How to Motivate Yourself to Practice in 5 Easy Steps

Motivating yourself to practice can be a different process for everyone, depending on your personality and the reason you are practicing in the first place. I know what it’s like and I understand the frustration of trying to recreate a routine in your life once it’s flown out the window. Regardless of how or why you came upon your interest in the system of Reiki, the following are five easy steps to help motivate yourself to practice on a daily basis. And if this seed of a practice works for you, you can then begin to grow your practice into a more traditional lengthy daily routine. Enjoy!

Follow these basic steps to get yourself back into shape:

1. Go back to the very beginning
   There’s no shame in returning to your very first foundational Reiki practice. For me, this is always Joshin Kokyu Ho. A practice that encapsulates what it means to be a conscious, compassionate being. Within Joshin Kokyu Ho we can find so much depth in our practice.
   Here is a fundamental description of the bones of this practice: 
   Breathe in and take the breath down into the hara, the home of original energy. On the out breath expand the hara through the body and out into the universe. 
2. Intent
   Understanding the meaning of what you are doing and why you are doing it naturally helps you to connect more deeply with your practice. This is your intent.
   We meditate in order to strengthen our ability to focus, and in this focused state we are open to the gift of insight and wisdom. By practicing Joshin Kokyu Ho you are always in beginner mode as you learn to quieten your mind and your heart, to remember your interconnectedness with everything. So, we can see that the practice is teaching us to remember how to focus and how to Be, the very truth behind our meditation practice motivation.
3. Simplify
   When we ask too much of ourselves, we often give up. Life becomes overwhelming. So on resuming your practice, start simply. By trying to practice for long periods each day you may find you have set up a barrier to resuming your ongoing practice. With Joshin Kokyu Ho, a good place to begin is to consider its most straightforward translation from Japanese to English, which is: focusing the mind using breath. Thinking of the practice and drawing on this translation we can pull out two simple elements: focus and breath. 
4. Take it into your day
   I’d like to suggest an almost unconventional way to bring Joshin Kokyu Ho (aka focus and breath) into your everyday life. Rather than finding a time and place to practice each day to create your routine as we often suggest, take this very moment – yes, this one right now – and consciously focus on your breath. Breathe, naturally but deeply with awareness. Feel the breath enter the body and move all the way down to the hara, and breathe out sensing that natural expansion of your energetic self. Yes, this is Joshin Kokyu Ho but it is also the simple act of conscious breathing. It doesn’t matter whether you’re walking, talking, reading, or watching, you are always breathing – just make it conscious. The more times that you register your awareness at the breath, the more times that you Know that experience of pure interconnectedness with everything. And the more times each day we recognise that blending of ourselves with everything else, the more we Be Reiki. 
5. It’s always the precepts
   And what does it mean to Be Reiki? Well, the Reiki precepts are always living in your Reiki practice. To Be the Reiki precepts is to Be Reiki. Breathing consciously supports the physical and emotional release of anger and worry, it reminds you of the joy of your humanness, it takes you into the heart of your practice and is pure compassion for you and those you meet each day. So make sure you know these guidelines and hold them close in every moment and see them reflected in your every daily action, as you continue to breathe.

Bronwen Logan

Based in Australia, Bronwen Logan (Stiene) teaches the system of Reiki is co-founder of the International House of Reiki and Shibumi International Reiki Association as well as co-author of the critically acclaimed books The Reiki Sourcebook, The Japanese Art of Reiki, A-Z of Reiki Pocketbook, Reiki Techniques Card Deck and Your Reiki Treatment. Bronwen is also the voice of their audiobooks and of the Reiki meditations available in the shop.

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