Brighton Reiki - Rifa Bhunnoo

My head is spinning today, mainly because the shock of coming back to work after 10 days in LA was a bit much. LA was cool, weird, funny, big, wet, hot, green, dry and great for shopping . I mainly liked Silverlake, Pasadena, Hollywood, Joshua Tree, Venice Beach, Santa Monica, Rodeo Drive and Beverly Hills. I mainly ate Mexican, Chinese, Vietnamese, American, Japanese, Italian, Middle Eastern, more Mexican, plenty of coffee and too many cakes. I had the best time with Stephen, Jane, Chris, Kris, Rachel, and a bunch of other people in bars and at gigs. I did A LOT of shopping, mainly at Forever 21, LuluLemon and Amoeba. If you go to LA in January, make sure you take a brolly.

I’m reading Deepak Chopra’s Book of Secrets, and it’s making me feel a bit spaced out. That could also be lack of sleep from a strange kind of jet-lag. I just finished Autobiography of a yogi before we went to LA, and stumbled across the Self-Realisation Fellowship temple on Sunset Boulevard. It was a lovely peaceful place on one of the most hectic roads in LA, and next to the Hubbard HQ. Maybe the chanting is cancelling out the gamma rays from the aliens.

Anyway, work is important to keep us Reiki Masters grounded, so stick to your day-job until you feel ready for the next level. Personally, I find it difficult at the moment to get all my job satisfaction from treating reiki clients and teaching workshops, but I think gradually that will change as I get more financially secure. I find that by working in the ‘real world’ I can reach more and more people and learn more about myself in the process. Your spiritual life is not ‘over there’ somewhere - it’s not separate from your ‘real life’. Your spiritual life is every moment of every day, take notice of it now.

Did you see Jamie’s Fowl dinners the other night? I always buy free range eggs, and have never bought a chicken in my life so the next step for me is to give up eggs altogether. In the yogic philosophy, eggs are not to be eaten anyway, but milk, cheese and yoghurts are OK. So the western definition of Vegan or Pure Vegetarian is quite different. Western Vegans have nothing to do with any animal products including diary, honey, silk or leather. Eastern Lacto-vegetarians find eggs disgusting (scrambled, poached, fried etc) but some quite happily eat eggs in cakes. I went to a wedding recently where the yogi bride was Vegan and her 4 vegetarian friends were given a delicious Indian style meal. However, the other 40 odd guests chomped happily on beef carcasses (The cow is sacred in India).

Anyway, Jamie’s program reminded us all of how horrible battery hens are treated for their cheap eggs. The govt are bringing in new standards for chicken production (for meat and egg production) but mainly what shocked me was the disgusting bi-products. Mishaped eggs are used to create ‘liquid egg’ which is used in cheap food products and the ‘long egg’ (a vile sausage of eggy leftovers) is used by fast food places and cafes for egg slices in sandwiches and pizzas. YUK. Cheap egg liquid horrors probably lurk in most products so it’s worth checking ingredients.

I hope Jamie will take a look at the horrible way milk is produced in this country soon.

i wrote a long blog about my current job and then got paranoid, so deleted it.

Reiki works wonders in the work place. When you are finding people irritating, bullying or just plain lazy, send some loving reiki around the place. i’ve used reiki when I am just stuck on a project and can’t see a way out. After the reiki everything seems to fall into place as if by magic.

Reiki is not just something you do when you’re in a relaxed state and giving yourself a nice treat or when you feel physically drained. Use it in your everyday situations or send reiki using distant healing to events in the future: those troublesome meetings, pay reviews and interviews.

If you’re looking for a new job, try writing a wish list of all the things you want from a job. Set aside your doubts, or negativity…don’t say ‘that salary is unrealistic’ or ‘there are no firms like this near me’ or ‘i’ll have to take a pay cut if i move out of london’. JUST WRITE THE LIST and put it somewhere safe. and if you get all or most of the things you wished for but you’re still not happy - refine the list.

BE SPECIFIC:

1. how much salary and bonuses do you want?

2. where do you want to work: locality, what sort of environment, what sort of office? or home-based?

3. flexible hours? or 9 to 5?

4. socialble or home alone? what sort of people?

5. what do you need to get real job satisfaction?

6. do you want to go self-employed? this list can be as long as you like.

WISH BIG - you will be amazed how opportunities will come to you, if you allow yourself to THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU REALLY WANT AND ASK THE UNIVERSE. Besides, it’s just a list, if you don’t believe me and don’t want to do it, then you haven’t gained anything, and if you DO IT and nothing happens, then you’ve not lost anything. But if you do it and it works, well done you for spending the time to think about your life. No-one else is going to think about it for you.

I’m reading Russell Brand’s biography at the moment and have to keep putting it down as the seediness is even more acute because his ‘history’ is so recent. He’s talking about things that happened to him in the last 2 or 3 years, and somehow that makes it all a bit too real - even for me. It’s a bit weird that he reminds me of a bloke I went out with when I was 16, who lived in New Cross. He was 23, and really should have known better. The boyf also had the long leggy indie look, glamourous druggie lifestyle, and I thought I was so clever to hang around him and his friends with my bright red lippy and black leather biker jacket. What a twit.we had a fun time over the summer holidays, but as soon as I started 6th form college, the boyf came to his senses when he met some of my friends, and realised that the age gap was too great. It wasn’t really a relationship but I tell you he broke my heart. i had a whole series of slightly camp bad boys who played records or guitar or both and then ended up marrying one. Thankfully we have substituted drugs and alcohol for chocolate and reiki so things are a lot less manic in our house.

so it’s only 3 days into the new year, I am back at work trying to sort out a load of mess that isn’t my fault, again. and quite frankly if the client can’t be bothered to check their own site why should I care? Apathy is catching. It dawned on me that if i go on a winter holiday before christmas, I missed out on the whole run-up to christmas but felt jet-lagged and fed up over the new year and then still got SAD by mid Jan- beginning of Feb. So this time, I stayed in the UK in Dec with the idea that I would go to Cuba for 14 nights in Jan with my hubby. having avoided the christmas run-up for the last 3 years, i quite enjoyed it this year - i felt quite christmasy and cosy and had such a fun and relaxing time with my in-laws that I thought I might not need another break afterall in jan. But oh no, the first week back to work has just made me more determined i need a proper holiday. I haven’t had even a short break for over a year, becuase as a freelancer, I am almost always too busy to take a holiday. And because my hubby mainly works weekends or is away for long periods of time at awkward times of the year, I really have to make sure I book flights well in advance so that he can’t get out of it. He really is a workoholic but don’t tell him i said that. So I thought we were both going to be happy going to Cuba. A nice luxury resort for me, the chance to swim with dolphins, and he would love Havana - the romance of revolution, the rum, the coffee etc. anyway, i had my doubts about going there for some reason, and I always go with my gut instinct now, when it comes to travelling - it’s much easier in the long run (I’ve managed to avoid the London Bombs and the Glastonbury floods for example) and I’ve just booked flights to Los Angeles instead as the hubby had such a great time last year when he went out there “for business” and it does feel as if California could be our next spiritual home - maybe we’ll get a chance to go to San Francisco too. And even though we’re flying with Virgin, i just know we’re going to be alright.

Have you read the Artist’s Way? It is essentially a self-help book - a 12 step-program which helps “uncover your creative abilities”. I really enjoy doing the program, as it were, because there are specific chapters on creative blocks such as the stuff your parents and teachers told you when you were a kid - stuff like “you’re no good at drawing” or “you are rubbish at singing”. Or more subtle things like giving up acting because neither parent bothered to show up on your opening night. *sniff*. Anyway, there is also a nice big chapter about MONEY - all our hang-ups about money, whether it’s right or good to be paid for our art, and by art I mean any kind of creative endeavor. the book has lots of nice exercises to really make you think about where these hang-ups come from, “what was the attitude of your parents to money?” etc. it worked for me, only in the sense that i realised (in theory and in practice) that the more generous I am, the more money I receive. Or most of the time, not even money comes to me, but the actual things i need seem to appear out of nowhere - unexpected gifts for example. the more you practice giving, the more the universe seems to give back. the more you give to yourself, the more you treat yourself - guilt-free and things that actually make you feel good long-term - the more the universe will give you those opportunities. this is the essence of manifesting. And of course, when you have everything you could possibly want or need (love, security, peace of mind, laughter, support, self-esteem) the more you can help others and the less needy you become.