VISIT OUR HOME PAGE FOR OUR LATEST NEWS

ABOUT LOTUS REIKI

Hello and Welcome to the website of Ma Prema Chetana (Formerly Sharon Carrington), founder of Solent School of Reiki and the Lotus Reiki System of Healing.  Established in 2001,  Chetana has been teaching Reiki for 7 years (5 of them full time, so it is possible!)   During this time she has continued her studies finally settling on an eclectic mix of Japanese & Western Reiki incorporating spiritual anatomy and the meridian system.  She teaches all levels of Usui Reiki, Karuna and Rainbow Reiki and is now working on her own combined system of Lotus Reiki.  In addition to Reiki Classes, Chetana runs a monthly sharing circle, a meditation group, chaka courses, revision & explorer days and regular courses and support for students wishing to make Reiki a career.  She runs a Reiki Clinic on Thursdays and Saturdays (if she isn't teaching).

ABOUT  CHETANA

Chetana is the schools founding teacher and has been actively teaching Reiki for the past 7 years. With over 700 students, she has proved herself as an experienced and motivational teacher.

Her classes are famous for their fun and energetic approach whilst still maintaining the sacredness of Reiki. Her Reiki Sharing Circles are extremely popular (so come early to get a seat). Chetana has a sound background in training and presentation skills which make for a lively and interactive workshop.


Since then, Chetana has continued her studies with Reiki and has taken advanced classes in Japanese Reiki Techniques,Karuna® and Rainbow Reiki. Amongst Chetana's Teachers are William Rand, Frank Arjava Petter and Beth Simmons Stapor.
Chetana teaches Reiki to all levels in Usui/Tibetan, Karuna (r) and Rainbow Reiki.

Chetana lives in Southampton with her two children whom she home educates. They have a dog, Flora, 2 cats: Polly & Daisy and 5 chickens: Willow, Rosie, Violet, Myrtle and Lizzi.  Both children are attuned to Reiki and daughter Caitlín is co-teaching her first Reiki for Kids Workshop in May 2008.  You can check out Caitlíns Reiki pages by clicking here


My Reiki Journey

My first glimpse of Reiki was during an Aromatherapy course back in 1996 in London. Many of the students there were into Reiki, something I had never heard of and influenced by our teacher who said "It does nothing for me" never felt the urge to find out more. It looked weird and I couldn't see how it could possibly work!

At the time I was a Business Development Consultant for Lloyds TSB and Aromatherapy was going to be part of my escape plan. Not that I was unhappy, I enjoyed my job and I enjoyed my company car and my salary, just felt that something was missing and I wasn't sure what.

My answer came in 1997 when, having moved to Hampshire from Devon following a promotion, I was struck down with 3 prolapsed discs in my back. I went from really happy to desperate within a few days, crawling to the toilet on my hands and knees, being unable to move, I stayed like this for 6 weeks and revisited this state on a regular basis in the following 3 years.

To top it all, I knew no-one at all, my family were in Devon and my Dad had been diagnosed with Prostrate Cancer, he was too ill to travel and my Mum stayed at home to look after him.

I didn't see them again for 9 months during which time I had found Reiki and a few friends. The pain in my back was desperate and I continued to pay £300 every month to receive treatment and I saw and tried everything! December 1998 found me on crutches, morphine and awaiting spinal surgery, that Christmas my Dad died.

My Reiki journey was bumpy, I completed 1, 2 & 3 in 18 months and now realise that I had totally missed the point of it all. It wasn't until after my Dad died that I met my Master Teacher, Tina and at last I began to understand what it was all about and ultimately began to heal.

All of a sudden the jigsaw began to fit and my interest in Reiki just blossomed. It was in April 1999 that Tina invited me to a retreat in Scarborough. To be honest, I went out of politeness for all that she had done for me, expecting to spend 3 agonising days placing my hands "5 minutes here and 5 minutes there". I was in for a big surprise! Once we arrived, I met a load of people, all very normal but all integrating Reiki into their everyday lives. Things like Reiking car parking spaces, your dinner and I remember, bottles of wine, really appealed to me..lol!

Having arrived at the retreat thinking that being a Reiki teacher was the worse waste of time anyone could do, I came away totally inspired and deciding that I would die if I didn't become a Reiki teacher.

What I did know though was what sort of Teacher I wanted to be. I wanted to move away from the traditional teachings that centred mainly on healing others and concentrate on giving people tools to heal and empower themselves. If they went to be become healers, great, but it wasn't essential.

I handed my letter of intent over to Tina and having accepted me, began 18 months of my apprenticeship. Now they say that taking your Masters is a life-changing event and it was for me. During this time I met and married my then husband and had my daughter Caitlin. I handed in my notice at Lloyds following some post-delivery illness and started to teach Reiki. In January 2002, I had my son Leo.

There began my lessons in Universal trust and connection. I found myself alone with 2 babies, one newborn, one 15 months with no visible means of being able to support myself. I was blessed with the kindness of the 20 or so students who generously supported me and I often found money through the door, nappies and shopping on the doorstep but 2002 was an incredibly tough year.

By November I was nearly destitute, living on £6 per week, supporting myself, my children and my dog Flora who often, like me went days eating only rice pudding. The last straw came when I received a gas bill for £45. It might as well have been £4,500, I had nothing for it, the heating had broken down long ago and if cut off I wouldn't be able to cook or have hot water. I remember placing it on my reiki grid and sacastically asking "could someone just pay this please?" I was facing a very bleak winter.

That night I went to my sharing circle, barely being able to afford the petrol over there, I expected the usual 7 students (although they were always different students) and hoped that enough would turn up to pay the rent.

Someone upstairs had listened and I walked in to 20 students all sitting around expectantly. Overwhelmed, I had to hide in the loo to compose myself, I just couldn't believe it. When everyone went home that night, it was if a pot of gold had been left behind and when I took out the money for the rent, you guessed it, I had exactly £45 left!

And then I got it, we are all creatrices of our own destiny and if your intention to genuinely help others is true, the universe will help you.

The next November I took my kids to Disneyland in Paris.

Since then I have continued my journey and realised my dream. I have been lucky enough to study with William Rand and spent a whole week last year with Arjava Petter. The Reiki I teach is my own personal interpretation as I try to combine the traditional with the Japanese teachings.

Our work continues and I am currently concentrating on our cancer teams which are making ground breaking progress in the treatment of cancer with Reiki.

Every day I give thanks for the path that I have taken for all those experiences accessed an inner strength I never knew I had. In the end, I can only hope that I become a worthy drainpipe to continue to pass on these teachings :-)

If you are reading this and going through a tough time, just trust and know that you are a beautiful being of love and light and you have immeasurable strength and inner power to overcome it. Take comfort in the fact that people don't generally come to Reiki because they are having a nice time, it is usually a succession of crap times that brings people to Reiki's door.

Wishing you a very pleasant journey :-)

Love, Light and Blessings

Sharon x

UPDATE IN SEPTEMBER 2008

It has been some years now since I wrote about my story and of course things change.  One of the big decisions is changing to my spiritual name of Chetana following my taking Sannyas in August 2008 at Osho Leela.   I've simply cut and pasted the words that I sent out to my students with my Autumn Newsletter...


Hello All!

Well here we are already heading towards the end of summer. At home, this is our busiest time of year with lots of berries to collect, jam to make, beans to blanche, courgettes to do, I don’t know…what with? We’ve been eating a lot of courgette cake! Did I mention the beans……lol

For the first time in what seems like ever, I decided to take August off and enjoy the sun, take the kids camping, do the allotment and have a rest. And all of those things were achieved with the possible exception of the sun. We camped in a practical hurricane and remember with a smile, Caitlin taking off across a field whilst holding onto a tarpaulin sheet and having to evacuate our gazebo following somebody’s bright idea to put the fire pit inside because it was raining, actually it was me but I’m going to blame Marie who is our fire warden on camp. I’ll leave the story about curry flavoured horlicks for another day.

Ok, so everything is going really well and then I decided to go to Osho Leela. OMG! We experienced everything from trauma of Tantra, to Glass walking and finally taking Sannyas, a real rollercoaster of bringing stuff up, loud and clear!

Personal development has the habit of biting you on the bum when you least expect it and it’s OK to understand it on an intellectual level but something entirely different when you have to feel it to integrate. Over the summer I have been learning that the next stage in embracing wisdom is go deep down inside. To visit the places you least want to go, to actively seek out your darkness and bring it into the light.

For a long time I have been helping other people and am truly happy and honoured to do that, however when anyone asks about me, I’m just as happy to swiftly move on and hope that nobody really notices. The truth is, (and this is a big confession) that I do very little to sort my own stuff out especially when everyone else’s stuff is so much more interesting  So that was what bit me on the bum, we got to Osho Leela and everyone was noticeably thin, noticeably thin and aware, leaving me nowhere to hide. I felt absolutely enormous and realised for the first time that everyone could see that I had some big issues. I was seriously hating the connection thing there, way too much hugging, my back was killing (of course it was …sacral overload!) OK so I needed to do something about it.

Right at the moment when I was planning to go home, I decided to go and watch the glasswalking seminar. The guy there was called Dhyano, a great guy who talked about his time as a therapist, his interest in fear and about embracing the future and not dwelling in the past. This resonated with me as I have spent a lot of time churning up old stuff and his words inspired me to move forward. (Which turned out firstly to be moving forward across 10 feet of jagged, sharp, broken glass) During the seminar he talked about Sannyas and I noticed that there was a talk on it later that night, so I wandered in to see what it was all about.

There were a bunch of really excited people wanting to do this ceremony, one of self dedication to a spiritual path and to yourself. Sounds ideal I thought as it was fitting in with my new idea of moving forward and doing some personal work. Turns out that you can change your name too as in the ceremony you are given a spiritual name. Completely out of character I just signed up for it there and then, Dhyano asked me what I wanted to be called, “I’ll just leave it up to you” I said

So off we went to this ceremony, no idea what to expect but all I can say is that it was just perfect. My new name was whispered in my ear which is Ma Prema Chetana and was told that Prema means love and Chetana means wisdom. How perfect I thought and what a lovely thing to aim for. I’ve decided to use this name as my Reiki name and to use it as a special way of rededicating to my Reiki journey but one that includes working on myself primarily.

Wishing you love and joy on your healing journey (and don’t ever delude yourself that it is ever going to finish)



Chetana x

Have a look at me Glasswalking!

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ10oB5fGW8