Energy Building

These energy building practices help you call in love and light, from the sky or earth, to fill yourself up and extend that love and light to other beings.

Energy Building
There are three basic steps to this practice: bringing in the light, arm and body patting, and clapping and chanting. Do each part for a few minutes. (Source: James Twyman)

1. Step 1: Imagine light coming in through your crown and in to your heart. Breathe in and say to yourself "light be in me." Visualize your heart on fire (full of light) while holding your breath for 3 seconds. While exhaling, say out loud "light be as me" and visualize the light going in all directions and blessing everything in its path.
2. Step 2: Hold your arms out, palms down. Start patting from your shoulder down to the hand, then flip your hand over and pat the other side of your arm. Then pat the other arm. You may also pat your body, dance, jump, etc. Be creative.
3. Step 3: Chant "Hi" enthusiastically while clapping. This means "yes" in Japanese. Feel the energy of Yes.
4. Step 4: Repeat steps 1 and 2.
5. Step 5: Chant "Hu". This means the power of God. Feel the power of God within.
6. Step 6: Repeat steps 1 and 2.
7. Step 7: Chant "open", while visualizing three great streams of light coming down into your body.

Ground and Let the Energy of Mother Earth Fill You
When you are full of love and light, it seals and protects your aura and there is no room for negative energies to enter. You are also in a better place to extend this love and light to others.

1. Stand or sit comfortably with your feet flat on the floor.
2. Holding your hands at waist level in front of you, touch your fingertips together with your fingers pointing away from you. This acts as the "third leg of the stool" and helps to ground you.
3. From the bottom of your feet, send your roots down deep into the earth. You may visualize your roots like the roots of a tree.
4. Consciously set your intention on grounding.
5. When you feel grounded, let go and let the energy of Mother Earth rise up through your roots and into your body, filling you up.
   

Call in Your Energies
When we do spiritual practices, especially healing, we are "putting ourselves out there," extending ourselves (including our energetic selves) out into the world. This can sometimes leave us vulnerable and over-extend our energies.

To rebuild your energy core, call in your energies.

1. Visualize (or feel) the extension of your aura, way out there.
2. Quietly to yourself, call in your energies with your intention.
3. Visualize (or feel) your aura coming back in toward you until it is only a foot or so around you.
4. Hold that feeling and hold the energies in around you consciously for a few minutes or as long as you feel comfortable.

Bring Yourself into the Present Time Mantra

If you ever find yourself "lost" in the past, try this mantra to bring yourself into the present time. While it is useful to know about past lives and learn from past events, it is not helpful to dwell in them for long periods of time.

A useful visualization for this is to think of your life (or lifetimes) as a gauge where the pointer can move through different times, years, or ages. This mantra will help you keep your pointer in the present time by bringing you back from where ever you are to the present time.

First, speak this prayer aloud:

• Help keep my pointer in the present time.

Next, speak this mantra aloud while visualizing the statements. Fill in the brackets with the current year and date and information about your location.

• It is [year]. It is [month and day]. It is [season]. I am in [continent]. I am in [country]. I am in [state]. I am in [city]. I am at [street address]. I am sitting in [location] on [piece of furniture], which is on the floor, which is on the Earth.
  

Body-Mind Awareness

Yoga is excellent for establishing or re-tuning into the body-mind connection -- that balance between listening to your head and listening to your body. If you find yourself getting caught in the loop of reaction (whether it is an emotional reaction to a thought or a series of negative thoughts triggered by an emotion) these practices will help you break the cycle and prepare you to do other practices that will restore your balance.

Body-mind awareness helps to anchor you in the present moment and strengthens the immune system.

Feeling the Inner Body
Eckhart Tolle explains this practice on pages 52-53 of his book, A New Earth. We will paraphrase the practice here.

• Focus your awareness on your hands (your eyes may be open or closed).
• Feel the inner aliveness inside them. The energy may feel like a slight tingling at first.
• Hold your attention there for awhile. The feeling may strengthen.
• Now focus your awareness on your feet and feel the inner aliveness there.
• When you feel ready, feel the aliveness in your hands and feet at the same time.
• Then move your awareness to other parts or your body until you feel the aliveness in your whole body.

Eckhart Tolle calls this the "inner body" -- "life energy, the bridge between form and formlessness."

Thank Your Body
Another way to tune into and listen to your body is to say thank you to each part of your body. This is particularly helpful if you find yourself caught up in your thoughts or have been experiencing chronic illness or pain for so long that you have become somewhat numb to how your body is really feeling.

• For this practice, first relax and tune into your body. Then focus on each part of your body (including your organs) one at a time. Thank each part for its service to you, naming specific things that you are grateful for.
  

You can also use this practice to reconnect to your body wisdom. If you listen, the body will give you clues that tell you what is going on. For example, your right shoulder hurts every time you think about a specific person or situation, or your tooth hurts every time you eat brownies. Your body is trying to tell you how to take care of yourself.

• To reconnect to your body wisdom, after thanking each part of your body, tell your body that you will listen to its clues and that you will respond by taking better care of yourself. Finally, thank your body for talking to you.

Get Grounded

To help you stay grounded, or remind you of the many ways there are to get grounded, here is a list of the methods we use and that we give to our Reiki Level 1 students.

Staying grounded helps keep your mind clear and focused throughout the day. It also helps your energies flow and creates a pathway where old “stuff” can freely flow out of you and into the soil where it can become nutrition for future growth.

Staying grounded helps you stay present and helps to keep your aura clear. The following methods will help you get grounded. As with everything, you will find the ones that work the best for you.

• Sit and Press Your Fingertips Together – Sit up with your back straight and your feet flat on the floor. Press the fingertips of each hand together. Breath deeply, sending the breath down your legs, into the floor, and into the Earth.
• Send Your Roots into the Earth – Standing or sitting, imagine your roots on the souls of your feet, like tree roots, and send them down deep into the earth. Send them all the way to the core of the Earth. Feel your roots merge there with all the roots of other beings. Let the energy flow into you as well, anchoring you in your own special place on Earth.
• Send Your Grounding Rods into the Earth – Standing or sitting, imagine grounding rods on the souls of your feet and send them down 40 to 80 feet into the earth. Remember to pull your grounding rods up before you leave.
• Breathe – Send the breath down through your body and into the earth. With each breath, let Reiki energy flow into the Earth and flow from the Earth into you.
• Eat and Drink Plenty of Water – Eating food will help you ground. If you are having a difficult time grounding, eating some meat is especially helpful. If you are vegetarian, try root vegetables.
  
• Hug a Tree – Stand with your back to the tree or hug the tree. Trees are like living Reiki examples. They send their roots into the earth and reach their limbs up toward the sky. Feel Reiki light flowing through the tree, feel it flowing through you.
• Lay on the Ground – Feel the Earth breath beneath you. Breathe. Listen.
• Wear Red – Deep red is the color of the Root Chakra. Keep it close to your skin.
• Connect with Nature – Walk in the woods, spend time in your garden, listen to a stream.
• Carry Pocket Stones or Wear Stone Jewelry– Carry or wear deep reds, browns, black – Jasper, Obsidian, Hematite or whatever stone you feel drawn too.
• Be Kind – Do something kind for another person. Smile. Give a kind word.
• Avoid using, and being in the presence of, drugs and alcohol – Intoxicants disconnect us from the Earth and can cause disturbances in our energy fields.

Sources: Compiled from our Reiki training and experience.