What a difference a week makes.  Or perhaps what a difference a second attunement makes, though it’s not “supposed” to make any difference at all.

I practiced using Reiki every day this week, in short bursts, a few minutes at a time.  On Wednesday evening, I received a check-in e-mail from Michelle to her four students: “How ya doin’, let me know if you have any questions, see you Sunday.”  Given the invitation, I shared my feelings thus far.

I wrote to her that though I had made an effort to keep my expectations in check before my attunement, I had been anticipating it for two months, and I’d been looking to Reiki as an exciting new path for me, and I was now thoroughly frustrated and confused and disappointed at not feeling anything different happening, and I felt silly moving my hands around my chakras while not feeling anything, and I believe in Reiki, but a skeptical voice was reminding me that as far as my personal experience was concerned, both receiving and now acting as a conduit, Reiki might as well not exist.  Ack.

She responded on Thursday morning with a 4-minute-long voice mail (which is apparently the maximum length, as she was cut off), full of compassion and reminders to be gentle with myself and most importantly, what she felt intuitively was happening for me.  She said when we first connected, she could feel that I was very much in my head, and I’ve read so much about Reiki and thought so much about it and put so much ONTO it, what is happening for me now is that I need to let go and get out of my head and get out of my own way and have trust and have faith.  Because that is the nature of Reiki.

I had the immediate sense that she was right.  Her words felt true for me.  And in addition to my gratitude for her thoughtful feedback, I had something else positive to tell her.  After my e-mail to her Wednesday night, I showered and got in bed and began to practice, and for the first time, I felt a physical sensation unlike any I’d ever experienced and thus attributed to Reiki energy.  The best word I can use to describe it is a “buzz”.  It was like a head-to-toe buzz, not quite a full-out vibration, but sort of a humming in my body.  And the word that was coming to me was “allow”.  And I thought, “Of course I haven’t felt anything, because it’s something I’ve never felt before, and how would I know what it felt like unless I allowed the new sensation in?”

Over the course of the week, that was my lone tangible experience with the energy, though I continued to practice.  There were other signs that something had changed.  Michelle told us in class that we could expect a kind of physical clearing – perhaps we would need more sleep, or want less caffeine or alcohol.  For me, I was challenged when it came to eating.  I would feel hungry, or I would just know I needed to eat as it had been hours, but I didn’t have much of an appetite, especially once I started eating – I would feel done right away – and then whatever I did eat wouldn’t sit right.  Food had become a total mystery.  In our second class today, Michelle asked what I felt – not what I thought, what I felt – was happening there.  I feel that my body is integrating the new energy and figuring out how to exist in this new state.

Mental/emotional clearing is typical post-Reiki II attunement, but I had some of that going on too.  I wigged out on a couple close friends of mine this week.  With one of them, I jumped to a conclusion and overreacted, sending her a detailed e-mail about how something she hadn’t done yet and wasn’t planning to do made me feel.  With another, I took what could have been a compliment and made it into an insult and cried.  In both cases, I realized I was spinning out but didn’t know how to be rational and felt like I was kinda losing it.  (And in both cases, these dear friends responded with love and understanding.)

So it’s been clear to me that something is happening, even if it wasn’t what I wanted or expected, which is to have a definitive sense of the Reiki energy while I am intending it to flow.

I shared all of the above in class today, which had something to do with why our class ran long.  Really long.  It was supposed to end at 2:00, and we went until 3:00.  As with last week, we concluded with attunements.  Again, a second one wasn’t necessary, but Michelle does it anyway, just because.

And I’ve been buzzing off and on, mostly on, ever since.  As I do every Sunday night, I went across the hall to watch TV with the neighbors, and beforehand, I asked for their permission to give Reiki to their cat, which I’d been looking forward to trying.  I did so, and then I REALLY felt it.  Now it’s almost as if I can’t not feel it.  I suppose I could shut it down, but as long as it’s flowing freely, I’m keeping it open.

There was a commercial in the 90s for the California State Lottery, shot from the perspective of a guy on his motorcycle midday, with the voiceover: “This is weird.  It’s good.  But it’s weird.”  That’s pretty much how I feel now.