LOVE...

Today I led a Reiki Level 2 attunement session with 4 new Reiki practitioners. It was such an uplifting, enlightening and fun day sharing my knowledge of 3 of the 4 Reiki symbols and playing with the energy, also pendulum dowsing and crystals. Thank you to those of you who attended, I hope that Reiki both continues to inspire and empower you as much as it does me.

Essentially Reiki is all about love. In fact life is all about love. Love for the self, for others and for life its very self.

Michelle Johansen sent me this fabulous quote from a book she has been reading called “Happiness Now” by Robert Holden:-

“In real life love comes first, happiness is an attribute of love. If your current plan for happiness does not put love first, do not think for a second that you will be truly happy. To be happy you cannot get around love, you can only go through it.” “One acid test for checking to see if you are being true to love is – if you are being genuinely loving you will feel happy.”

We can enhance our sense of love by balancing, healing and opening the heart chakra (energy centre). Not only can Reiki help us to do this - both through the attunement process and by both giving and receiving the energy but also through a heart opening Yoga practice.

While I try and ensure that every class incorporates a few potential heart opening poses (asana), I do love teaching a class where the intention for the whole class is exactly that...heart opening. For me one of the most intense heart opening postures is Urdhva Dhanurasana, also known as upside down bow pose....this is a strong pose and not only requires a degree of strength to both enter and exit but also a degree of flexibility and "openness" in the shoulders, chest, thighs and hips, and of course the spine itself. The effects are rather incredible - coming out of the pose and lying supine on your mat you can often feel the intense release of energy around the heart centre, plus its effect on the central nervous system really wakes you up and truly enlivens the spirit, let alone massaging the physical heart itself. Great stuff.

Of course there are many other postures, which will help to open this centre. We spend a lot of our waking day compressing this area of the body - working on computers, driving, eating or slouching on the couch watching TV - so it is important to counteract this somehow. Merely bringing your hands together behind the back and opening the chest will have some effects...so too poses like Bhujangasana (cobra) Dhanurasana (bow pose, Setu Bandha (bridge pose)and Matsayasana (fish pose. Simply lying over a bolster will also help to open the chest.

So there we go, love, love, love, that is what clearly makes the world go around. So open your hearts and chests, spread the joy and have a happy week ahead.

Lots of love

Em x