, physiological response, and behavior response need to occur.

Healing emotional problems is dependent on the circumstances in which the emotional problems began. Emotional issues that relate to a singular event such as death are viewed differently than emotional issues that are tied to ingrained behavioral components of personality development. Regardless of the antecedent of the emotional issues, it is important to cultivate emotional awareness and emotional regulation techniques to use on an ongoing basis.

A part of healing is developing a therapeutic relationship where change can occur. If you are working through a self-help process, this involves developing a personal relationship with yourself where you begin to trust yourself and your intuitive process.

When working with clients in your Reiki practice, you will build an ongoing relationship of trust and empathy with your client. Developing this relationship helps your client experience an emotional deepening and develop skills for emotional regulation. It is important to collaborate with your client and be sensitive to your client’s emotional experience. This includes following your client’s personal emotional growth.

HOW TO ASSESS EMOTION

Understanding the difference in functional emotional expression compared to maladaptive expressions is important in providing some guidelines for emotional development. Emotional expression can be assessed on various levels:

• How would others react in the same situation
• Is the emotion a universal response
• What is the context of the situation when the emotions were experienced
• Are there non-verbal and verbal expressions of emotion
• Are you employing an ability to empathize
• How would I react
• Knowledge of the client’s life

DISCOVERING THE EMOTION

As part of the process of assessing emotion, it may be difficult to understand the emotions that you or your client are experiencing. What may feel like frustration on the surface may instead reveal deeper feelings of anger towards an event or person. Understanding emotions involves a process of discovering the emotions in order to find a way forward for recovery.

Some of the ways in which discovery can occur include:

• Identify the stimuli that trigger emotion
• Redefine the stimulus by exploring your perception of how the stimulus triggered your response
• Identify the stages of the event where you feel conflicting emotions
• Examine your initial impulses to act
• Look for ambivalence or avoidance that may indicate you are experiencing conflicting emotions with how you feel and how you perceive the event or the people involved
• Explore your reluctance to consider alternative perspectives and fear of being “wrong”
• Explore the judgment you give to your feelings. Eg. I am feeling angry, therefore I must be wrong
• Explore your capacity to express a range of emotions or if you stay stuck in one emotion

Focus on your emotions now and write down any problem emotions that you are feeling onto a piece of paper.

Fold this paper so that you can hold it in your hands.

Draw the Sei Hei Ki symbol over the piece of paper using just the movements of your hands.

Reiki and meditation are a classic combination that contributes positively to your mental and physical wellbeing. Reiki involves the life force and energy that we exist in and meditation can sometimes help us to embrace that energy through deliberate focus and attention.

Meditation encourages us to develop a mindfulness approach by understanding the process of our mind, along with practical steps such as regulating our breathing and finding a physical space to connect with quietness and stillness as we shut out external noise and distractions.

If you’re like any thinking and feeling human being, you will understand the amount of internal chatter we all experience when we sit quietly. Our brains are wired to constantly think. We are constantly assessing the environment around us for important information. Aside from noticing the present, we also think a lot about the future and past. So many things to think about!

Meditation doesn’t aim to remove our internal thinking. Instead, it aims to help us focus our attention on the present moment and the benefits we can derive from being in the present moment.

For many of us, meditating on our own can take a lot of effort and practice. Therefore guided meditations using voice, music, or nature sounds can be helpful to help us contain our thoughts to the present moment.

Once we have achieved a state closer to mindfulness and less focused on our internal thoughts, we can engage in Reiki on a deeper level.

Meditation has been identified as a practice that connects with quiet contemplation, however, quietness is not essential. A meditative process can also be linked to activities that require us to focus and bring our attention to a singular source or activity instead of distracted or disjointed attention.

When we participate in Reiki, we are connecting with a desire to focus our attention on our inner energy and connections. In this sense, Reiki is the perfect activity to engage in meditative practice.

Meditation can be an excellent precursor to your Reiki practice. You can use meditation to help you develop a more relaxed and focused mindset before conducting a Reiki session.

Below is a simple meditation practice you can use to get started:

• Sit in a comfortable position with your back upright and against the back of your chair
• Use the 4-7-8 breathing technique. Breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 7 seconds and exhale for 8 seconds. Repeat this breathing technique 4-6 times to help regulate your breathing
• Use the Reiki 5 core principles to focus your attention on your wellbeing:
  • Just for today, I will not anger
  • Just for today, I will not worry
  • Just for today, I will be grateful
  • Just for today, I will do my work honestly
  • Just for today, I will be kind to all living things
• You may want to sit quietly for a few minutes after repeating the core principles. If you find your mind being distracted by life’s problems, go back to the 4-7-8 breathing technique to bring your attention back to your breath.
• You can also end your session with the 4-7-8 breathing technique.

Now you’re ready for your Reiki session.

As a Reiki practitioner, you may find some benefit in creating meditations that you can use for clients. You can also sell your meditations to generate a secondary source of income on your website. The most popular method to sell your meditations is as an audio file.

The process of creating your meditations involves the following steps:

1. Define the purpose of your meditation
2. Write your meditation script (based on your defined purpose listed above) – identify a beginning, middle and closing
3. Practice reading your script out loud – measure the time it takes, pace your speaking voice so it is relaxing and not rushed. Make any changes that you feel necessary. This may include changing specific words that you keep stumbling over when reading.
4. Record yourself reading your meditation
5. Load your meditation file into your software program and add a backing track of music
6. Save and export your file for upload

The above process details the steps involved in creating an audio file, however, you can also sell meditations in a video format. The additional steps for this would be recording yourself on video. Alternatively, if you don’t wish to record yourself on video, you can use your audio file and create a video file using stock images to take place of the video component.

There are many minor details that you may encounter when recording your meditation track such as editing your file, improving audio quality, managing files, and creating a space for recording audio. You will learn better practices as you start the process of creating your meditation files.

Indie Music Box has a great article here that details the steps involved in creating your own meditation file with background music. They also include some useful sound production tips to get the best from your recording:  How to Make a Guided Meditation with Music 

Basic equipment you will need includes:

• An App (voice memos) on your mobile phone if you record into your phone
• Blue Microphones Yeti USB Microphone (if recording on a computer) *Amazon Affiliate Link
• Audacity (free audio recording program) 

If you are interested in creating guided meditations, you may be interested in the Udemy course (no affiliation): How To Create & Sell Your Own Guided Meditations from Home

We’ve included some links below to sources where you can obtain music for meditation. You can use these as music only or use them as background music for any meditations that you create for clients.

Before using them in any products that you might sell to clients, make sure you read any relevant information about commercial use.

1. Aroshanti
2. Pond5
3. Enlightened Audio
4. Silencio Music
5. Purple Planet
6. Royalty Free Meditation
7. Incompetech
8. Meditation Music Central
9. Fiverr
10. Epidemic Sound

At its core, Reiki is a complementary form of human therapy that functions in the form of positive energy wellbeing. The therapeutic aspects cover both physical and psychological domains that are intertwined. If we feel physically well, this impacts our mental health and vice versa.

We are familiar with treating our psychological and physical health when things go wrong, however, we can also care for our wellbeing as a preventative measure. Reiki provides an excellent way of investing in preventative measures for this benefit.

Reiki can provide significant benefits for relaxation and stress reduction. By engaging in Reiki, we are using a self-help technique that supports our desire to manage and improve our wellbeing.

Reiki keeps us connected to the important things in our life. It reminds us of human connection as well as our connection to nature and all living beings on our planet.

The purpose of Reiki is to help guide us through establishing these important connections and building a better support system that will bring peace and natural healing into our lives.

As with any medical condition, primary issues should be diagnosed by professionals and treated within the context of the medical model. Reiki remains an excellent complementary treatment for many physiological conditions. Reiki can also be helpful when clients are seeking diagnoses within traditional medical models that may not provide immediate answers. In these situations, people are often suffering from symptoms that are not treated while a diagnosis is ongoing.

Reiki can help with the ongoing distress people may be experiencing while also coping with their primary physiological symptoms. This includes stress and worry about how to cope with the effects on daily living.

Reiki can help those with physiological issues by developing coping strategies so the client can undertake physical treatment and meet the psychological demands that may affect them. This can include engaging in mindfulness, maintaining motivation, and holding a positive mindset while undertaking treatment for physiological issues.

Other areas that Reiki can help clients with physiological issues include:

• Establishing self-care practices
• Relaxation skills
• Reducing physical suffering through relaxation exercises
• Decreasing anxiety around physical pain
• Cope with fatigue
• Reduce physical tension

For many people with physiological issues, physical discomfort can be an enduring experience. Reiki can help people develop relaxation strategies to cope with their experiences.

Aside from helping with physiological issues, Reiki can also have a positive effect on those who are looking to maintain good health or deal with the general physical experience of daily living. This includes maintaining healthy levels of sleep, relaxation, and physical movement.

Reiki helps promote a positive daily practice that can provide beneficial self-care for the recipient. Reiki can help boost energy levels and play a significant role in the individual managing the physical demands that we all experience as we go about our lives.

Reiki has been shown to activate the parasympathetic nervous system that helps heal the body as well as reduce heart rate and blood pressure. 

Reiki is seen to have a significant effect on improving emotional and mental health symptoms. Many participants in Reiki research suggest that Reiki had a significant impact on improving depression, anxiety, and overall feelings of stress.

Participants also mention improvements in sleep quality, relaxation, energy levels, and general wellbeing. Many of those who receive Reiki also mention that Reiki provides them with a level of self-care that helps them identify how they are feeling emotionally. This information helps them to focus on what aspects of their emotional wellbeing they can pay attention to.

Emotions are a part of every human experience and can determine the quality of our lives in either a positive or negative way. Emotions help us deal with traumatic events and also provide enjoyment. Both of these types of experiences can be short lived or impact our lives over a long period of time.

Some of the ways how emotions help in our life are:

• They help us deal with traumatic events
• They help enhance enjoyable moments
• They help us adapt to circumstances
• They initiate a change in behavior where it’s necessary for both our safety and pleasurable events
• They create a change in physiological responses
• They can enhance memories
• They help us negotiate interpersonal interactions
• They help us evaluate ourselves in situations
• They enhance learning

When our emotional development is healthy, we exhibit appropriate emotions for appropriate events and learn to regulate the intensity and frequency of emotions so that our lives can return to normal after an emotionally triggering event. Emotions in these situations are viewed as constructive to our experiences.

However, if our emotional development has been negatively impacted in early life, the expression of emotion can be excessive in intensity and occur erratically with a destructive effect on our lives.

Healing emotional problems is dependent on the circumstances in which the emotional problems began. Emotional issues that relate to a singular event such as death are viewed differently than emotional issues that are tied to ingrained behavioral components of personality development. Regardless of the antecedent of the emotional issues, it is important to cultivate emotional awareness and emotional regulation techniques to use on an ongoing basis.

A part of healing is developing a therapeutic relationship where change can occur. If you are working through a self-help process, this involves developing a personal relationship with yourself where you begin to trust yourself and your intuitive process.

When working with clients in your Reiki practice, you will build an ongoing relationship of trust and empathy with your client. Developing this relationship helps your client experience an emotional deepening and develop skills for emotional regulation. It is important to collaborate with your client and be sensitive to your client’s emotional experience. This includes following your client’s personal emotional growth.

We’ve written many blog posts about how Reiki can benefit us with emotional issues including:

• Detach from Fear, Connect to Love
• Using Reiki for a Client Who Is Grieving
• Using Reiki for a Client with Anxiety
• Using Reiki For Your Own Self-Care
• Using Reiki to Deal with Anger

As Reiki refers to life force and the energy within which we live, it also pays homage to our emotional connections to important relationships, as well as how we function within social groups. This can include family, friends, and more formal groups such as work situations.

Reiki can help us improve our emotional outlook in a variety of situations by helping us regulate our emotions and review our situation from a place of safety, emotional strength, and clear wisdom.

Reiki is predicated on the idea of life’s energy which is the premise of how we live our daily lives. We require energy to cope with our daily demands and more energy to undertake our goals and dreams.

Reiki can help us manage this energy and direct our attention to what we need to nurture our wellbeing and flourish in our environment.

Reiki has developed 5 core principles, listed below, that focus on emotional issues as well as having a positive attitude towards wellbeing:

1. Just for today, I will not anger
2. Just for today, I will not worry
3. Just for today, I will be grateful
4. Just for today, I will do my work honestly
5. Just for today, I will be kind to all living things

By embracing these principles and engaging in Reiki practice, we can positively affect our everyday life. On a practical basis this can result in:

• Releasing feelings of anger
• Releasing feelings of anxiety and worry
• Establishing gratitude practices
• Developing mindfulness
• Improving sleep health
• Improving physical wellbeing

These practical measures above are areas of difficulties we may experience in everyday life where Reiki can be used. However, there are also more mundane areas in life where we can apply Reiki such as:

• Watering plants
• Caring for pets
• Preparing food
• While we work
• Throughout our home
• Undertaking hobbies eg sport, art, music etc

Reiki is beneficial when it is incorporated into every part of your daily living. It can provide tangible benefits on both an emotional and physical level. It can also remind us how we can use our intentions to create meaningful purpose and action in our lives.

Intentions are statements of purpose that we make to help us derive a specific course of action. Spontaneity is also a positive aspect and can provide benefits, however, setting intentions can also help us develop and maintain a specific purpose that we can direct our focus towards.

In a Reiki session that involves a client, we can actually develop different intentions. Our intention as a practitioner may be to provide excellent client care. We can also work with our clients to identify and develop intentions for their sessions.

Setting an intention helps us develop a mindful attitude towards the way we provide Reiki to our clients. On a broader scale, setting intentions can also help us as a Reiki practitioner by helping us to align our goals within our practice as a practitioner and as a business operator.

In this respect, intentions are often interchangeably used to describe our goals and what we choose to focus on at that point in time. Our intentions can be held over the long term (provide excellent client care every session) or can be held short term (help a client with a specific short term ailment).

While intentions can be viewed as goals, they should also be held less rigidly. An intention primarily focuses on what we set out to do but shouldn’t be so rigid that our behavior becomes fixated on achieving that intention. Intentions embrace imperfection and encourage us to seek alternative pathways if those different pathways also connect with our intentions.

Intentions should not be used as wishes or manifestations that we wish to ‘will’ into our life. Instead, intentions can be set in our mindset and then followed through using our choices and actions.

As Reiki is about energy and life force, our intentions should always support those important tenets of our Reiki practice.

Identifying your intentions can occur either through spontaneously listening to what comes to mind, or it can be through deeper contemplation. Setting intentions spontaneously can be useful when we want to tap into how we feel in the moment and what immediate needs we or our clients may need.

Thoughtful intentions can be set and adjusted over time. Long term intentions can incorporate larger goals that we or our clients may have and wish to work on over time.

This is a very similar process to how we deal with our ongoing health issues. We seek immediate treatment for acute conditions, and we also set longer goals for improving and maintaining our overall health and wellbeing.

Intentions could be broken down into the following categories:

• Healing mindset intentions
• Short term intentions
• Long term intentions

Some examples within each of these categories are listed below. It’s worth noting that some intentions can belong to multiple categories:

HEALING MINDSET

• I am an open vessel for the good of Reiki
• I release resistance and embrace acceptance
• I trust the healing process of Reiki

SHORT TERM INTENTIONS

• I embrace healing for my <insert short term issue>
• I am grateful for the healing Reiki provides me today
• I invoke calmness and purpose from Reiki to cope with <insert issue causing stress today>

LONG TERM INTENTIONS

• I let love into my life on a daily basis
• The peace and calm of Reiki energy supports me
• The healing energy of Reiki nourishes me

Setting your intentions can be as simple or as complex as you make it. If you or your client has immediate needs that are obvious to you including physical or emotional issues then you can pay attention to those issues and focus your intentions on improving how they impact you.

Alternatively, you or your client may feel there are areas in your life that can be improved, however, you may not be as aware of the pathway you can undertake to improve these areas in your life.

This may involve you or your client taking time to explore your understanding of an issue in your life and the subsequent impact this issue has on your wellbeing. This exploration can take time and an open mind to reveal deeper truths about beliefs you may hold. Often these beliefs may not be obvious to us until we do deeper work on how our past has affected us.

With this in mind, your intentions can be very specific or they can also be more generic to embrace the overall benefits of applying Reiki in your life.

Before a Reiki session, you may benefit from undertaking the following steps to help you set your intentions. This process can be undertaken by yourself or you can guide your clients through a similar process:

• Find a quiet place so you can sit without distraction or interruption
• Close your eyes and breathe using the 4-7-8 method (breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 7 seconds, and exhale for 8 seconds)
• Sit quietly for 5 minutes to see what thoughts come into your mind. These thoughts may be fleeting at first while your mind filters through the current activity in your life. If you notice your mind focusing on a specific problem you have in your life, use that to guide your mind through the specifics of what bothers you most about that issue.
• Be inquisitive about the thoughts that are passing through your mind, however, also remain open to letting some thoughts pass by without any deeper consideration. Our brain is always working to distract and process many thoughts we hold about the current occurrences in our life.
• If you find yourself getting caught up in thoughts such as shopping lists or to-do lists, take time to regroup and reset your breathing again using the 4-7-8 breathing method.
• If too many thoughts are running through your mind at that time, ask yourself some questions to focus on:
  • What makes me happy today?
  • What is upsetting me today?
  • Do I feel physical or emotional pain?
  • Is something bothering me persistently at night when I try to sleep?
• You may benefit from compassionately asking yourself ‘how are you doing?’, or ‘how are you feeling?’
• As you begin to undertake this process, your mind will start to decipher what is important to you.
• If you feel you have identified different intentions, write them down and see if one stands out to you that you wish to focus on today. You can leave the others on your list and revisit them another day to see if they still hold any importance for you.
• Once you have decided on your intention, use it to guide you through your next Reiki session.

Pay attention to how you feel before your session and after your session. Use this to guide whether you want to undertake any actions or activities after your session. This might involve talking to a friend, a therapist, or a doctor if the issues could benefit from more help.

You may also benefit from undertaking some self-care activities to help boost your energy and provide yourself with gentle support to go back into your day-to-day activities.