In this blog, I will walk you through my spiritual journey and share my perspective on Reiki practice. Reiki a spiritual practice, the effects of Reiki as a self-healer, and most importantly I will share the downside of spiritual practice that no one will tell you.
I as a human require feeling secured and safe. Like most of you, I too derive these feelings from good health, relationship, and financial stability.
We all live with different people, do different things for our well being, be engaged in different kinds of economic activities. Despite living different lives our common need for love, respect, and sound health remain the same.
When even one aspect is disturbed it affects the other, if my relationship with people I care about is going through rough days it has a direct effect on my wellbeing.
Likewise, there came a phase in my life right after graduating when I struggled to understand my relationship and career goals. I used to feel devastated, void, lonely. Hopelessness started growing within me.
As victor franklin rightly says Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
I choose to feel hopeless. I started to feel like a failure and almost when I was drowning in my thoughts, ‘Reiki’ a self-healing therapy came to my rescue. Reiki is a spiritual healing art and has its roots in Japanese origin. The word Reiki comes from the Japanese word (Rei) which means universal life and (Ki) which means energy.
I was introduced to a reiki practice. I learned the tool. I was fascinated by the benefits of reiki advocated by reiki masters and institutions. They say that it improves mental, physical as well as spiritual health, increases power and confidence, balances and harmonizes relationships, and can be used for multipurpose at the same time.
You can read more about reiki on this link and this.
In pursuit of a peaceful life, I started practicing reiki healing. I continued to practice for almost two years. The practice included reiki prayers, chakra healing, positive affirmation, forgiveness, gratefulness with the help of guided meditation, and chanting.
One key principle that was taught in reiki was to make positive affirmations every day. Every day I started telling myself ‘I’m feeling calm and happy’. I started training my brain to feel only happy contrary to my actual feeling. On days I felt extremely agitated, irritated, anxious I found myself in conflict because my practices conditioned my mind to feel positive only.
Daily self-healing practices started building belief in my mind that everything will be positive. I got attached to the idea of positivity, I started romanticizing my life. I felt if I will speak only positive words I will attract positive energy from the universe.
Initially, these affirmations were healing my wounds, I felt I’m letting go the pain and fear.
I felt I was moving ahead in life. There was less reflection. I never questioned the practice. My experience motivated me to complete all advanced-level courses so that I could train others and help others as well. I became a Reiki Master.
After years of practice both as practitioner and master as I rethink and reflect I learned that :
- Thousands of institutions, books, countless blogs, and quite a bit of legitimate science advocates the benefits of positive thinking. Likewise, spiritual practices are no different, it praises the benefits of positive thinking and sells the idea of experiencing happiness by being positive.
- Spirituality is a booming industry. In these trainers, practitioners promote a toxic positive approach towards life and reject difficult emotions. The anger, love, envy, insecurities, hope, fear, desires, pain, and all other emotions that we feel as humans are part of our existence. It’s important to accept what I’m feeling and affirm my state of being. They promise to provide tools that will bring happiness.
- The labeling of positive and negative feelings may encourage me to show my bright shining side as being positive is socially acceptable but it is important to allow myself to be what it is.
- The practices also rely on the principles of the law of attraction.
- Many times spiritual teachings condition people to think that they are on an awakening path, getting enlightenment, they need to protect their energy. The teaching can sometimes create a false belief of feeling superior.
- It is important to take professional help if going through mental health issues like anxiety, depression, or any other form of mental health than relying on positive affirmations and faith.
I acknowledge the benefits of practicing any form of spirituality and positive thinking, various studies have reported a positive correlation between spirituality and mental well being, however, a person’s rational thinking, self-awareness, ability to accept all shades of life, affirm what they are feeling is significant. The problem is life isn’t always positive. We all deal with painful emotions and experiences.
And those emotions, while maybe unpleasant and challenging to deal with, are important and need to be felt and dealt with openly and honestly.
The spiritual practices that strongly advocate toxic positivity take positive thinking to an overgeneralized extreme. In the long run, this can have an adverse effect. It invalidates the existence of other emotions that aren’t strictly happy or positive.
To get a different perspective and learn more, please check the following resources
- Three spiritual practices to avoid
- The promise of a developing reiki practice
- The impact of spirituality on mental health
- Letting go of beliefs
Do leave your comments below —
What do you think of spiritual practice?
What is your thought on positive thinking?
