Creating a Healthy and Successful Reiki Practice

On a Saturday that I don't have a regularly-scheduled class to teach, I have some time to reflect.

Why do I do what I do and am I doing it the way I intend?

I think that I do what I do because I love it. I love to heal and watch others in the healing process. I love to see students and clients go through the transformative process that Reiki represents.

My vision for what I do is to be a community resource for Reiki; to allow healers to learn, grow, and form their own practices to help the world to heal (and especially the community in which I live, the Greater DC Area).

I believe that my practice offers the above. What it has been a bit lax in, I think, of late is to be self-supporting. If your practice isn't able to support itself in a sustainable way, even though you love it, you may have to find another source of income to supplement what you earn from Reiki.

So what's sustainable?

I believe that a sustainable practice is able to:

• yield a regular salary to its owner
• pay its monthly expenses when they are due (or early)
• save a percentage of its income each month for taxes
• have retained earnings at the end of each month
• have a "sustainability fund" to handle low months
• have working capital available for opportunities that present themselves
• schedule healing sessions for its owner(s) that support them on a regular basis

At the moment, I would say that RCGW (my practice) is able to do most of these, but has had an issue with savings or net retained earnings. This is because we have taken on a higher percentage of debt in our growing stage than was sustainable.

I would recommend, after this experience, that the financial percentages for a sustainable practice should look something like this:

• Salaries and Taxes - 40%
• Direct Expenses (class and session supplies, printing, etc) - 30%
• Overhead Expenses (rent, utilities, advertising) - 20%
• Sustainability Fund - 10%

What this means is that about 50% of everything that comes in goes to the expenses of the practice. Forty percent of what remains goes to taxes and salaries which leaves about 10% remaining for growth and emergencies each month. Hopefully, the sustainability fund is not used each month, but has a chance to grow.

It is my dream that my practice have a sustainability fund that allows it to continue without any income for up to a full year. That can become a kind of insurance, especially if you are self-employed, and can eliminate some of the worry that can accompany owning your own business. Because of this intention, I have decided to lower expenses for the business by moving my commercial space to my home office space to save just over half of my overhead expenses. That is slated to take place effective July 1, 2009.

I have some mixed feelings about the change, but in a meditation after my decision, I heard Usui-Sensei say, "Reiki is about the inside, not the outside." A beautiful space that doesn't contribute to the welfare of the business is not sustainable. That is what I am working for right now.

Walking the Reiki Master Path

What does it mean to be a Reiki Master?

The term comes from Hawayo Takata, since it was not used in the country of Reiki's birth, Japan. In Japan, one who has received the knowledge that we call Reiki Mastership is said to have reached Shinpiden, the Mystery Level. After they learn to teach, they are simply called Shihan, teacher or instructor.

Only in the West have we used a word like Master, which implies someone who has mastered his or her subject. In practice, Reiki Master simply means that you have been attuned to the Reiki Master energy stream, known in English as the Great Shining Light or Universe. This energy is the "rei' in the word Reiki. The universal, divine, and conscious intelligence.

I did my first Reiki Master training with Marie Ciociola in October 1998. I had huge expectations of that class and what it would teach me. What I realized when I received the attunement at the class's conclusion is that I was not ready to teach right away. While I had the structure of what would be taught, I did not have sufficient experience, in my opinion, to offer a class to people. That began a journey of reading everything I could get my hands on about Reiki. I learned from this research that information about Reiki was diverse and sometimes conflicting. I realized that it would be important to give students a path on which they could walk that would give a context to the variety of schools of Reiki, but also conveying what I felt was important based on my experience as a Reiki Practitioner.

I am still working on this one, but have found some objectives that I think are important in Reiki Mastership or teaching:

• An openness to the student's unique path, even if it diverges from the teacher's experience.
• In-depth knowledge of the subject to be taught, including information, attunements, healing techniques, etc.
• Verification of the students' knowledge throughout the teaching process to make sure they are connecting with the teaching.
• Hands-on experience to the greatest extent possible.
• Connection to source in the process of teaching so that the ego does not lead, but follows.
• Healthy respect for the boundaries of the students to develop trust with them as part of setting a good example.
• Setting healthy boundaries for the class, so that all students feel safe with each other.

There are many more objectives, but the ones above, if followed, will assist in creating a class that your students will want to attend.

There is a link on the title above to our page at http://www.reikicenter.info/ that describes what is included in our center's Reiki classes. I hope you check it out.

Karuna Reiki, the Reiki of Compassionate Action

Karuna is a word from Sanskrit that means compassion. The boddhisatva of compassion is referred to as the Maha-Karuna, or the sound that illumines the world. In Karuna Reiki (R), we bring in a system of eight healing symbolic energies that heal at the cellular level and, as such, bring us to a place where there is no "other" in our world.

Each person is a reflection of our journey. As we heal with our hearts, we see ourselves and our own journey in those around us.

I may feel joy at the election of a particular politician, but still know that I must connect with his opponent because part of my journey is reflected in his experience, the experience of loss.

The Karuna Reiki (R) system comes from the International Center for Reiki Training in Southfield, Michigan (URL: http://reiki.org/). The energies, however, originate in a time and place that predate that center. Some sources indicate that the energies were used in the originating Tera Mai or Tera Mai Seichim systems. Some say that they come from the sage Sai Baba. What I would say is that the energies take us to a very deep healing level extremely quickly, open, clear, fill with light, and bring us back before we, as the client, may even be aware of the process.

Karuna Reiki (R) is taught to those who have completed Reiki Master training at the practitioner level for the first eight symbols and the teacher level for the Master symbols of the system.

I first learned Karuna from Laurelle Gaia in Del Ray Beach, Florida. The energy seemed to make me feel connected to everyone around me on the street, on the plane, in the ocean, you name it. I felt what the ocean felt when we worked with the energy at sunrise; I felt a sense of "why not?" come over me that resulted in my having my first website created three days after I completed the course.

The changes in my life since learning this system have been profound: growing a practice, becoming a full-time practitioner and teacher two years later, opening an office two years after that, doubling the space two years after that. Growth has been the rule, rather than the exception as I have moved forward on my healing path, the path of the boddhisatva, one who helps lead others to enlightenment.

Over the past year, I have learned compassionate action for my own journey, that I need to receive as well as give, to have quiet time as well as activity. That is part of the healing path: to be whole as you walk in support of others and ourselves.

I am in the middle of teaching Karuna Reiki with Patricia Bonnard this week and am finding the class very healing from a personal perspective, since I really needed this energy once again myself. There will be another Karuna Reiki Practitioner and Master class next month. You can see the link above for more information or our calendar at http://reikicenter.info/calendar.htm#karuna1.