Do you need therapy or counselling?

Clients often come to me with stress and anxiety, either generally, or in response to a particular situation. So, I often ask if they are seeing a counsellor or therapist. It’s part of my general philosophy about reiki, that a reiki treatment may be a tool that will help you in some way but that you will need a number of tools in your toolbox. One treatment is not going to magically solve a problem or issue. And furthermore, if the issue is primarily one of the mind or emotions, then I think the first place to start with is someone who specialises in these, just like if you are physically injured or sick, a medical doctor would be my first port of call.

I just came across this article in the Washington Post, ‘Not everyone need therapy‘, by Emily Edlin, and it nudged me to think about how I word my question. As the article says:

‘People need therapy when their mental health symptoms are causing serious impairments in their daily functioning — in close relationships, work performance, sleep or social activities. For instance, if a person’s work stress overwhelms them to the point that they miss work and are subsequently at risk of losing their job.

They don’t need therapy when they are able to manage their symptoms well — if they feel stressed about their work but continue to perform well, have a supportive network of family and friends, engage in meaningful activities outside work and do not have significant levels of depression and anxiety.’

I think this is a good framework and that it is true that sometimes stress and anxiety don’t require therapy, but are a signal that you need to reflect and change the situation. And many of my clients already do some form of therapy, and are coming for a reiki treatment as an alternative way to support what they are already doing.

I’d also add that there are different kinds of therapy and counselling. A number of clients who have had prolonged terrible periods at work could benefit from, I believe, workplace counselling or coaching, as the problems really are specific to work. People who can’t get over a relationship break-up or are suffering from the loss of a loved one could benefit from counsellors that specialise in these areas – relationships, grief – to help them get through this time.

I can sense that sometimes clients just need to be able to talk about how they feel, and I think being able to pay someone, a professional, to listen to you and provide objective guidance, is a wonderful thing. Very occasionally, a client will want to tell me all about the problems they are facing and this tells me that a professional listener would be good for them, rather than telling their problems to friends or family … or a reiki practitioner.

Finally, a number of clients have said that they tried counselling but that it didn’t work. There are many types of counselling available, and it’s not a given that you’ll find the right therapist right away (just as I know that some clients will ‘click’ with other reiki practitioners better than with me). So, if it didn’t work once, it may mean that counselling is not for you, but it may also mean that it wasn’t the right counsellor or type of counselling.

In any case, the important thing is recognising that you want to feel better and that you are doing something about it. If this includes reiki, I’ll see you at your next treatment!

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. Since 2011, I’ve given 3,000 reiki treatments.
Clients come to relieve stress, anxiety and for many other issues, or to just give reiki a try to see what it does for them. Folks come from all over Sydney and elsewhere to see me. 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.

What did you expect?

For Christmas this year, I was in Hawaii, on Oahu, where my brother lives with my family. I flew with Hawaiian Airlines. On the way back, this was one of the meals! I have to admit: I was disappointed. I generally love airplane meals, the jigsaw of how they’ve fit everything onto a tray. So, based on previous meals, I thought this was a pretty poor showing.

So, I was looking for a photo for this blog post as I don’t like using stock photos and almost always use my own. This came up as a recent shot (I was complaining to my brothers about the sandwich) and while I didn’t mean to talk about my airplane meal in this post, the idea behind it is pertinent to what I want to write about.

When you come for a reiki treatment, what are your expectations? 

I think it is unavoidable to have at least some expectations, and that my clients should be able to expect a few things: that I will treat them with respect, that it will be a safe environment, that I will provide an honest service.

The big majority of my clients don’t know a lot about reiki, so most will not have specific expectations about the treatment.

But some do, and I find it interesting how this affects the treatment. I found it especially illuminating when a recent client was describing his treatment afterwards. He said that for the first part of the treatment, he was trying to figure out what he might expect from it, he was trying to feel *something*. And he didn’t.

But then, he said he started to feel things when he stopped trying. When he let go of his expectations of what might happen, he was able to feel something.

I think that my least successful treatments have been when clients expected a specific result. One client stopped me after a fairly short time by saying that it was nothing like her previous treatment. Another client was disappointed because the treatment wasn’t in a spa-like environment like when she’d had her previous treatment in Bali. Some clients have heard from friends about THEIR treatments and wonder if they will have the same experiences, either physically or mentally.

I think that all of this mental chatter interferes with being able to notice what might happen during a treatment, or might happen later. One client, in a follow-up email, said that after their treatment, they had a really good night of sleep, but ‘that was all’. But I thought that a good night of sleep sounds pretty good. I wonder what they were expecting.

I think reiki is a little mysterious and that it is generally positive. All in all, it’s best, when coming for a treatment, to try to be as open as possible to what might happen (or might not happen) and to have minimal expectations, which can then allow you, after the treatment, to gently and objectively ask yourself: Do I feel different? Have I noticed any changes?

… rather than: Did reiki meet my expectations?

For after all, what did you expect? 😃

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. Since 2011, I’ve given more than 2,900 reiki treatments.
Clients come to relieve stress, anxiety and for many other issues, or to just give reiki a try to see what it does for them. Folks come from all over Sydney and elsewhere to see me. 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.

The latest reviews of Reiki Surry Hills from Fresha

So, here are the latest reviews of Reiki Surry Hills up on Fresha, my booking service. As always, I’m very, very grateful to these clients to have shared their experiences. I don’t actually mean to include my replies to the reviews, but I think it would be more trouble for me than is worth it to cut them out!

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. Since 2011, I’ve given more than 2,800 reiki treatments.
Clients come to relieve stress, anxiety and for many other issues, or to just give reiki a try to see what it does for them. Folks come from all over Sydney and elsewhere to see me. 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.

Lost and found

Let me tell you a little story, as I do from time to time on my blog.

A while back, I had a client who was lost.

This is not unusual. As you know if you’ve visited me, it’s complicated to find me. The entrance to the building is on Mackey Street, which is not the address of the building, which is on Ann Street. But Mackey Street is in two parts, and just above Little Riley Street, it is cut off by a whole block of residences. It continues on the other side of Riley Street. So, if you’re lost on that part of the street, it can be difficult both to figure out where you are, and to get to the right part of Mackey Street!

It’s also complicated that Little Riley Street, which is the cross street for Mackey Street at the corner of the building where the entrance is located, also is cut off by a park and continues further away. This is just to say that it’s very easy to get lost in these little streets in Surry Hills and to use Google Maps in Surry Hills and sometimes if people are dropped off by an Uber, or have to park somewhere, they can lose track of where they are.

It’s the reason why I give very detailed instructions by text for how to get here, and why I keep refining the instructions, every time someone gets lost. I’ve even had to ask that people not ring the bell for 40 Mackey Street (which I use for people to see on Google Maps where our building’s entrance is, ACROSS from 40 Mackey Street). I was a bit horrified to discover how many of my clients have rung their bell! I’ve even had to alter our intercom system, as our bell is to the left side of the label for Unit 10, but many clients ring the bell on the right side of the label for the roof, which is next to the label for Unit 10.

And all of this information is irrelevant if, as has happened, a client’s phone runs out of power, or if they won’t use Google Maps or, if what they say is true, that Google Maps didn’t work!

All in all, it’s a lesson to me that we humans process information and think about the world in many different ways.

A while back my husband noticed and told me that sometimes when clients are lost that I sound sharp on the phone with them. Ever since then, I check myself each time, and try to sound open, direct and welcoming. And not sharp.

But that didn’t work when this client called, lost. ‘Did you use Google Maps’, I asked? ‘Of course I did’, she replied. ‘But where are you?’ She couldn’t describe it, and I couldn’t think how I could help her if she couldn’t say where she was. ‘Just forget it’, she then said, angrily.

I was taken aback, but I was glad for how I reacted. I could have let it go, of course. But instead, I took a deep breath in, and remembered the reiki precept, ‘Just for today, do not anger’. I sent her a text message: ‘Please just take a deep breath in. If you’d like to come for the treatment, I can come and find you and bring you here. Or I can try to describe how to find me’.

There was a wait, and then she texted she was nearby. And then she texted again, after a little while: ‘Come find me’.

So, I found her down on Ann Street, and I led her to the apartment. As we approached the entrance, she said, in frustration, ‘I was right here in the beginning. But your text messages said it was a ‘grey, concrete building’. Which it is but somehow, in the state of mind she was in, it didn’t look like that.

When we got to the reiki room, I was also pleased with myself for knowing what I wanted to say. I explained that coming to a reiki treatment in a really stressed state is the worst way to start and that we could do the treatment at another time, if she wanted. She didn’t have to do it now.

We then settled into chatting a little about reiki and why she came and then she apologised for snapping at me. And I was able to point out that I could tell she is a very capable person and would normally not have any problems finding me. She had just had such a bad morning that she couldn’t function properly. So, it felt great that we could be understanding and compassionate to each other. And she said she wanted to have the treatment, and then, after the treatment, she said it was a great experience.

Clients often ask me whether it takes energy from me to give treatments, and whether it is tiring. And while I may be a little physically tired if I had to give, say, three treatments, without much break in between, generally, no, reiki doesn’t take from me. It gives to me. I’m allowed to be in the same, healing space. And over time, I’ve learned through my reiki practice to be more compassionate and more patient, and in return, I feel gratitude, peace and, often, joy. My reiki teacher says that reiki is about uncovering your bright light, or if you are a reiki practitioner, helping others to do this, to discover their true nature. I know that to some people this concept will be hard to grasp, but I invite you, just for a moment, to close your eyes, and feel your true nature, your beautiful bright light. It’s nice, isn’t it?

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. Since 2011, I’ve given more than 2,800 reiki treatments.
Clients come to relieve stress, anxiety and for many other issues, or to just give reiki a try to see what it does for them. Folks come from all over Sydney and elsewhere to see me. 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.

Nine reviews of Reiki Surry Hills on Google Listings

 

It is always a pleasure to share my reviews with you. I think it’s important to give potential clients a sense and feel of what they may experience, and whether I might be right for them. My great thanks to all my clients who have taken the time to leave me a review.

On Google Listings, I currently have 81 reviews with an average of a 5-star rating.

Actually, reading over the latest, I’m feeling a bit emotional that these clients had such good experiences and shared them with you. I’ll just go and have a little happy cry in the corner now…

🌟 Prakritee Ranjit said:
My first reiki experience was wonderful thanks to Andy.

🌟 gabriella colombo said:
The session was beautifully conducted by Andy, who clearly knows what he is doing and did it very well. The room was calm and relaxing and he offered me some tea, which was very nice. During the session I felt the energy very intensely filling up my body and bringing me messages from my guides. Would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a deep encounter with your true inner self.

🌟 Reni Damayanti said:
First experience I had for Reiki Healing was very good. It helped me through the spiritual awakening journey. After the session I felt so peace and calm, it also helped me to focus on my meditation as well. Andy is extremely professional and very polite. Prior to the healing session begins Andy provided me with hot tea and also discussions what brought me there. The place itself it’s very calming peace and quiet. I highly recommend this place, will definitely come back. Thank you for the amazing service x

🌟 J Riley said:
An excellent experience. Andy is gentle, kind and intelligent. The studio is relaxing and serene. Highly recommended.

🌟 Tiffany Laroche said:
The place is really sweet and relaxing, Andy is attentive and kind, a really good Reiki session! Just give it a shot you’ll be convinced!

🌟  Helena Massey said:
I highly recommend seeing Andy for a reiki session. This was my first reiki session and I felt it had a significant impact on me, deeply grounding and relaxing and I felt more aligned within my self all week. Andy creates a really beautiful and calming space and is very professional and attentive. I also think his pricing is very affordable for such a high standard of care and skill.

🌟 Michele Santos said:
A delightful first time Reiki experience. I’m really glad to have found Andy in my local area. The space was cool, calming and thoughtful. I felt comfortable and at ease during the treatment and at the end I felt more alive, happy and centered. For anyone stuck in the mud or feeling blocked, I totally recommend booking a session with Andy. I’m in!

🌟 Sophia H said:
Although I had no energy blockages within me, I walked away feeling more aligned – it helped me manage my rumination. It’s been almost a week and I can definitely say it’s an experience worth returning to as that good after- feeling of inner peace does sustain itself. Thanks Andy.

🌟 Ken Reid said:
Andy did such a remarkable job of helping me to not only feel relaxed but to also clear out a lot of rumination I was experiencing. I’m very grateful to have had this experience.

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. Since 2011, I’ve given more than 2,800 reiki treatments.
Clients come to relieve stress, anxiety and for many other issues, or to just give reiki a try to see what it does for them. Folks come from all over Sydney and elsewhere to see me. 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.

 

Even more reviews from Fresha

Earlier this year and last year too, I fell away from regular blogs on this reiki website. I was feeling quieter, and lazier, and the thing is: I’ve had a steady stream of reiki clients, both new and old. And yet, I do know that it’s good to keep the website active, and it’s good to share reviews with potential and established clients. Though it can also be good to take a break, once in a while. This is advice I often give to my clients. If you find something that is positive and beneficial, try to make it a regular practice. And it’s not bad to take a break, or a holiday, or step back, once in a while. In any case, it’s good to be back. Here are some more reviews from Fresha.

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. Since 2011, I’ve given more than 2,600 reiki treatments.
Clients come to relieve stress, anxiety and for many other issues, or to just give reiki a try to see what it does for them. Folks come from all over Sydney and elsewhere to see me. 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.

Another half a dozen reviews from Fresha

As usual, it’s a pleasure to share my reviews. And it’s a good way for me to do regular blog posts!

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. Since 2011, I’ve given more than 2,600 reiki treatments.
Clients come to relieve stress, anxiety and for many other issues, or to just give reiki a try to see what it does for them. Folks come from all over Sydney and elsewhere to see me. 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.

Ten reviews of Reiki Surry Hills from Google Listings

 

A pleasure to share my reviews with y’all. And thanks to all my clients who have taken the time to give me one:

Here are the latest ten reviews of Reiki Surry Hills from Google Listings, where I currently have 75 reviews with an average of a 5-star rating.

🌟 Mark Ryan said:
Great experience, highly recommend!

🌟 Maggie Tremenda said: Andy was very helpful. The atmosphere of the place is very relaxing and calm. The positive energy is present in the room, and if you relax and let go off your worries, the treatment can heal you. I experienced healing power myself. Thank you Andy for making me feel better. Kindly appreciated.

🌟 O S gave me 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 (5 stars)

🌟 Brock Forsblom said:
Andy is kind and professional and has created a beautiful, serene environment for the work. Highly recommend

🌟 Taya Neville said:

You are fortunate if you are led to find Andy and experience a treatment with him. Such a genuine and kind man ❤️

🌟 Sam Little said:
Very relaxing and good treatment

🌟 Annie Phan said:
Andy was very warm and welcoming. The session was really relaxing and calming, like a state of meditation and I felt myself feeling lighter, mind and body clearer for the next couple weeks after the session. I felt at peace and a lot happier, like I got my energy back! Was a good experience!

🌟 Marlentyus Aditya said:
I’ve had mixed emotion during my first reiki session it was magical experience and im so grateful i found Andy… Energy healing is no joke guys, some things are unexplainable but human mind is very powerful the only thing that limits us is our imagination….all we need to do is to Believe it.. i will definitely be back again next week.

🌟 P S gave me 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 (5 stars)

🌟 Ishan Chouhan said:
Andy is amazing. The place is so calm and full of positive energies. Andy helped me understand a few things about my stressful time, and it is definitely helping me. A day after the session, I felt lighter, happier. The energy flow I am feeling is beyond words. Thanks Andy for this.

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. Since 2011, I’ve given more than 2,800 reiki treatments.
Clients come to relieve stress, anxiety and for many other issues, or to just give reiki a try to see what it does for them. Folks come from all over Sydney and elsewhere to see me. 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.

 

A half a dozen reviews from Fresha

Quite a few clients have told me that Fresha, my booking system, is really easy to use. It sends reminders. It allows for electronic payments. Every once in a while, there’s an issue. If someone makes a mistake on their email or phone number, the messages don’t reach them. More often than not, if a client has set up their Fresha account in another country, Fresha allows them to sign in and book the reiki appointment, but forgets to ask them to update their information. But generally, I’m pretty happy with it, since they bought out Bookwell, my old service.

The other new function added since I joined is that I can now reply to my reviews, which is nice, although this means you have to read my replies as well as the reviews. Oh well.

Here are a half a dozen reviews from Fresha. I’ll try to be more prompt about posting these up. It’s good to keep the blog active on my webpage, as I understand it tells the interweb that I’m active and open in general.

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. Since 2011, I’ve given more than 2,600 reiki treatments.
Clients come to relieve stress, anxiety and for many other issues, or to just give reiki a try to see what it does for them. Folks come from all over Sydney and elsewhere to see me. 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.

An embarrassing story about an emoji

A number of years ago, I gave a few treatments to a client in unusual circumstances. He had cancer, and his family was hoping that the reiki treatments would help him deal with the effects of the treatment and that he would feel better. What was unusual was that they all wanted to be in the treatment room at the same time. I’m not sure why exactly. Perhaps to make sure he was safe and comfortable, and to support him. It was maybe to act as translators if necessary, as he didn’t speak much English. But they all sat together on the sofa in the reiki room, a mother, a brother, a wife and an adorable child, and they were all perfectly quiet during the treatment. As I usually only have a client in the room with me, or very occasionally a partner or family member, to have so many people in the small room was strange.

I think for the third treatment, the brother had sent an enquiry about a date and time and I thought had confirmed it, so I put it in my calendar. It was before my practice really took off, because of my Google listing and the online booking system (Bookwell, and now Fresha), and before I was giving treatments pretty much every day, as I do now. I’d had a few occasions of clients not showing up and it did, honestly, make me angry, that I had blocked off my time for them to come, that I’d prepared the room for the treatment, and probably made tea for them. And that they didn’t call in advance to cancel or rebook. And because I didn’t have many clients then, it felt more significant than it was.

So when the family didn’t show up, I was annoyed. Not as angry as the first no-shows, but I still wanted to make a point. I texted the brother and asked if they were coming, and he said no. So, I sent a text that said ‘If you can’t come to a treatment, you really need to let the person know beforehand’. His response was immediate, and he said something like ‘Why are you being so angry? I don’t have time for this.’

I’m ashamed to say that I continued the argument, saying that I wasn’t angry, I was just making a point. It got worse with each text exchanged and I ended up saying that his brother could come for treatments still but I’d prefer that he not come along. I never saw any of them again.

I’m ashamed of my behaviour. It’s not a big thing for someone to miss a treatment. These days, I can just brush it aside and see it as an opportunity to use the time in another way. And who knows what stress and pain the brother was going through, worrying about his brother with a serious form of cancer?

By sharing this story, I want to say that we can always, on a daily basis, do better, be better, and be compassionate and kind. Just because I do healing on others doesn’t mean that I don’t need healing myself.

It actually wasn’t until a few years later that I realised I was even more wrong in the situation than I’d thought. That emoji above: for some reason, I thought it meant ‘yes’ until it finally dawned on me that the praying hands or folded hands emoji, as it is known, is a depiction of the Japanese gesture for saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and is most often used as thanks. So, the brother was not confirming the appointment. He was simply thanking me for letting him know that the time he mentioned was available.

So, some big lessons for me, which are the same as the reiki precepts:

Be kind and compassionate to yourself and others

Do not anger

And I would also add: Know your emojis.

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. Since 2011, I’ve given more than 2,600 reiki treatments.
Clients come to relieve stress, anxiety and for many other issues, or to just give reiki a try to see what it does for them. Folks come from all over Sydney and elsewhere to see me. 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.