What I Tell Students Who Feel Disturbed After Working with the Reiki Symbols during level 2 Okuden training

Every so often, a student comes to me feeling unsettled after working with the Symbols They may describe feeling emotionally overwhelmed, anxious, sad, irritable, or simply "not themselves." Sometimes they wonder whether they have attracted a negative energy or encountered a harmful spiritual influence.

My response is usually the same: before we assume anything supernatural is happening, let's look carefully at what we actually know.

One of the teachings from Frans Stiene that has stayed with me over the years is his reminder that many Reiki practitioners become fascinated with the finger pointing at the moon instead of looking at the moon itself.

In other words, we become so focused on the symbols that we forget what they are pointing toward.

The symbol is the finger.

The experience, the awareness, the practice, the transformation—that is the moon.

When students become frightened by a Symbol, I often find that their attention has shifted from the moon to the finger. The symbol itself has become the focus of fear, speculation, and projection.

I do not view the symbol as carrying a bad spirit or negative spiritual energy. Rather, I see it as a tool that may bring aspects of ourselves into awareness.

Sometimes what surfaces is uncomfortable.

That does not necessarily mean something harmful has entered us. It may simply mean something that was already present has become visible.

Over the years, I have noticed that Symbol 2 for example, can coincide with students becoming more aware of emotional patterns they have carried for a long time. Old fears, unresolved grief, anxiety, anger, self-judgment, or emotional wounds may begin to emerge into conscious awareness.

When that happens, many people immediately search for an external explanation.

"What attacked me?"

"What negative energy have I picked up?"

"What spirit is affecting me?"

I understand why these questions arise. Fear naturally seeks an explanation.

But I encourage my students to ask different questions.

What am I actually experiencing?

What emotions are present?

What thoughts are accompanying these emotions?

Have I felt this way before in my life?

What is this experience trying to show me?

These questions often lead to far more insight than assuming the symbol itself is the problem.

There is another teaching from Frans Stiene that I often return to, particularly when students become concerned about energies, symbols, or what might be happening outside themselves.

He says that we all know what it feels like when someone walks into a room carrying anger—we can feel it. Likewise, when someone is calm, joyful, centred, or open, we can feel that too. Our inner state has an effect on those around us.

What he points to is something very simple but very profound: before we try to heal the world around us, we must first find balance within ourselves.

If I am still carrying anger, worry, fear, or resistance, then those qualities inevitably influence everything I do. But when I cultivate balance, openness, gratitude, and presence, that too has an effect on the people around me.

This is why I think resistance to a symbol can be such a valuable teacher.

When resistance arises, our attention can quickly move outward. We start wondering about the symbol, the energy, the experience, or what might be affecting us. Yet Frans continually brings us back to the same place: ourselves.

The question is not whether Symbols are good or bad.

The question is whether this experience is helping us become more aware of our own state of being.

Am I balanced?

Am I centred?

Am I acting from fear, or from clarity?

Am I looking at the finger, or am I looking at the moon?

The more we can return to our own balance, the less power fear has over our practice. And from that place, Reiki becomes much simpler than we often make it.

When students feel overwhelmed, I usually advise them to simplify their practice for a while. Return to self-treatment. Spend time with the Reiki precepts. Sit quietly. Focus on the breath. Go for a walk. Allow the nervous system to settle.

There is no prize for forcing yourself through a spiritual experience that feels too intense.

Grounding is part of spiritual practice.

I also remind students that not every uncomfortable experience is a sign that something has gone wrong. Growth is not always comfortable. Becoming aware of our patterns is not always comfortable. Healing is not always comfortable.

Discomfort by itself is not evidence of danger.

What matters is how we meet that discomfort.

Do we meet it with curiosity, patience, and awareness?

Or do we immediately create a story around it?

As a teacher, I have found that the students who progress most steadily are not the ones who spend the most time worrying about symbols, energies, or spirits. They are the ones who keep returning to practice itself.

They keep returning to the moon.

The symbol remains what it has always been—a pointer, a teaching aid, a finger indicating a direction.

My invitation is always the same: do not become so fascinated or frightened by the finger that you forget to look where it is pointing.

The Architecture of "Cannot": Finding the Garden Within

The Architecture of "Cannot": Why Your Self-Care Feels Impossible

Recently, a Reiki student reached out with a struggle that resonates with almost everyone living in the modern world. She felt utterly drained, caught in the relentless cycle of work, home, and endless obligations. Her question was a heavy one: "How am I supposed to practice self-care when I have absolutely no time left in my day?"

It is a question that feels more like a plea for permission to stop. It also serves as a powerful reminder that the biggest obstacle to our healing often isn’t the clock—it is the narrative we weave around it. These are my musings on how we inadvertently block our own peace before the day even begins.

The Words That Bind Us

We often move through our lives as architects of our own exhaustion. We map out our schedules with military precision, filling every square inch with "shoulds," deadlines, and the needs of others. But in this frantic construction of a productive life, we inadvertently build something else: a cage.

The most common bricks we use to build this cage are just two simple words: "I can’t."

"I can’t get it all done."

"I can’t find a single minute for myself."

"I can’t stop until everything is perfect."

There is a profound spiritual truth in the idea that our reality follows our focus. When we insist that time is our enemy, it behaves as one. When we declare that self-care is an impossible luxury, we effectively lock the gate to our own inner sanctuary. We think we are merely describing our reality, but we are actually designing it. By constantly affirming our lack of time, we create a mental environment where rest feels like a crime and "busy" feels like a shield.

The Soul’s Quiet Garden

These lines came to me while reflecting on that student’s message—and on all the times I have felt trapped by my own definitions of "busy":

The soul’s quiet garden lies hidden from sight,

While you build your walls with words of "cannot."

The well remains dry and the heavy day long,

Until you surrender the cage you have wrought.

The "well"—that source of universal energy, creativity, and peace—hasn't actually run dry. It is simply blocked. The "cage" isn't made of your emails, your chores, or your family's needs; it is built from the persistent belief that those things must come at the total expense of your spirit.

As long as we hold onto the "cannot," we stay on the outside of our own garden, looking at a wall we built ourselves.

Surrendering the Narrative

To find your way back to that garden, you don't necessarily need to delete your entire calendar or move to a mountain top. You need to surrender the narrative of impossibility.

In the practice of Reiki, we learn to be a channel for life-force energy. But a channel must be open to flow. If the channel is constricted by the rigid belief that "there is no time," the energy remains stagnant. Surrender, in a spiritual sense, isn't about giving up or being lazy; it’s about letting go of the resistance.

It is the act of putting down the bricks of "cannot" so that you can see the horizon again. It is replacing the phrase "I don't have time" with "I am opening myself to receive."

A Reiki Practice: Opening the Channel

If you find yourself in the shoes of that student today, I invite you to try this simple shift. This is not "one more thing" for your to-do list; it is a way to change how you move through the list itself.

The Gassho Moment: Stop exactly where you are. Place your hands together in the prayer position (Gassho) at your heart. Breathe in.

Identifying the Wall: As you breathe, notice where you feel the word "cannot" in your body. Is it a tightness in your chest? A weight on your shoulders?

Releasing the Bricks: Visualize your Reiki energy as a soft, golden light. As you exhale, imagine this light gently dissolving the walls of "cannot." You aren't fighting the wall; you are simply allowing it to soften and fade.

The Affirmation: Silently repeat: "Just for today, I let go of 'I can't' and open to the flow."

The garden is still there. The water is still in the well. The universe cannot pour into a vessel that insists it is already full. You just have to be willing to stop saying you can’t reach it.
  

Presence Without Carrying: Learning to Stay Open Without Taking on Others’ Weight

I was talking with a friend who was upset because someone else had made them feel that way, and it brought up something I see often in my work. This way we take on other people’s blackness, their heaviness, and carry it with us instead of leaving it with them.

We were just talking. They were sharing what had happened and how it had affected them. I was listening, present, steady, not intervening, not trying to shift anything. Just allowing the space for them to express what was there.

And in that kind of moment, something becomes very clear to me. There is a difference between allowing someone’s experience and taking it on as your own. You can be with someone fully, you can hear them, you can hold space for what they are going through, and still remain grounded in yourself. Their experience can be seen and heard without needing to enter you.

What I often notice is that people confuse presence with absorption. They believe that to care means to take something in, to hold it within themselves, to carry it after the moment has passed. But that isn’t necessary. In fact, it clouds things. It takes what belongs to someone else and relocates it into your own system, where it doesn’t belong.

When you are grounded, when you are clear in yourself, there is no need for that. You can sit with someone in their difficulty and still remain in your own field. You can be kind, open, and fully attentive without becoming the container for their experience.

Because their experience has its own place. Their emotions, their process, even their darkness, it all belongs to them. When we take it, even with the best intention, we shift something that was meant to stay with them. And then we wonder why we feel heavy, unclear, or drained afterwards.

There is enough anger and heaviness in the world already. You would not take a big black ball of badness from someone if they offered it to you. And yet energetically, that is sometimes what we do. We receive what is being expressed and we turn it into something we carry, rather than something we witness.

So I often return to a simple question. Why do we take it?

And with practice, the question becomes less about judgment and more about awareness. Can we learn to stay present without absorbing? Can we allow someone to be exactly where they are without stepping into carrying it for them?

This is not about detachment. It is about clarity. It is about being so rooted in yourself that you can remain open without becoming entangled.

The students of Reiki School of Self & Wisdom are learning how to do this. And this is also the power of women’s circles. The ability to sit together, to witness, to share, and to be deeply present without taking on what belongs to another. To honour each person’s experience as theirs, while still holding a connected, grounded space together.

Because in a circle like that, something changes. No one is being fixed, no one is being rescued, and no one is being energetically burdened by what is spoken. Everything is allowed to move, to be seen, to be felt, and then to stay where it belongs.

And that is what makes it powerful. Not that we become less sensitive, but that we become more clear. Not that we shut down, but that we learn how to stay open without losing ourselves. In that clarity, there is real safety, real depth, and a kind of connection that does not require anyone to carry what was never theirs to begin with.