You Can't "Sell" Reiki

Photo by Marlan Warren (copyright protected)

A friend recently suggested I "sell" Reiki with an "elevator pitch" (you're in an elevator and only have 1 or 2 floors to tell someone how great your service is). I quoted Reiki Master Eileen Dey (author of Touching the World through Reiki):

"You can't sell Reiki. You can share it."

We bring new people into Reiki's Light through attraction rather than promotion. Although I must admit, now that I think about it, that Reiki found me and not the other way around. And the circumstances did involve promotion.

In 1984, when I married my then-husband, Polish filmmaker Pawel Kuczynski, I was unwittingly on the verge of fighting a chronic illness which would not be accurately diagnosed for years. Pawel didn't know I was sick until after our marriage, but he did know that I had been studying with a Kundalini meditation teacher, Dr. Linda Garbett, in San Diego, and that she had encouraged me to serve others in the future with intuitive healing and counseling.

I don't remember how my then-husband met Joyce Morris, the 44th Reiki Master in the true Usui Shiki Ryoho lineage who ran the now-extinct Los Angeles Reiki Center. It might have been at one of those New Age Health Expos which we liked to attend in search of healing and enlightenment. I do remember Pawel explaining that he'd made a deal with Reiki Master/Teacher Morris to make a "promo video" for her Center in exchange for money and Reiki certification for us.

So looking back, I do see now that "promo" was necessary to the Center for its survival. However, attraction was the key. Pawel's video became a small documentary about the origins of Reiki (it had interviews with an older couple who knew Mrs. Tanaka--the woman who brought Reiki to the U.S. and ignited its popularity here), students, and those people who had been through the Center's training but were now part of its entourage.

My favorite line in the film is at the end when one of the Center's devotees says, "I don't know what it is, but I feel better doing it so I'm going to keep on doing it."

Cause and Effect. Does it work? Yes. For me, that's the bottom line.

Recently I offered to treat a young colleague when she mentioned that she'd recently suffered pain in her leg so severe she was limping. One minute she was fine, and the next she had this awful pain like a pulled muscle. But a doctor's exam showed nothing. Not even a blood clot.

That's where Reiki could step in (so to speak).

I gave her a full 1-hour Reiki session, and then spent extra time on the afflicted leg. Afterward, she got off the massage table, we had tea and she said it felt somewhat better. As a Reiki practitioner, I've learned not to be so concerned with immediate results so I didn't worry that she didn't feel that much better.

The next day she texted me:  "The pain in my leg is gone."

I could not say before the session that I knew what caused the problem, but during the session, the blockages in certain chakras became clear to me. Her head wasn't blocked so much as in "overdrive" with worry and stress. Her throat chakra was somewhat blocked because she wasn't speaking her truth freely. And so on. The process of sending Universal Energy to each chakra point loosened the toxins there and flushed them out. This is what we mean by "balancing."

So many times our aches and pains reflect our trauma, our holding back, our neurotic means of dealing with stress. It seems incredible that her leg pain could suddenly vanish as suddenly as it had arrived--but that's exactly what happened.

Attraction or Promotion? Which do you prefer when making your choices? I'm listening.

Oh and one more thing: Yelp hides most of my Five Star reviews. And in case you are curious, here's what the most recent review from this lovely person says:

This was my first experience with Reiki. I had read much about it and was interested in learning more. I found Marlan through a Google search and wasn't sure what to expect but I was more than pleasantly surprised -- Marlan is an amazing Reiki healer; I experienced many changes after just a couple of sessions and after taking a Reiki I class with Marlan, can do self-healing which has proved to be most effective.  Also, Marlan's beautiful cat, Nadia, is right there as well; the Reiki cat.  I would and have recommended Marlan to a number of people.  Oh and she also does Reiki healing for animals...very cool.  A++

A Reiki Blog for the Rest of Us

Photo by Marlan Warren = Copyright Protected

Welcome to the first day of my first blog about the amazing effects of Reiki (fancy word for "Universal Life Force Healing Energy") in our lives. Who's this cat, you ask? She's Nadia the Reiki Cat. Yes, all cats do Reiki but this one just loves to give it to humans. The man in the photo said he felt like he got "two for one" during a class in which his wife was learning Reiki Level I (she's holding his feet out of the frame).

Nadia came to me by way of a dear friend who is suffering from the neurological horror of ME/CFS in Northern California. When I lived in the Bay Area, I'd visit to give her occasional Reiki treatments, and Nadia was the only one of her four cats who helped me.

I had one client who complained of "Voo-Doo" curses that she said made her left arm tingle when "they" were "attacking." After one session, she told me the tingling went away when Nadia laid against it. 

I've been practicing Reiki for nearly 30 years (starting with certification at the now-extinct Los Angeles Reiki Center with Usui Reiki Master Joyce Morris back in the Day), and now teaching it for the past 4 years with all the remarkable results that happen when we give and receive this mysterious energetic healing. 

Frankly I've resisted "going public" with a blog about my work for fear of losing my "street cred." As you can see by my Blogger Profile Summary, I'm a woman of widespread talents and endeavors, some more woo-woo than others.

Like those eateries that proclaim "We only do hamburgers," there are some folks who assume that if a Reiki Master/Teacher has other non-healing pursuits and interests she can't be "that good." But what does the ability to receive and send transformative energy have to do with whether or not you do Reiki and only Reiki?

Okay, yes it is true that working with energy is like exercising a muscle. The more we access it and let it flow through us to others, whether via Reiki or Kundalini shaktipat, the stronger it gets. However...when it comes to multitalents, Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you "Exhibit A":

Nadia. This cat knows exactly where to place her body or paws in exactly the right position to take away stress and balance a chakra, but she will still chase a string around the room pretending it's a mouse. And she's just as good at both.

I rest my case.