All I wanted to do was help others.

Back in 2007 I became a Reiki Master. Five years earlier I had trained in Reiki 1 and 2, as I had wanted to heal other people. As I worked as a nurse at the time and witnessed so much illness and death, I was desperately looking for something that offered people hope.

I did both courses in the same weekend. The thought that I may need healing myself was never a factor in my decision. I soon knew that Reiki worked as I’d had a very profound experience after my initiation. This had followed self-treatments for six weeks after completion of the weekend initiations.

Despite this, I had huge reservations as to the intent and motivation of my Reiki master. I clearly had my own issues going on at the time and he was the perfect target for my discontent. Consequently, I did not seek his guidance and proceeded on my own, using my intuitions to assess the energy that I was channelling. Since I was working night shifts I used my breaks to give myself long treatments. I was left to find my own way.

On that occasion I soon developed a large pain in my chest, at the location of my heart.

Fortunately, as I was working in a Coronary Care Unit (CCU) at the time I knew the symptoms were not angina and just trusted the process. This was despite a daily increase in the pain after each self-treatment.

After six weeks the pain was so great that I could barely drive my car, since it was too painful to turn the steering wheel. I cancelled all of my shifts at work and treated myself for a few more days, and now my sleep started to suffer.

Breakdown to breakthrough.

One day, whilst in the bath, I had a huge realisation and began to see my life flash before me. In one moment I understood how everything that had happened in my life was leading me towards serious illness. I had all of the early warning symptoms of heart disease. Although I was physically fit, I was emotionally repressed. My family did not use the word love, we didn’t hug and much was left unsaid. I started to cry uncontrollably.

I spent the next three days acting as though I was Scrooge on Christmas morning. This led to me telling all of my friends and family, who were around me at the time, how much I loved them. With each proclamation the pain eased a little more. This happened despite being suspected by many as being facilitated by drugs.

Old habits die-hard.

Despite the profundity of this experience I stopped using my Reiki, except for the odd, intermittent treatment, for several years afterwards.

Five years later I decided to train as a Reiki Master. I wanted to leave my nursing job for good and this appeared to offer me a way out. I would have more status in the healing world as a Reiki Master. In reality, I was not properly experienced and had no idea what I was getting myself into.

I attended the course and, like before, I started to do a few treatments on myself. Shortly after I developed a pain in my shoulder, which worsened over time and with Reiki. As there was plenty going on in my life at the time I had not considered the synchronicity of becoming a Reiki Master and developing this pain.

My other trainings had led me to believe that I had created this pain for a purpose, so I set out to find what I needed to do to resolve it.

I addressed issues with family and friends over the following months, which yielded numerous positive outcomes, yet the pain still remained. I performed Time-Line Therapy and self-hypnosis, releasing many things – and still, the pain remained.

I then attended a therapist, who dealt with regression. This revealed all sorts of interesting insights and it did help.

This proved to be a fascinating process and unlocked several issues in my life. Although the pain lessened considerably, I was left with a residual ache in my shoulder.

A few months later I attended a gathering of Reiki Masters, hoping that this would shed some light on the subject. During the gathering I experienced some huge energetic and emotional shifts, which frequently had me on the verge of tears. I was also humbled by an array of profoundly talented Masters who I met.

During a group healing I was informed that my pain was due to a chip that I had on my shoulder. I was surprised; as I thought that I had forgiven everyone that I could think of, whom I’d had an issue with.

Further treatments during the gathering intensified the emotions that I had been experiencing and several questions surfaced for me.

Then, finally, on the last day I sat next to another Reiki Master and started chatting to him. He listened to my Reiki story and very gently informed me how important it was to get permission from my Reiki 1 Master before getting another Master to further my Reiki journey. Suddenly, I had a light bulb moment. This led to the following e-mail correspondence with my first Reiki Master, which, in turn, led to another cathartic moment and the release of all pain in my shoulder:

Dear Reiki Master,

                  I realise that you will probably not remember me, yet it is important that I write this mail. I attended a Reiki 1 and 2 weekend with you about six years ago and felt very negative about you and your teaching style afterwards. The consequence has been that it has taken me this long to understand the error of my perception.

My Reiki journey has been confusing and resulted in periods of neglect, self-doubt and disillusionment with regard to my spiritual and healing practice. During that weekend I felt that there were too many students and not enough opportunities to ask the many questions that I had at the time.

When some of your teachings were contradicted by other Reiki masters I decided that I had been short-changed and chose not to contact you about it.

Although you have not been consciously in my thoughts for several years now I have recently found my way back into Reiki through becoming a Reiki master a few months ago.

Recent attendance of a Reiki masters' gathering, with The Reiki Association, has caused some powerful energetic shifts within me and led me to talk about my early Reiki experiences. Once again, I found myself feeling very negative.

However, I now know that my negativity towards you was only a projection of my negativity towards myself. I am now in a place where I am ready to own it and apologise humbly to you for any energetic consequences that may have happened as a result of my actions.

I would also like to acknowledge the gift that you gave me during that weekend and how it has now led me to a place of very profound, deep and meaningful healing. I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart and offer my unreserved apologies for my lack of insight into the nature of Reiki and what happened to me during my initiations with you.

                           Peace, Love, light and healing energy,

                                           Adam

Dear Adam

Apologies for delay - have been in Mexico building our cancer centre, conducting research studies with children in schools with ADHD, and developing projects with the Mexican NHS.

Your email is certainly appreciated.  Although you will discover as you tread your path that it is not important what a minority of others think about your work.  There will always be those who do not understand - and there are countless reasons why they cannot understand. 

The most important things to know as we work our soul missions are that

1.     we are coming from the best possible motivation of love to help our world

2.    we are attempting to help the highest majority of people who seek our help

Blessings for your good works

Reiki Master

Back in 2007 I may not have been a Master of Reiki in anything but title - though healing comes in many forms. I have since studied numerous other energetic methods, which have all added to my awareness and understanding of this intriguing area of health. Today, I do not use Reiki consciously as I have ventured into other energy healing systems.

Real, sustainable healing occurred for me the day I decided to take responsibility for everything that has ever happened to me in my life and put my own needs first.

Only through this process of self-empowerment can sustainable improvements occur. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to move beyond my good physical health and realise that I was at high risk of heart disease at an age where I had a chance to reverse the symptoms, without permanently damaging my heart. Now I spend my life helping others to do the same.