I just completed my second day at an AIDs summit. I was there to talk about Reiki from my table and in a presentation.
One of my clients who is also my student (and a Reiki Master), is one of the people that sets up this summit every year. It is for people in main stream healthcare areas to come and listen to speakers and hear stories and learn about support possibilities. The summit draws about 250 – 300 people each year. My student wanted me there to talk about Reiki.
I talked with a lot of people that passed my table and took flyers. I had been given several copies of last August’s Natural Awakenings magazine in which I had an article describing the three major types of energy modalities (look under here to read this article). Once I pointed out that the article was in them, they went like hotcakes (or so I think, not really knowing how hotcakes go).
I did spark a good bit of interest from the people there as we talked. But I think the talk I gave did the most.
I had to fill an hour and a half talking about and demonstrating Reiki. I was concerned as I didn’t know how many people I would get, and I knew I needed to make it much more scientific and less spiritual. I ended up with about 15 people which was a good size.
Now, I’m not a public speaker, and it does show. I was not giving a speech where I had everything written down and just had to memorize it. I mostly worked off the top of my head with an outline that I mostly followed (about the same as I do in class). I know it seemed a little more disjointed than I wanted it to, but I think I managed to keep the group with me.
What impressed them were the stories I told of people I had worked on with Reiki, especially the people that had cancer. They were very impressed at what Reiki did, even though the people that I worked on eventually lost their battle to stay here. They were impressed with how it worked and what power it had.
As a demonstration, I pulled a victim (er, volunteer) from the audience. The problem was that his leg was bothering him, and laying on the table turned out to be a problem after a while. And although he was hurting laying there, he said that he did feel better from the treatment.
I was approached by several people later who picked up flyers on classes. They told me that this seemed like something they might want to get into. It would be nice if it did.
At other times during the two days, I did massage on a few people in an area behind my table, giving each about 10 minutes or so. (I actually got one client from that).
It was a good two days, something I would do again next year if they asked.