Transcript Interview Episode with Bronwen Logan
[00:00:00] Laurin: Welcome to the Curiously Wise podcast. I'm your host Laurin Wittig. This podcast is all about honoring, sharing and celebrating the natural and experiential wisdom of my guests, through curiosity provoking conversations, shared stories and tips we've all gathered along this journey. And from time to time, I'll be sharing my own stories and my own wisdom in solo episodes.
Oh, and we'll be laughing. A lot. I invite you to join in the fun as we uncover the unique wisdom we each carry within us. Ready? Let's get curious.
Hello, friends and welcome to Curiously Wise. I'm Laurin Wittig your host. And I have a wonderful guest here with me today. Bronwen Logan. I'm gonna just give you a little bit of an introduction to her, and then we're gonna dive into conversation.
So Bronwen is a Reiki author, a senior Reiki teacher, and co-founder of the International House of Reiki and Shibumi International Reiki Association. She's based near Sydney, Australia near the blue mountains, and Bronwen teaches internationally. Due to her research into the Japanese aspects of the system of Reiki since the early two thousands along with her writings and teachings, Bronwen has been a major influence on how the system is taught and practiced globally today.
Her down to earth manner and natural curiosity ensure that her teachings are also experientially based. Bronwen has co-authored with Frans Stiene, the critically acclaimed books, the Reiki Source Book, The Japanese Art of Reiki, A to Z of Reiki pocketbook, Reiki Techniques Card Deck, and Your Reiki Treatment, as well as recording their audio books. Bronwen has also recorded the double CD Reiki Meditations for Self-Healing and Reiki Relaxation with Sounds True in Boulder, Colorado.
And I had fun visiting Bronwen's website and listening to her voice actor clips, and she's got a beautiful voice. So I'm also looking forward to that.
So welcome Bronwen. So let's start with what is Reiki? How do you explain Reiki?
I have been trained in Reiki, so I use it, but I'm not good at explaining it to people. So if you would do that, cuz you are an expert
[00:02:27]Bronwen: Well, there's different ways of seeing it. And it also depends who you're talking to, who you're trying to describe it to, I guess. The actual word Reiki it can be translated in different ways cuz it's a Japanese word. The actual word Reiki can be translated as spiritual energy if you like.
I mean, over the years, it's had lots of different incarnations, I guess, of popularity, but that's one of them. It used to be called more in the west universal life force energy. I mean, really what they're talking about, is really we see it as I guess the energy of everything.
It is sort of like this big energy that we are all a part of. And it's something that we are born with. So it is a birthright, it's something totally natural. And so that's what Reiki is, but the system of Reiki is something else. So the system of Reiki is actually a system that we worked with, where we work with Reiki.
So we work with spiritual energy and the idea is to generate more of this energy so that we in doing so in the practices that we learn, we start to clear the energy in the body and really get back into a state of wholeness and you know, the word heal means to be whole.
Those two things go hand in hand. We are trying to get back into balance if you like. And as you know, we are always every day, going through different things that different things hit us. And sometimes we can fall over and say, oh my goodness. The more that we work on ourselves, the more that we practice. The idea is that we have more resilience, more inner strength to actually cope with life and everything that it hands us, and really have a very balanced harmonious experience with life's experiences, things that we go through.
[00:04:14] Laurin: Yeah. Yeah. That balance is something that I really love about Reiki is that it's really all about bringing balance back to the energy, as far as I've learned it so far.
[00:04:24] Bronwen: Yeah, and it's, it's so natural, you know. The thing about the system of Reiki is that it's trying to tap into something which is entirely natural for us. And that is to be in this beautiful, just whole complete state. That's sort of where we're at, what we're doing.
[00:04:41] Laurin: I read a little bit of your more extended bio on your website, and you had gone to India at one point.
[00:04:46] Bronwen: Yeah.
[00:04:47] Laurin: Is that where you encountered Reiki or?
[00:04:50] Bronwen: Sort of, and sort of not. I mean, I already knew about it. I'm from Australia obviously. And I had heard about it in Australia. And had tried to actually connect with it when I was really young in my early twenties. But it was in, in the early days in the west that the system of Reiki was here.
And so it was a little confusing for people. I think I, I don't really know what I encountered, but it wasn't really what I know as the system of Reiki today. So anyway, I went to Holland, I lived in Holland for seven years and a friend of mine came over and visited me and she'd studied in that time.
She'd studied the system of Reiki. That was lovely, you know. She was sort of like, oh, can I do some Reiki on your feet? And, and I was like, okay. It was an enjoyable experience. And I was very interested. I was interested in meditation and things like that at that point. And really couldn't find a direction to take.
And it wasn't until I left there, went to India for two years that I came across books actually about the system of Reiki. And I was like, oh, very interesting. And then, and the first sort of teacher that I came across studied with then.