Opening to the Many Ways of Energy

Reiki is not limited to what we learn in a Reiki class. It is not just hand positions. It is not just symbols. It is not about lineages or history. It is not just attunements. All of these things are tools that help us to access healing energy in a focused, easily understood and simple way. It is a wonderfully simple way to work with healing energy and to learn to work with energy in general. For many of us, it is our first understanding of the energy field of life. Reiki can show us how to work with this field in a loving and healing manner, for the benefit of all. If you keep exploring, you see that it is infinite and indefinable.

It is a beautiful thing to allow Reiki to open your heart, mind and spirit to energy. There is no need to allow limiting beliefs—from any source—to restrict your view of Universal Energy. Be curious, be patient with yourself and explore energy lovingly. No matter how many years of experience someone has, what lineage they are from, how respected they are, no matter what always explore the truth for yourself. If the truth bears out then you don’t need to rely on belief, dogma or restriction.

There are so many ways to work with energy! The longer I am in the world, the more I understand and the longer I practice Reiki, the more I see that we are always working with energy! True, we typically don’t realize it as we go about our day, but there is no avoiding the constant interaction. Energy is everywhere! Everything in our physical world is made of energy, and so are our thoughts and emotions. There is nothing that isn’t energy, seen or unseen. We are living and breathing it.

So when you look at it that way, the world becomes a vast interconnected place. It is no longer that we are only able to connect when we are doing a Reiki treatment. Sure, we connect more intentionally and directly, but we are always connected in some way and all of our actions affect the ripples of the energy system we live in.

This means that our tools for working with energy are endless! Everything we encounter, every thought and emotion becomes an opportunity to create something better, to interact with the world and with our own selves in a kinder way. Simply by acknowledging the shared energy and offering our love to all forms of energy, we are lifting the world up. We heal the cells in our own body and our own environment by holding the frequency of love as often as possible and letting that radiate out.

We can work with our words, making them more loving, stronger, and more creative of the life we wish to live. We can work with our emotional energy by acknowledging it and honoring what it shows us, without stifling it or building it into a tidal wave. By doing this, we allow the energy to transform into something more vital that will build us up, making us fuller and richer.

We can work with our environment and the situations and people we encounter. Every action we take, every word we speak and every intention to send loving energy to our environment and others creates a shift. Practice with it and you will notice the shifts over the long term, and often the short term, as well.

Even your doubt or belief in how much you affect your own energy and the energy around you will shift the energy—because doubt and belief are energy, too. It’s not helpful to force yourself to believe something, but you can look at what you believe now and notice how that plays out in your life. You can ask yourself how you feel about your beliefs and how you interact with the world based on those beliefs. You can try out the idea that you are more involved with the world and with your own body, thoughts and emotions than you may have believed. You can see how you affect others and how they affect you. You can notice that you have a role in the changes you want to see in your life and in the world, starting with your own energy. Over time, with practice, doubts shift into belief.

By tuning in and noticing the energy in all things, we can learn how each piece fits together. We can learn more about ourselves and how we want to feel and be in the world. As we learn more about energy, it becomes easier to allow ourselves to notice how to shift our own energy in order to experience life in a way that feels good to us. By remaining open to these vibrations, we open every avenue of communing with the energy all around us, working with it on all levels—mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically. We begin to see how our energy changes the world around us.

There is no one way to experience Reiki. Allow yourself to experience Reiki in the way that makes sense to you. Be open to exploring your own inner world and the world of energy. Don’t get stuck in dogmatic thinking or caught in someone else’s rules about what Reiki is or isn’t or how it needs to be practiced or experienced. Energy is both extremely personal and universal to us all. It belongs to no one.

Article by Angie Webster

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Angie Webster made a significant contribution to the Reiki community, with a particular focus on Animal Reiki, which she had a deep affection for. As a knowledgeable Reiki Master Teacher and Author, she conducted online courses on energy healing, herbalism, flower essences, and personal growth.
She is the author of “Animal Reiki: How it Heals, Teaches & Reconnects Us with Nature” and “Reiki from A to Z”. Currently, Angie has decided to retire from her professional life to devote more time to her health, family, and the little joys of life.