Reiki & Inner Beauty

You've heard the saying, "Beauty is more than skin deep." And you probably know someone who is not physically beautiful but who turns heads wherever she goes. Someone who's a magnet for friends and admirers.

What does she have that you don't have? Nothing essential. But she knows how to embody her essence, how to reveal her essence. Maybe she doesn't even know she's doing it – but she is, and that's why people are so attracted to her.

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In my previous article, I recommended Reiki as one of the very best beauty treatments anyone can have. The reason is, Reiki brings out your essence, it brings out the real You. And the real You is what's beautiful.

What is Reiki?
Nowadays Reiki is seen by many people as a relaxation treatment, a way of de-stressing. Sort of a massage-without-the-massage (Reiki is typically done with the recipient lying on a massage table, fully clothed, and the Reiki practitioner's hands either placed gently on the body or held slightly above it).

Hawayo Takata, the Japanese-American woman who brought Reiki to America from Japan in 1937, saw Reiki as a way of healing illness. She had gone to Japan from Hawai'i, intending to have surgery for severe health conditions of her own, and had been healed by Reiki instead. She returned to America and, through her and her students, Reiki spread around the world as a method of healing.

For Mikao Usui, the founder of what became known as Reiki, the method was primarily focused on spiritual awakening, Self-realization. Usui himself called it "a method for achieving personal perfection" (though he acknowledged the inevitable healing effects of it).

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So ... what is this thing that is simultaneously a beauty treatment, a relaxing, de-stressing treatment, a way of healing illness, and a lifelong practice of Self-realization?

Plugging into the real You
After receiving my first Reiki initiation (1991) I felt that Reiki was like an "extension cord" (those were the words that came to mind) connecting me to my Real Self. I felt suddenly much more at home in my body and in the world than I had before. In the Reiki class, we were taught that Reiki was a cosmic (and not really understood) energy that came to us from above ... and that it came down through the head, to the heart, and went from there through the arms to the hands, and emerged from the palms. And that, when we gave someone a Reiki treatment, this cosmic energy of Reiki was flowing from our palms into the body of the other person.