DIVE INTO REIKI: Welcome to episode 13 of the Dive into Reiki podcast today with a lovely guest, Bronwen Logan. Bronwen is based in Australia, and she's a Reiki author, teacher, and co-founder of the International House of Reiki and Shibumi International Reiki Association. Due to her research into the Japanese aspect of the Reiki system since the early 2000s, Bronwen has been a major influence on how the system is taught and practiced worldwide. Her books, co-written with Frans Stiene, include The Reiki Sourcebook, The Japanese Art of Reiki, A to Z of Reiki Pocketbook, Reiki Techniques card deck, and Your Reiki Treatment. Bronwen also recorded the double CD Reiki meditations for self-healing and Reiki relaxation with Sounds True. 

Bronwen, I'm so grateful you accepted this invitation and that we all get a chance to know you better because I feel that we never see that other side of the International House Reiki. I would love to start with the same question I ask everyone on this podcast, when and how was the first time you discovered Reiki practice?

BRONWEN LOGAN: I would've been in my early 20s. I remember hearing about it then and thinking, what is this thing? And I remember some strange experience when I lived in Australia, and I went to some strange person's house, and they made me fill in all these forms. I actually have no idea what that was, but I remember that they were calling it Reiki. [Laughs]. I sort of went away from that thinking, "Huh? Okay." Then a couple years later, when I was living in Holland, my best friend came over to visit, and she had studied Reiki. She was doing Reiki on me all the time, and it was really lovely. That was a really excellent introduction. At that time in my life, I was trying to find out more about different practices. I was taking different meditation classes and just doing things to try to find out what might make me feel better in myself and stronger and happier. 

DIR:  I love when people come across Reiki through friends, especially a few years back when there weren't many professional practitioners. Right? Yeah. So what made you go from "I love receiving Reiki from my friend" to this is the practice that will, in a way, define your life.
BL: Well, I was living in Holland with Frans [Stiene, co-founder of the International House of Reiki]. We sold everything up and went to India. So yeah, it wasn't a holiday. We were going to travel through Asia, but he had very bad sciatica, which he'd had for a number of years. So we were looking for something because we were backpacking, you know. That's really hard to actually carry a backpack when you're in pain. So we were looking for something that could help with that. And we tried all different sorts of things and met different sorts of people. India is an amazingly [diverse] country. There are lots of different modalities and local indigenous things. That was very interesting.

Bronwen Logan.

 We went down to the South of India, where there's a lot of Ayurveda. That's like a traditional Indian healing system. We booked Frans into a little local place to have an ayurvedic treatment done, which is said to be very good for sciatica. We stayed there for a number of weeks while he was sort of going backward and forwards and having this treatment in the jungle. And at the same time, we were looking at healing modalities, and we came across a book. There was a book by Paula Horan. I think she's American and she lives in India. She had published a book about the system of Reiki. It was a very simple beginner's book. So that was really great. I remember sitting there, on the edge of the bed in the little room, trying to do this thing and not having any idea what I was doing. But very curious. So we thought that that would be an interesting practice to learn. 

When we went to Nepal, we came across an Englishman who lived there and was teaching the Reiki system. We were there for a number of months and studied through him. What he was teaching was a little bit all over the place, to be honest. But it sort of didn't matter in one way.

I did Reiki 1 and thought, "Oh, wow, this is truly amazing." And then I did Reiki 2, and I was just like, "Oh, this is something that could be—like you were saying before—like a defining moment. It's really something that will change everything, how I'm going to do things in life."

I was very fortunate at that time in my life that I didn't have a job to go to. I didn't have to do anything, you know, to be there for other people or do anything except really look at myself, see what was happening with me, and reach out to anything that could help me. So yeah, we then went on and did Reiki 3 there. It was great.

It was sort of mind-blowing this idea that we could teach this. So not long after being in Nepal, we went to Darjeeling in the Indian Himalayas, and we rented a house there right on the very top of Dajeerling, which we called Reiki House. And we started doing treatments and teaching people. 

So that was sort of it—it was definitely not my intention. And in fact, the reason why I went to India first was because I thought the food was really great. I love Indian food. So That was the main reason. And once I got there, it's a bit of an addiction, India. It's such a fascinating place. And then I thought we'd be moving on to Thailand and wherever else in Southeast Asia. But that didn't happen. I ended up being in India for two years at that point. Yeah. 

DIR: I love how many people go to India for a yoga or a spiritual journey. You went for food and ended up having a profoundly spiritual experience. I find the roads that take us to our destiny fascinating. So, how did you realize there was more to Reiki practice than the "all-over-the-place" training you got?
BL: When I first studied, the guy sort of had all these little bits of photocopies of this and that. This was in the late 1990s, and we didn't really have computers. I actually did get a computer when I started teaching the system of Reiki. And set up my first ever website, which was very exciting. You know, this long scrolly page. But what [out teacher] gave us was, I guess, photocopied out of books or things like that. And it was from different books, and I was like, how does this all fit together? I didn't have much of an idea. And then the idea that I wanted to teach people. How do you teach something that you know there's something really amazing there, but you are not quite sure how to put it all together. We did ask a lot of questions of that teacher and in the end, he told us not to contact him anymore. He just didn't know the answers, right? 

DIR:  [Laughs] I had the same experience. I called a teacher to ask questions, and he hung up on me too!
BL: [Laughs] Yeah. I mean, that's a difficult situation, but it's a really great learning lesson, isn't it? It's like, don't be like that. Don't do that. I've never said to anyone [that] I can't answer something. Even if I don't know the answer, I'll go away and work it out. Right. 

We came back to Australia, [where my mom lives] because I was pregnant, and continued to build a business. I had already done a teaching English as a Foreign Language course in England. I had done a little teaching before I left Australia as well. I studied performing arts. So I used to teach performing arts as well. So, we came back to Australia, and I did a business course. That was really great. I think a lot of the problems with people who are practicing the system of Reiki and want to start a business [is that] they may not have those skills, and it's another important part of that. But you learn, right? 

[The course] included things like marketing, how to do finances, and all those sorts of things—making your mind tick, go over in a different way and think about how you can best do this. That was really interesting. Within probably a year of that, I also did a teacher training and assessment course here as well in Australia. So just to get more teaching skills up, I think that's really important too. Another thing that people, you know, when they're teaching the system of Reiki, they just don't have the skills for teaching. So they're not really sure. Maybe they might be approaching things from an angle that might not work for their students. So, finding different ways of how people learn and what's the best thing for them. And that really helped me in creating the Ki Campus, our student website.

 And just while I'm talking about those things, also doing like a basic counseling skills course, you don't have to be a counselor because it's not about being a counselor but knowing how to be with someone if they're really upset. If someone comes in the door and they're not feeling great, what do you say to them? Just really basic, simple things like that I think are really helpful.

And first aid would be the other one that I would recommend that people have. I just saw in Australia that our treasurer for New South Wales—the state I'm in—was walking down the street, and someone had a fit in front of him and collapsed. He had his first aid, and he helped that person immediately. Everyone was like, "Wow, that's fantastic." I think it's a really good thing to have that. You can help people who are in need, and, as a Reiki practitioner, you just never know what's going to happen.

DIR: I think it's important because many of us struggle when we go professional. We may be just holding the space, or, as some people like to say, the energy is intelligent, but there is human interaction involved. How do we communicate during our sessions and classes? How do we react when our clients do something unexpected or have emotional releases? Those are human skills, and learning them can only benefit the people we serve and us. 
BL: Absolutely. A lot. I mean, as we speak, the energy is still flowing. Right? But there are still other aspects to this existence. They are the practical aspects which I think will make a big difference. And in fact, you know, they're the things that really set the International House of Reiki up to be the International House of Reiki. And if I look even at the name—the International House of Reiki. I mean, I would never have called our business the International House of Reiki. We were teaching out of our spare bedroom, with a baby in the other room when we started in Australia. But when I did the business course, they made me choose a name. The names that I wanted; I couldn't have. So, it automatically said, this is what we recommend that you should use because no one's got this name. I thought, "Well, Frans is from Holland, I'm from Australia, and we studied in Nepal and taught in India—that'll do [laughs].

DIR: And now you will teach classes worldwide and have the ki campus online. You grew into the name.
BL: In a way. I've always had quite an open sort of feeling with this, I must say. I've always [had the idea that] if you want to do something, you do it to the best that you can possibly do it. I did actually find that that year of teaching in Darjeeling was a bit like… [a sort of] internship. All that I would do in my week was get up, teach, and practice. We would go out and do treatments on local people, or they would come to us. Every couple of days, we were teaching people who were traveling through. So, it was a mixture of local people and travelers that we were working with, but it was constant. It was lovely. In this house that we lived, we had a lady who would come and make us breakfast. She was actually meant to be the cleaner, but she didn't like cleaning, so she'd make the breakfast [laugh], and that was really lovely and delicious. All I can think of when I think of that is pumpkin and tamarin and homemade rotis. So beautiful. Then we'd work, go out for lunch, come back, work, and go out for dinner because we didn't really have a kitchen. Then in the evening, I'd write. It was just heavenly. So non-stressful. You could just focus completely on what it is that you want to do. And so, it was a really great experience before moving back into the big world of having to earn a buck and that sort of thing. And have a baby. 

Back in Australia, we started researching more, and the internet was taking off. That was amazing. We started contacting people all around the world and saying, "What manuals do you use? What do you teach? Who did you study with?" 

[We] started collecting folder upon folder of information and putting that all together. And then in 2001, we went to Japan. I had worked out to meet different teachers that were living there. We met Chiyoko, Yamaguchi, who's no longer with us. Hyakuten Inamoto, a pure land monk. He took us around, and we met another teacher who was from the Gakkai. It was an excellent way to ground ourselves a little bit more in what was happening in Japan or had happened in Japan. There wasn't that much happening in Japan at the time. I noticed that a lot of the Japanese people were very much interested in what we were doing in the West. They were into things like Dolphin Reiki and, you know, things like that [laughs].

And I was like, "This is really weird! We want to know what people are doing in Japan, and Japan wants to know what's been happening over in the West." That was an interesting experience. 

So, we got all this information, put it together, and I spent at least a year writing The Reiki Sourcebook. The thing was that I met this guy who ran a bookstore here, and he'd written something like 55 books, and it was a spiritual bookstore. I don't even know how we got to talk, but anyway, we ended up going out, having a meeting and me saying, "This is the idea for the book." And he's like, "If you know what it is you want to write, it's going to happen." I said, "Okay." And he said, "Actually, I've got a publisher in the UK who would be more than happy to have a look at it. Write a couple of chapters, send [I will] send it through." And I did and got a publishing contract. So, it was really easy [and] really lovely. 

The good thing was that I had a date to have it finished. So, all that information I had to collate, go through, and make sense of—and that was The Reiki Sourcebook. I was so thrilled about that. It was a great thing to have put together because it expressed the confusion that I'd had when I started learning. It's not a book for a beginner, but if you were a teacher that you could look into this book and go, "So I was taught this technique, where does that technique come from? Or this is the lineage that I'm in. What does that mean?" You know, who says what, where, what was introduced at what point in that lineage and because there was a lot of confusion around what the system of Reiki was at that time. I think that writing that book and then The Japanese Art of Reiki has really helped to clarify for a lot of people what the system is. What it's made up of. The idea is that there's a certain number of elements that you have to practice to be able to say that you're actually working with the system of Reiki. Because what I found incredibly frustrating was that people would go, "Oh yeah, I do Reiki." And I'm thinking, "What do they mean I do Reiki? You know, like I do spiritual energy. I don't understand that." I mean, we are spiritual beings. We're also physical beings. It was just very confusing. So if someone says they do Reiki, does that mean they actually studied a course? Or did someone say my grandmother told me how to do something? Which I don't invalidate at all, but it may not be the system of Reiki. 

 It's a bit like saying that you do Tai Chi or something. Now Tai Chi is working with energy and moving. Well, if I work with energy and moving, do I do Tai Chi? No, I need to actually learn the practices, right?

DIR: And also bringing to light elements like Reiki meditations that were not well-known at the time. 

BL: When I studied in Nepal with the English guy, there were meditations, but they weren't the same. I think that people realize that if you're going to do spiritual practice, there is some level of meditative practice in that. 

When I first came back to Australia, at that time, I was talking to another Reiki teacher, and she was going to me, "Oh no, no, no, there's no breathing practices in the system of Reiki. I teach the real [Reiki]." You have to go through that experience. I went through that experience, anyway, of having to try to work out what was and wasn't real for me. Most of the people that you would talk to had studied through Western practices, through Hawayo Takata, who had taught from Hawaii. A lot of them had different ideas. Trying to discuss this was incredibly difficult. And that also helped to write because you're trying to refine what you're understanding from what you've been discovering and putting that together... I think the problem there was that, in the West, people were very much focused on hands-on-healing.

One of the elements of the system of Reiki is working with your hands. But it's just one of the aspects. It's not the aspect. We were taught the precepts right way back in the beginning, but it was not discussed and not really thought about. If we think about it now, we can see that the precepts are actually out of the five elements; the one that these are the four elements are saying if you work with us, then you'll be this. So it's the more important part, right? If there is a more important part… If we can be those precepts, then we can be the then we are Reiki. Then we discover our true selves. We discover what it means to be what, ultimately, we would call enlightened. 

DIR: For me, the precepts make the practice so much more approachable. When I meet people and want to explain Reiki, I just use the precepts: a spiritual practice that allows you to let go of anger and worry and to become more grateful and compassionate. Who doesn't want that?
BL: That's beautiful. For me, the system of Reiki is incredibly simple. It's not bells and whistles, and I'm very much no-rules-Reiki… Of course, there is a foundation and a structure.

DIR: Yes, because if not, people can go a little rogue there [laughs].
BL: When we start making rules, it's all in the head, it's all this rational, you know? What I think, you know what I mean? So letting that go. 

DIR: Changing gears a bit here: I would love to talk about your experience guiding Reiki meditations. I really enjoy the clarity with which you guide them and the way you use your voice to hold the space. A lot of us in the Reiki community create guided meditations. What are some of like the dos and don'ts when it comes to doing guided meditations? 
BL: I think a lot of people love guided meditation because it helps their brain to latch onto something. I mean, the Zen thing where you would sit for hours and do [nothing is] incredibly hard. In our society, we are more intellectually based. We are too top-heavy. Guided meditation will help with that. 

Some of the dos of guided meditations are: 

I always say to people, record yourself first… and then listen back. Does it make any sense what you just said? Because you might forget to tell people something simple like just to close their eyes or whatever. You might not think about what they're doing with their hands. So and people are thinking, "Oh!" So instead of them meditating, they're thinking about, "Am I meant to be doing this, or am I meant to be doing that? So physically really helping people move into the space and knowing where they are. 

I always say that with Reiki treatments as well, that what you want is the person to be really, really comfortable. Because the more comfortable that someone is, the less their mind is going to be active. If they're uncomfortable, then their mind's going to go, "What are they going to do now?" There's just all this stuff going on in their heads. What we really want is for them to be able to let go and to be in the space. So, making someone comfortable in whatever way that is, I think that's really important. 

I mean, there are lots of dos and don'ts, for example, telling them how long the meditation's going to be. Because they might think when you start [that] it's going to be five minutes, or they might think, "Oh my God, do I have to sit here for an hour?" Giving them guidelines, really supporting the person, thinking about the other person, being empathetic, putting yourself in their position. [These are] really basic fundamental things to do. 

The other thing is [that] when we are speaking, and we do meditation, we are going into that space as well. So, we need to be careful that we don't end up going [inward] it and [our voice] just fades away. Ensuring that you're actually still in the space with the students because it's very easy to go into your own practice. As a teacher, you need to be in both spaces at once. And that is a little bit of a challenge, but it's something that you can practice and get better at. 

But even though it's great to be in that space, because then we are holding that space, we also need to be able to feel that space. We need to also have that sense of knowing that we are here and being aware of what's going on for the students. You don't know what's going to happen. And different students can respond in different ways… They might be shocked by what's happening or something like that. And you need to be aware if that's happening in the group and if you need to be there for someone.

DIR: So I know that you also extended your teachings to Reiki with animals because you love them. What is your approach to this?
BL: About? Yeah. I've always had animals in my life. But, you know, I always see humans as animals. I've had lots of humans in my life too. [Laughs].

DIR: They're many animals too, but that's a New York joke. [Laughs].
BL: Yes, but I'm talking about well-mannered animals, Nathalie! [Laughs]. I've always had some animals. I find in our society, the way that we talk to children is quite different to the way that we talk to adults... With children, there are so many beautiful picture books where the animal talks, the animal is the same as you—I'm talking about non-human animals. Yeah. The non-human animals are the same as you and me… It has feelings. It can feel pain. It can be sad. It can be happy. And children love that, you know, and they see that in animals. 

Definitely, as a child, I related to animals. I just felt they were the same. I still have this image of my dad cleaning out the pond, and he had all these tadpoles in water in a bowl that he'd gotten out of the pond. He's going to throw them away, and I'm like, "Don't throw the pet!" And this adult world not understanding that. And yet this adult world had also come from this child world. So, when children grow up… it's like the rules change, you know?

How many kids have asked, "Oh, what is it that I'm eating?" And someone will say, "Well, that's pork." "What's pork?" "Well, you know that cute book about the pig? That's a pig you're eating." And then the child has to grow up and accept that this is what humans do. But we don't have to do that. We can retain that connection that we understand as children and that we don't mind allowing children to understand. And that we almost encourage children to understand. And then we take the humanity out of the humans.

I don't think I lost that particular humanity, at any rate, you know? I've always really retained this feeling. Not being the Lord of, but sharing my life with other animals—human or non-human. It just feels very right to me. When I was a kid, I had dogs, cats, and rabbits. Now I have a pig, Flora. I've got dogs and cats, and I've got horses, and I've had goats. I've got chickens and ducks. We all share this space together. And they all tell me what they want or what they don't want, or whether things are good or not good.

People love coming here because the animals actually share the space as well. I don't have a pig style. I don't know if you remember what that is. I do because my mother had a dairy farm with a pig style, and it's like this little space with these big pigs inside it. And they have to live in the mud. And that's actually not how pigs in their natural existence live. Thinking about how animals live and how they are at their happiest and trying to make way for them to experience that in the same way that I'm able to experience it. So, you can say, what does that have to do with the system of Reiki?

Like I said, I'm a bit of a "no-rules" Reiki person. I'm very much about letting go and finding truth in a situation and using the precepts to help me find those truths. And for me, the truths are that these animals need to live and exist in the best way that they can possibly live. I allow them to go everywhere, but I create ways to make everybody safe. To keep everybody happy. It's more about living together rather than me trying to make them do or be something for me.

DIR: Like a living embodiment of the practice versus offering hands-on healing to the pig for ten minutes.
BL: Yeah. My pig is very chatty. I've heard people say that they've never met a pig as chatty. She tells you the whole story. If there is something wrong, she tells me this whole thing, and she's gotten it out of the system. She's an absolutely amazing character, and it's wonderful for people to see an animal that they think of as food. People just have no idea what a pig is actually like. To meet a pig, to experience that is really meaningful… So then they actually need to have a think about things and [food]—would you eat your dog? 

The other thing that I was going to say about that is that I totally believe that each of us, we create our own universe. We create this world and how [we] live. And this is the life that I have chosen. So I think people need to think about that. If we can do good within this universe, other people see that, and that affects other people. 

DIR: I love that! I think that sometimes we want to save the world, but it's such a big endeavor that we never do anything. [Yet] just by changing ourselves and becoming kinder and more centered, we actually can create change.  To close my interviews, I like to ask people like you—renowned Reiki masters with many years of practice and very respected—if you can share an "oops," 'Whoops," or teachable lesson. 
BL: I think from a very personal level that we all need to constantly work on ourselves. And I think as a teacher, maybe I can't think of a good whoop for you, but being a better listener is definitely… a really good thing to know. That when things don't work out how you imagine them, just understanding that that's the way things are. 

I think there are a lot of those just very natural human things that I wish that I could be better. The only thing I can just think about right now is that I had someone in a class who had PTSD, and I did actually know that, but I didn't ask for details. I wish I'd known much more about that experience before I went into the class because that person actually had really severe PTSD and was actually taking medications... I mean, everything was fine and it all worked out in the end, but, you know, I really felt like I had let myself down by not understanding the situation better and obviously having to do more managing in the class than what I probably would have had to have done in the first place. So, you know, understanding those things about people [is an important lesson.]

DIR: I have one last question: can you share one single tip to deepen our practice?
BL: I think that this relates to what I was saying earlier: the idea of letting go. Yeah. Especially if we're stuck. I was saying before, no rules. Really just letting go of what you think you should be doing or shouldn't be doing. Letting that all go and just sitting in that [beautiful open]. And when we're in that open space, then everything comes. 

DIR: Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful knowledge and wisdom with us. 
BL: Thank you!

Drawing inspired by Bronwen’s internview.

DIVE INTO REIKI: I'm super excited to introduce my guest: Pamela Miles. Pamela is an internationally renowned Reiki master and the pioneer introducing Reiki practice to conventional medicine. She's collaborated with academic medical centers such as Harvard and Yale. She has been featured on The Dr. Oz Show, NBC, CBS, CNN, FOX, The Atlantic, US News & World Report, New York Magazine, Allure, and Self. Pamela is also the author of the award-winning REIKI: A Comprehensive Guide.

I went to Pamela's Reiki Clinic at the JCC in New York, and it really helped me find my footing when I first learned Western Reiki and was a bit lost.

PAMELA MILES: I always enjoyed having you [at the clinic]. I just want to clarify the term Western Reiki because I practice Western Reiki… it's not all "woo." I mean, my practice is not new-age at all. All of my Reiki masters were either trained by Hawayo Takata, or their Reiki masters were trained by Hawayo Takada. So, I learned the practice as Takata taught before Americans started, you know, making changes to it, which were mostly ad-ons—although they tried to make something simpler like you don't have to practice, which to me was the most fun part of it was actually practicing. 

DIR: I love that clarification: all Reiki is not the same. I love to hear your origin story. You're pretty unique compared to many beginner Reiki practitioners: you actually had a spiritual practice for years before you discovered Reiki. 
PM: That's so sweet for you to say I'm unique instead of odd. I like that spin on it, Nathalie. So yeah, by the time I came to Reiki practice in 1986, I already had been a student of meditation and yoga for almost 25 years. And I was a meditation teacher. I've lived in India in a monastery for a couple of years, doing really intensive spiritual practices, very serious practice. I was also a professional healer. I worked with people one-on-one doing what might now be called mind, body medicine, but back there was just odd. So unique is the word I'm going to stick with here. And the advantage that gave me was that I already had a daily spiritual practice. I understood that it's not enough to learn a practice; you learn a practice so that you can practice. And that the training that teaches you the practice, the teacher that teaches you the practice, you know, that's so special and you have at least regard if not reverence for that connection. But ultimately, if you don't practice, you're just tossing it out the window. To use marketing language, the practice is how you get that return on your investment. That's how you get your money's worth from your training. 

It always seemed odd to me that people finish one class, and they want to right away go to another class and get another certificate or whatever they get and go to another class. For me, I just couldn't wait to practice. I remember when I first learned to practice like I just couldn't wait till I had some time alone. [I did] my daily self-practice, my full protocol practice, first thing in the morning before I was out of bed. But then, during the day, I also wanted to practice. 

[…]

Compared to the effort involved in the other spiritual practices I had, this was very accessible. It was kind of fast and easy and fast and easy really aren't usually values of mine. But at the time that I experienced Reiki practice from a friend who had just taken the first-degree class, I had a five-year-old, and I was in early in my second pregnancy. So, I like to have spiritual practice every day. I just don't go a day without it. It's easier for me to fast or lose sleep. But I also remembered what it was like, when you give birth and in those early days, weeks, months, depending upon your baby. So, I was wondering how I was going to manage this. And then, I had an experience of Reiki from my friend. I quickly started to have the same inner experience and sensations that were very familiar to me because of all of my experience with spiritual practice, both at home and on retreat and such. Nothing that I experienced during my Reiki treatment was new to me other than the practice itself. This was a new way of becoming deeply indrawn and becoming more aware of my subtle being, my timelessness, and like that.

That gave me a very different perspective on the practice from the beginning. I could see this as a spiritual practice. Of course, we've come to know that. But it wasn't presented to me in that way or understood in the US in quite that way, with that language. From what I know, I think that Hawayo Takata did have that understanding. But she didn't put that language to it. And I'm sure she had very good reasons. You know, we all live in different times; we have to be ourselves of our time and carry the integrity of the practice. At least that's been a value for me. 

Pamela Miles.

DIR: No, absolutely. And as you said, we cannot really understand what it was to be her at that time. And she actually brought it here and spread it. But I think when you said, like, now we're coming to see it's a spiritual practice is still very new for many people watching this podcast. For most, it's still understood very much as an energy healing modality. But it goes a lot deeper. At the end of the meditation, you said something beautiful: bring it into your body and extend it into your life. This is so much more than just getting a session or doing your practice. It is about using it to transform your life. Can you talk a bit about the importance of the body in Reiki practice? 
PM: Well, the body is important because if we didn't have a body, we couldn't practice [she laughs].  

DIR: Yes, because sometimes we go into Lalaland with angels.
PM: People can practice in whatever way is meaningful to them, but the idea is not to disregard our bodies. The purpose of all spiritual practice is to be present and being present means being joyfully in our body. Because if we're not joyfully in our body, if we have discomfort with the body that we have, then we're not present. There's a part of us that's tied up with that, and that's worrying inside of us.

There's confusion or a lack of investigation into what spirituality is and what spiritual practice is in this culture. Many people have never thought of the difference between religion and spirituality. Or metaphysics and spirituality. We see that even more around Reiki practice, where people share their Reiki metaphysics. But if we ask people to see the world as we see it to practice Reiki, I think we're cutting out a lot of people who would otherwise really be interested in the experience and the benefits that Reiki practice brings. And the advantages it brings being uniquely accessible. I mean, it's just the easiest spiritual practice that I've come across. And I've been engaged in spiritual practices since I was a kid. There was a point at which I just said more than 50 years because that's enough.

Spiritual practice is to be present. To be able to live from our hearts. To keep our minds in good health too. I mean, a good intellect is important to discern and be a critical thinker. If you're engaged in anything around spirituality and you're not a critical thinker, you're going to fall for a lot of silly stuff. And you're going to be disappointed, especially if you don't have a daily practice because there are so many disappointments in life, right? I mean, this is something we're experiencing very acutely now with the pandemic and how long it's going on because people didn't think it would go on so long. They weren't quite seeing that this is a game-changer. This isn't a blip. And daily spiritual practice means that we step into our changes on a daily basis. So, we keep ourselves spiritually poised, settled in our bodies. And when something comes at us, we've got the resilience; we can roll with it. We can be creative. We don't forget who we are. We don't forget our timelessness. We don't forget our practice because our practice is the source of our resilience. 

DIR: I really admire people going through this without a spiritual practice. Before the pandemic was officially declared, you started a global practice group. Can you talk a bit about that? 
PM: Yeah. I had just come back. I had a few months with a lot of travel. I was in Europe, and then I was in Mexico, leading the Heart of Practice retreat. And then I was in Curaçao, and I was in Atlanta teaching, and I came back to New York, like March 1st, I think. I could see what was happening, you know? And I knew that people were going to be very frightened, and they were going to be isolated. I could see that we were going to wind up in some kind of a lockdown. Being frightened and being isolated is a devastating combination for your immune system. Either one of them compromises your immune function. And then those together can easily lead to depression, which further lessens people's immunity.

So, I was looking to see how I can support people in their self-practice and give them a sense of community. And since I'm kind of the queen of self-practice…

DIR: You were actually the first person who mentioned self-practice to me is like. I was like, "Am I supposed to have a self-practice? I didn't even know about that! 
PM: Well, I hear that from many, many people. That they've been through a class and either they were told to practice on themselves for 21 days, or it just never was even discussed. Whereas in my training, that's the core. You do a lot of self-practice. So, March 10th, I think, was the first one, the day before the world health organization declared the global pandemic. That was Tuesday at four, and then I added Saturday at 9:00 AM.  

Within, I don't know, six months or something, twenty-five thousand people had registered. And of course, not everybody registered and came back, but still, it was something that clearly was speaking to people. And the important idea for me was mixing care of self with community because everybody else wants to take care of other people, you know? And that's just more of maybe the thing that we need to change in this time. To change is our proclivity for looking outwards, like outwards for the Reiki energy as if it's something separate from us that we have to somehow trick into coming to us.

People say things like, I don't have my Reiki anymore. Well, do you practice? No. [Laughs] If we think of it asReiki practice instead of Reiki energy, it solves a lot of those problems. And also, we always know what's available to us, that accessibility and availability. It's so heartwarming because I get many, many emails from people who say, I've now been practicing every day for a month, for six months, for three weeks for—whatever is a landmark for them, something they never thought they could do. And they notice the difference. So the idea of healing the planet by healing ourselves and making that connection with the quote that we hear so often from Mahatma Gandhi, "be the change you want to see." Not fixing. And to get back to the idea of energy healing and practice: your energy healing is more along with the conventional medical fixing. Whereas spiritual practice reminds us of our intrinsic wholeness and wellness and lets all the disparate parts of ourselves come to rest in our spiritual self. Where we feel our core, and we remember who we are. And then mind, body, spirit, emotions, intellect, you know what, however, you want to name these different parts of ourselves that may be gremlins, they are all like, "Oh yeah!" They feel safe. And everybody behaves better when they feel safe. 

DIR: For me, one of the most significant gifts Reiki practice gave me was acceptance and compassion towards myself. Then by changing myself, I'm a lot kinder to my family and friends. So, as you said, the change starts inside, but it extends to affect people's lives. However, we tend to want to place our hands on other people and change them, so we like them more!
PM: And I think a lot of people feel that way. And, certainly, I've had my moments too. But compassion isn't for anyone. Compassion is a state; it's an attainment. And when we're willing to sit with ourselves and practice with ourselves, and we drop into our hearts, we experience the compassionate love that is our true nature. We feel it in ourselves because that's who we are first, but the way we are with other people is just a reflection of how we are with ourselves. Have you ever noticed that person who really pisses you off? If you're lucky, you'll catch yourself doing the thing that that person does that annoys you so much.

It's always just a reflection of how we feel about ourselves. So, as we feel unconditional self-love, even for a moment, it's a crack in the confusion. Then we just keep coming back to it, and we build a habit. This is another part of consistent daily self-practice that we're building a habit. We're building neural pathways. It's not just a good idea. You know, we're actually making it easier for us to take refuge in our center rather than refuge in our drama, which only creates more suffering. Life isn't always going to be easy. It certainly doesn't get easier when we start practicing, but we are more equipped. We're better equipped to be with the challenge because we feel safer. Feeling safe is a spiritual issue and spiritual attainment. Practice is the only way we can earn that experience and own it.

Otherwise, it's kind of like being on a diet where we're just having to say no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And we're not even sure that this is really going to work for us. But when we practice, especially practice self-Reiki, we experience pretty quickly that something good is happening. Our systems start to settle, and it happens on a discernible level in our nervous system. Wow. That's a big deal and a big difference. 

DIR: I love that you have a science and medical background. I love to now know that a part of my brain is actually changing.

I will use this to segue because you were vital in bringing Reiki to mainstream healthcare. You did fantastic work, and part of it is that you have a very down-to-earth approach and know the science behind it. How did you just wake up one day and say, "Hey, I need to bring this to healthcare?"
PM: I never said that! [Laughs]. [If I had], no one would have listened because I don't have a medical background. I mean, I did original research as an undergraduate. I have a couple of undergraduate degrees, so I've always had an interest. And my mother is a nurse, my sister, my grandmother, you know, so medicine has always been in my background. But I think that what gave me a unique qualification and, and I kind of started medical Reiki, was this marriage of spiritual practice and scientific intellect. And a desire to serve. I was invited to create the first hospital program because I was doing community service at gay men's health crisis here in New York City, offering Reiki training. At that point, it was still all guys with HIV aids. This was before the protest inhibitors and the drugs that have been developed that have really helped people be able to live with HIV Aids.

I mean, then it was really a death sentence, and everybody knew it. So, I started teaching people to practice on themselves and the doctors in infectious disease—that's what the Aids specialists were called—noticed that whenever they had a patient who was doing better than expected… invariably they talked about Reiki practice, and usually they were students of mine. So, the department head at what was then Beth Israel Medical Center, which is now, I think Mount Sinai Beth Israel, was a very forward-thinking interested in integrative medicine and understood that even if we couldn't cure a disease, we could at least still help people. That's why I was asked to come in and present. It was my first medical presentation. My knees were knocking because I knew it would be easy to lose this opportunity. I knew it would be easy to step in the wrong direction, but I just kept my mouth closed. And when I was asked a question, I didn't try to pontificate; I answered the question briefly because I know doctors are very busy. I always tried to answer the question in a way that would make sense to them without compromising the reality of what I was offering. I've always spoken of Reiki as a spiritual practice because, by then, I was a Reiki master. So everything else came out of that. 

In fact, there were a lot of people in conventional medicine who were very interested in what else could be done. At first, it surprised me, but then when I thought about it, well, yeah, these people see so much suffering that they can't help, even now that they can do more in terms of the fixing part. It's almost as if suffering itself is not a medical issue. Again, like safety, it's a spiritual issue. Doctors may help you with your pain, but suffering is a spiritual concern. 

DIR: I love how you put it because you also give Reiki a role that feels very safe and useful in the healthcare environment. Sometimes we communicate Reiki in a way that could feel dangerous to doctors. 
PM: Yeah. I mean, that's such an important point that you're bringing up, Nathalie. That is the communication piece. I've been a writer since I was a kid. So, I've always been thinking about communicating not just what do I want to say, but how can I say it? Not just writing as self-expression, but writing to communicate. And that made a big difference in being able to bridge cultures. And when it came to medical Reiki, the practice itself is the same that I practice everywhere, but the culture is different. I was bridging spiritual practice culture with medical science culture and also bridging lay culture with licensed professional culture. There were lots of places where we could have made a wrong turn, you know? And I was on a pretty steep learning curve. I just kept my mouth shut, and I listened. And then I had my partner there, the staff person at the end of the day, he would always make time for me, and I'd go in, and I'd say, "What does this mean? What is that?" I find it makes a big difference if there's somebody in the hospital or the institution who has at least some experience of Reiki practice because they appreciate the value. 

DIR: You have mentioned some essential things: first of all, to experience the practice. Second, listening, understanding them, and then communicating clearly in your case. Those are great tips for people to follow. 
PM: There's a difference between self-expression and communication. If we want to communicate better, we have to be better listeners. I find this true in my personal relationships, with my one-on-one clients for comprehensive healing sessions, and with students. They'll tell you what they want to know if you listen. I always keep in mind those wonderful words from Steve jobs: it's not the customer's job to know what they want. I can't wait for them to use my language or my concepts. I have to hear their language and recognize what they're saying behind what they're saying. 

So, if they ask what Reiki is, mostly they don't give a damn about what Reiki is. Most people just aren't that conceptually curious; what they're asking is, "Can this help me?" Or "Can this help somebody I love?" They've got some suffering that they're not able to address. And if we, as the Reiki practitioners and especially Reiki professionals, can be quiet enough and safe enough, they'll spill the beans. They'll tell us what they want to know. Then we can say to them what they've been asking us, even though they weren't using the words we would have used. 

DIR: It's all about listening and holding the space, and it's not trying to go, fix it or impose what we think is needed. You have achieved a lot of bringing Reiki into mainstream healthcare. However, right now, we are facing a lot of regulatory challenges. You are part of the group actively fighting these regulations. Can you explain what's going on?
PM: It's a very complex situation. Something that I feel very strongly about is that spiritual practices should not be legislated. It doesn't make sense. Is the government going to require a license to meditate or to pray? Reiki is a spiritual practice. If you even think about the logistics, how would they do that? I mean, that's a whole other thing. But the fact is that there are states that are looking to regulate, and it's never just Reiki practice. In Massachusetts, which is the current battleground, it seems to be all subtle practices, all noninvasive practices that have been recognized as being safe. 

Noninvasive means safe. And that's why there's no licensing for them. Because licensing, ostensibly, is to protect the public. You don't want a surgeon who hasn't gone through medical school with a specialty at the end, right? Because if a surgeon makes a mistake, there are horrible consequences. But as Reiki professionals, certainly, we can hurt people, but it's through our mishandling of another human being. It's not through the practice itself. And that's human nature, and that's not something that can be really controlled through regulation. 

The Massachusetts legislature has bills introduced, which, if passed, would mean immediately that professionals [from all these practices] would become illegal because they would [require] licensing. There's not even a six-month transition period. If it's passed, you know, as it's written. That's the acute crisis, and we need to address that. There's a petition, and I hope everybody will sign that petition and share it. Nag your friends to sign it as well and share it!

But then bigger than that is how can we keep our practice available [and] accessible to the public? We all have different Reiki practices. I think we all want the way we practice to be available to our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren. If the government—and it would be at the state level because the states regulate healthcare practices—takes control of licensing these practices, that means that there will be a small board. And somebody on that board, who probably is a friend of somebody in the legislature, knows something about Reiki practice. That person would be responsible for deciding what the licensing would involve, what we're allowed to teach, what's our curriculum, how we are supposed to practice. Does it have to be off the body? Does it have to be on the body? Do we have the freedom to choose according to what we think is best and best for our clients? 

The solution that I am working to further is, first of all, Reiki practitioners [need] to get savvier about communicating. Because, as you mentioned so astutely before, the way a lot of Reiki practitioners speak about Reiki is very unguarded. For people who aren't of that mindset, it sounds scary. It sounds imbalanced. It sounds like something is taking them over. It's confusing at best. So, for Reiki practitioners to be more savvy in their communication, because a lot of the problems that we're experiencing date back to the way that we've communicated, you know, just kind of reckless and thoughtless. And then reaching out to our state elected officials: calling their offices, making an appointment, [although] you probably won't get to speak to the actual official. Does it matter? You can speak to their gatekeeper. This is their job. And to be able to speak very succinctly, you know, "My Reiki practice is important to me." "I don't know how I could have gotten through my cancer treatment without my Reiki practice. The doctors certainly addressed cancer, but that's what helped me heal in a very profound way." End of story.

People want to make it big. No! Big makes doctors and legislators who are conservative [nervous.] No matter whether they're Republican or Democrat, they're conservative by nature, right? So, when people speak big, in an exaggerated way, it makes them nervous. It discredits us. We want to be very sober and simple. Your little Reiki story. How it helped you get your child to sleep at night. That's huge. But they need to hear from a lot of us, and they need to hear about Reiki practice in a way that's not scary and off-putting. Not going in there and saying, "Well, let me give you some Reiki." No, no, no! Please, don't do that!

The only reason we ever talk about Reiki practice in a situation like that is to shorten the distance between where that person is now and when they're going to have their first Reiki experience. Because once they have an experience, the conversation changes. But let's be realistic, our elected officials will probably not have a Reiki experience. We need to get their attention first of all and then equip them with some simple language and stories so that they see, "Oh yeah, this is important to the people who have voted for me and will vote for me again." 

DIR: And it's also safe. I think those stories you mentioned actually feed the clear distinction between alleviating pain and suffering, the latter of which should not be regulated. 
PM: Yes. There is another option; it's called Safe Harbor law. And it's something that has been conceptualized and actually passed in Minnesota. I think it was in 2005. That means we can practice these noninvasive practices as we see fit within reasonable parameters. Not interfering with any existing licensing but specifying noninvasive practices as not needing to be regulated. There's a woman, Diane Miller, and she has a new book called Health Freedom: The Greatest Freedom of All. And she has an organization helping people in different states to do this. 

DIR: I really appreciate you giving us the tools to help fight for our freedom to practice. I will post the links so people can reach out to their representatives. 
PM: Yeah. And you want to know before you make the phone call. You never know; you could get right through to somebody. It could be a slow afternoon. So, you want to know what you're going to say and rehearse it with friends. Reiki practitioners who know each other can get together and coach each other. It will help make us better Reiki practitioners because we'll be better able to represent what we do to people who aren't like us in some ways but are like us in other ways. [People] who—as his holiness says—want to be happy and want to avoid suffering. It's very simple the human condition.

DIR:  And that is the essence of the Reiki precepts at the end. Sometimes we get very lost when it comes to explaining Reiki practice. But, in the end, it's letting go of anger and worry, becoming more grateful, and finding that space of compassion. It's that simple. So simple that it's very complicated to get there. 
PM: You know, it's true. I tell my first-degree students that the hardest part about learning to practice Reiki is how simple and easy it is. Because all your life you've worked hard to get anything. Believed you should have worked harder for the thing that got away. In Reiki practice, the skill and the effort are really of self-restraint. Just place my hands [places hands on her body]. Now I'm practicing Reiki, and [lift her hands from her body] now I'm not. Hands-on, I'm practicing Reiki. Hands-off, I'm not. If it's that simple in the foundation, you won't get lost in your practice.

DIR:  Then you can actually extend that to your life. Like you lost the subway, you just lost the subway. Don't add, and don't complicate it. Yet Reiki is deceptively simple because you can actually go very deep, just by placing your hands repeatedly day after day. 
PM: I think the only way we can go deep is through repetition. Sometimes clients will come, and they'll say, "I'm with this old issue again." They're so disappointed in themselves that they haven't solved something. I try to help them appreciate it and be grateful that's it's an old issue because if you kept having new issues, you'd be overwhelmed. We have these old habits, and we keep revisiting them with new understanding and greater compassion. Things melt a little bit, and then we're doing better. Then something happens that takes us by surprise or frightens us, and we fall back into these very old habits a little bit. We usually don't fall so deeply. But what if we fell into new bad habits? How would we ever get ourselves out from under the suffering? If we always had to find a new plan, right? 

DIR: Oh, wow! I never looked at it that way. 
PM: It's so human. I mean, people are putting themselves down because they still have these old issues instead of like, "Thank God I still have this." For me, the simplicity of the protocol that I use for my practice, which is just an eight-placement protocol, creates a container for each practice that I can just drop into. I can practice with absorption and abandon. Not focusing, not concentrating, that's working too hard. I placed my hands, and something in me says, "Okay, now we're going home."

DIR: Yeah. I know many people go with intuition, and I'm like, "Learn your protocol because then you can always fall back on it and practice free of anger and worry. 
PM: People who say they practice intuitively, in my experience, there's nothing intuitive about it. They're thinking. They're engaged in a lot of stuff. They feel something and think they have to move their hands there. Just because you feel something doesn't mean it needs any more attention. Wherever we place our hands, it's not just that part of the body that responds. The initial response on a physical level certainly seems to be through some combination of the nervous system, the endocrine system, and likely the endocannabinoid system. These are the three most subtle systems in the body, and they're always playing with each other. So once that is set in motion, that's everywhere in your body. Where is your nervous system not? I place my hands on my chest; it's not just the nerves under my hand that are responding. It's my whole nervous system. This downregulation from the stress response, the sympathetic response to the parasympathetic digest, and heal response, and that involves everything. 

So you're going to feel things throughout your body as your body downregulates itself. We don't have to make that happen. We give our systems the invitation or the necessary information and then let it respond in the way that is meaningful, appropriate, and doable at that moment. And that's something we can't possibly know or even intuit, but our bodies know. We know how to heal. So, I think a big piece of Reiki practice, and certainly Reiki self-practice, is getting our minds out of the way. What we think we know. Being a little humbler with what we think we know.

DIR: Thank you, Pamela, so much for this interview. I learned a lot, and I'm sure everybody reading this will do, too. 

Drawing inspired by the interview with Pamela Miles.