Welcome to the latest Reiki blog hop. The theme for this hop was set by myself and I invited others to write about consent. I deliberately left this vague and as a one-word remit as I was intrigued as to what others would have to say…
CONSENT
Over the years, I have spent much time pondering this as often mostly it’s not a problem but when it is a problem then it feels to be a contentious issue and one that if you speak freely about then well… you never know where it can go… What I do know is that I’ve encountered some rather unpleasant experiences in the past when discussing this…
The reason that this topic floated up to the surface of my mind again, was that a few months back I attended a day’s workshop, this was not Reiki or even healing but in the general holistic arena and as such I fully expected to be spending my day with a bunch of strangers most of which would be in to some kind of healing and yeah… I most definitely expected to encounter a Reiki Master as…well… it’s pretty much ubiquitous these days and seems that where ever you are, you are never more than 3 metres away from one of the attuned…
So the day starts and all is going in a rather quiet and laid back fashion or maybe it was that I was still half asleep as kickoff time was an hour before this night owl is usually functioning at an even semi-human level… But 20 minutes in and the door bursts open with much puffing and panting and wild armed gesticulating about the awful traffic and oh! so hard to find this place! blah blah blah and very little regard for disrupting the peace and quiet and no attempt at any form of apology for the tardiness…
But… it’s before 11am… so I’m still layered in the teflon of sleepiness but I do hear somebody to my right mutter… yeah… we came in from there also and we managed to get here ok and on time… I wish them all into silence and pray that I make it through the next 6 hours without my inner animal coming out to feed on live bait (my higher self doesn’t rise until at least noon…) I could smell the way that this was going to unfold and unfortunately… I was not proven wrong…
It got to that part of the day that always feels like you’re sat in Alcoholic’s Anonymous (not that I’ve ever been there other than in my imagination…) you’re in a circle of strangers and one person is stood up telling you all to introduce yourself to each other… The Arm Waver was up again…
I’M A REIKI MASTER!!!
I zone out in the same way that I zone out when I get a phone call from anybody who teaches my kids and rings and starts the conversation with their job title… it makes me silent shriek… yes!!!! but what is your NAME?!!! actually, that’s a complete lie as when it happens via my phone, I go on to an auto- loop of – yes dear! what’s your name?! until they break their pre-prepared script to actually converse with me rather than expecting socially compliant obsequiousness to their (in their opinion) vastly superior status to mine… to be quite frank, I find it somewhat rather rude (which is typical British understatement for it makes me madder than hell and I’d sooner push lit matches under my toenails than continue this conversation…) but a much greater sin in my eyes that outweighs all of this is that over the years, I’ve kind of come to the conclusion that interesting people seldom start a conversation by impressing upon you what they do… yeah yeah yeah…. I know there’s all this networking malarkey and top tips about elevator pitches… but I’m sorry… it bores me… and if you want to make sure I never speak to you again then please do go ahead and introduce yourself by telling me what you do and how amazing you are whilst completing failing to give me your name…
So… all morning… we get to listen to Reiki this and Reiki that interspersed with little condemning remarks about how Religious people are not spiritual like wot we are! Oh… and then the ‘psychic’ flashes as this person just can’t help picking up other people’s vibes and then goes on to foist unasked for insights and intuitions on the poor victim who looks very much like a lamb to the slaughter and very uncomfortable and reluctant to speak up in a room full of stranger(s)…
I breathe… I breathe again… I imagine myself sinking into Mother Earth and just letting it all flow through…
By now, I feel like an observer watching through a two-way mirror…
Then it just tips a little too far… I’m not sure what prompted it but now this person is up on their feet and full of pomp and pageantry and flouncing and flailing their arms around and announcing that they are going to give Reiki to everyone in the room… The old dormant reptile part of my brain awakens… the part that was always watching via peripheral vision for hassles when I spent years in Casino pits… Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the Mexican Wave of eyeball rolls that spread across the room… but still no one speaks… and I feel that we have a very large and very obvious elephant in the room… and yeah… I know maybe I should be more serene and rise above such things but… my inner croupier has come alive and just as when I used to spot a dolly being placed incorrectly on a wrong number on a roulette table… I shoot both hands up into the air and in a voice that is flat and calm and has many many times brought a whole room ten times the size of this into a complete silence… I boom…
STOP!
So… the whole room now faces me and Arm Waver has gone into temporary stasis with a look of shock spreading across their baffled face… and now comes to glare at me, barely masking the annoyance that I’ve interrupted their performance art Reiki donation…
I stare back… and quietly say… No thank you, please keep your Reiki, our energy is fine over here…
But you see… It’s not the Reiki I object to… it’s this person’s attitude…
Basically, on some level, I feel as though I have been violated… I feel as though I have encountered a Reiki Rapist…
I have strong objections about unsolicited energy exchanges… for me, there needs to be a level of trust and open communication in the process… I want consensual healing (Did you hear my Barry White impersonation? 😉 ) … It’s not acceptable to go around willy nilly blasting people with what at the end of the day are you own personal beliefs no matter if that energy does come from source and we are all fundamentally interconnected… Not everybody wants to feel that or is ready to cope with what arises from entering into energy work… It’s hard work! You’re often opening cans of worms that you never knew existed… I know a guy who suffered for years and years with OCD… he tried all manner of methods and medications and then one day his wife brought a Buddha statue into the living room… She didn’t know why she’d done it, it had just appealed to her… a big fat heavy wooden Buddha with a relentless cheery grin… The husband said… Why have you got that? She replied… I don’t know… but I think I heard it somewhere that when you bring a Buddha into your house, you invite him into your life… A few weeks later and the husband is drifting through a bookstore and returns home with a book… the Buddha has indeed come for him… slowly he begins to pick apart his thinking habits and he puts them back together again in a way that causes him a less stressful way to approach life… and several years on, he is indeed much calmer… though the wife, she does occasionally wave a jocular fist in the direction of the Buddha and say… Oh! You so funny!!! Yes! My husband is so serene…but in the old days, he used to only check 27 times that the door was locked and now he does 108…
It’s just not cool to take it upon yourself to decide for somebody else what they need…
I know I’d be pretty pissed if I sat down in a restaurant and ordered something delicious, only to have a plate of something I’d not asked for put in front of me because someone took a look at me and decided that I needed a healthier option…
Ah… consent… my mind ping pongs along in a game of free association football and I go from strutting peacocks and waving arms and primal primitive reptilian instincts and soon I arrive at bees…
Oh! Mr humble bumble bee… Do you ask the flowers for permission before you dip…
I’m not sure that he does… I’m sure he just bumbles along just doing bee stuff because that’s what bees do…
But then again… I’m not sure that he needs to as surely flowers are just doing flower stuff and if they didn’t benefit from this interaction then I’m sure the Darwinism mechanisms would have put paid to this long term relationship long before now…
And as Picasso said…
I let life reveal itself to me as a flower does to its pollinator
Who knows what the agendas and thoughts and motives are of the flowers and the bees…
Though a couple of things I observe about my dear humble bumble friend; firstly is that he may have landed on me very many times, but he’s never tried to climb into my ear… and when I’m silent and wait for him to move along and get back on his way, he does so without causing me any harm…
The other thing I observe and I think should be noted by inappropriate Arm Wavers everywhere… is that if you flap and shout and get right up in his face… He will sting you… He’s very good at asserting NO means NO! 😉
You can follow the links to read my neighbours posts… it’s ok… you have pre-approved consent to go visit them 🙂
The pure and blessed way 
Loved every bit of this. Yes they are about within six feet of one another. This was a great read and when I go to classes and such there are people who just want to throw their magic power on someone to make sure they are validated.
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Yeah… you do get them…
I watched a really lovely programme the other evening about Grayson Perry going to a prison to talk to young offenders about what it’s like to be a man in today’s world… He connected wonderfully with people and opened them up to talk about their personal experiences…
It was nice to watch as I think that they probably had no idea who he was and he knew that and at no point do he say – oh! I won the Turner Prize! he justly quietly spoke and said that he’d come to hear about them… I think healing takes very many forms…
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I adore the description and it made me think of several mediums and healers that I have had the desire to run over rather than had the misfortune to be in contact with and yes! it bothers me when that kind of energy just assumes that I want it within my own. I have encountered a few instances and until your post I never did think to say Stop!
I will be saying just that should I ever end up in that kind of company again, thanks for the reminder 🙂
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It’s taken me many years to get to that point… 😉
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This is a great story, Karen! I have to say that one of the things I love about tarot cards is that there is no accidental or uncontrolled providing of unsolicited psychic readings for people. I know a lot of psychics and it’s almost impossible to just carry on a conversation with them without their starting to “read” you. And then half the time they start complaining about so-and-so who always wants free readings from them! I keep my mouth shut but am sorely tempted to say, get a deck of cards. Then there is a clear beginning and clear ending to the reading. No cards out–I’m just talking with you as a friend. Slinging cards–now you’re getting a reading, and yes, you now owe me money. 🙂 The situation you describe with the Reiki Misfit is exactly why I don’t use the term Reiki Master for myself and discourage my students from using it. You can’t swing a stary cat without hitting a Reiki Master. 😉 She can’t even manage herself or her time, let alone master herself or anything else. Sigh. Lots of buttons on this one. Sorry for the rant! 🙂 Great topic!
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Joy, I wish you lived closer… I’d so love to sit down with a cuppa and swap toe-curling tales of Nam-nasties and Psycho-mediums with you! Loved your rant! Thanks 🙂
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Oh, don’t you know it–I keep wondering if a trip to England is in my future (I did a term in London studying theatre in 1989) and if so, if we could get together! Not that there really are any practical travel plans for anytime soon, but maybe someday.
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Well… you never know… and I’m sure stranger things have happened… and… oh… the thought is out there now… 😀
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Oh how I howled with laughter…yes, yes and thrice yes! This has happened to me before now, and some of the egos you encounter are beyond real! Oh dear, yes! I try to say to myself (albeit with balled fists and gritted teeth) that this is just another lesson in tolerance and patience, but in truth I just want to smash them right in the masters. It’s funny because I was rewriting a piece about consent myself the other day, and I found myself inadvertently going off on a bit of a rant (which I then had to curb for the benefit of the Reiki 1s I was due to be teaching, and it was part of their handbook!) so there must be something in the air!
Brilliant and funny as usual Mrs S, I look forward to the next installment and pray the universe brings us both some respite form the hand waving ego-masters for at least a few moments…
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Ah… blogging… because punching people in the face is illegal! 😀 There are a few more things around consent that get me ranty but you can’t let them all out at once or you start to sound bonkers! :D. LOL here’s to respite! I’ve been lucky with my students – I teach 1:1 and mostly they’ve come to me because they’ve heard me off-road ramble on something or another…
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Great post Karen. Sadly there are a lot of people who would like to force their beliefs on you. In this case in your article. push their energy upon you. My biggest learning and still is to create a bubble around me to shield my own energy. What I find fascinating is the many people that you have described here that are like that in the spiritual community. Surly through going through our journey, we learn to give people the required space then need and also not to force your opinions on others. I guess we are all learning all the time 🙂
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Lol yes… mostly I give them a wide berth as they are very easy to spot… but then sometimes you get stuck in a confined space with one and really… the whole bubble thing is all well and good but why should you have to protect yourself… If you were in the cinema and someone kept kicking your chair and talking over the film, wouldn’t you tell them to quit it? I think maybe the reason that they are so many of these types in ‘spiritual’ arenas is because people rarely challenge the behaviour… yes, we are all still learning all of the time and I think sometimes part of that learning is knowing when to sit someone on the naughty step for a time out… 😀
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