“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage,” said Anais Nin. I never dreamed how much my life would expand when I took my first Reiki class. People always thought I was courageous before Reiki, but as I look back on the incidents that people commented on, I wouldn’t say they were courageous. Most of them were just stupid.
I once snorkeled into an underwater cave in the Riviera Maya. I thought my friend had gone inside, but he informed me later that he was simply motioning to it to show me. He didn’t want me to go into it. “What if there hadn’t been an air pocket inside? You didn’t know what was in there!” They thought I had drowned. I popped up in a tiny “cave” beneath the porous rock where my husband and those who didn’t want to snorkel were standing. I could hear them above me: “Where’s Karen? Have you seen Karen? Where did she go?”
I was yelling from within the cave, “I’m in here! I’m in the rocks!” But no one heard me. The next thing I knew, someone grabbed my ankle and pulled me under the water forcefully. I barely had time to gasp a huge gulp of air. My friend dragged me to the surface just as I ran out of air. That was one of the closest calls I’ve had while traveling, but I have been in some harrowing situations that I created myself because I’ve never had a good sense of self-preservation. I’ve always been curious to see what lies around the bend, and that adventurous spirit has gotten me into trouble quite a few times in my life.
Some of my family and friends think I’m courageous because I was the first in my family to go to college and graduate with a master’s degree (neither of my parents graduated from high school). Some think I’m brave because I survived a tumultuous childhood. But all of those things were not done from a place of courage. I did most of the “gutsy” things in my life either out of fear that I wouldn’t survive, or I did them to get love and admiration from people.
That’s not courage.
The root of the word “courage” comes from the Latin cor, which means “heart.” So truly courageous acts are those that come from the heart. And I couldn’t fully act from my heart because it had been broken so many times. I had built such a wall around it that I couldn’t hear its steady beating of truth. My head was full of opinions of others. I’m an empath and a highly sensitive person. I grew up in a violent home. I’m very good at sensing what others want or need, and I can tiptoe around a volatile situation with the grace of a doe. I could take action to protect those I love. What I couldn’t do was find my genuine courage, my true heart.
When I took my first Reiki class in 2012, things began to shift in my life. I traveled through England by myself in 2013 in order to take my Reiki Master class with William Rand in Glastonbury and get my attunement in Stonehenge. I had never traveled by myself in a foreign country (at least I could speak English). In 2014, I took my son on a five-week adventure through Europe to end up in Norway to take a Reconnective Healing class with Eric Pearl. In 2015, my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer, and I found the courage to heal our relationship and take care of her as she released herself from this life in February 2017. Then, my only child, whom I raised by myself without child support, graduated in May of 2017.
And I did the most courageous thing I’ve ever done. I quit my job.
Some of my friends thought I had completely lost my mind. Others were simply bewildered. Even my brother, who has been my rock through my whole life and has supported me in everything, didn’t say much. My son reminded me that because I taught at a college that is part of the University of Arkansas system, he could have gotten a discount on his tuition. But he supported me. And if my brother thought it was a huge mistake, he would have protested. So I jumped.
I followed my heart for the first time in my life. I wanted to create a business. I wanted to help other people with Reiki. I loved teaching, but the essay grading was sucking the life from my soul. I was fifty-two years old. It was now or never.
It’s been a rough road at times, especially with the pandemic, but I keep following my heart–and I’m just fine. So I want to share my reflections about how Reiki delivers this unexpected gift of courage. It’s an ongoing process that widens with each curve of the spiral, but here are the three steps.
Let Go
You have to heal. You have to give up trying to control your feelings. You have to feel your feelings. This surrendering to the pain you have shoved down all your life will set you free. It happens slowly over time, depending on how many layers of stuffed emotions you have. My regular clients release bit by bit. Sometimes it’s a huge release, and they tremble and cry. Sometimes it’s a gentle lifting of something heavy they have been carrying around for years, and we don’t even know what it was. It doesn’t matter. They just have to let go. People who take a Reiki class have big shifts in their lives. I don’t know if it’s because they have fully committed to their healing or if it’s because they give themselves Reiki every day. But they let go and begin to heal.
Listen
As people begin to heal and release those stories they have been telling themselves all their lives, they begin to hear that small, still voice inside. Without the inner critic, they can listen to their heart. They can hear the divine guidance that whispers which direction to go, what steps to take, whom to spend time with, what projects to commit to. The fear still comes up, but they are learning to identify that limiting voice as fear. They are listening to their heart instead of their peers, or their families, or those ghosts from their pasts that tell them they’re not good enough. They have that divine connection through Reiki. They can listen any time they need guidance. They realize that guidance has always been there and always will be there. The more they listen, the more success they have. The more success they have, the more calculated risks they take to move them toward their goals. Their goals. They begin to accomplish their divine purpose on earth.
Lean In
When people connect with Reiki and listen to divine guidance more and more, fear begins to melt away. Their lives become a series of healing and moving forward. They learn to let go of pain, frustration, and anxiety as it arises. They learn to listen to their heart/gut/intuition, depending on what abilities they uncover as they heal. Then, they begin to lean in to projects that resonate with them. They don’t fear. They don’t second guess. They listen and they act.
Ernest Hemingway said that courage is “grace under pressure.” I dislike lots of things about Hemingway, but he’s right on this one. I do think there’s some truth in the idea that courage is feeling fear and moving forward anyway. But true courage is feeling the pressure to perform, to achieve, to succeed–and moving forward with grace. To me, that grace comes from the spiritually guided life force energy that is Reiki.
Works Cited:
“Anais Nin Quotes.” BrainyQuote.com. BrainyMedia Inc., 2022. 30 April 2022 – https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/anais_nin_131904
“Ernest Hemingway Quotes.” BrainyQuote.com. BrainyMedia Inc., 2022. 6 May 2022 – https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ernest_hemingway_131094
Article by Karen Caig
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A Reiki Master Teacher living in the Ozark Mountains of Northwest Arkansas, Karen teaches students all over the world through live, online classes. After retiring from a thirty-year career as a college English instructor, Karen began her full-time Reiki career as owner of Reiki Institute.
She is a Licensed Master Teacher with the International Center for Reiki Training, offering practitioner and master level courses in Usui/Holy Fire® III Reiki, Holy Fire® III Karuna ® Reiki, and ICRT Animal Reiki.
As a domestic abuse survivor, Karen is passionate about helping others learn to heal themselves with Reiki. She empowers people to discover the gifts buried beneath their pain so that they can shine. Since completing her Reiki Master in England in 2013, she has taught Reiki to abuse survivors, mothers of children with behavioral issues, massage therapists, nurses, doctors, midwives, therapists, yoga instructors, and more.
Website: https://reiki-institute.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArkansasReikiInstitute
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