your win-culture

win-culture: this darling finished 1st in 20 of 21 races

i had one of those days. the kind when you feel like closing the blinds and hiding. too much fear abound. i get calls from people asking me to give them yes/no answers about their future. 60 questions fired at me in 20 minutes. and i feel queasy after. don't get me wrong, i don't dislike people. in fact i love them very much. but, this is the way we are living our lives? so here's a hint: if you want to ask me questions about your future, please don't. instead, read this. 


many years ago i remember being forced to go to a horse race track. 


it was my sister's birthday and that was her wish: to have a decadent afternoon brunch spent betting on horses. now, i absolutely *hate* gambling, lotteries, casinos, horse betting, wagers... the energy around these things still gives me the heebie-jeebies. but some how, i managed to find myself at the monolith toronto woodbine racetrack. i even found myself having a monolith brunch and i even placed bets. 


a funny thing happened. i won a whole lot that day. every single horse i bet on finished within the top three. how did i do it? the formula was equal parts intuition and study. and no fear. 


since i was stuck at the race track and since they went through the trouble of publishing statistics on each horse, i studied them. all the horses i chose had this in common: none achieved anything less than wins within in the last 6 months of their racing careers, and all their trends were upward. why were these details important? because these young horses were developing a personal culture of winning. my study told me that winning was in their mindset. my intuition said it was in their blood.   


simply put, if you want to be the best, then develop your win-culture, your personal culture of being nothing but the best. sure there will be adrenaline. but it's gotta be the healthy kind. the excited, passionate kind. not the looking-over-your-shoulder-for-what's-going-to-beat-you kind. that's plain fear. too much of that and you will wind up looking everywhere but at your prize.


so if you are looking for answers, this is it. you don't need a fortune teller or a horseshoe up your ass. develop your personal win-culture. and if you really, really want something and you dedicate yourself fully to it with passion... i bet anything that you will have it. 

three things i loved about learning reiki

And you get to work with your hands

teaching reiki is tiring work... but i love it. one of the best parts is watching the shift people experience as they go through an intensive weekend with you. some see bright colours, others feel sensations that are new and exotic to them. others still beam like sunshine after they are done. there are three huge reasons why i love teaching reiki to people:

#1: i love the feeling of "beginner's mind" 

it was shunryu suzuki who said: "in the beginner's mind there are many possibilities. in the expert's mind there are few".

i remember my first Reiki course. it was supernatural. i was in awe at my teacher. i mean, he saw things. i couldn't discuss it with anyone. and yet, as soon as i had the chance i pounced on my homework: 10 treatments on other people.

it was my icebreaker at parties. 

i'd sidle up to someone. "hey, are you free tuesday night?" knowing the answer would be a yes,  i'd follow up with, "great, can you lie down for an hour so i can put my hands on you and give you a reiki treatment?" nobody ever said no. i learned a lot this way. 

in two months, i had given close to 40 treatments to different people.

#2: i love intuitive experimenting. 

if practised correctly, you get to hone your intuition. feeling the different energies, the difference in sensation in each treatment, trying out new things and feeling creative again. noticing when i'd need to make movements, sounds or speak and deliver an important message. simply letting go of any control and letting reiki radiate, pulse or flow out, drenching the person in pure vital energy.

i found the more i let go, the more effective the treatment was. i'd pick up images, and know immediately that something they thought was the problem was just a physical manifestation of something hidden. and then hearing what people felt and sensed and knowing i felt and sensed the same things was amazing confirmation that reiki was working in subtle and powerful ways.

#3: you start with yourself 

reiki is one of the few things you can actually do for yourself first. it's part of the course. you give yourself a treatment before you give anyone else a treatment. and as you do, you notice how effortless it is, how amazing you feel after and how beneficial it is to practice on yourself as much as possible. (i still do).

selfish, you say? sure. but who am i to tell you about you, before i start with me? and so i did. the transformation was slow but profound. i had radical shifts in perception. i had amazing shifts in my ability sense energy, target pain and illness and discover its roots. and i transformed from a pretty cynical hospital worker into a reiki healer and teacher. who woulda thought?

so even though teaching is hard work, it's a privilege to pass this ability on. and to anyone who feels the pull to learn reiki... get pulled! besides being easy and transformational, it's super natural.

want to learn?

Salima teaches weekend Reiki courses in Toronto each month. Find out more about learning Reiki or get a Reiki treatment and feel the difference it makes for yourself!

what i learned from juggling

do try this at home!

a few months ago i helped organize a retreat called the art of seeing clearly.

it was a weekend in the country by the water, designed to help people learn how to improve their vision naturally. amazing right? what's even better was the full body and mind approach.

juggling class

so one afternoon we broke into groups. each group learned a new skill or talent. i was giddy. i was going to learn how to juggle!

now, i had done this a lot in my life. with work, with time, with people... just not with my hands. little did i know what i was about to experience was more than a mere trick or circus act.

time after time, my little hacky sacks would fall to the floor. plop-plop-plop! a little embarrassed and a little determined, i'd quickly swipe them up and try again. over and over. sometimes i'd catch them. sometimes they'd fall to the floor, making that terrible bean-baggy sound. less plops, more pshh-pshh-pshh!

where was i going wrong? so i started to mindfully watch what was happening, blow by blow, noting every move like a sports commentator. and here's what i noticed.

le trick: let go

we tend to believe when we start out, that juggling is about catching things. yes, catching is important, but in reality the hardest part about juggling is actually the letting go.

if you are a juggler, you know. the whole trick is in the constant and mindful release. the opening up of the clenched hands, the hands that want to cling, covet, keep these prized objects. when really, they are just hacky sacks.

in an instant i saw how everything in life is a hacky sack. everything! and we are made to think that we need these things. but if we learn to let go, to open up and throw everything into the air, to mindfully release, we find that the catching takes care of itself.

so next time i drop the ball, i'm going to pick it up and toss it high up. i might just make enough space to see a bit more clearly. or i might join the circus, who knows.

the meditative child

i remember as a child, being woken up at 3am and taken by my parents to the mosque in twilight.  i'd sit motionless for an hour in the pitch dark, breathing and repeating... and waiting for the appearance of  'the light'. 

so naturally i am intrigued at the growing interest in parents and caregivers to help children meditate. in the last few weeks, i've seen adverts for events geared to help children meditate, books on the subject by notables like goldie hawn, and social media groups promoting meditation for children. 

all of this is great. heck, i should know, i'm practically a poster-child. 

yet when i started it was simply what was done as a matter of faith. today people are turning to meditation to help their children cope and manage attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd), manage stress levels and anxiety through mindfulness-based stress reduction (mbsr) or mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (mbct), and work through their trauma and fear. 

you may wonder... how can children bear so much? well, think back. did you? sure, we all did. and let's face it, meditation beats popping pills.

which brings me the sources of children's stress. we know kids model their behaviour after us, so we should ask ourselves... how do we manage our own stress? it becomes clear that for anyone wanting their child to learn meditation, mindfulness for the parent is a must.   

the description of an upcoming workshop on mindfulness for parents explains: "faced with issues such as fatigue and frustration, we have the chance to discover things about ourselves and the world that we might never experience otherwise. when we are mindful and aware we receive the opportunity to cultivate unconditional acceptance, patience, and loving-kindness."

who wouldn't want that for their children? and for themselves?  

the underlying message here is that our children are our teachers. we attract what we attract, and if we are stressed, chances are our children are stressed. if our children are in need of care, compassion, acceptance and discipline, then chances are... we are too.

"we are incapable of loving another unless we love ourselves, 

just as we are incapable of teaching our children self-discipline 

unless we ourselves are self-disciplined. it is actually impossible to foresake 

our own spiritual development in favour of someone else's." 

- m. scott-peck, author of the road less travelled

reiki and the japanese connection

people often have a lot of questions about reiki...
how does it work?
how do you know it works?
how do you do it?
will it work for migraines, diabetes, upset stomach, psoriasis, cancer, anxiety?

one of the most asked questions is where did reiki come from?

the answer that i usually give is that it was always there. and then they ask, but... where did it come from?

then i explain the japanese connection.

reiki is a japanese word that has been translated in many ways - none of which are exact, but can come close to giving us understanding. rei is often translated to universal light or spirit. and ki is often translated to energy. the generally accepted translation is universal light energy. but again this is close but not quite.

reiki can only be harnessed through an initiated reiki channel or healer. so it's not universal light energy, which can be made available to anyone. reiki is a particular range of frequencies of energy. what makes it special is that it is always from the highest of good. when reiki is channeled and brought into a treatment with the intention to bring the highest of good for someone, the channel or the healer can effectively melt away, and can take on reiki, become filled with reiki. the movement of reiki through the body and energy field or aura of someone receiving a reiki treatment, allows them to receive healing that is from the highest of good.

so again you might ask, but where did reiki come from? and again, i'd say, it was always there. the idea that reiki was developed in japan and is a humanly developed modality for healing is not quite true. reiki was received in japan by mikao usui in the 1920s, much like truth is received by a prophet or like enlightenment is received by a buddha. truth and enlightenment always existed. mikao usui was chosen to be the trusted guardian of this sacred knowledge, because the world needed reiki to come forth at that time, in that place, in a culture and society where it would be treated with the respect and care that it required.

usui was ready to receive reiki, much like any of us become ready to receive first-degree reiki training when the time is right. we receive it through a reiki master-teacher, whereas usui received it directly. when he did, he called this gift 'reiki' in his native japanese language and spread it for the highest of good to those who needed it. it could have been sanskrit or swahili, if it was received in another time and place, but it is called reiki and has been preserved in the japanese language simply because it was received in japan. and so is the japanese connection to reiki.