Ready Set Reiki®️
A podcast about Reiki and Energy work. From the curious beginning to the seasoned Master Teacher. Welcoming all those who work with energy.
Join Reiki Master Tracy Searight as she guides you on a journey through this landscape of energy work. Each guest offers an in-depth unique perspective sharing their journey which had 'a profound effect on their healing and development as a person. Come along on this journey and explore all the possibilities of working with energy.
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Tracy Searight is an Educator, Yoga Teacher, Reiki Master, Grandmaster, Sound Practitioner, Author and Podcaster.
Find her on Feather Sister with Wellness living
offering training in 10 different systems of Reiki
Training in Chair Yoga, Yin Yoga and Restorative
Ready Set Reiki®️
Episode #85 Steve Gooch's Reiki Journey: From Spiritual Literature to Global Educator – Embracing Personal Development, Traditional Lineage, and Transformative Practices
What if the essence of healing lies not in treatment, but in personal spiritual development? Join us as we sit down with Steve Gooch, a distinguished artist, writer, and personal development coach, to unpack the profound and transformative journey of Reiki. Discover how Steve’s early love for spiritual literature led him to uncover the true potential of Reiki in 1996 and hear firsthand how he has shaped the Reiki landscape in Egypt, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia as a leading educator and practitioner. With three influential books to his name, Steve brings an unparalleled depth of knowledge and passion to the conversation.
In this enlightening episode, Steve redefines Reiki beyond the common misconceptions of it being merely a healing therapy. He emphasizes the critical role of self-treatment and inward focus, illustrating how true spiritual growth places you at the still center of life’s chaos. We'll also delve into unique therapeutic techniques like those in Reiki Jinkai Do, and unravel the historical and cultural influences that shaped modern Reiki practices, including Madam Takata’s simplifications for American learners and Usui's core teachings on personal growth.
Thinking of finding a Reiki practitioner? Steve offers invaluable advice on what to look for, stressing the importance of traditional lineage and grounded practice. He also shares insights from his books and previews his upcoming retreat in Luxor, Egypt, which uniquely blends Reiki, meditation, and art. Learn how Jinkei Do can transform your spiritual practice and listen as Steve reflects on his ongoing journey of personal and spiritual development. Don't miss this chance to gain a deeper understanding of Reiki’s transformative potential!
Steve Gooch
With a background as a noted artist printmaker and sculptor and working with some of the leading
visual artists of his generation, Steve moved into international education at the turn of the
millennium, having a radically transformative and expansive impact on the art hubs under his watch
in Egypt, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia.
Passionate about his own personal and spiritual development he undertook studies and training in
several spiritual disciplines and pursued interests in esoteric Buddhism, inter-religious studies,
philosophy, and meditation.
Steve has written three books: ‘Reiki Jin Kei Do: The Way of Compassion & Wisdom’, ‘Mindfulness
Meditation & The Art of Reiki’ and ‘Manifesting Abundance with Reiki’, and is considered one of the
leading authorities in this field. The perspective that he pursues through all three books is a radical
departure from the mainstream interpretations of this subject. He is regularly invited for interviews
and speaking engagements on the topic of Reiki and personal, spiritual development.
In recent years he has been focused on developing his visual arts practice, meditation-based and
spiritually focused courses, retreats, and workshops, offering them across the UK, Egypt, Cyprus,
Jordan, and parts of Eastern Europe.
He is now widely considered to be one of Egypt’s leading personal development coaches, working
with celebrities, politicians, and media stars in the north African country. He routinely works as a
coach with some of the leading fashion houses in Saudi Arabia.
Find out more at www.readysetreiki.com
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Ready Set Reiki is a journey
From the curious beginner to the Season Master Teacher
All Energy workers of all systems and all levels.
Thank you.
Speaker 2:This is Ready Set Reiki, a podcast about Reiki, the universal energy life force, from the curious beginner to the seasoned master teacher, welcoming all systems, all lineages and all levels. Reiki is a journey and not a destination, and on this Ready Set Reiki journey, we refer to ourselves as guides rather than hosts, as we too are traveling, supporting each other and learning on this Reiki journey as well. And with that said, I am your guide, tracy C Wright. Joining me on my journey today is Steve Gooch. Now, with a background as a noted artist, printmaker, sculptor and working with some of the leading visual artists of his generation, he moved into international education at the turn of the millennium, having a radically transformative and expansive impact on the art hubs under his watch in Egypt, Sudan and Saudi Arabia Sudan and Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 2:Passionate about his own personal and spiritual development, he undertook studies and training in several spiritual disciplines and pursued interest in Saratarek, buddhism, inter-religious studies, philosophy and meditation. He has written three books Reiki, jinkai Do, the Way of Compassion and Wisdom, mindfulness, meditation and the Art of Reiki and Manifesting Abundance with Reiki and is considered one of the leading authorities in this field. The perspective that he pursues all three books is a radical departure from the mainstream interpretations of the subject. He is regularly invited for interviews and speaking engagements on topics of Reiki and personal spiritual development. In recent years, he has focused on developing his visual arts practice, meditation-based and spiritually focused courses, retreats and workshops, offering them across the UK, Egypt, jordan and parts of the Eastern Europe. He is now widely considered to be one of Egypt's leading personal development coaches, working with celebrities, politicians, media stars. In North African country, he routinely works as a coach with some of the healing fashion houses in Saudi Arabia. Steve, welcome to Ready Set Reiki.
Speaker 3:Thank you, it's lovely to be here, all right, well, let's begin our journey together. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Oh so yeah, I started out with I'm basically a writer as well as an artist. Those are really my two twin passions. And if anybody says to me, you know what do you do, my answer is I'm a writer. That's number one on my list. So I pursued those two strands for a significant part of my life and I got into art education. In the end I became an art teacher and moved to Egypt and fairly quickly became a head of department and then moved up through the sort of management structure in education.
Speaker 3:But behind all of that was, I guess, a really deep passion for spirituality and really just discovering, discovering what the world was really about and what I was about. And that started for me when I was a teenager. You know my father. My father had books on things like pyramid energy and Tibetan monks and hypnotherapy and you know, and life after death. He had a whole collection of these books. So when I was sort of 12, 13, 14, I was reading all of my father's books. So that really sparked my interest in this, in these sort of fields, and so that carried on throughout my whole life. So that carried on throughout my whole life. But I mean, I remember when I was a schoolboy, I guess around the age of 13 or so. I mean you know all my friends at the time, they were all after school, they were all playing football. I was standing in a field, feeling the consciousness of the trees all around me, you know, and I was communicating with nature. I mean, it was just an astonishing experience and it was so different from what all my peers were doing. You know, they were all playing football and what have you. So this whole spiritual focus in my life was there all of the time, ever since I was very young and, as you said in your introduction, you know I explored lots of different spiritual practices, looking into various religions and, you know, trying out different methods and experimenting with things. Some things resonated, some things didn't, you know. So it was quite a quite a journey and that journey is obviously it's a lifelong journey. It's still going on.
Speaker 3:And in 1996, I got into Reiki for the first time and started teaching Reiki in 97, end of 97, beginning in 98.
Speaker 3:And while I was in Egypt working as as a teacher, I started teaching reiki classes in egypt, not realizing at the time that I was, in fact, the only reiki teacher in the whole country back then, you know. So I established that practice in egypt and, uh, over the years, taught, taught the occasional class and then, in 2016, having had enough of formal you know the formal education, the job that I was in I committed to teaching Reiki full-time in Egypt and fairly rapidly became the number one Reiki teacher in the whole country, because I, you know, I built up this reputation there and the meditation was a very big part of that. Meditation was a critical element within that as well. So I was teaching meditation workshops and, yeah, and I wrote three books on Reiki during that journey. It's just been an amazing journey really. It's just taken me to some extraordinary places and you know, yeah, it's just and it's not ended, you know it's still going on, it's still going.
Speaker 2:I love it, I love it. So you talked a little bit exactly the date of when Reiki came into your life. Would you say that you found Reiki or Reiki found you?
Speaker 3:I, that's a difficult. I was going to say I found Reiki, but that's a difficult one. I mean, towards the end of 95, I mean it was really, you know, just the worst time in my life. I mean, everything was just a big disaster. You know, my mother had not long died, I went through a divorce, I lost my job, the economy in the UK at the time was such that I lost £10,000 off the value of my house and everything was just black, black, black. And I just didn't know how to get myself out of this hole. You know, everywhere I looked, it just was just disaster.
Speaker 3:And then one day I suddenly thought you know, I've always had this interest in complementary therapies. I don't really know very much about any particular therapy, but I've got this interest. So I thought, well, maybe that'd be, you know, a new career direction, perhaps. And then I picked up this, a copy of this magazine. It's a British magazine called Kindred Spirit, which is a spiritual magazine, and there was a one-page article on this thing called Reiki that I'd never heard of. So I read the article and I thought, well, yeah, maybe this is a good place to start. It's just two days training, it doesn't cost a huge amount. So it's a waste of time, you know, no big loss. But you know, maybe it will be worth investigating. So I signed up for the Reiki Level 1 class and it just blew me away, you know. And it was only about six months.
Speaker 3:Eight months after that, I have to admit that I realised that I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in being a therapist of any kind and I started to feel guilty about this. You know I was thinking, oh my God, here I am working as a professional Reiki practitioner and I find giving Reiki treatments really boring. And I felt really bad about that, you know, as a Reiki, as a Reiki teacher, until one day my Reiki teacher just pulled me aside. I was doing some training with her. She pulled me aside and she just whispered in me, in my ear. She said Steve, don't you find giving Reiki treatments really boring sometimes? And I thought, oh my God, thank God you said that you know.
Speaker 3:All that guilt just disappeared at that point and now I'm very comfortable with not enjoying giving endless Reiki treatments, because I think we all have a different role in life and for me, I'm a teacher. That's what I'm really good at, you know. And so I help people with Reiki by teaching it to them. And of course I do do occasional treatments, you know, not as many as I used to, but when I do three, four, five, maybe in a year, I really enjoy that process. But if I'm doing it back to back, no, that's trying to be nuts, to be honest, right, right, right.
Speaker 2:So you have been working with the energy teaching for over 20 years and you've been out there on this journey. So there are many different systems of Reiki, many different lineages that break off in our world here, but can you tell me about the one that you wrote your book about, the Jinkei-do?
Speaker 3:Yeah, reiki Jinkei-do. This is the lineage that I trained in, starting back in 1996. And Reiki Jinkei-do means the way of compassion and wisdom through Reiki, and Reiki Jinkedo means the way of compassion and wisdom through Reiki. It's a very unique approach to Reiki because it has within it the will remember from their own training the history of Reiki, where they heard about Mikaru Usui's enlightenment experience on Mount Kurama when he went on the 21-day meditation retreat. Well, for many, many years, people have been speculating about, you know, what is that meditation that Usui did? Nobody really knows Well. Well, we know because we've always had it. It's in this tradition. So we have within this tradition um, a system that predates reiki, that modern reiki developed from and that that profoundly colors and flavors our presentation of modern secular Reiki. So it does have a very big, a very different emphasis to most other traditions of Reiki.
Speaker 2:Very good. When you looked into that magazine Kindred Spirits, was this the system of Reiki that you originally trained with?
Speaker 3:No, well, the article that I read was just I don't have it anymore, but it was a long time ago but it was just about Reiki in general as a healing therapy. And when I did my Reiki training, of course, I learned how to use Reiki as a healing therapy. But what became really clear to me, which is what I emphasize to my own students now, is that Reiki is first and foremost a personal spiritual development practice and the energy healing aspect of it it's fairly incidental, to be honest.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's a byproduct of the system, it's not the focus. And yet these days focus on, you know, working on other people in a therapeutic context with Reiki. But that's not what Reiki is about. It never was about that and it isn't about that now, and it should be about your own personal spiritual development. And one of the things that I remember my Reiki teacher saying to me in my training and I'm pretty sure everybody's Reiki teacher says this is that first of all, you treat yourself, you focus on yourself, you give yourself a Reiki treatment. That's the priority.
Speaker 3:And yet these days I don't see an awful lot of that going on. It's mostly outward focused. You know we're going to give this person a treatment or that person a treatment, and not an awful lot lot of self work is going on, and I think that's really sad because although when you give somebody else a Reiki treatment, you're making a positive contribution to the world, you're doing something good and worthy and it's beneficial for that other person, and if you do a lot of those, you're still doing it. That's multiplied. You're doing an amazing job in the world by helping so many people, but that's really not very impressive. Anybody can do that. A five-year-old can do that and I've trained five-year-olds to practice Reiki.
Speaker 3:So I'm not impressed by people who focus outwards with their practice of Reiki. I am impressed by people who have the courage because it does take courage to confront themselves and work on themselves. That's impressive and you know from my experience what happens when you do that, when that becomes your primary focus, when it's all about developing yourself, confronting the issues that you personally have, when you work on that level with Reiki. What happens is that you generate this field of energy around you that impacts on everybody else that comes into your orbit. So you become a healing mechanism in the world. Just your existence in the world heals people. That's impressive. Not going out and doing the occasional treatment or focusing on other people as a therapist, that's easy. So I think the whole practice of Reiki really needs to get back to its origins in that sense, and that aspect of it needs reinforcing. It is about working on yourself.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I'm glad that you said that, because so many people they want to start this journey, but they want quick results. They want to hurry up and get through one, because it's that goal. Why? Either one to do this as a business, or I want to teach this so they see the money aspect, or the business aspect of it instead of just reeling back a little bit, and you really need to work on yourself.
Speaker 2:This is so important because, as you're elevating, things in your life are going to start moving away and changing and you have to help yourself. It's that thing on the airplane when the oxygen mask comes down, put it over yourself first. Yeah, and helped others, and many people forget that when they come to that yeah, but I mean I don't, I think it's.
Speaker 3:I don't have any problem with people coming to reiki or viewing reiki in terms of uh, you know the financial aspect or whether it's or if it's going to be a good business for them. That's OK. But start where you're supposed to start, start with yourself, and then the business and the money will come. If it's meant to come, it will come, but it's not. It's not going to come through an outward focus, it's going to come from an inward focus.
Speaker 2:Very good.
Speaker 3:I often describe it, you know, like this. You know, so many of my students will tell me about the sort of chaos and the problems that they're having in their own lives and I'll sort of describe it as being a bit like a hurricane. You know, imagine your life is like a hurricane. It's just whipping around all of the time, it's chaos and you're just completely out of control. You can't control any of this. Re Reiki, and as long as it includes a good, solid meditation practice, reiki places you at the center of the hurricane, so you can see the chaos of your life, but you are utterly still and it doesn't touch you. That's what an inward focus does for you it brings stillness focus does for you.
Speaker 2:It brings stillness, beautiful. So you have written a book about Jin K Do and it uses marma points, point pulse utilization, mindfulness, meditation. How can incorporating all of those and the buddho help better equip a practitioner to help themselves and others?
Speaker 3:Well, to address the point with the issue with the mama points, the energy concentration points, this is an aspect of working in a therapeutic context that we teach in Reiki, jinkai Do, and there was a point where I was starting to wonder where on earth this aspect of our treatment process came from, because I didn't see it in anybody else's expressions of Reiki. It was, all you know, flat of the hand on the body or just off the body or moving off the body, and that seems to be common amongst all other traditions, and I never saw anyone else working on points. So I was thinking I don't understand where this has come from, as the lineage had just made it up, and then I came across a book by John Harvey Gray I can't remember what it was called exactly when I was researching my last book, and there was just one short paragraph in there about how Chujiro Hayashi, mikaru Tsui's student, he worked on points and he taught Mrs Takata to work on points. So why that has disappeared from the world's Reiki practice, I have no idea, because it was definitely there with Hayashi and Takata, and this tradition, jinkai-do, seems to be the only one that has carried on that aspect of the practice, and it is such a powerful method of working. I mean it's just so much more powerful than just working with the flat of the hand because you're focusing on very specific energy concentration points and the energy flows very powerfully when you localize it on those points.
Speaker 3:I mean I had, um, I remember, at the end of one reiki class I was teaching in cairo. It was a first level class. We're all finished, we're packing up, I'm folding up my treatment bed to go home. I want to go and have a coffee. I'm tired, I'm done. And one of my students said I've been suffering from back pains for quite a few months now. Do you think I could have a reiki treatment? I'm like, oh god, okay, this is the last thing I want to do, but okay.
Speaker 3:So I put my treatment bed back up. I said, right, lie face down on the treatment bed. And I thought, okay, I want this coffee. This is going to be a fast and furious reiki treatment. So I went straight into a lower back with my fingertips, scanned it with my fingertips, found where I thought the first point, was then scanned with my other hand, found another point. The energy rippled between these two points. The first point died off. I found the next one, and then the next one and after about 20 minutes working on a very random pattern that was going across her spine, after about 20 minutes of just working intuitively on energy concentration points, her back pain disappeared and it never came back. It's an extremely powerful method of working. So if you haven't got that in your toolkit of methods to use in giving a Reiki treatment to other people, look into it. Work on energy concentration points, because it is astonishingly powerful.
Speaker 2:Interesting. I wonder about the marma points. Could perhaps Madam Takata eliminated that, because when she came over to Hawaii for her teachings that perhaps she was in a sense Americanizing it and making it more simple for Americans. Maybe she felt it was too complicated of a concept? For.
Speaker 2:Americans and then just did her hand placements Because in my studies. There was and this is through one of the systems I have studied Holy Fire, and in that book, the Healing Touch, it explained how she changed a few things. So that way, basically in a way she was making it less Japanese, I guess, because this was happening around Pearl Harbor. So, yeah, I don't know if that could be maybe the story of why that was taken out.
Speaker 3:It's possible, but then it also doesn't seem to be there in the other extant Japanese lineage, either Jikiden Reiki or Komyō Reiki. No one else seems to be doing it, and yet there is historical evidence that Chujiro Hayashi worked in that way. Why it's disappeared, I have no idea.
Speaker 2:Right right, that's the interesting thing with history, right. Absolutely it changes in translations, but it's quite an interesting thing there. So the next question is Azui-sensei is considered the father of Reiki. Can you explain to our listeners what is the heart of Isui's teachings?
Speaker 3:For me, the heart of Isui's teachings is all about your own personal development. It's about making you a better human being and getting rid of suffering in your own life. That was usui's motivation when he created the system. He soon. He did not go out with the intention of creating an energy healing therapy. You know that's nonsense, it just that's just not there.
Speaker 3:What he did do was go out and decide to create something to help individuals alleviate suffering in their own lives, and that is, at least initially and I think, predominantly for Usui. It was very much a meditation-focused practice. It was Chujiro Hayashi that really ramped up the energy healing aspect of it. And when people say to me I practice Usui Reiki, my answer is no, you don't. To me, you know I practice Usui Reiki, my answer is no, you don't, you practice Hayashi Reiki. Actually, because Usui didn't focus on this at all. His focus was very much on meditation and personal spiritual development rather than energy healing. So I think that's the core of Usui's system. It's about personal development, your own personal spiritual development system. It's about personal development, your own personal spiritual development.
Speaker 2:Right, right. The lineage that I started with was the Azui Arahiho, and when we got our level one, we for 21 days meditated and worked with the energy before we came back and went back to class and got our certificate. So we had to go through that 21 days to honor him up on the mountain, you know. So that's I don't see that too much, as I am out, and, you know, connecting with other practitioners, and so it's a little different way to do it. So yeah, so you've been teaching for over 20 years working with the energy.
Speaker 2:So you've been teaching for over 20 years working with the energy, teaching students all over the world.
Speaker 3:What do you find is a common misconception about Reiki. A common misconception about Reiki that it is just another energy healing discipline alongside other energy healing disciplines. I'll give you an example of this. A good friend of mine not long after I did my Reiki training and he also did Reiki training and he went off and also trained in something else I can't remember. It was quantum touch or quantum healing. I can't remember exactly what it's called, but in his description or his comparison between these two, Reiki and the quantum touch method, was that quantum touch works with this particular range of frequencies and Reiki works with this particular range of frequencies and other energy healing disciplines work with their own particular range of range of frequencies. And my response to that was no, that's absolutely not true. Reiki is the universal energy field. It is all frequencies. I can't speak for these other energy disciplines. Maybe they do work with a very specific range of frequencies, but they would sit within the totality of what Reiki is, because it is every frequency imaginable.
Speaker 2:Beautiful, beautiful. So, in being of service and helping so many on their healing journey, what has been the biggest challenge, or rather struggle, you have faced in your own healing journey?
Speaker 3:Oh, that's a tough one journey. Oh, that's a tough one. The biggest challenge is just to commit daily to my own self-healing, and that doesn't necessarily mean laying on of hands. I mean, I do do Reiki, self-treatments, but I prioritize above and beyond that. I prioritise meditation and trying to fit in various meditation practices and the self healing and you know and other practices. I'm following an Ayurvedic path as well at the moment, so trying to fit all of this in it just becomes a big challenge.
Speaker 3:It's like I remember many years ago I was doing at time I was doing Reiki, tai Chi, karate, yoga, meditation, and within each of these disciplines, of course they all have things that you're supposed to do every single day and I was thinking I can't do this, it's just impossible. So I had one day I thought, right, I'm going to figure this out One day. I thought, right, I'm going to figure this out. So on this one day I thought, right, I'm going to do nothing else except for every single one of the daily commitments across all of these different disciplines. It took me eight hours of that day and I'm thinking this is nuts, I can't do eight hours of practice every single day. And it was then that I started to be a bit kinder to myself. But it is tough to just find time to fit in the practice every day actually. So I get it when my students say, look, I just I don't have time or I didn't have time. Well, we're human beings, you know, life isn't perfect. We just do the best we can.
Speaker 2:All right. This next question. You can bring this from your angle of a writer or an artist as well. So, as you stand here in your journey of everything that you've been through, what do you wish your younger self knew about your current profession?
Speaker 3:I wish that at that time. So, first of all, I would definitely have not spent six, eight months focusing on being a Reiki therapist. That bit I would delete, quite happily. But I learned a lot from that process actually. I mean, it was good for me, it was a good educational process. I think the main thing that I would say to my younger self is don't lose sight of your creative impulses, because I lost sight of that so many times on the Reiki journey and it's a big part of me that the writing in the art is. It is a massive part of who I am, and Reiki is so often dominated my life to the point where those things become marginalized and then I've had to drag them back into my life. So that would be the one thing, is to tell myself don't lose sight of this, because it's important.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. So when it is time for you to get your energetic tune up, what qualities do you look for in a Reiki practitioner, or maybe an energy healer?
Speaker 3:I would never go to an energy healer at all I've heard too many bad stories but a Reiki practitioner, absolutely I would. The first thing I'm going to look for is a is a good, solid lineage, a traditional lineage of Reiki. If that isn't there, I'm not even going to look any further. They're gone immediately at that point. So traditional lineage of Reiki, um, and for me, because of the way I approach Reiki, I think the thing that's really important for me is looking for a good, solid, grounded approach to Reiki. I'm not a new age sort of person and as soon as you know, things like angels and ascended masters and all of that comes in. No, this is not me, I'm not going there with that stuff, you know. But the energy healing, just the good, good, solid practice on its own, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So what advice would you give someone who's just entering this profession?
Speaker 3:Oh well, again it'd be the same thing. Look for a good, solid tradition of Reiki. Look for a traditional lineage of Reiki, solid tradition of Reiki. Look for a traditional lineage of Reiki, first of all. I mean that would be number one. And ask, ask tough questions. You know, I mean I value this in my own students as well. I mean I have sceptics come on my classes sometimes who ask really tough questions and I say to them I really appreciate the fact that you're asking these questions. I love students like this and anybody that's going to a Reiki teacher or for a treatment or training. Ask the tough questions, you know. Get good, solid answers. Don't believe stuff just because someone tells it to you. It needs to resonate with you. It doesn't have to be evidence that a scientist would approve of, but it needs to be evidence that resonates with you. So ask the tough questions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very good. I've had some students before they sign up for the training. They asked me my lineage chart. We talk on the phone or we have a Zoom meeting and talk about it and they look up whatever questions they found on the internet and they're asking me them. So yeah, do your homework. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:A lot of people cut corners and think, oh, I'm going to go take this class online for $14. That's a great resource down the road, but that first teacher you really need someone strong to go to. And even if it's on Zoom, yeah, instead of going through YouTube or a $14 class. So you have written three books. Can you please share a little bit about each of the books?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the first book, reiki Jinkedo, the Way of Compassion and Wisdom, that was. All of my books have got interesting stories. Actually this the first book. When I was doing my my own second degree training, I was so knocked out by the teachings that I was receiving from my Reiki masters and I was like why has nobody ever written a book on this stuff? So I asked my Reiki master. I said, look, you know, why has no one ever written this book? And she's. Then she. I remember the moment. She pinned me with her eyes and she said Steve Ranga Ranga's, the lineage head, ranga Pramaratna. She said Ranga's writing this book. So I thought, oh god, right, okay, so forget this idea. The lineage head is writing a book about this. What do I know? I'm only just doing my second degree, of course. Forget the whole concept. Well, his book never appeared.
Speaker 3:10 years later, having forgot that conversation, I decided I was going to write a book on Reiki Jinkai Dō, because no one had ever done it, and so I wrote the book. And what was very interesting, having just completed it and you you know I'd spent quite a lot of time researching how to become a writer, and I've read many books and taken courses and, without exception, they all said it's really tough to become a writer. You know you're going to have lots of rejection letters. It might be many months before you find a publisher that will pick up your book. So this was really off-putting. So, having completed my book, I thought, okay, let's use Reiki to find my publisher. So in front of me I had a shelf of all the Reiki books that I'd used as research. So I just closed my eyes and I scanned my hand across this shelf of Reiki books, pulled one from it, looked at the publisher. I said this publisher sent my manuscript off. 24 hours later I'd signed my contract. It was really easy. You know, that was my. That was my first book and when it came out I had a conversation with my Reiki master. And suddenly I remembered that conversation I'd had with her 10 years previously in my Reiki class and I said Dorothy, do you remember that conversation we had? She said, steve, yes, I remember the conversation about the book. And I said you knew I was going to write this, didn't you? And she said I did, she did. It was very clear to me at the time. She knew that it was going to be me who wrote that book. So that is still the standard textbook around the world for Reiki Jinkai Do. There's. That is still the standard textbook around the world for Reiki Jinkedo. It was the first. There's only been two books. Mine came out first. About two years later. A guy in France wrote a book as well, so if you can read French, there's his book as well, but otherwise, you know there's just mine. Um, so that was my first book. The second book, uh, that came out two years ago yeah, two years ago. I think that's a much deeper exploration of Reiki and its relationship to meditation, because it is such a core part of the Reiki practice. So it's a deep dive into that. And that was also an interesting story creating that.
Speaker 3:One of my students in Egypt sent me a little message on WhatsApp saying well, I'm doing all my self-treatments every day and it's really sensitizing me to other people's suffering. You know I'm really feeling their suffering when I go to the supermarket or if I pick my kids up from school. You know I'm feeling this all of the time. And she said well, what do I do? And my answer was how much meditation do you do? And she said I'm not. I said you need to meditate. So she started the meditation. Now she's teaching meditation all over Cairo in Egypt, but at the time she wasn't doing any. Because that's the balance point, that's the thing that gets you back into your centre.
Speaker 3:And having sent that little reply to her, I thought there's more I could say on this. So I sat and I wrote a little bit more and a little bit more, and by the time I'd finished I'd written about 6,000 words. And then I thought, yeah, there's something else I need to say before this. And then I wrote another 6,000 or 7,000 words. When I looked at that I thought, no, that's not the start either. There's something that comes before this. So I wrote another six or 7,000 words. So then I'm looking at it and thinking, okay, I've got the start of a book here. So then I planned out the rest of the book and that was the second book. But it started from little whatsapp message that one of my students sent me and that that really does go deep into the practice in in terms of spiritual side of the system. It almost doesn't touch on the energy healing aspect of it. It's all about your own personal spiritual development.
Speaker 3:The third book, manifance with Reiki that one came about by accident. I actually wrote it by accident. I was writing a set of notes for a course that I was planning called Manifesting Abundance with Reiki, and when I finished writing up these notes, I thought this is a small book that I've just written here. So I thought, thinking, okay, well, I might as well publish it. It only took me three weeks to write I mean, it's the fastest book ever, you know three weeks from beginning to end. So I thought I might as well just publish it, since I've written it. So that was how the third book came out. But each time I've always said to myself, having written the first book, I said to myself that's it, I'm never going to write another Reiki book. And then the second one happened and I said that is definitely it. Never, never, never another Reiki book. And then I wrote a third one, you know. So I've stopped saying that to myself now.
Speaker 2:Sure, because it'll be a fourth right.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, it's on its way.
Speaker 2:So, as an avid reader, besides your very own books, what books do you recommend?
Speaker 3:besides your very own books, what books do you recommend On the subject of Reiki? What I say to my students on the whole is look for the older books on Reiki. Go to the books that were published in the late 80s and through the early 90s. Those tend to be the better books on Reiki, and although the history in there in those books may be not not as accurate as it could be, I think they tend to present the simplicity of Reiki in a really beautiful way.
Speaker 3:There's there's one book called um Reiki Universal Life Force, Energy by Bodo Budzinski and Shalila Shariman, which I quote in all my classes all of the time. It's an amazing little book and it just presents the simple beauty of Reiki as an energy healing discipline. It's not complex at all, and I think you find that in a lot of the older books. The more recent books like mine, I have to admit tend to treat Reiki in a much more complex way, and sometimes it can be a little bit off putting where you get a lot of detail and a lot of nuances to the history, and so do we need all of that necessarily? That's one of the things I learned on my first degree Reiki class was the simplicity of Reiki Hands on, Reiki on, Hands off, Reiki off and that's how you should approach the books that you read as well. If it presents that simplicity, then you know those are the books I'd recommend.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. So what other services do you offer? Do you offer classes, retreats, trainings, events?
Speaker 3:classes, retreats, trainings, events. Yeah, I mean, I obviously offer. I'm still teaching reiki classes. I also teach, uh, buddho classes, buddho being the ancient esoteric buddhist practice that led to modern reiki. So I teach the original practice as well, and that is astonishing. You think reiki is powerful? It's, it's just a training wheel. When you compare it to the Buddha, the Buddha is like a nuclear explosion. It's just not even in the same league. So I teach that as well.
Speaker 3:I do a lot of coaching, spiritual coaching, creativity coaching. I seem to be getting dragged into business coaching more and more these days. I've got clients in Saudi Arabia who keep asking me for business coaching more and more these days. I've got clients in Saudi Arabia who keep asking me for business coaching and, you know, dealing with their emotional stuff. So there's a lot of coaching that I'm doing, but the thing that I'm focusing on predominantly these days is running retreats.
Speaker 3:I've got an amazing retreat coming up in Egypt at the end of September in Luxor in Egypt. So it's down, right down in the south of the country on the Nile, and that's focused on Reiki, meditation and art. So we're going to do some deep dive work into using Reiki as a personal spiritual development practice, reinforced by the meditation practice and, of course, the energy empowerment that you get with reiki will reinforce that as well and then how to express all of that through an exploration of creativity as well, and using that energy empowerment to enable you to connect to the, to the energies of the sacred sites in Egypt as well. So it's going to be an astonishing experience.
Speaker 2:Sounds like it. So where can somebody find you? Do you offer online in person if they're interested in getting a session with you or taking a training with you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I have been doing online Reiki training over the last two or three years. I still do it in person, but you know, obviously you need to be here in my hometown if you want it in person, or in Cairo, but otherwise I do that online so people can connect with me via my website or through Facebook or Instagram website or through Facebook or Instagram so I can I do the online Reiki training and the online Budo training. The coaching is always done online. That's never face to face. And then there's the retreats. Obviously that's that's in person. I'm not doing any online retreats at the moment.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, this ends our first part of our journey together and I'm going to continue on as your guide through the second part of our journey, which is social media questions from our listeners and Reiki students. So here we go with number one. The first question is how can I manifest abundance with Reiki?
Speaker 3:First of all, I'd say you definitely need to be buying my book if you want all of the details on that. But you know one of the things with Reiki, one of the things in that field they always talk about the universal, universal intelligence, which is a euphemism for God. Actually, you know that's what they're talking about, but they're not going to use that word. Now, in Reiki, we talk about universal life force, energy. Yeah, it's the same thing. So in the law of attraction, what you're expected to do is just have a belief that this universal intelligence is going to manifest whatever it is you want to manifest. Now, some people find that easy to believe that this is going to happen. Some people, like me, they struggle with this. How is this? You know, how's that going to happen? I, you know, as much as I want it to happen. I'm not convinced that universal intelligence is just going to deliver it for me.
Speaker 3:Yet reiki is the answer to that because, whereas I'm, if I just focus on that universal intelligence within the law of attraction, it does require a big step up. You know, to believe in something that you can't see, that you maybe never had an experience of before, but within reiki, well, there's the evidence, I can feel it in my hands. It's not belief anymore, it's a knowing. And that's what reiki brings to the law of attraction, because we're talking about the same thing universal energy field, universal intelligence they're the same thing, whereas in the law of attraction, because we're talking about the same thing universal energy field, universal intelligence they're the same thing, whereas in the law of attraction it's all about belief In Reiki. Once you've had that training, belief goes out the window. It's now a knowing and it's much more certain, so it's much more powerful. When you've got that knowing, then it amplifies the whole of the law of attraction process that knowing, then it amplifies the whole of the law of attraction process.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. The second question what can I do to help bring mindfulness into my daily life.
Speaker 3:There are lots of ways that you can do this. Now you know, obviously, you can sit on a cushion, close your eyes and just focus on your breath. You know, like so many people do. And if you go to a classic sort of mindfulness training, that's what you're going to do. But and you know, that's absolutely a fantastic way to get into mindfulness but getting it into your daily life is something that we all should be aspiring to, and that is when we're washing dishes, when we're preparing a meal, when we're making a cup of coffee, when we're eating something.
Speaker 3:Mindfulness needs to come into those aspects of our life as well. So you can take an ordinary, something ordinary that you probably do every day, like making a cup of coffee. So you fill the kettle with water. There it is, under the tap, you're filling it with water, bring awareness to it, just laser in on the sound of that water filling the kettle. When you fill the kettle, feel the weight of the kettle, place it down, listen to the click of the switch and then stay there with the kettle. Place it down, listen to the click of the switch and then stay there with the kettle and really listen to it boiling and you will be astonished that you're going to start hearing sounds that you didn't even know a boiling kettle made. Because you never pay attention to it, you put the kettle on and you go off and do something else, but when you use it as a mindfulness activity, it's actually quite astonishing to hear the sounds that you didn't even know were there.
Speaker 3:You could take, you know, a piece of fruit or something that you're that you're going to eat and smell it. Does it make a sound? No, probably not, but smell it and then put it on your lips. Does that generate saliva in your mouth? Yeah, it probably does. Now take a bite of that, then feel it on your tongue, feel it in your mouth before you chew it, and then chew it. What does that feel like? Just bring awareness to the process of eating something so you can bring mindfulness into many of your daily activities as well. As you know the formal practice of sitting on a cushion and closing your eyes.
Speaker 2:You know Very good, you did touch upon this a little bit earlier, but we'll circle back around with this question. This is our third and last question. Can you tell me about your upcoming retreat that you are doing at the end of September?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I am just so excited about this retreat.
Speaker 3:I mean I can't wait for it. It's on the 26th of September. It's 26th of September to the 3rd of October and we're focusing on Reiki, meditation and art. It's taking place in Luxor, in Egypt, there is. So, although we're focusing on Reiki, there is no expectation that you will have done Reiki before you come, because what I'm also, what I'm giving as a free, free bonus with this retreat, is an online first degree Reiki training. So if you haven't done that, on the 7th and 8th of September, I'm giving a free training in level one and you're going to get a copy of Manifesting Abundance with Reiki as well.
Speaker 3:But once on the retreat, we're going to be focusing very much on healing the self. We will do some work on healing other people, but I want to focus very much on healing the self and bringing meditation into that. We'll be using a meditation called the six point six point meditation, which is a simplification of one part of the buddho meditation which usui practiced on mount karama. We're taking a part of that, simplifying it and using it on this retreat, and that's a really powerful process. Um, so the retreat is really about you getting in touch with your core self, healing yourself and expressing yourself through that creative process as well.
Speaker 3:As I said, you know, I spent most of my life as an art teacher, so I'll be doing quite a bit of art on on the retreat as well, as well as visiting all the sacred sites like the, you know, luxor temple and Karnak temple and Valley of the Kings and Hatshepsut temple. But we're going to see all of this stuff as well, and it's um, the. The venue is a hotel on its own island in the middle of the Nile, which looks. I've never been to this place, but it looks astonishing. It's got an infinity pool right next to the river. I don't know how that quite works. It's like just swimming the river, but anyway. But yeah, it's going to be an extraordinary experience. I'm really excited about it.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. Where can we find information about that and about the things that you offer?
Speaker 3:Just on my website, which is stevegoochco, not om. Leave the m off dot co. Stevegoochco. So you'll find all the details about my coaching and my Reiki and Budo workshops and the retreat. That's all on there and you can book on. You can book via the website as well, if you're interested.
Speaker 2:Very good. Are you also on social media as well?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can find me on Facebook. I can't remember the URLs of my Facebook and Instagram pages, but if you but you'll, you'll find me easy enough. I think the Instagram account is stevegoochco. Yes, it is stevegoochco, it's the same as my website. My Facebook page is steveargooch steveargooch. Yes, so you can find me on Facebook and Instagram as well.
Speaker 2:Perfect. Well, that ends our questions, and is there anything else that, as we were talking, that you might've forgot about, or something that you would like to share with our listeners? You can take that time now to do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean the only thing that I would that I have touched on a little bit, but I just want to emphasize again that within Jin Kedo we have this practice called Budo, which is a big, big practice. It's much bigger than Reiki, in fact, with this central Budo meditation, I mean you need to have trained within Reiki Jinkedo to access the Budo system, but I really would encourage people to look at that. If you're into Reiki, whether as a healing therapy or, more importantly, as a spiritual discipline, you need to check out Budo because it is just astonishing. Like I said before, reiki is a training wheel for this. Budo comes before and after Reiki. You know it sandwiches it in the middle, but Reiki is just a training wheel. It's nothing in comparison to Budo. I mean it'll blow you away. So I would encourage people to look at that. It is astonishingly powerful.
Speaker 2:And do they need any prerequisite to take the Jinkei Do?
Speaker 3:None whatsoever. No, you can come into Jinkei Do with no experience and no knowledge of Reiki at all, just as I did when I you know, when I started my training.
Speaker 2:All right, perfect Well. Thank you, steve. So much for taking time out of your very busy schedule to join me on this journey on Ready Set Reiki.
Speaker 3:It's been a great pleasure. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2:All right, all right, my wonderful listeners. If you'd like your question featured on the show, reach out at wwwreadysetreikicom. And also you can reach out to me on social media as well. Also, check out Feather Sister Wellness that offers a variety of yoga classes, yoga trainings, reiki and Reiki trainings at wwwthefeathersistercom. I'm Tracy Seawright and this has been Ready Set Reiki you.