When I first began sharing Yoga Nidra, my intention was simple… I wanted to offer people a place to rest. A chance to step away from the constant movement of everyday life, to soften the body, quiet the mind and experience the deep restoration that Yoga Nidra offers.

Over the years my classes have changed, but not because I sat down with a plan to change them. They have evolved in much the same way that we grow ourselves… almost without noticing.

If I listened back to one of my recordings from several years ago, the structure would be familiar, but something has shifted. Not in the technique itself, but in the understanding behind it. The more I practiced Yoga Nidra myself, the more I realised that it wasn’t simply about relaxation.

It was about awareness.

Not awareness that is focused or concentrated. Not awareness that is trying to achieve anything. The kind of awareness that notices the breath without changing it. That notices sensations without needing to label them. That allows thoughts to come and go.

It’s a spacious awareness that doesn’t cling to anything, yet somehow holds everything. And somewhere along that journey, without any conscious decision, Reiki quietly found its way into my Yoga Nidra.

Or perhaps more truthfully…

I realised it had been there all along.

For many years I thought of Yoga Nidra and Reiki as two separate practices. Yoga Nidra was about conscious rest. Reiki was about connection with universal life energy. But gradually those boundaries began to dissolve.

As I became more comfortable resting in awareness, I noticed something familiar. It was the same quality of presence I experience when sharing Reiki. The same spacious awareness. The same quiet knowing that I didn’t need to make anything happen. Simply creating the conditions where whatever needed to unfold could unfold.

Just being.

Over the years, my Yoga Nidra practices have naturally become an invitation to reconnect with the world around us. Sometimes that connection is through the steady support of the Earth beneath us. Sometimes it’s through the spaciousness of the sky, the rhythm of the breath, the warmth of sunlight, the sound of rain or birdsong, the movement of water, or the quiet stillness of the changing seasons.

The images change. The invitations change. But the experience they point towards is always the same. To remember that we have never been separate from this world. We are part of it.

When we speak in Yoga Nidra about resting in awareness, this is the space I believe we are discovering. Not an empty space. Not a blank space. A living space. A space of connection. A space where we stop trying so hard to be somewhere else and simply allow ourselves to be exactly where we are, held within something much bigger than ourselves.

Perhaps this is why Yoga Nidra has become such a natural companion to Reiki in my own teaching. Reiki reminds us of our innate connection. Yoga Nidra allows us to experience it. Neither practice asks us to become someone different. Neither asks us to strive. Both gently invite us home to ourselves.

So my classes have evolved, but not because I was searching for something new. They evolved because my own experience deepened. The more I rested, the more spacious awareness became familiar. The more familiar it became, the more I recognised the quiet presence that has always been at the heart of Reiki.

And now, when I guide a Yoga Nidra, I no longer feel as though I am leading people towards relaxation alone. I feel as though I am inviting people to remember their place within the living world. To feel supported by the Earth beneath them. To notice the gentle rhythm of breath, of nature, of life itself. And within that spacious awareness, to recognise the quiet connection that has been there all along.

Looking back, I can also see that this journey naturally shaped the book I recently wrote, The Reiki Precepts: A Path of Awareness. In many ways, it became an opportunity to put into words the connection I’ve gradually come to experience between awareness, Yoga Nidra and Reiki.

Perhaps that’s what awareness gently reveals. Not something we need to search for or create, but something that has always been there…quietly waiting to be noticed.

And perhaps that is what coming home really feels like.