The 5 pillars, or principles, of Reiki, are very simple when you look at them
But they are very difficult to follow and live your life by them
They require a high level of self-awareness that most people don’t have
The 5 pillars of Reiki are also called the 5 principles of Reiki, and they are:
- Do not be angry
- Do not worry
- Be grateful
- Work diligently
- Be kind
Usui Sensei is the founder of his Reiki practice and he wrote:
“The secret art of inviting happiness, the miraculous medicine for all diseases.
At least for today:
Do not be angry
Do not worry
Be grateful
Work with diligence
Be kind to every living thing
Every morning and evening, join your hands in meditation and pray with all your heart.
State in your mind and chant with your mouth.
For improvement of mind and body.
This doesn’t mean we cannot feel things like anger and worry, but we do not allow those feeling to take root and grow in our minds
If you can live by these 5 pillars, you will see how incredibly effective they are at improving all aspects of your life
Do not be angry
Anger is an important and healthy emotion to feel
We cannot pretend that we don’t have negative emotions without creating an issue that requires shadow work
To learn more about shadow work, check out my many articles on that
The point isn’t to never be angry
The point is to not allow negative energy to sink into you and take root
One way to find out if that has happened is to pay attention to how you handle being angry
When your spouse does something that makes you angry, what are you thinking about?
Are you thinking about just that one point that made you angry, or are you thinking about that time they forgot the trash too?
If you get angry and think about all the things that made you angry in the past along with the new instance, you have allowed anger to take root in your life
Do not worry
Worry comes from being afraid of the future
You don’t want to ignore someone major in your life, but being stuck in worry isn’t helping you
When you start to feel worried, acknowledge that feeling and validate it
But don’t get stuck there
Think about what you can do to prevent that worry
If there is nothing you can do, think about how you can make the impact less
Once you have figured out what you can do now, use affirmations to let go of the worry
Say something like: “I am [what you are doing] to help this situation. That is all I can do. I let go of the things I cannot control”
Most of the time, the things we worry about aren’t going to happen
It may take some practice to let that worry go
But keep trying
Once you can let it go, you can think clearly
Be grateful
Being grateful is a great way to help avoid worry
Gratitude and fear cannot live in the brain at the same time
Being grateful is a state that you exist in
It is easy to say that you are grateful, but it is hard to live in a state of gratitude
It is acknowledging being grateful for things as simple as opening our eyes in the morning, or being grateful for an event in our lives that change our life course
Our brains pay attention to what we think is important
If we think of negative things all the time, we will see more and more negative things
If we search for things to be grateful for, we will find more and more reasons to be grateful
So make searching for ways to be grateful part of your daily life
Make a point to find at least one thing to be grateful for every day and do not end your day until your find it
Even if all you can find is being grateful for a warm bed to sleep in
The more you do this, the easier finding things will get
Once finding one thing to be grateful for gets easy, start looking for two things every day
You’ll be amazed how much brighter your life gets
Work diligently
Work diligent means showing care in one’s actions
Working diligently means caring about the work that you put our and being mindful of your work
This helps us remember not to go through the motions when doing a task
When we do anything in life, it should have our full attention, care, and focus
It can be easy to go through the motions while checking off boxes
Maybe you are doing one thing physically and doing something else in your mind
When you focus on the now, you can do a better job and remember to be proud of yourself
One of the best ways to ground yourself is to do a simple task and focus 100% on that task
We have gotten so used to living in the future that we forget to acknowledge what we have accomplished now
I am one of those people
I get so focused on the end goal that I forget to be proud of the work and effort I put in every day
The longer I do that, the more burnt out and miserable I get
Be kind to every living thing
We learn in Reiki that everything is connected
So by being kind, you raise your vibration
Raising your vibration attracts good things to do and raises your quality of life
I know it can be easy to forget that
I know someone right now that is cruel to everyone she knows and somehow gets everything she wants
But even if she gets everything she wants, she is miserable
If we do our best to be kind to everyone, we will get priceless love and peace in our soul
This doesn’t mean being at peak compassion all the time and letting people walk all over you
Remember that you are a living thing too so you need to also be kind to yourself
You cannot be kind to yourself if you allow someone to hurt and take advantage of you
Be kind to those people, but remove them from your life if you need to
Being kind of a state of being
And it can mean a lot of different things that are both big and small
Look for ways to be kind every day and it will become your default