Do you have a need to connect deeply with yourself?

Do you yearn for clarity around which career path to take or desire more understanding of a challenging relationship? Or do you want to experience better health so you can live more abundantly?

I didn’t consciously know I had these needs, but I did know that I wanted to help other people feel better. That was in 2002. I shared my thoughts with a friend who suggested I learn Reiki.

Reiki is a natural system of holistic healing that originated in Japan in the 1920s.

As well as physical beings, we are spiritual beings. Physical, mental, and emotional imbalances occur when we become disconnected from ourselves and something greater than ourselves.

When you practice Reiki on yourself, or receive Reiki, you regain holistic balance. Your life becomes healthier and happier. During Reiki courses, you learn hand placements that guide you to treat different areas of your body, such as your head and abdomen. Similarly, when you receive Reiki, a Reiki practitioner starts at your head and moves down toward your feet, placing their hands gently over different areas of your body.

Unlike massage, there’s no manipulation of soft tissue. Rather, the touch is light. It’s done through your clothes. You may experience heat or tingling where the hands are placed. Don’t worry if you don’t feel these sensations. Reiki is still working. Through the placement of hands, you’re connected to your innate healing ability. Physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual shifts begin to take place.

I didn’t know any of this before receiving Reiki from my teacher in 2002. I didn’t create an intention. I was simply open to receiving the treatment. To my delight, I loved Reiki after my first treatment. I wondered how such a gentle, non-invasive, hands-on practise could create such powerful changes. During my one-on-one sessions, throughout my Reiki training and later through a daily self-Reiki practice, emotional and mental shifts occurred.

We consciously or subconsciously store things within us that Reiki helps bring to our attention for healing. Before learning Reiki, I didn’t know that I carried tension in my shoulders. After learning Reiki, I decided to do something about it. Emotionally, I realised that a deeper level of healing needed to take place between me and a family member. During my training, I wrote that family member a letter letting them know how I felt. Mentally, I was clearer and calmer, and spiritually, I became connected to myself and something greater than myself that I was a part of.

Since 2002, I have enjoyed witnessing how Reiki has transformed the lives of my students and patients.

And it can change your life as well. One reason for these changes is because Reiki meets your deepest needs and guides you to where you truly need to be.

How does Reiki do that?

During a Reiki treatment, you’re connected with yourself and something greater than yourself that you’re a part of. This connection increases your health and well-being and reminds you of your true nature, which is kind, peaceful, and stable.

Sometimes you know what you need before receiving, learning, or doing Reiki on yourself. You know that you need greater mental clarity around your next career move. You know that you want to experience greater peace in a challenging personal relationship. You’re aware that you need a simple self-care practice to create or maintain balance.

At other times, your needs are not clear. You just know that you need to gain harmony. And that’s where Reiki creates magic.

Reiki accesses your underlying needs as well as your surface needs. How does this happen? During a Reiki treatment, your mental chatter lessens. Once your mind quietens down, you connect deeply with your inner wisdom. Your underlying needs become clear. Your certainty grows around which relationship to continue or end, which job to accept or reject, or which form of exercise to pursue.

These insights happen during the Reiki session or weeks after the session. You may need one session or a series of sessions. Reiki meets your needs, which are different to the needs of your friends or family, so it’s best not to compare your Reiki experience to others.

Your a-ha moments can be profound or subtle. You might suddenly view career stresses differently. You may slowly accept the present moment as being perfect as it is, despite the relationship challenges you’re facing. You could gently let go of outcomes regarding your physical health or strongly commit to a new health regime.

Similar to the disconnection from self and that occurs when your mind is busy (that’s corrected during a Reiki treatment), when your central nervous system is overworked, you experience physical imbalances. Imbalances such as delayed recovery from injury and illness, insomnia, headaches, depression, anxiety, and fatigue are part of our human experience. But, if they last for too long, they affect your normal functioning and stop you from living life fully.

Reiki quietens your mind, connects you with yourself, deeply relaxes your body, and creates an optimum environment for healing to take place. Deep relaxation is a wonderful sensation and a fundamental requirement for you to maintain holistic balance. I often joke with students and patients that if they fall asleep when receiving Reiki I will give them a 6 out of 10, if they snore I will give them an 8 out of 10, and if they dribble I will give them a 10 out of 10.

The level of relaxation that Reiki treatment induces is often enough to restore you to balance and/or provide you with insight (sometimes with the help of a skilled practitioner) into how to maintain your health and well-being after your treatment is over. Thankfully, Reiki complements, rather than replaces, other treatments you’re receiving.

The mental clarity, connection to yourself and something greater than yourself that you’re a part of, and the numerous health benefits that Reiki creates meet a variety of your fundamental needs.

As I share with my students: I initially had expectations, doubt, and attachment to results when I started treating others with Reiki.

After 17 years of practice, I now know that Reiki always meets their needs and guides them to where they’re meant to be. And it can for you as well.