Wisdom Rising

Usui Reiki Ryoho vs. Shamanic Reiki: What's the Difference?

• Christine Renee, Isabel Wells, and Shantel Ochoa • Season 2 • Episode 22

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Ever wondered about the difference between Shamanic Reiki and Usui Reiki? This question surfaces repeatedly in our community, and today we dive deep into the fascinating intersection of these powerful healing modalities.

In this episode, you'll hear:

🌕 The difference between Shamanic Reiki and Usui Reiki
🌖 The origin of Usui Reiki as a Buddhist path to enlightenment
🌗 How modern Western Reiki shifts the practice from "being" to "doing"
🌘 The Shamanic roots of traditional Japanese Reiki
🌑 Mikao Usui’s connection to mountain aestheticism and nature
🌒 How Shamanism and Reiki work together in healing
🌓 The role of guides and Power Animals
🌔 The connections between Reiki and Animism
🌕 Releasing cords, intrusive energies, and soul fragments
🌖 Finding the path that is right for you
🌗 And more!

When Shamanism and Reiki combine, they create a powerful healing approach that addresses both shadow and light. The shamanic aspects excel at identifying and releasing energetic cords, intrusive objects, and soul fragments lost to trauma, while Reiki flows in to fill those spaces with divine energy. 

Tune in now to explore the powerful world of Shamanic Reiki!

Moon Rising Shamanic Institute Links:
Website: https://moonrisinginstitute.com/
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/moonrisinginstitute
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/moonrisingmystics
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moonrising.institute
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@moonrisinginstitute

Book a session with Isabel: https://calendly.com/into-the-deep/schedule

Book a FREE 15 minute connect call with Izzy: https://calendly.com/moonrisinginstitute/connect

Book a session with Christine: https://calendly.com/christinerenee/90-minutes-intensive

Book a FREE 10 minute connect call with Christine: https://calendly.com/christinerenee/10-minute-connect-call-srpt

Speaker 1:

It's time to remember your divine purpose and limitless potential. Welcome to Wisdom Rising, the official podcast of Moon Rising Shamanic Institute. Join shamanic Reiki practitioners Christine Rene, Isabel Wells and Chantel Ochoa as we guide you on a journey of radical self-discovery and spiritual guidance. Each week, we'll dance through the realms of shamanism, mysticism, energy, healing and personal development to illuminate your path to true healing and self-sourced wisdom Through weekly inspired conversations and interviews with leading spiritual and shamanic practitioners. We are here to help you acknowledge, reconcile and balance your energy so that you can awaken to the whispers of wisdom rising from within. Welcome, welcome back to another amazing conversation.

Speaker 1:

Today, we're diving deep into what's the difference between shamanic Reiki and Usui Reiki. This is a question that we've been getting a lot in our community about. What are the differences? Is it like Karuna Reiki, where it's a different, quote-unquote type of Reiki, or is it something different when we're talking about shamanic Reiki? And Christine and I geek out about both of these topics and this question in general, and so we're really, really excited to bring this conversation to you guys. Christine, do you want to kick us off today?

Speaker 2:

I do. I would love to, I feel like one. We need to kind of clarify what is a Sui Reiki and which one we're talking about. Right, so let's start there, because when I go into teach a reiki level one or a level two or even my reiki master teacher training class, I teach it as a reiki fusion class, meaning we have traditional reiki and we have modern reiki. And when we boil it down, what do those two things mean?

Speaker 2:

And when I talk about traditional Reiki, isui Reiki, roho, which just translates to Isui's Reiki therapy, the traditional Reiki, there's a lot of elements of that practice, with chanting and meditation and self-attunements and how to heal the Kokoro, that mind-heart connection I so honor. I love chanting the Gokai in Japanese. The Reiki precepts, those things are very traditional and there's elements there that are really supportive. And the moment we start setting intentions and calling in guides in any capacity, we've moved over into modern Reiki. We've moved into a westernized practice, right, so it might not even be a shamanic Reiki practice and you're setting intentions and you're receiving messages and you're providing those to clients, while all you are now in a more modernized Reiki practice, right, and so really understanding the difference that traditional Reiki did not, um, and like it doesn't entice stories and attachments.

Speaker 2:

So, from a Buddhist perspective, the moment we start giving our awareness and attention to messages that are coming through visuals that we're seeing, um, feeling like releasing things, like all of those are in the more modernized practice and much more accepted in the West as common practices. So if you're in a Reiki practice and you're using crystals and you're calling in guides and you're having conversations with your clients, that's all modern, right. And so when we can come to this conversation of what's the difference between a sui reiki and shamanic reiki, part of it's like. Which reiki are we talking about? Right, and I love to start there, because so much of the traditional reiki the sui reiki, roho has shamanic roots. That's why this whole conversation is so delightful to me and interesting, because it all has shamanic flavors to it. Right, and so this is yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 1:

No, I was just going to add to that that it's really interesting to me when we start talking about the difference between these two. There's I find that there's kind of two like you were just saying two different versions of Reiki. There's the Reiki that we think is Usui Reiki Ryoho, and then there's actually Usui Reiki Ryoho, and I know that our community has learned so much of what that quote-unquote, true Usui Reiki Ryoho practice looks like because of you and on all of the wisdom that you brought back from Japan, and I know that I've learned so much from you and from that perspective. But what I also think is really interesting in one of the biggest shifts, just in the idea of Reiki that we see from to use the terms that you were just using the Isui Reiki Ryōho and then that more Western, modernized Reiki practice is, there's this distinct switch from Reiki is a path to for lack of a better term enlightenment. Right, because Reiki was.

Speaker 1:

It was a Buddhist practice. It was tied up in the mountain aestheticism and the shamanic practices of the time in Japan, but really it was a Buddhist practice that was designed to help you find your personal enlightenment, to heal your kokoro, to come back into alignment, to connect with the divine so that you find your personal enlightenment, to heal your kokoro, to come back into alignment, to connect with the divine so that you could release the stories, release the ego and achieve that enlightenment, whereas in Western, modern Reiki, the focus is really on Reiki is to heal. There's a little bit of this. Even if we say, you know, I'm an open channel and I'm an open vessel, there is still very much this intention that I am going to perform Reiki or I'm going to allow Reiki to flow through me so that myself or my client receives healing. And what I find really fascinating about this and this is something that at the very beginning of my Reiki practice, I remember reading a copy of Mikawa Sui's handbooks, like his original notebooks, and I remember sitting on the floor of my bedroom going this isn't what we're taught at all Like. This is completely different. And what I love about it is it's this reminder that healing is, in a way, a side effect.

Speaker 1:

Right, and I think that's one of the biggest shifts that I see in how we look at Reiki is that in the very beginning, not only was Usui's Reiki not the first Reiki, reiki was being practiced by many different people. Right. We just happen to know Usui's because it was the one that, especially for us in the West, came to the West through Takata. But that form of Reiki was to bring us back into connection with ourselves in a way. They wouldn't call it that in Buddhism, right, but essentially, using our language, it was this path to enlightenment, it was this chance to realign and the healing was a side effect. It was a consequence of the fact that as our vibration lifted, as our kokoro was healed as whatever you want to call that phenomenon as we got back into spiritual alignment, our physical healing was a side effect of that.

Speaker 1:

Whereas now I often find that the way that we look at Reiki is that healing comes first and then the spiritual alignment. And I often wonder and I've noticed this in my own practice that that's often where Reiki kind of loses people. Right, there are people who say you know, well, I tried Reiki and I didn't really feel anything, or I got some nice tingling, but that was it, and maybe it's just not for me and sometimes I think it's because we're missing a little bit of that depth of it was to come back to center first, to release the stories not attached to them, to allow healing to happen, not to make it happen as the primary goal. So there there is a really big shift in philosophy when we're talking about what was Usui Reiki, ryoho, truly right.

Speaker 2:

I think that's what's so fascinating is when we get down to having these conversations and going what is your like, how are you embodying, how are you being Reiki, how are you flowing with Reiki? What's your daily practice like? Like, what are we doing for ourselves? And I find so many different practices and teachers out there. With the combination of Reiki level one and level two, we've forgotten the self-healing component and I feel like that was the majority of what they were doing in Japanese. So we Reiki Rojo was very much the meditation, the chanting, the, the self attunements, the practices in there, um, the, the, the society was very much to develop your own energy within, like, to, to cultivate that divine alignment. Right, it wasn't about giving other people Reiki. It wasn't a Reiki share, the way we have them, and even when you do a Reiki share in Japan, it's like no talking, no sharing. You know, like that's not the point. So it just.

Speaker 2:

It's so beautiful for me to have that experience of really understanding what these practices are and what is it like to actually sit and chant for, let's say, even 10 minutes. What does that do to our bodies? Right, when we are, when we're in a chant, when we're in a meditative practice. We're coming into this divine alignment where we're not allowing other thoughts in, we're just with the energy, we're just being the energy. And when we're with when that, when we have that alignment kind of stack up in ourselves, then we can overflow in abundance into our energetic fields, we can energetically meet others with and really truly be in alignment with the precepts.

Speaker 2:

Like you're not going to get hooked into other, other people's stories, you're not going to get worried, you're not going to get angry. Like all those things become natural when you are in this state of I am Reiki, I'm being Reiki, I'm letting it flow with me. There's no separation in that, and so it's so contrast to how most of us probably learned in the West, right, and so it's very confusing for a lot of folks to think about it this way. And when you actually get into the practice, I'm like, oh, this is some juicy stuff. I love it. I love teaching Reiki meditations, even for my Reiki level one students, because it's something that you can take home and start working on and developing immediately. It's not just about the hand placements.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, and it's not just about the hand placements. Yes, yes, and you know it's so interesting. As you were talking, I was thinking about that idea of being Reiki and that idea of it's not that you as a person are embodying Reiki. It's this idea that can you let yourself be released to become one with the Reiki. And I love this because I adore Sui Reiki, ryoho and my real passion is on the shamanic side of things, and so I'm noticing this connection betweenist perspective and how there are some native cultures that their word for a river you know the way that we say that is a river they say that is life being a river. And I love this perspective because I think it really invites us to shift our mindset from understanding that you are a unique point of consciousness, right, and even when we're looking at it from the Buddhist perspective, when we're pulling in that Reiki perspective, that was the idea is that you are connected to the great nothing. You are nothing, and that was enlightenment, was when you could fully realize that when we pull it into a Reiki practice, that became you are Reiki, you are the life that is flowing through all things. You just happen to have a distinct shape, and can we let that shape dissolve so that we become one with the river of Reiki flowing. But when we look at this from an animist perspective, it's this idea of can you understand that it's not a river, it is life being a river, you are life being a human. And what's really interesting about that and where we can connect it to the Kokoro idea from Usui Reiki, which is that heart-mind connection that we have to kind of boil it down. When we think of that heart-mind connection, we can pull that into any spiritual practice, but especially into shamanism, when we think about the difference between our mind and what a lot of people will call our soul or our spirit or our heart or our intuition or whatever word resonates most for you there, right, and we can really look at this understanding that we have these two kind of modes of being right.

Speaker 1:

We can be in that mental, logical, doing state which I think is where a lot of Reiki ends up nowadays of I am doing healing. Even if we're trying not to think that way, it's really natural for our minds to want to do the healing. Or we can be in this intuitive, connected, experiential, feeling space of our soul or our heart and that idea of being Reiki, being a river, really opens us up to this idea of right now, in this moment in your life, are you being a mind or are you being a soul? Because we are just that unique consciousness. We're just that life, we're just that Reiki, and we get to choose where it's flowing. Is it flowing into that logical, doer, fixer, mental, ego perspective or is it flowing into that soul-led, heart-led, life-led part of ourselves? And what I love about this idea is this is also where and we understand this in Reiki too, I use this analogy with my students all the time this idea that if you're looking at a river that's flowing, our mind wants to be the rock in the middle of a river and make everything kind of part around it so that it can understand, so that it knows why was this happening, why is life heading this way?

Speaker 1:

Why did I get this message in my Reiki session right? And that's very much kind of what we see in that westernized Reiki and oftentimes shamanic practices is really wanting to attach to the stories of what's happening, and I don't think that's a bad thing. I don't wanting to attach to the stories of what's happening, and I don't think that's a bad thing? I don't.

Speaker 1:

I think that there's a reason that our minds, especially in the Western world, need to understand the stories and the whys because we are trained.

Speaker 1:

We're trained to want to know the stories and so, in order for our mind to kind of let go a little bit it's going to want to know why, and that's okay we get to allow it to have the understanding and allow it to be released, so that once we have that oh okay, I understand now then we let it go and allow it to bring us deeper, rather than holding onto the story more like that rock.

Speaker 1:

So it's that difference between being the rock in the middle of the river and actually just being the water that's flowing and moving and you know everything that it needs you to know and you heal everything that needs you to heal, not because you're that rock that's making it happen, you're not connected to your mind but because you have become the river, you have become that energy that's flowing, and that, to me, is one of those really beautiful places that really shows us why Reiki and shamanism work so well together. Because when we look at the basics of each practice, that's the idea is how much can you allow yourself to be life being a river, to allow yourself to just be the Reiki.

Speaker 2:

And here's where I get I really geek out is. So here you have a Pure Land Buddhist monk, sensei Asui. He's sitting on the top of this mountain and he is being the mountain. His practice for 21 days is being in nature, as I am being one with the mountain, I am the life of the mountain, and so he's letting go of everything that is not that right. And so in his practice, he is practicing animism. He's practicing this form of shamanism, to be of nature, aestheticism, and this was the heart of Reiki. It wasn't the hand positions, it wasn't the, you know, these other things. It's how can be one with this energy of life and have this miracle be bestowed upon him of the Reiki energy, right? And so now we are then all gifted Guess what. So we did it for us, so I don't have to go sit on top of a mountain for 21 days and hope that it happens. He developed this practice of how can I move this energy from teacher to student, teacher to student, teacher to student, right? So we don't have to go sit on a mountain for 21 days. If you want to, fantastic, go for it. And we don't have to, and so I love that.

Speaker 2:

The roots, the true roots of Reiki. I find so much animism and so much shamanic play already involved when we really start to understand it. Play already involves when we really start to understand it and then in the forming of it, how can we make this practical applications? And especially when it went to the West, when it needed to be whitewashed after World War II, right Like the survival of Reiki, all of that happened for reason and purpose to let Reiki survive. And now we have all of this wisdom, we have all of this knowledge of going, we know where the tradition comes from, we know how it's typically practiced in the West. And now we have this choice and this is the beautiful thing. We can decide how we want to mix modalities, and I feel like when we say shamanic Reiki, it's an opportunity to kind of mix modalities.

Speaker 2:

We can then become one with the flow of what, isabella speaking, I'm being the river, I'm in the flow of the energy of Reiki and letting it flow through my body to where it needs to go, and I am open and available to the mystery of the healing, the healing process allowing our spiritual gifts to awaken, allowing the messages, allowing the visions, allowing the smells, allowing the empathy to show up to speak to us in this harmonious way with the energy, right. And so, right there, when we start developing our spiritual gifts, because the Reiki is flowing through us and opening us to this possibility, right, it's healing all of those sticky layers within ourselves. That said, that we shouldn't be seeing things right, like I think about the little kid who's been told that they're too old to see imaginary friends anymore, right? Whereas when we start to really allow our spiritual gifts to reawaken and then we're doing these practices, where we are the water, we are in the flow. What's showing up for you, and are we letting our ego, our mind, that rock in the middle, try to figure it out? Right, that's where things kind of get a little. We need to be careful.

Speaker 2:

Right, when we are fully in that divine flow state and allowing our spiritual gifts to show up, then that's when shamanic Reiki can get really interesting, because we're allowing the visions to show up, we're allowing the message to come, show up, and we're then also utilizing that Reiki energy to find things within our clients' energetic fields and within ourselves that need to be removed. We're finding the places and spaces where there's sticky energy or sloppy energy or energetic cords or intrusive objects, or whatever it is. How do we release it? And so, in my mind, when we combine shamanic practices and Reiki practices, the shamanic side is often the releasing. I'm letting this go, I'm letting this go, I'm letting this go, I'm letting what no longer serves me go to the earth and release. And then here's this beautiful Reiki energy that flows to fill in those voids with this love and light healing energy. And they're like in this perfect marriage with one another.

Speaker 1:

And it's.

Speaker 1:

You know it's so interesting having this conversation. I want to backtrack for a second before we dive into the shamanic aspects, because that idea of using our spiritual gifts in Reiki or mixing modalities or things like that, if you talk to somebody who truly practices Usui Reiki, ryoho, that would be a big no-no. Like there are certain strands and practices of Reiki where Reiki is all you do, and I'm not saying that to say that I think that's wrong. I'm saying that to highlight the fact that, for everyone who's listening to this conversation right now, you've most likely have an interest in this topic, because that way of practicing doesn't work for you. It doesn't give you those goosebumps or that joy or that alignment, and this is why I think it's so important to understand that there is no one better way of doing Reiki or the best way of practicing spirituality, because everyone is going to connect to these things in their own way. Right, there is that big universal what I like to call the capital T truth that we're all trying to find right, that alignment, that divine connection. But we're all going to get there in our own ways. And so, if practicing pure Usui Reiki, ryoho, and chanting the Gokai and using the hand placements and connecting with the self-attunements, and doing these practices and really releasing every single story brings you back into alignment. That's beautiful and fantastic and you should follow that. And if you're feeling like that feels restrictive, or like you're just playing a part or like you're missing something, that's because that's just not your pathway to the truth. It doesn't mean that it's not going to be somebody else's right. Somebody else is going to find total alignment with traditional Usui Reiki, ryoho, while the person next to them is going to find their truth and their path to the divine through something like shamanic Reiki.

Speaker 1:

And I think that is so beautiful because it brings us into this awareness, this compassion of you know there's that saying all roads lead to home. It brings us back into compassion with that and understanding with that of there is no right way to do this and for a culture that, especially in the West, a lot of us were really raised on, especially religious thinking, right With that idea that there is this one way to do it. I find that we often have this almost perfectionism storyline embedded into our subconscious, that we have to get it right, that we have to find the exact right path forward, and that's where, again, our mind starts being that rock in the middle of the river because we're trying to hold on. Or, from a Buddhist perspective, we're trying to attach to this idea that there's one right way to do it, whereas if we can let ourselves relax into that flow, let ourselves relax into the stream of where our spiritual thinking, where our gifts, where our intuition is taking us, that's often where we find that path back to what alignment is for us, what divine connection is for us. And that's part of why I do love for me so so much the shamanic Reiki aspect of it, because when we're looking at shamanic Reiki and I think, just like we kind of defined exactly what Usui Reiki is, it's important to really define what shamanic Reiki. And I think, just like we kind of defined exactly what Usui Reiki is, it's important to really define what shamanic Reiki is as well. And so when we look at shamanic Reiki, it's this idea that we have Reiki, whichever flavor of Reiki you practice, right, karuna, usui, holy Fire Reiki, whatever kind of Reiki you practice coupled with the shamanic practices. And the reason that I think this is really important is because it's really easy for us to say that we have a shamanic Reiki practice.

Speaker 1:

When we really are more practicing in a modern or Western Reiki way, we're using our intuition, we're using our spiritual gifts and there's this tendency to want to call that shamanic Reiki. That's not to say that it's not beautiful, that it's not a wonderful practice to have, but I do think it's really important to understand that when we're talking about shamanic Reiki, we are talking about someone who has a solid foundation in Reiki and a solid foundation in shamanism. And when we look at shamanism, I like to explain that it's really this applied animism. When we go back all the way to our very first ancestors, shamanism is the very first way of life, of spirituality that we can see in cave paintings, in archaeological evidence. Our very first ancestors were practicing animism, this idea that everything in life around us has life, has spirit, has this consciousness. It might not look like human consciousness, but it has that energy to it. And so if we lived with this worldview and again, this is where shamanism isn't a religion, it's not this spiritual ideology, it's this way of living life, as if everything around you were alive and we have a lot of podcasts going into all of the details of shamanism, but it was this idea that if we really, truly believed that everything around us had life, that we are one with nature and that nature is a manifestation of the divine, how would we live our lives? What practices would we integrate? What spiritual rituals would we find to connect us more deeply to that energy? And that's where we start to get some of the core components of shamanism that we see pop up in Siberia, in China, in the Amazon, in the US, all of these really core pieces of shamanism that popped up in cultures around the globe, regardless of time. They weren't connected, they weren't communicating. It was just when we, as humans, are allowed to just look at nature around us and interact with it as if it were alive. What comes through? Shamanism comes through and this ability to connect with nature, to understand that there are spiritual realms beyond this one that we can connect to and we can walk in, if we've had the training to be able to do it, that we have this team of guides, that we have a power animal, that we can use this specific drumbeat to get our brain into an altered state of consciousness, so that we can enter into non-ordinary reality, so that we can shamanic journey, so that we can do the cord cutting and intrusive object removal and the soul retrieval and all of this and all of that.

Speaker 1:

The shamanic practice then gets married with our Reiki practice so that when we step into a Reiki session it's not quote-unquote just right. That's not me trying to diminish, that's just me saying that it's not that we're only doing Reiki in a session. It's that we step into a session and we chant our Gokai, we call in our Reiki energy, but we're also calling in the seven directions and our power animal and our spirit guide and this understanding that we are so much more than this one practitioner doing a Reiki session. We are everything, we are all of nature, coming forward to facilitate that alignment in our client. And so this is why I think it's so important to understand that shamanic Reiki isn't just calling in our guides and doing Reiki. It's not just tuning into our spiritual gifts and doing Reiki, it's.

Speaker 1:

Do we have a really true foundation and understanding?

Speaker 1:

What is shamanism?

Speaker 1:

Where does it come from?

Speaker 1:

What are the practices?

Speaker 1:

What does it mean to be one with nature?

Speaker 1:

Do we have a personal relationship with each of the directions?

Speaker 1:

Can we recognize ourselves as that stream, as the mountain, as that life force, and then marry that with our Reiki practice so that when we step into a session, it's not just us or us and our Reiki guide, it's us and all of the energy of nature, all of the divine, all of the directions, all of our guides coming in to release and clear away, like Christine said, so that then we can bring the Reiki energy on top and seal in that healing and expand their energy field and bring them back into that divine alignment and expand their energy field and bring them back into that divine alignment.

Speaker 1:

And so it becomes this really beautiful yin-yang system in a way of shamanism comes in to really dive into the shadow and into the darkness and look at what needs to be released and what's not serving me. And where are those demons or those shadows or those, whatever you want to call them, those darker sides of healing, because those are real and they deserve to be seen. And can we do so in a way that is full of grace and full of compassion and full of that deeply rooted understanding that we are nature, so that we can release all of those. And when we've released that and we've created space, we can then bring in the Reiki and use it to fill that hole, to expand our energy and to bring back in that positive divine alignment on the light side of the spectrum. And it just, it just brings me so much joy. I just love it so much.

Speaker 2:

Right, well, and I think that's it Like it's a marriage. It is this yin yang, it is the shadow and the light, it is it's both, and I think that that combination is a really powerful tool where we're not spiritually bypassing, we're not trying to get around those heavier places, and we have the tools and the skill sets in the shamanic training to really be able to go there with confidence and clarity. And I think that's where you know you really do need the training. This isn't something that you can just go read a book and say you're a shamanic practitioner, like there is pieces of this where you are traveling into the darkness, you are traveling into people's shadows, and you really need to be equipped to do so and to be able to hold space for them, to be in their free will, sovereignty and really be clear and true to who they are and recognize what's ready to be released and let go and or call things back in. Where do they lose their power? How can we call those soul fragments of themselves that were lost in trauma, that were lost in their childhood wounds, back into full harmony of their bodies, right? So it's very, it's a very deep practice and I, too, just absolutely love it, like I love that I am seeing clients in person in Bozeman Montana again, because I get to really step into that role once again, and it's I've been doing this online for so long for the last five years Predominantly I haven't seen in-person clients unless I've been traveling and doing sessions in these pop-up workshops, right, and now I'm like, okay, I'm, I'm ready to step into doing both, like I love doing my online sessions. They can be really powerful and I think that's the other cool thing about this work is we don't have to be in person. You can absolutely do all of all of this, whether it's Reiki or shamanic Reiki. You can do it in the online space and you can also do ceremonies and rituals and all kinds of things in the in-person space and it'd be just as powerful, like I love.

Speaker 2:

I love this work because energy is energy is energy, and if you are working with someone who is ready for healing that's the key word there If they're ready for healing ready for healing, that's the key word there If they're ready for healing, then healing will occur, you know. And so it's like you're meeting your client or you're meeting to yourself to the level in which you feel safe to to release. And so this is where having those practices of Practices of informed consent, of creating trauma aware spaces where you know what could be triggering, you know how to help people go to their edges, but not into a full trigger, right Like you're learning how to hold sacred space for someone to do that healing work and that takes a long term practice and study with mentors, with guides, to learn how to do that healing work. And that takes a long term practice and study, with mentors, with guides, to learn how to do that. And so I I absolutely love it.

Speaker 2:

I love it when I can help someone really move through their layers of hurt very quickly or very slowly, and I think that's the other thing. Some people want to move through their layers really slow and gentle and that's what's going to work for them. And I have other people who come into sessions who are like let's get her done, I want to move through all of this as fast as possible, and they have whirlwinds of sessions where big things are happening and both are okay. I don't judge one over the other as quote unquote better right, because everyone is healing at their own pace, and I think that's where we get to really recognize and see people for who they are, of going wherever you're at, I'm here with you as your guide, as your support person in the sacred process. I'm going to meet your energy where you're at and we're going to, we're going to find the places in which you're ready to heal for today, period.

Speaker 1:

And that's that's. It's such a shift. It's such a shift from how we see healing presented, especially nowadays. And once again, when we talk about that idea of what healing should look like, this idea that you know again that perfectionistic tendency of I got to heal all the things right now, or if I'm not fully healed, I'm not spiritual enough, or I'm not connected enough, or if I can't let go of all of the stories, then I'm doing it wrong, or if I'm not getting all of my clairvoyance picture perfect.

Speaker 2:

I'm not doing it right, like I have so many clients and students that if all of their spiritual gifts aren't on board, they're like talking down about themselves. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I've been doing this for over 20 years and I still don't see it like a movie screen perfectly perfect color, perfect audio, like that ideal of what it's supposed to look like needs to be shattered. It needs to go away. It doesn't. Having this ideal of what our spiritual gifts are supposed to be is hindering your process. It's hindering your process.

Speaker 1:

It is. And you know, what I love about this is I often find that when we are just playing in the Reiki field, when we're sticking with our pure Reiki practice, one of two things start to happen. One, we actually don't make it a practice right, and this is where you know you were saying that Mikao Sui went up to the mountain for 21 days, so we don't have to, and that's absolutely true. But the exchange is that we need to connect every day, we need to have it be a practice, we need to create that sustained connection. But the other thing that I see happen is that there's almost this subconscious idea with Reiki that Mikau Osui went up to the mountain and achieved enlightenment, he received Reiki, he got that moment of and I'm healed now. And I think that there's a little bit of this subconscious idea that we're supposed to do that too, that if we just practice Reiki the right way, if we just try hard enough, if we just spirituality hard enough, that we will have that moment of healing. And what I love about bringing shamanism into the equation is that when we look at shamanic practices, there's these two ideas that I find are so potent when we can bring this understanding into a Reiki practice. And the first is that of the shaman's ladder. And the shaman's ladder is this idea of if you think of a spiral, right, it starts at the center and then it gradually gets bigger as it goes around. This was their idea of healing. It wasn't just a boom, you're enlightened, you're done. Now, it was this idea of healing is a spiral, it's a journey, and you're going to continue to revisit the same locations on that spiral, but with a little wider perspective, with a little more healing, with another layer peeled off, and that immediately takes the pressure away from this idea that I'm going to be done one day. There was no done.

Speaker 1:

From a shamanic perspective, the other thing that I find that really helps seal that in is this idea that the shamans we see them as medicine man, right, this person, this being that we took our ill or our ailing individuals to and they were just healed. Maybe they gave them some herbs, maybe they said a chant, right, that's kind of the mental image that often pops up. But when we look at it from a cultural perspective, what the shaman actually was was the truth keeper for the tribe, and their method of healing was understanding that all of our ailments, all of our illnesses, all of our dis-ease comes from when the stories that we're telling ourselves don't align with the stories that the divine gave us, with that universal capital T truth, right. And so the shaman. Yeah, they might have used herbs and they might have used a chant, but the biggest thing that they were going to do is they were going to help you to see where have the stories that you tell yourselves come out of alignment, where have you stopped telling yourself the truth and started telling yourself something different? So that process became what's known as becoming a hollow bone, of peeling away all of the marrow, all of the false stories, all of that gunk that we've held onto, to become that open vessel that life can flow through without hitting the rock that we were talking about earlier. And when we pair these two ideas together, that shaman's ladder, this idea that life wasn't about healing, it wasn't about being done, it wasn't about getting rid of everything so that you were perfect, it was that you're constantly moving on that spiral and can you peel back the next layer and the next layer so that you are as clear, as connected to the truth, as in alignment with those stories as you possibly can be to facilitate your path along that spiral. And when we can bring that into our Reiki session, that's when, like Christine was saying, we get to sit with each other in the darkness and recognize that I'm not the practitioner because I have all of the answers, or because I have it done, or because I achieved enlightenment, or because I was spiritual enough, I cleared out enough, I healed enough, that now I'm better and therefore I can help you.

Speaker 1:

It's this idea that the practitioner, the shamanic practitioner, understands that we're never done, that we're all on the same journey, that some of us might be a ring on the ladder ahead, but that doesn't make us better. It just means that we have a different perspective. And can we help each other? Can we facilitate that sacred space that Christine was saying, where we help our client, where we help the person that we're sitting with to recognize where are the stories that they are telling out of alignment with the truth, and can we release that? Can we release those attachments? Can we release the energetic blockages that come from that?

Speaker 1:

Can we release everything so that we can then bring in the Reiki energy to act as a tuning fork to bring us back into alignment, and so it becomes this beautiful, like Christine said, this marriage of these two ways of perceiving energy, where it takes away this pressure to be healed, to be done, to be perfect, and instead says it's a process. Can we walk through the process together and use the tools, use the knowledge that we have to clear away everything that's holding you back from that deep sense of connection and bring in the Reiki to then help you marry that connection with the alignment of the divine, however that looks for you, knowing that there isn't a right way, there isn't a perfect, there isn't a. This is the example of spiritual perfection and enlightenment and ideal that you're meant to be achieving. It's what does it look like for you in this moment? Can we help you find connection and comfort and alignment with where you are on that spiral today, knowing that you're just going to keep going because it's a journey right?

Speaker 2:

I think I love that idea of the spiral, Like when we are faced with life, like here we're on earth, like we're going to have issues arise, we're going to be triggered, we're going to have shit hit the fan. Like we're here on earth. It's not a vacation space, Right? So life is going to happen and when we have those things that show up, if you're on that spiral, you're, you're gathering the tools, You're gathering this wisdom, You're gathering this. I know how to bring myself back into alignment as a shamanic Reiki practitioner. You know how to do the Reiki steps. You know how to do the shamanic pieces going. What part of me was triggered in this process that needs to be healed? Still right, Like there's this process that needs to be healed? Still right, Like there's. It's such a beautiful way of approaching your journey, knowing that there isn't an end point and knowing that like it's not going to be a pretty process.

Speaker 2:

I think a lot of people want spiritual healing to be a pretty process and it's just not. And the more you resist that, um, it needs to look a certain way and it needs to be pretty. The harder it is, the more we're available to be able to sit with our stuff our, our shadows, our stories that we've told ourselves for years, our past history, our traumas, whatever it is, the more we're able to be like I'm available to look and witness these things that have happened in my life, so that when I get knocked down I can go oh, I see what that rubbed up against. That was that story from my past and now it's hurting me again and I can bear witness to it and I can love that part of myself because I have the tools to remember who I am.

Speaker 2:

And, as that hollow bone, as that clear energetic flute in your body, that chakra system, you're able to move the energy. You're able to find that place in which the energy can flow in and move to those spaces in which they need healing, and it's a beautiful process. So, whether you're looking at it from I'm a hollow bone and I'm open and available to let that energy flow, or that your um chakra system is in alignment and flow and so you can breathe the energy through there, or if this is Kundalini rising like energy is energy is energy. How is it moving? How can we let our bodies, our spirits, our emotions be available to that energetic flow of healing?

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. And and again, this idea that when we can do that you said this word, witnessing. That I love, because that's really what I think shamanic Reiki invites us to do, because so often when we step into our Reiki practice, we're noticing but we're not witnessing. And the difference there is that we notice the buzzing, we notice that place where maybe there's a little energetic bubble or a soft point or a quiet point, and we know that the Reiki should flow. There is that we notice the buzzing, we notice that place where maybe there's a little energetic bubble or a soft point or a quiet point, and we know that the Reiki should flow there. But we notice it because we believe it needs healing. In other words, we notice it because we think it needs to be fixed.

Speaker 1:

But what shamanism helps us to do is to be able to witness something in that we sit there and we recognize that even those parts of us deserve to be seen, deserve to be loved, deserve to be witnessed, to be held.

Speaker 1:

And it's in that holding, it's in that sacred space that we can look at them and notice what changes, what shifts, what falls away, what isn't true.

Speaker 1:

And so, although we often look at shamanism and we think of it like this, really kind of like dingy, dark, really active practice, right, I think we all have a lot of mental pictures about what shamanism really is.

Speaker 1:

It's actually so gentle and so healing, because it is this process of saying there is not a single part of me or my life that is too scary for me to look at, that is too ugly, that is too distorted, that is too broken, because we're not broken, we are whole as long as we allow ourselves to see all of us, including the light, including the shadow. And so it breaks apart that tendency for spiritual bypassing, because, instead of just looking for the light, just looking for the perfect, just looking for the enlightened, we're looking for all of it. We're looking for what is my life being right now through me, all of it, every emotion, every experience, every belief, all of it, belief, all of it. And can we allow ourselves to witness that? Not so it can be fixed, but so that we get to see the depth and breadth of what life has chosen to do through us in this moment. And isn't that incredible?

Speaker 2:

It is incredible and I love it, and that's why, at Moon Rising Shamanic Institute, we offer shamanic Reiki training and it's a four month container for our kind of like, your level. One like this is a self healing. Let's dig into those shadows, let's heal those places and spaces within ourselves before we move into the practitioner role. And so know that we are offering another start of that program here in September. So save your dates.

Speaker 2:

Feel free to reach out to us here at the Moon Rising Institute if you have questions, and know that in the month of June I'm going to be teaching quite a few Reiki, traditional Reiki trainings, reiki fusion, where I'm going to really be teaching Reiki classes, the level one, level two and master teacher training, predominantly because I'm heading out very soon to go on my Reiki pilgrimage in Japan for the second time and I get to be completely immersed in this and traditional Reiki and really dive into the shamanic roots of Reiki, and so it's one of my favorite ways to really dive into my Reiki practice and really understand the shamanic aspects of the traditional, and so when I come back, I plan on having a series of Reiki training.

Speaker 2:

So this isn't the shamanic side, it's the traditional side with little like. Here's the understanding of this is your traditional and this is how we can bring it into the modern, how do we bring it into our everyday world. So if you're interested in those, be sure to watch our emails, our Facebook group for the events and or just reach out directly and let me know that you're interested. So I be. I will be sure to notify you when those opportunities arise.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and know that our masterclass series will be continuing. We have Chantel's Alchemizing Archetypes Masterclass happening. It starts on the 26th, sunday the 20th or, I'm sorry, sunday the 27th, and I will put that link here in the show notes below as well. So if you're listening to this, you're welcome to continue to join. It will be six weeks long and you're welcome to join Chantel in that Alchemizing Archetypes Masterclass as well, as I'm planning an introduction to Shamanic Reiki Masterclass very soon as well. So, like Christine said, be sure to join our Moon Rising Shamanic Mystics Facebook group to subscribe to our newsletter, to send us a message on Facebook or email us at mystics at moonrisinginstitutecom, and we're happy to provide you the resources to get you the free podcasts and webinars and things that we do, or also help you to enroll in a masterclass or a one-on-one session or our four-month Soul Rising Shamanic Reiki course. If this conversation really sparked that joy and power and confidence in you that yes, this is the next step that I want to take, then we want to be here to hold space for you and to create that sacred container for you to also do this work, because the more we can come into alignment, the more we can find that connection, the easier and the more expansive our life gets to be, but also that healing is going to ripple out and to impact everything. So know that our waitlist for that Soul Rising Shamanic Reiki course is now open, so you can join the waitlist and you'll get priority enrollment when enrollment opens again in the fall. But until then, thank you, thank you, thank you all for joining us for this conversation.

Speaker 1:

We would love to hear your top takeaways and answer any questions that you have over in our Facebook group or via email. And until next time, may you awaken to the whispers of wisdom rising from within. Thanks for tuning in to today's show. The Wisdom Rising podcast is sponsored by Moon Rising Shamanic Institute. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcasting app and be the first to know when we release a new episode. You can find us on Instagram, facebook, youtube and TikTok at Moon Rising Institute, or visit our website, moonrisinginstitutecom to learn more about our mission and find future opportunities to connect with our community of shamanic mystics. Once again, thank you for sharing space with us today and until next time, may you awaken to the whispers of wisdom rising from within.