Reiki and charging money - a highly charged subject indeed!
If you are not of the Reiki community, you could be forgiven for thinking that anyone working for free or almost free is totally mad.
So what is it about Reiki that is contradictory to charging for one's time? Nothing. As a matter of fact, Mikao Usui, the founder of Reiki, advocated an exchange for the healing in order to empower the healee to take an active part in their healing process.
How did the Reiki healing community get to this point?
History has a part to play. When Reiki first came to the West, people were charged obscene amounts of money to become a Reiki healer. This was not a true reflection of the value of the initiation and teaching to the healer, and healers rebelled against this at the first opportunity.
Then again, there is the way in which Reiki at a professional level spread through the world. From a purely financial point of view, it was largely, and for many still is, a cottage industry for housewives, the disabled, retirees, and people already in work looking for a second income. It is very easy for anyone in this situation to miscalculate their true overheads. It is even easier not to need to make a living with Reiki if there is already a source of income, be it a loving husband, disability benefits, a pension, or a secure job.
There is also the driver which leads us to Reiki in the first Place. Most of us come to Reiki because of a need for physical or emotional healing. This may be our own need or that of a loved one whom we know is suffering. Immediately after the initiation, a Reiki healer starts self-healing each day, and soon progresses onto healing loved ones in need. The emphasis is on self-development and helping loved ones. The Reiki healer then spends months or years in this relationship with Reiki, and it is very hard to suddenly switch to having a financial relationship with Reiki too.
Then again for many, Reiki is a spiritual discipline, and for many, spirituality is misunderstood as being divorced from monetary gain. I feel that Reiki is about unconditional love, and that spirituality is about abundance for the highest good. Let me illustrate. Sandra goes to work on a chicken battery farm, where chickens are bred to have chests that are so heavy, these birds have been proven scientifically to be in constant pain. Sandra has also learned Reiki to professional level but since Reiki is spiritual, she will not charge for her Reiki sessions. If she does charge, it is not a sufficient amount to enable her to give up her job at the chicken battery farm. But Mikao Usui told us to be gracious to every living thing, and Sandra tortures chickens for a living! Society's standards about spirituality, handed down over the ages for the rich to control the poor, are to blame.
Reiki is gaining popularity in the UK as a healing modality. Many clients come to me for healing anxiety, depression, joint pain, arthritis, and many other conditions with Reiki. At the same time, many healers have been received their Reiki professional-level training in a very short workshop or even in half an hour over the internet! They do not have the necessary training for client care, clinical practice, the law, tax, conditions requiring urgent medical attention, and health and safety. Quite rightly, these Reiki healers, although on paper possessing the Reiki healer certificate, know that they are in no position to charge. Unfortunately, many of these healers are simply unaware that Reiki is more than a quick initiation and nice warm feeling. No-one has told them! They have been taught by a Reiki Master teacher after a quick buck or (and this is more usually the case) just as ignorant themselves.
Add to the above the proliferation of Reiki healers in the UK today, where competition drives prices down. If one has little or no business training, it is easy to make the assumption that if you charge less, you will get the work. The fact is that if you charge less, you starve. Hence many Reiki practitioners give up the idea of doing Reiki full-time, as they need to make a living and cannot survive on what they charge. This leads to many Reiki healers competing for even less money, as they can afford to offer it for less part-time.
There is also an element of self-esteem. Many Reiki healers have been drawn to Reiki in order to heal low self-esteem. Somehow along the line, they take professional training but do not complete their self-healing. I do not blame them, as often self-healing can be painful! But if one doesn't value oneself, one simply does not charge for services given or charges very little.
Then there is the weirdness of the Reiki session as a process. To many, this feels like just laying the hands on the healee and doing nothing. With time and experience, a Reiki healer becomes an active participant in the healing process, and even if this never happens, the results that clients report back are too astounding to be ignored! Somewhere along the line with many healers though, they begin to doubt that the are doing anything and of course if one is doing nothing then one has to charge nothing!
And then there are those erstwhile healers that give Reiki sessions as part of their job, albeit unofficially. Since it is unofficial, they do not view the Reiki as paid employment, even though they are being paid and are working as Reiki healers.
My hope is that the forthcoming Reiki Regulation in the UK will lead to the support of the Reiki healers that do want to work professionally. Reiki healers working unoficially will be recognised and more Reiki healers will be able to work full-time. The result? Freedom for chickens would be nice!
Complementary and alternative health education and empowerment is my passion. My name is Suzanne Zacharia and I am committed to empowering people to take conrol of their health and wellness.
A virus caught along with 5 other students at university at the end of 1986, plus medical negligence, meant that I got smokers lung at a relatively young age. In desperation for help with my symptoms and quality of life, I turned to complementary therapy, and this is the 11th year I have outlived one doctor's prognosis.
I am now a complementary therapist, author and trainer specialising in energy therapy. My company is called New Age London, with some carefully-chosen expert teachers and trainers of alternative and complementary health working with me. People have come from Iceland, Norway, the States, France, Italy, and Pakistan to train with us or to learn natural, effective techniques for their and their families' health.
http://www.NewAgeLondon.com/contact.php http://www.NewAgeLondonTraining.com http://www.NewAgeLondonTherapies.com