The 5 Reiki Principles: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Living
Simple Invitations That Reshape Your Daily Life
Just for today I will…
These four words begin each of the five Reiki Principles, offering not commandments, but gentle invitations. Not lifetime vows that overwhelm, but daily choices that empower. In a world obsessed with transformation hacks and overnight enlightenment, these ancient principles offer something far more radical: permission to start again, right now, just for today.
The Reiki Principles aren't rules to follow perfectly—they're companions for the journey, reminding us that spiritual practice isn't about achieving an impossible standard. It's about choosing, moment by moment, to align a little more closely with our highest selves.
The Power of "Just for Today"
Before we explore each principle, we must understand the profound wisdom in these opening words: Just for today.
Imagine waking up and declaring: "For the rest of my life, I will never be angry again." The weight of that commitment would crush most of us before breakfast. But "just for today"? That feels possible. Manageable. Human.
"Just for today" is:
· A call to live fully in the present moment
· Recognition that every new day offers fresh choice
· An antidote to the paralysis of overwhelming commitment
· Permission to begin again tomorrow if today didn't go as planned
· A reminder that transformation happens in the accumulation of todays, not in distant futures
This phrase acknowledges a beautiful truth: we cannot control tomorrow, we cannot change yesterday, but we have immense power over this single day, this present moment, right now.
"Just for today" prevents us from falling into what I call "higher habits"— waking up to a deeper reality only to sleepwalk through it on autopilot. It invites conscious choice, renewed daily.
The Five Principles: Ancient Invitations to a Different Way of Being
1. Just for Today, I Will Let Go of Anger
The Ancient Wisdom:
Anger, in the Reiki tradition, isn't viewed as inherently bad or something to suppress. It's recognised as valuable information, a signal that something within us feels out of alignment, powerless, or disconnected from our true path.
The Modern Reality:
We live in a world that seems designed to provoke anger. Traffic. Politics. Injustice. Incompetence. Small frustrations and monumental wrongs. Many of us carry anger like invisible stones in our pockets, weighing us down without our conscious awareness.
The Invitation:
Letting go of anger doesn't mean denying it or pretending everything is fine. It means:
Feel it fully. Anger carries a message. What is it telling you? Where do you feel powerless? What boundary has been crossed? What part of you needs to be honoured?
Get the message. Once you understand what the anger is pointing to, you can take meaningful action. Perhaps you need to set a boundary, have a difficult conversation, or change a situation. Perhaps you need to reclaim power you've given away.
Release the emotion. Once the message is received and action is taken (or the recognition that no action will change the past), the emotion itself can be released. Holding onto anger after its message has been delivered is like continuing to ring a fire alarm after the fire is out—it only drains your energy and disturbs your peace.
The Deeper Truth:
Much of adult anger comes from the illusion that we are victims of circumstances beyond our creation. We project the cause of our anger outward, onto people, situations, systems, giving our power to mere triggers and mirrors.
Letting go of anger begins with a radical shift: welcoming it as a reminder to reclaim your power and take responsibility for your experience. This doesn't mean you caused everything that happens to you, but it does mean you have power over how you respond and what meaning you assign to events.
Daily Practice:
When anger arises today, pause. Place your hand on your heart. Ask: "What is this anger trying to protect in me? What power am I giving away? What would reclaiming that power look like?" Then breathe and choose your response consciously.
2. Just for Today, I Will Let Go of Worry
The Ancient Wisdom:
Worry is energy investment in unwanted outcomes. It's mental-emotional energy directed at creating or attracting precisely what we don't want to experience.
The Modern Reality:
We call it "being responsible" or "being prepared." We worry about our health, our loved ones, our finances, our future, our past choices. We lie awake at 3 AM running worst-case scenarios. We've normalized anxiety as proof that we care.
The Invitation:
Letting go of worry is an act of trust and an exercise in conscious energy management.
Worrying about the past is futile. The past is complete. It cannot be changed. What can be changed is your relationship with it—the meaning you assign, the lessons you extract, the forgiveness you extend (especially to yourself).
Worrying about the future is counterproductive. When you worry, you rehearse disaster. You channel creative life force into manifesting outcomes you don't want. Your energy follows your attention—where are you placing yours?
The Deeper Truth:
There is a divine or universal purpose woven through everything, even (especially) the things that hurt or confuse us. This doesn't mean everything happens "for a reason" in some simplistic way, but rather that within every experience lies an opportunity for growth, understanding, or transformation.
Letting go of worry means:
· Accepting the choices you made in the past while preserving the learnings
· Releasing the feeling that things "should have" been different
· Reclaiming the energy, you've scattered into imagined futures
· Investing your power of expectation into positive possibilities
The Practice of Radical Trust:
What if, instead of asking "What could go wrong?", you asked "What wants to emerge?" What if worry could be transmuted into curiosity? What if you trusted that you have the resources to handle what comes?
Daily Practice:
When you notice worry arising, place both hands on your belly and take three deep breaths. With each exhale, imagine releasing the worried energy like dark smoke. With each inhale, imagine drawing in golden trust. Ask yourself: "What would I do if I trusted completely?" Then do that.
3. Just for Today, I Will Give Thanks for My Many Blessings
The Ancient Wisdom:
Gratitude isn't just good manners—it's a frequency, a vibration, a magnetic force that attracts abundance of every kind into your life.
The Modern Reality:
We live in a culture of lack. We're constantly told what we don't have, what we need to buy, how we're not enough. Social media shows us everyone else's highlight reel while we're living our behind-the-scenes. It's easy to focus on what's missing, what's broken, what's not yet healed.
The Invitation:
The attitude of gratitude is the master key to experiencing abundance. But true abundance isn't about having lots of things and money—it's a natural state of trust and joy. It's the deep knowing that you are provided for because you are an expression of Divine Love.
The Deeper Truth:
What you focus on expands. When you notice what you're grateful for, you create more to be grateful for. This isn't magical thinking—it's a shift in perception that changes what you notice, how you feel, and consequently, how you show up in the world.
When you feel genuine thankfulness for what you are, what you have, and what you do, you send a clear signal to the universe: "I see the good. I recognize the blessings. I'm open to receive more of this."
Gratitude as Spiritual Practice:
· Gratitude for challenges teaches resilience
· Gratitude for pain teaches compassion
· Gratitude for endings teaches trust in cycles
· Gratitude for the ordinary teaches presence
· Gratitude for difficult people teaches boundaries and growth
The practice isn't about toxic positivity or denying real suffering. It's about training your awareness to recognise the light that exists even in darkness, the gifts that hide inside difficulty.
Daily Practice:
Before sleep, name three specific things you're grateful for from this day. Not generic things ("my health, my family"), but specific moments: "The way the morning light fell through my window. The stranger who smiled at me in the shop. The hot shower that eased my tired muscles." Let yourself feel the warmth of genuine appreciation.
4. Just for Today, I Will Do My Work Honestly
The Ancient Wisdom:
"Work" here means more than your job or career. It refers to your practice, your path, your cultivation of consciousness—including your thinking, feeling, and being.
The Modern Reality:
We live in filtered times. We curate our online personas, perform versions of ourselves for different audiences, and sometimes lose track of who we truly are beneath all the performance. We tell small lies to avoid conflict, bend truth to please others, and sometimes deceive ourselves most of all.
The Invitation:
Doing your work honestly means radical authenticity in every area of life:
Honesty with yourself: Listen to what your spirit is telling you, even when the message is uncomfortable. Especially then. Your intuition speaks truth—are you willing to hear it?
Honesty with others: Speak your truth with kindness but without dilution. "Walking your talk" means your actions align with your stated values, your inner knowing matches your outer expression.
Honesty in your practice: Be willing to see where you're stuck, what you're avoiding, what you need to learn. Spiritual bypass—using spiritual concepts to avoid real emotional work—is the opposite of honest practice.
The Deeper Truth:
True harmony can only unfold in a climate of honesty. Denial and lies—even small ones, especially to us—create internal conflicts that consume tremendous amounts of life energy. Every misalignment between inner truth and outer expression creates a leak in your power.
Honesty is the foundation of mastery. Spiritual mastery isn't about perfection—it's about "a level of consciousness that knows no conflict with the Divine but is aligned with the Divine so that one's own choices are Divine choices."
The Radical Practice:
Imagine that every thought you think is a suggestion to your unconscious mind and a prayer to Spirit. What would you be thinking? How would you speak to yourself? What would you choose?
Daily Practice:
At day's end, ask yourself: "Where did I compromise my truth today? Where did I show up authentically? What small lie am I telling myself that I'm ready to release?" Write these reflections privately. This isn't about self-judgment—it's about conscious awareness.
5. Just for Today, I Will Be Kind to My Neighbour and Every Living Thing
The Ancient Wisdom:
This principle is a beautiful expression of the sacred truth: "All is One." The interconnectedness of all existence isn't metaphor—it's physics, it's reality, it's the fundamental nature of consciousness itself.
The Modern Reality:
We live in a culture that emphasizes separation: us vs. them, me vs. you, human vs. nature. We're disconnected from the earth, from each other, often from ourselves. Acts of unkindness—from casual rudeness to deliberate cruelty—have become normalised in many spaces.
The Invitation:
Kindness isn't weakness or naivety. It's recognition of the fundamental truth that all of our thoughts, feelings, and actions affect everything else. The quantum field that connects us all responds to the quality of energy we emit.
Expanding the Circle:
· Kindness to strangers: The person who cut you off in traffic is fighting battles you know nothing about
· Kindness to difficult people: They're showing you where you still have healing work to do
· Kindness to yourself: Perhaps the most radical act of all
· Kindness to animals and nature: Recognising consciousness in all living things
· Kindness to those you disagree with: Seeing the divine spark even where values differ
The Deeper Truth:
When you show love and respect for the world around you, you create a world of love and respect. Not because you're being "good," but because you're participating consciously in the co-creation of reality.
Your kindness isn't just "nice"—it's transformative. It shifts energy fields, opens hearts, changes trajectories, plants seeds that bloom in ways you may never witness.
The Practice of Conscious Kindness:
This doesn't mean being a doormat or accepting harmful behaviour. Kindness includes boundaries. It includes saying no. It includes protecting yourself. True kindness recognizes the inherent worth in all beings while maintaining healthy discernment.
Daily Practice:
Choose one deliberate act of unexpected kindness today. Pay for someone's coffee. Smile genuinely at a stranger. Send a message to someone you appreciate. Pick up litter. Thank the universe for your breath. Notice how kindness given is kindness received—it ripples both ways.
Living the Principles: Integration into Daily Life
These principles aren't meant to be:
· Perfect achievement (you'll "fail" daily—that's human)
· Guilt-inducing rules (shame is not a spiritual practice)
· Performance for others (this is intimate inner work)
· One-time realizations (they unfold in layers over years)
They ARE meant to be:
· Daily companions and reminders
· Gentle redirections when you notice you've wandered
· Invitations to choose again, right now
· Maps for navigating the inevitable challenges of being human
· Practices that deepen with time
Morning Practice:
Before you check your phone, before you make your tea, sit for just three minutes. Speak the five principles aloud, slowly. Let each one land in your body. Set the intention: "Just for today, I choose this." That's all. That's enough.
Throughout Your Day:
When stress arises, when conflict emerges, when you notice you're spinning—pause. Ask: "Which principle do I need right now?" Sometimes it's letting go of anger. Sometimes it's releasing worry. Sometimes it's remembering gratitude. Let the principles be touchstones you return to.
Evening Reflection:
Which principle did you embody today? Which one challenged you? Where did you lose your way? Where did you find your centre? This isn't about judgment—it's about conscious awareness, the bedrock of all transformation.
The Profound Simplicity
What makes the Reiki Principles so powerful is not their complexity but their elegant simplicity. They don't require you to:
· Believe specific religious doctrines
· Achieve enlightenment before you begin
· Be "spiritual enough" or "evolved enough"
· Change who you fundamentally are
· Join anything, buy anything, perform anything
They simply invite you to show up more consciously to this one day you're living right now.
They ask:
Can you meet your anger with curiosity instead of shame?
Can you notice worry and choose trust?
Can you find one thing to be grateful for?
Can you tell one more truth today?
Can you extend kindness where it costs you nothing but means everything?
Just for today. That's all. And then tomorrow, you get to choose again.
When Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Life
In our contemporary world of constant stimulation, endless demands, and persistent anxiety, these principles offer something we desperately need: simplicity without simplification. They honour the complexity of human experience while providing clear guideposts.
They don't promise that life will become easy—they promise that you'll develop the inner resources to meet life with more grace, presence, and power.
They acknowledge that you'll stumble, forget, react from old patterns, and choose unconsciously sometimes. And then they offer you the most healing words in any language: "Just for today, begin again."
Reiki as a Way of Life
Reiki is so much more than a healing technique applied during a session and then set aside. The practice of Reiki can unfold into a spiritual path of great depth and beauty. Being a channel for the energy essence of Divine Love isn't a state you enter for an hour and then return to "normal."
Being a channel for Reiki affects every moment of your life—every perception, every choice, every action. As the practice deepens, you flow Reiki not just from your hands but from your heart, your thoughts, your words, your presence.
The Five Principles provide guidance for attuning your everyday life to Universal Life Force Energy. They help you become a clear channel, a conscious vessel, a living expression of the healing you wish to see in the world.
Your Invitation
You don't have to be a Reiki practitioner to benefit from these principles. You don't need to be initiated, trained, or certified to begin living by these ancient invitations. You simply need to be willing to:
· Show up to this day consciously
· Notice when you've wandered from centre
· Choose again, as many times as necessary
· Be gentle with yourself in the learning
· Trust that small daily choices accumulate into transformed lives
Just for today, what if you:
· Let go of one anger you've been carrying?
· Released one worry you've been rehearsing?
· Acknowledged one blessing you've been overlooking?
· Spoke one truth you've been avoiding?
· Extended one kindness you've been withholding?
What if just for today, you lived a little more consciously, a little more aligned, a little more awake?
And then tomorrow, what if you chose to begin again?
Learn Reiki: Become a Channel for Healing
Are you feeling called to deepen your spiritual practice? To become a channel for healing—for yourself, your loved ones, and your community?
Reiki training isn't just learning a technique. It's embarking on a lifelong journey of personal transformation, spiritual awakening, and service to something greater than yourself.
At Reiki Divine Therapy, I offer traditional Japanese Usui Reiki training taught with intimate attention in small groups or one-to-one sessions. This isn't mass-produced certification—this is personal, sacred transmission of an ancient healing art.
The Three Levels of Reiki Training:
Shoden (First Degree) - £222
The foundation: Opening yourself as a channel, understanding energy, healing yourself and others through touch. Learn the history, principles, and hand positions. Receive attunements that activate your natural healing ability.
Okuden (Second Degree) - £244
Deepen your practice: Receive the sacred symbols, learn distance healing, work consciously with guides and energy, and step into practitioner-level mastery.
Shinpiden (Master/Teacher) - £260
Complete your training: Receive the Master symbol, learn to attune others, and commit to Reiki as a spiritual discipline and way of life. Become a teacher of this ancient tradition.
Each training is a full day immersion where you'll learn, practice, receive attunements, and integrate the teachings in a supportive, sacred space.
Reiki Divine Therapy
Nici Pickering
Accredited Therapist | Reiki Master | Spinal Flow Practitioner
Every Reiki Divine Experience is as Unique as You Are
24 High Street, Whiston, Rotherham, South Yorkshire, S60 4HH
📧 nici@reikidivine.co.uk | 📱 07545 053 129
🌐 www.reikidivine.co.uk | 📷 Instagram: @nicipickering
Just for today, may you walk your path with consciousness, courage, and compassion.