In this first interview of these new series of Reiki & Life chats, I'd like to introduce one of my students, Kor Newhouse. A few years ago, Kor came to my school and since then he became an important part of our community. Now he is a member of the Reiki Community Clinic and a Reiki practitioner.
Q: What role is Reiki playing in your daily life? A: Since I started with my training, Reiki has been part of my daily life, taking its precepts as a guide to follow, helping me to be the best I could every day. For me, the lockdown hasn’t changed anything at all for I keep up with my practice, now even more than ever.
Q: I have noticed that I do more practice than before as there’s so much time. Do you feel the same? A: Yeah, I think it’s a gift to have so much free time for us to do some more personal practice and also doing some reading. Even though we are now unable to do a one-to-one healing session, we are lucky to have the tool of distance healing. Right now we can’t invite people to gather and share a Reiki session as we used to and I don’t know how is that going to happen in the future. The health aspects of any physical space are going to be a real issue from now on.
Q: Since your wife was recently taking the Reiki I training with me, I would like to know how does it feel to share your life with another Reiki practitioner at home. Has the energy changed somehow at home? A: I think the energy has changed indeed. I can see that she’s struggling a bit while going through all these stages during your personal practice where you are a bit unsure of what you are doing. I secretly enjoy that process as I was there too a while ago and so I think she needs to get through all that in her own way. I came back to you many times asking you a lot of questions and I think I shouldn’t influence her decisions. However, it’s very nice to be able to discuss some details together, keeping in mind not to influence her thoughts. I think Reiki has helped us to understand that there’s much more than the physical level so we can improve our lives at different levels together, even practising on each other.
Q: According to your experience, could you explain your point of view between performing a Reiki hands-on healing and being Reiki? A: I came to Reiki in an unusual way. In the beginning, I never thought about it as a hands-on treatment. I came to Reiki because I was looking for a tool to help me live the next step of my life better. I wanted to be a better person. So that’s what Reiki was for me: a self-development tool. The hands-on healing wasn’t something I was very interested in at first but I later understood how important can be for healing yourself and others. It was very interesting to me when during the Reiki Share meetings I got some very positive feedback after hands-on healing, which gave me the confidence to believe in the flow of the energy. Despite being already into Reiki II level I find myself still far away from where I would like to be within my inner self, even though I don’t really know where that place is. As a former architect, I always thought that less is more and so I think that’s the main point I’m discovering with Reiki. I’m still now peeling off spare layers from myself, being more transparent and honest to myself and others. And that’s also happening when doing healing. I keep doing it simpler and simpler every time. Just stop over complicating things. Stay loose, believe in the natural flow of energy and don’t stick to the rules. The system works no matter how you do it.
Q: Some people expect a life-change straight after they finish the Reiki I training. I would like to ask you what do you think it’s more important, to believe in your expectations after the training or to enjoy the process of going deeper and deeper into Reiki? A: If you have expectations you can always be disappointed. For me the most important thing has been always the Reiki principles, which are a guide I can follow that will make me a better person, to help me respond against different situations in life in a better way and that’s an ongoing process. We are Reiki and everything is Reiki. It takes some time to understand that and it is fascinating how everything is interconnected, including us. You become even more responsible for how you want to play your part in your life and others’. Reiki makes you aware of all that. I think it’s better not to have expectations and enjoy the journey. I find more and more fascinating to feel how Reiki affects so much to your daily life.
Q: Do you have any advice on how to implement Reiki into your daily routine? A: For me, I like to start the day by balancing the three energy centres, polishing the diamonds, connecting to the earth, the universe and your inner self. So I just start a meditation, before breakfast, lying in bed. And then when I walk on nature I think of all the precepts in Japanese, going also through the English version. I can do that several times a day. These days I also do meditation at night time. I’m step by step building up a series of different routines collected from what I read and learn from out there. But that’s only my way, you need to respect how others do their stuff as they might understand Reiki on a different level. Still, I think it’s about discipline and practice. Everyone needs to find their own way to incorporate Reiki within their lives. We are all Reiki, we just need to decide how much Reiki you want to have in your daily life. This is very exciting altogether and every time somebody asks me about Reiki, I can just talk endlessly about it. You know, for me it was very difficult to understand this whole interconnection thing. But I finally got it after reading a book about human evolution. I understood that I share the genes from my ancestors so I do share their energy as well. Hence, I do share the energy from all the humankind and so on. We all came from a single cell when life started at the very beginning. Any kind of life form came from that single cell so I know now that I’m related to not only my ancestors but also to animals and nature and the planet, so I’m also related to the whole universe. I now realise that I’m connected to everything and everyone. It took me years to understand that.
Q: I would like to ask you now about the circle of life. I know you went through a couple of loss during your Reiki years. Is there anything you would like to mention about it? Did Reiki help you to accept those events and your feelings? A: I first would like to mention how important was for me to re-read that book from my childhood – ‘The Lion King’ – which helped me understand the concept of the circle of life. When I started Reiki I had a friend that was dying of cancer. I also had my elderly parents who needed good care – my mother with dementia – and so I thought about Reiki not only to become a better person but also to help me deal with all these situations. With my friend, I wasn’t trying to heal him or anything but just help him going through the illness. I do remember doing a Reiki practise for him one day, which helped him to get the best sleep in ages without any painkillers. When you see that somebody you care is on the process of sadly dying, you realise that the human body and its spirit are two completely different things. You can only see the dying body, not the spirit in within. I didn’t take his demise as a loss. I took it as a gain because I was able to share his journey and I was aware that the atoms of his body were going through different stages. I lost my mother a few days ago. She had dementia, which is a very cruel disease as you see the person leaving the body much earlier than the physical death occurs. I felt the loss of my mother several years ago. Reiki helped me to understand that she went through a physical process only for the body, not the person. So for a guy with no religious believes, scared of death early on in my young life, from somebody who wasn’t completely at ease with it, my mother passed away recently and I have no feelings of grief since she’s departed because I appreciate the fact that she had a beautiful life. She was loved and cared throughout all her life. She did fantastic things. If you can live full and true and honest to yourself and be a good human being, you should be happy with that and you shouldn’t be afraid to lose it. When we come to the world, we are not afraid even though we don’t know what is waiting for us here. So, why should be scared when we have to leave? It’s just a different stage. Don’t be afraid of it. Reiki helps you understand that and allows you to connect with yourself, with your past and even your future. You need to understand that death is just another stage in the physical level. It’s all wonderful stuff. Personally, Reiki helped me dealing with all that. It also helped me explain to them about all of it, putting them at ease, allowing them to be ready to go. With Reiki, you are illuminating their space so they feel safe and free from mental suffer and worry. It was great to be able to help them that way.
Q: Anything to say to our Reiki community? A: I just wish everybody to be safe and well in these difficult times. There’s a future that lays ahead and we need to embrace it and not be scared of it. We have to accept potential change, we are all intelligent beings, so we can adapt to any new situation. We need to accept what we are given, adapt and simply make the best of what we have. Hopefully, we will all meet again in the future.