Come From Away

When I was in New York City in May I saw an amazing musical, about a small town, Gander, in Newfoundland, that unexpectedly ends up hosting thousands of people from planes diverted from 9/11. The title of the musical refers to what Islanders refer to anyone who is not from there: they’ve ‘come from away’.

I was thinking about this because of the amazing international clientele I’ve had at Reiki Surry Hills. It’s been like this from the beginning but seems to be a bit more pronounced lately. I’ve also noticed that folks from outside of Australia are more like to have studied reiki themselves or have friends or relatives that have done reiki, and they’ve had treatments. Australians are more likely to never had a treatment before. This tells me that reiki is more known outside of this country.

In any case, lately, I’ve had clients from Ireland, India, England, Serbia, France, Spain, Finland, the USA, and Canada. While I’ve had clients passing through Sydney from Hong Kong, Texas, Germany and Cairns, mostly all of my clients are based in Sydney, and have come to live here from all over the world (and all over Australia), just as I’ve come here from Canada.

This gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling, since I like a city where people come from all over, and it’s a nice gift from reiki to be able to meet some of them and marvel at how complex and mobile the world is and how did we end up here when we came from away.

Discover the gifts and benefits of a session of Japanese reiki therapy, healing energy from an experienced practitioner. Visit my website or Facebook page for more information and SMS, email, call me or book online if you’d like to make an appointment.
Clients come from all over Sydney to see me, and I’ve also had clients who are visiting Sydney from Melbourne, Brisbane and the Gold Coast come and see me while they’re here for business, conferences or meeting families. While it’s easiest to get to me from the CBD, Darlinghurst, Paddington, Kings Cross, Redfern and Potts Point, I’m pretty easy to get to from anywhere in Sydney.

Away: 9 to 23 August 2017

If you’ve come for a treatment, you’ll recognise this as the place where we have a little chat before and after the session.

Heads up! Just a warning that I’ll be away from Sydney from 9 to 23 August.

So, if you’d like to come in before then, get in contact!

Or you can book in advance for when I come back too!

Book by SMS, email, calling or online!

Discover the gifts and benefits of a session of Japanese reiki therapy, healing energy from an experienced practitioner. Visit my website or Facebook page for more information and SMS, email, call me or book online if you’d like to make an appointment.
Clients come from all over Sydney to see me, and I’ve also had clients who are visiting Sydney from Melbourne, Brisbane and the Gold Coast come and see me while they’re here for business, conferences or meeting families. While it’s easiest to get to me from the CBD, Darlinghurst, Paddington, Kings Cross, Redfern and Potts Point, I’m pretty easy to get to from anywhere in Sydney.

Not that kind of reiki!

As I’ve been explaining to clients, there are a lot of different kinds of reiki out there. Students of Mikao Usui, the founder of the Reiki system, added their own variations of reiki to their teaching, and then from there, with many generations of new students, some reiki practitioners went on to found their own methods and styles of reiki.

Still other practitioners combine what they’ve learned about reiki with other practices or skills: from massage to crystal healing and often clairvoyance and psychic advice. Reiki, particularly in the United States, became associated with New Age practices (and subsequently made fun of in popular media: there were jokes about reiki in Magic Mike 2!). People often combine reiki with reference to the Indian belief in chakras, the seven centres of spiritual power in the human body.

My teacher, Frans Stiene, and the International House of Reiki, aim at focusing on reiki as it was practised and taught by the founder, Usui, to get back to its purest form.

And I’ve followed Frans’s lead…

Lately, different clients have told me about other reiki treatments they’ve had. During one, a client had to remove his shirt, and had crystals laid on him. During another treatment, the reiki practitioner talked during the whole treatment. What I hear often is reiki practitioners who give messages (psychic or spiritual) or diagnoses (saying what part of the body they think is blocked, or if there are imbalances).

So, I thought it might be useful to say: I don’t do that.

  • When you come to the session, you remain fully clothed (except for your shoes) and if it’s cold, or you feel more comfortable, I can cover you with a blanket.
  • If you really have the need to speak during the treatment, then that’s fine (though I think I’ve only had one client talk a bit during a treatment out of nearly 400 treatments), but I will remain quiet once the treatment starts. I think it’s important to not get in the way of the treatment with chatter or noise.
  • The biggest thing is that I don’t do diagnoses, or give messages. What’s important is not what I feel, but what you feel, during the treatment and in the days afterwards. I actually think it can be harmful if a practitioner tells someone that they have a blockage in their heart chakra, or they are imbalanced. How do they really know that, and what does it all mean? Reiki shouldn’t be about practitioners projecting our ideas, assumptions and beliefs onto a client; it is about you taking from the treatment what you need at the time, and then observing how that plays out afterwards.

And a final P.S.: if a person says they are doing reiki and asks you to remove articles of clothing (except for your shoes)… don’t do it. You might consider questioning them… or reporting them.

Discover the gifts and benefits of a session of Japanese reiki therapy, healing energy from an experienced practitioner. Visit my website or Facebook page for more information and SMS, email, call me or book online if you’d like to make an appointment.
Clients come from all over Sydney to see me, and I’ve also had clients who are visiting Sydney from Melbourne, Brisbane and the Gold Coast come and see me while they’re here for business, conferences or meeting families. While it’s easiest to get to me from the CBD, Darlinghurst, Paddington, Kings Cross, Redfern and Potts Point, I’m pretty easy to get to from anywhere in Sydney.