What's Reiki, What's Meditation, What's Hypnosis
Frequently asked questions
What's Reiki
What is Byosen, and why is it important to your practice?
Byosen is a sacred technique meaning "sick accumulation" and is the frequency that your body emits from an injured or ill body part. When you move your hands gently over the body, you can sense and feel hot, cold and sticky energies in some parts. What you have found is unresolved disharmony that has manifested in the physical body as sickness. In other words, your energetic body is in imbalance. Once there is energetic imbalance it starts to spread over the physical body.
If you want to eliminate such manifestation, use Byosen and sharpen your practice to pick up on subtler imbalances. I don't recommend giving any medical advice if you don't have a medical degree. If you think that your client has a medical condition, always advise consulting their GP. Explain that your treatment results in a simple way to help your client rebalance. When you keep it simple, your healing sessions will get charged with immense energy.
Why do I feel emotional after a Reiki treatment?
Reiki treatments create a space in which you can witness your emotions. During the treatment, you can feel overwhelmed by emotions. There will be insights and more clarity.
To witness your emotions, the practice of grounding is essential. Because if we are not grounded, witnessing becomes an imposed activity and your emotional body is busy feeling overwhelmed, which can trigger elements of fear. As a result, you will pity yourself. All these emotions are natural and a healthy part of releasing subconscious and deeper-rooted hurts from the past. Witnessing them is important.
Yes, there may be physical pain. Drinking water and staying hydrated helps the toxins to be flashed out. That is the process of healing.
You don't have to go too far for grounding. You can do some gardening in your backyard and care for your plants. If your mind is occupied with something outside of you and not feeling overwhelmed by the emotions, then you can slowly start to bring your attention to your emotions. You witness your emotions and let them pass. So instead of feeling like a victim, you observe your feelings from a bird's perspective. Emotions start to subside. Clarity, insights, vivid dreams and other moments of joy that help you heal, start to manifest.
What is a Reiki Attunement?
A Reiki attunement is a sacred ritual to heal yourself.
Before the Attunement
You will be asked to meditate and have a vegetarian diet for at least 2-3 days before the attunement. The desire for change has to initiate from within your heart.
During the Attunement:
Meditation leads to a calm state of mind and sets the intention for the attunement. The aim is to step on the path to enlightenment, to receive whatever is for your higher good.
The student truly desires to awaken from the deep sleep.
The student is in a calm state sitting with their eyes closed setting their intent and meditating while placing their hands on their lower abdomen (hara).
The teacher enters a state of Dai-Ko-Myo, "Temple of the great beaming light", followed by rituals and drawing Reiki symbols.
During the attunement process, the aura of both the teacher and the student becomes one and initiation takes place.
The Reiki teacher lifts the negative energies/karma from the student, releases it and grounds it.
At the end of the ritual, the auras are separated.
The process leaves both the teacher and the student with original energy.
The release of Karma during the attunement process explains the physical and emotional cleansing and reorganisation that follows afterwards.
What are Reiki symbols, and when are they used?
Reiki symbols origin from Japan where the Buddhist monk Mikao Usui developed an alternative form of healing, called Usui Reiki, nearly 100 years ago. The word Reiki has its origin the Japanese words rei (meaning "higher power") and ki (meaning "energy"). Combining these two words, Reiki can be translated as "spiritual life force energy."
Reiki healers move their hands over the body, without touching it, along the lines of five traditional symbols. These symbols do not hold any power themselves but have a specific purpose in the healing session. The practitioner activates and energises these symbols, which embody specific qualities leading to attaining control of the mind and eventually reaching enlightenment.
The five symbols are:
1. The Power Symbol
2. The Harmony Symbol
3. The Distance Symbol
4. The Master Symbol
Do I need a follow-up session after my Reiki treatment?
A follow-up session is a good time to reflect. Watch thoughts, feelings and emotions as they rise and subside. There is a sacred space generated by Reiki. A garden where you can start planting flowers.
What's Hypnosis
What causes poor self-esteem?
Low or poor self-esteem is caused by a negative emotional reaction such as childhood experiences, criticism by parents, teachers, peer and siblings, environment, social surroundings, or cultural background. In other words, it is conditioned and derived from the past. People who are obsessed by low self-esteem are in a constant inner war. As a result, they project fear towards others and life. Comparing ourselves to others could derive from low self-esteem, for example. A person possessed with low self-esteem would look at their body, personality, and actions negatively. As a result, they would try harder to adjust their life with impossible standards nourished by negative and compulsive behaviours, which are reactions to earlier feelings of being neglected, criticised, and abused. Or, it could be just lack of love. When you understand that everyone is unique and each person's purpose is unique, your self-esteem will rise.
What is fear conditioning?
Fear conditioning is the process by which something that is not in the least threatening becomes dreaded because it is associated in someone’s mind with something frightening. Research shows that the region of the brain that learns also acts on this fearful response. When people learn to be frightened by something through fear conditioning, the fear subsides in time. This happens through natural relearning when the feared object is reencountered in the absence of any frightening event.
For example, someone afraid of dogs may have been bitten by a dog, and the person's amygdala still links the sight of a dog with the pain of the bite.
Hypnosis - I don't believe in it. Will it work?
The treatment will work when you have an open mind. You do not have to believe in hypnosis for it to work.
What are the five phases that inducing hypnosis will include?
- Body and mind relaxation
- Focus of attention
- Reduced awareness of the external environment
- Greater awareness of internal sensations
- A trance state
What's Meditation
What are the benefits of meditation?
The analysis of 47 clinical trials that involved 3,515 participants found that meditation reduces the negative effects of psychological stress and helps achieve improvements in anxiety, depression and pain. Some of these improvements triggered by meditation were similar to those obtained with anti-depressant drugs. As we meditate, stress loses its density and grip over us mentally and physically.
These studies highlight acceptance of meditation by medical science for the treatment of stress and depression. Daily meditation increases one's experience of positive emotions, restores or maintains good physical health in the body by ensuring that the mind/body connection is balanced. The mind is supportive of the body 's attempt to heal itself. Science found that meditation reduces stress, anxiety, depression and destructive tendencies including rage and anger. At the same time, it improves self-discipline, coping skills, optimistic outlook, the perception of senses, response time and reflexes.
Mindfulness meditation produces positive effects on the brain and immune function. 25 adults participated in meditation after they were given influenza vaccination. Their immune system responded positively to the influenza vaccination by increasing antibody titers compared to another group who did not meditate after the injection. This shows that meditation influences the brain and immune function. Studies also showed that people, who focus on developing compassion through meditation, strengthen their immune system. Meditation has the power to change the body on a cellular level and to promote good health.
Pain is a symptom of disease and illness. Studies showed a direct correlation between mediation and reduction of pain (study led by Kober and Associates). Participants were given a pain stimulus without any instructions and later told to practice mindfulness meditation while they received the same pain stimulus. This time, participants reported a 27% reduction in pain sensation. Additionally, the research found 45% less brain activity in the pain matrix after the participants incorporated meditation.
What are the eight emotions that pollute us?
According to the Tibetan Bon there are eight thought pollutions. These are emotions that cause us to feel overwhelmed and impact our mind and body negatively. These thoughts are:
1. Envy
2. Jealousy
3. Greed
4. Anger
5. Lust
6. Arrogance
7. Selfishness
8. Careless thoughts and deeds
What is the relation between positive and negative thoughts regarding vibrational energy?
Positive emotions carry higher vibrational energy while negative emotions operate from a low-frequency energy level. The more positive the thoughts, the higher the vibrational energy.
When we think that we do not like ourselves, this negative thought carries low vibrational energy, which then impacts our emotions and the physical body. Whereas a positive feeling, for example, I love myself, carries higher vibrational energy, purifies thoughts and nurtures the body positively.
Depending on what vibrational energy we emanate, we start to attract the same people, circumstances and situations. Once we become aware, we realise that we do have a choice to either feed the low-level energy or to consciously rise above itWhat is the relation between your thoughts, your reality and how can meditation help you?
The quality of our present lifestyle is a direct result of our thoughts. Fearful thoughts impact the body negatively, and the physical reaction of our body feeds the original fear and amplifies it. When fearful thoughts are accompanied by supporting feelings we then go through different negative emotions such as anger that at times leave us in despair.
Scientific studies show that being angry a person goes through physiological and biological changes. Since we are dealing with emotions, the emotional part of the brain, the Amygdala, is activated. The Amygdala is consistently on the lookout for emotional emergency signals. When it perceives an emotional emergency signal, it triggers the fight or flight survival response. It takes over the neo-cortex (the thinking brain) before it has had time to analyse the signals and decide what to do. Since it is an instantaneous response, the rest of the brain follows the emotional brain. The decision "there is an emergency and something needs to be done" is made by the emotional brain.
So when we experience anger, we don’t have access to our intelligent brain. Our fear is projected back to us, further fuelling our anger, and this all happens on auto pilot.
Thoughts that trigger anger include our personal evaluation, assessments, assumptions and interpretation of situations and other people. We may think that someone else is attempting to cause us harm. In this way, we project our own fear onto others. We feel limited and belittled by others. Our own thoughts of anger create our reality. Meditation can help us observe our thoughts, feelings, and emotions and realise how the quality of our thoughts affects us on a holistic level. If we become aware of this relationship between our thoughts and our reality, we can make wise investments in our thoughts.
How can we react positively to negative emotions?
We can heal polluted thoughts by transforming them. For example:
Jealousy - When we are jealous, we believe that someone else has got something we don't have. We could transform this energy through practising compassion for the other person. "I am happy for him/her, the happier I am for him/her, the happier I become."
Greed - This emotion relates to power, money and possessions. The underlying thought is: the more I have, the more I become. We could transform this thought by practising generosity: I share all I have with others with a generous heart and spirit.
Anger - Unaware of the inner essence we think and believe that we are powerless and we need to be in control. We could transform this thought through security by repeating the following affirmation: "I am secure in myself and in the world. I am secure in my values and principles. I am strong; nothing can shake my secure foundation."
Is meditation a useful tool for psychologists?
Yes, meditation is a useful tool for psychologists. Both psychology and meditation work with the soul and are natural companions complementing one another. Recent scientific studies demonstrated how awareness practised in meditation strengthens emotional stability and enhances positive outlook to embrace life as it happens in the present moment.
Meditation helps people with psychological issues to make decisions based on the present moment rather than reacting to past hurts or being anxious about the future.
Meditation to seek the truth by investigating the nature of reality has been practised for centuries. Expansion of consciousness and our understanding of reality naturally promote inner peace and end suffering caused by the undisciplined mind.
What is the benefit of Mindfulness-Integrated Cognitive Behaviour Therapy?
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) incorporates mindfulness (MiCBT) to offer a therapeutic approach to patients with dysfunctional emotions, maladaptive behaviour, a range of psychological disorders and cognitive processes. Mindfulness helps patients to be self-aware instead of being caught up in emotions or lost in thoughts. When a client is self-aware in the present moment, he/she is free from judgement, reaction and rejection, which means he/she has the right frame of mind to receive therapy and support.
MiCBT benefits people to see the nature of reality objectively. Understanding the changing reality within the mind and body helps people to observe their experiences, feelings and thoughts in a detached way. As a result, they experience balance, calm and peace within.
What is neuroplasticity?
Modern medical research shows that meditation can change the structure of the brain. Meditation influences the creation of new neural connections in response to stimuli. This process is referred to as neuroplasticity. When we practice meditation, the brain changes and becomes supportive of directions we would like to take in life.
The more stressed we feel, the longer we should meditate. Mindfulness reduces the density and activity of our amygdala, which is responsible for our emotions. In other words, we can shape the structure of the brain and respond with awareness of stressful situations in a more positive way How can mindfulness manage anger?
Anger happens for multiple reasons. Anger could be a sign of suppressed emotions that reside in our subconscious from childhood. The following underlying thoughts and feelings can fuel our anger:
I am being controlled.
No one looked after me as a child.
I am not content, and I do not want to lose this.
I have to work through this alone, and no one cares anyway.
When we practise mindfulness, we learn to focus on the present moment and detach from the past. Anger then dissolves.