Using Sound In Reiki Sessions

Offered at the Reiki & Sound Retreat Feb 23-26, Sedona AZ

Repeated at the Reiki Explorer Retreat April 27-29

Copyright 2007 Jessica Miller
You are welcome to copy and use this handout or teach any of these techniques. Just as long as you keep my name attached to it, and refer to my website. www.ReikiMastery.com

This handout outlines some of the techniques I covered in my talk.
I started offering this talk as a way to give people some concrete suggestions and experiences in different ways to use sound in Reiki sessions.

Strengthen voice with hands

1. Make a sound such as OM.
   
2. Put the hands on the throat (you can empower them with Reiki symbols first if you wish)
   
3. Repeat the OM with the hands on the throat.
   
4. See how much stronger your voice feels.
   

Measuring the energy of a space.
I first started doing this exercise on Kurama mountain, as a way to measure how strong the energy was in different places. It has practical implications for Reiki people because it allows us to measure the strength of a Reiki session room or a sacred place.

1. Ground the energy of the space by pulling the energy down into the earth.
   
2. Test the energy in this space by:

• checking the amount of energy between your hands,
• Raising and lowering your arms a few times and compare the amount of effort it takes to raise versus lower your arms. Also notice the quality of the energy in the space.
• Notice the apparent temperature in the room
• Make an energy ball in your hands and drop it and watch what it seems to do.

3. Raise the energy of the room by Chanting Om, playing spiritual music, drawing Reiki symbols, or doing a technique of your choice.

4. Repeat Step 2, and compare how it is now different.

Different people will sense this differently, and after a while, you will start to notice the different qualities to the energy of the place. In general, in high energy places, there will be more energy between your hands (unless like on Kurama mountain the ki of the area is so high there isnt much difference between the energy your hands and the area). Ki makes a room feel warmer and the air thicker. The most startling thing for most people to notice is the difference in the perception of gravity. In ordinary enviroments, it takes much more effort to raise your arms than to lower them. The higher the energy of the environment, the less gravity seems to be present in that raising your arms and lowering them seems to take much closer to the same amount of effort.

The International Center for Reiki Training recommends drawing power symbols on the 4 walls, ceiling, floor and center as a way of empowering the room for Reiki sessions and attunements. Try this now imagining your room is about 6 feet across. Then check the energy inside and outside your room inside a room.

Toning Symbols into hands

This is a very powerful way of energizing the hands with the energies of the different symbols. Because there is a tradition of keeping the names of the symbols secret, for the purposes of teaching this exercise to a group of mixed levels of Reiki experience, we only use the first syllable of the symbols. For your use, experiment with using the first syllable, or the whole Japanese symbol name.

Think of the power symbol if you know it, (just think of Reiki if you don't) and tone a long, drawn out "Cho" into the palm of one of your hands.

Now compare the energy of your two hands. You can also do the comparison with drawing the power symbol on the palm of one hand and toning Cho on the other.

I find the energy of the toned Cho hand is much stronger. Even as I am typing this, the energy of that hand feels stronger, softer and more alive. When I repeat on the other hand they both feel better.

You can also do this with "Sei" for the mental emotional symbol and "Hon" for the distance symbol. All have slightly different effects.

I highly recommend that you stop reading right now and try this exercise.

Reiki Symbol Balls

Reiki symbol balls are a fun multipurpose tool to play with and explore.

To create a "Cho" ball (you can repeat with other symbols too)

Place your hands around an imaginary baseball between your hands so that the hands cover as much of the ball as possible.

Think of the power symbol if you know it, (just think of Reiki if you don't) and tone a long, drawn out "Cho" into your palms.

Play with the ball:

Lift away one hand, leaving the ball in the other, and scan the shape of the ball.

Place the ball in the air in front of you, and ask it to stay in that spot even when you move your hands away.

Then reach for and scan the ball. Draw a power symbol near the ball and compare the energy of the drawn power symbol to the energy of the symbol ball.

Most report the energy of the ball is stronger.

Create a "Sei" Ball with the Mental Emotional symbol and compare the energy to the energy of the "Cho" ball

Expanding the Cho Ball to Create a Space

Create another Cho Ball between your hands and place it in the air in front of you. Then place your hands around the ball and intend the ball to stick to your hands and expand the ball, letting go, and then expanding the ball in another direction and repeat until the ball is large enough to reach into.

Outside the ball do the exercise to measure the energy of the space (described above) by checking the energy between your hands and the energy it takes to raise and lower your hands. Now reach your hands inside the ball and compare the energy inside to the energy outside.

Now expand the ball further and stand inside it, and repeat the exercise to compare the energy inside and outside.

Exit the ball, and compare the energy inside the ball with the energy next to the ball and repeat the exercise.

The full size Reiki ball is a great alternate way to create an energy bubble to surround you, (just tell it to stay with you), or to create an energy bubble around your Reiki table, or even to surround a car or house with white light. It has a different and many people find stronger feel than doing using the power symbols without sound.

Voice to The Horizon

This is a great exercise for working with Actors, Singers, People who do public speaking, and people who have a hard time talking to groups.

When we feel we want to say something that people may not want to hear, or we don't feel confidant, or we are shy, we put energy blocks in our energy field to try and encourage ourselves to not speak if we don't have too.

First make a test "OM" and see how it feels to make this sound.

To remove these blocks on yourself, stand and place your hand palm outward near your throat. Focus on the Horizon (or where the horizon would be if a wall wasn't in the way). Make a tone (such as Om) and slowly push the palm outward in front of you, intending to sweep clear the path for your voice.

Repeat with the other hand, sweeping in the other direction.

Repeat the sweep using first one hand and then the other over the heart and belly.

Leaving your hands at your sides repeat the test "OM" and see if it feels different.

To do this exercise with clients, guide them through the instructions, and use your hands to assist the energy sweep the client is making through their energy field.

Using Sound to Work on Energy Blockages

Scanning with Sound

The voice can be used in scanning. Everyone is energetically wired a little bit differently. Some people will find this method of scanning is easier than feeling the energy entirely with their hands. Others people will find this more difficult, but it also takes many a little practice to get the hang of it.. This is an exploration, a chance to try different things. Try this exercise on 3-5 people.

The client can be laying down, sitting or standing. The practitioner makes a soft steady tone in their throat and passes their hand 4-8 inces over the client. Allow the voice to relax and stay at the same level of effort, and notice what happens to the voice as you scan the client. As you scan with your hand, the voice may waiver, change tone, or get stronger or weaker.

The variations are caused by the interaction of your energy with the energy of the client. If uncertain if the variations in sound are created by the interaction with the client or just your moving your hand, repeat the scanning motion away from the client.

Ice Pick

This is a way of breaking up energy blocks. Often when energy does not go in as deeply as it might during a Reiki session, it is because there is an energy block in the way.

There are a number of ways to get through these blocks. One is to simply keep the hands over the area until they melt. Another is to lift or pull them off the body. Some blocks are still resistant however, this technique uses sound generated by the hands to break up these blockages.

Many of us as children used our hands to mimic breaking an egg over someone's head. To make the sharp cracking sound, use the bottom of the top section of the thumb on the nails of the index and middle finger forming a circle.Use the palm or fingers of the other hand to slap against the circle to make a sharp "Cracking an egg" sound.

If you find a dense area in someones energy field, scan the block and get a sense of how it feels on the surface and to scan through it. Then make the hand sound 5-15 times thorugh the dense area. Repeat the scan again and see how it has changed the energy field.

The sound will cause the feeling of the energy field to change. To me it goes from feeling like a smooth gelatinous solid to neutral temperature chipped ice which can be easily lifted out of the blocked area. Clients often report a sense of ease as well, as if weight was lifted off the area.

Toning into muscles

I took Jonathon Goldman's sound healing classes including the 9 day intensive in 1996. I learned how to do overtoning. Playing with the shape of the mouth and making a steady vocal tone so that two or more sounds emerge from the body at once. In the years I played with this technique, I discovered that if I toned into a muscle, I could get almost any tight muscle to relax in seconds.

(If you havent heard overtoning, you can watch me doing it here at about the two minute mark on this youtube video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KVi3X-16ag )

A full description of overtoning is beyond the scope of this document. But you can start experimenting by using the word "More". Pretend you are a child goofing off with the word. Sound out the word slowly, and play with the position of your lips, tongue and throat distorting the word until you can hear some of the overtones.

Being able to do this well takes a lot of practice. Don't be discouraged if you can't do it well right away.Fortunately you do not need to be able to do it well to be able to use the sound to loosen up tight muscles.

Find a tight muscle with your fingers and leave one finger on it and get a sense of how tight it is. This technique does a fairly small area, so leave the finger there to allow you to measure the reaction of that area to what you are doing.

Make your "Mmmooorrree" tone into the muscle with an intention of putting Reiki into the muscle with your voice, and then check to see the result. Typically a 5 to 10 second tone will lead to a notable softening of the tght muscle tissue. The client will often feel some kind of release as well, from energy surging through the body, to feeling the shoulder or other muscle drop.

Toning in STEREO

Multiple people can do an even more powerful version of this technique, by toning in stereo.

This is an ideal technique to do on either side of the back. Each person finds a tight muscle, and tones into it at the same time.

The effect is amazing, the separate tones create different vibrations and overtones in the body of the client.

Power Finger Exercise

This is an exercise I have been playing with for the past year with various clients and classrooms. It started out as a joke, but turned out to have some very powerful and useful results, especially with clients that have a hard time releasing negativity out of the body.

Ask the client to extend their middle "Power" finger of each hand, and make an "Arrgh" sound. Have them think about everything that has been frustrating them, especially have them focus on the things that are frustrating, but that are not clearly a particular persons fault, as these are the things most people try to rationalize away their emotions about.

The practitioner should encouage them to be expressive, and also help push the energy down the clients back and up the front (in the air- not on the client's body).

Continue for 2-5 minutes or until the client seems tired of venting.

Clients often report feeling much better and more relaxed after this exercise. Because the middle finger is the most powerful energetically, and connects to the palm chakra of the hand, this exercise is also helpful for strengthening the ability to do Reiki by clearing this energy meridian.

Connecting to the Realm of Angels

This technique uses Sound healing in combination with distance healing to connect to the realm of the angels.

This technique is a variation of the healing the levels of the soul technique described elsewhere on my website.

Create a distance symbol, and ask to connect to your "Angel of Healing" or simply "whatever Angel is most appropriate to connect to now"

Feel the energy of the angel in your hands, then raise your hands above it, and notice how its energy shifts. Closest to the earth the energy is something you can talk to in a conversational manner, as you rise upward it is more and more abstract and cloudlike.

Sing a long drawn out “hallelujah” as you raise your hand up and down the inverted energy cone of the angel, and greet the angel. Once you feel a strong connection, you can make a request in the form of a picture or phrase of what blessing you wouild like from the angel.

Give thanks to the Angel, and then lift its energy back into the universe.

This is just a note in need of a home

2/26/07 there are 41 references on Google to Kurama birthplace Reiki. Two are for my book, one is mine the other is the people who did the cover, the rest is various people who have been there or talked about it, two are connected to Wikipedia (their map site)

3/1/07 Same search shows 128 references.