08 Sep What Reiki Is & How It Works
Reiki is a system of subtle energy healing that uses a series of hand movements, symbols, and distant healing techniques. Reiki energy is drawn from the spiritually-guided universal energy that surrounds us all the time. It’s this energy that is responsible for all life and all healing. A person becomes attuned to this subtle cosmic energy through a Reiki master––one who has practiced, taught, and been attuned to the energy through a particular lineage originating in the Usui Shiki Ryoho system of natural healing.
I know, I know. For many people, this may sound “woowoo” to some. How does a healing modality that uses very little touch, if any, actually work? Years ago, before I experienced Reiki, I didn’t believe that such a practice could be as powerful as it is. Reiki deals with what can’t be seen, so it’s difficult to trust.
“Everything is energy, and therefore, everything is alive and receptive to energy.” – Unknown
Therapeutically, Reiki is a form of energy medicine that treats energetic imbalances. Reiki doesn’t diagnose, analyze, or make any formal judgement about a person’s state of health or what is felt through a treatment. Rather, a practitioner connects with a person’s energetic field and intuitively moves energy, clearing negative energy and unblocking stuck energy to enhance its flow and restore holistic health and wellbeing. Many people experience a very deep relaxation, accelerated healing of illness, and a clearer mind after a Reiki treatment. It restores a certain feeling of vitality.
A Reiki practitioner does not use her own energy to help balance and treat the receiver. Instead, she acts as a channel or conduit through which the universal life force energy flows. When she delivers Reiki to another person, she too is receiving the benefits of Reiki.
Can Reiki Help Anxiety?
Holistic health involves the mind, body, and spirit. The allopathic approach to health is limited in that it is contained primarily to the physical body. Psychological imbalances too are often pathologized and narrowly attributed. In many cases, the physical body is treated to “fix” the mind, with anti-anxiety or antidepressant medications. This doesn’t mean that we kick conventional medicine out of our lives. Rather, true health involves treating the entire being, and the physical body is just one part of the whole human experience.
The core idea behind Reiki is that physical, emotional, and psychological illnesses stem from an energetic imbalance. Trauma, negative emotions, injury and stress can cause blockages that over time may stagnate. When energy gets trapped in the body, there are physical and psychological implications, such as anxiety and depression. Illness and disease may manifest, and the ability to get one’s life in order and achieve balance becomes more and more difficult.
That doesn’t mean we don’t ever treat the physical body or take measures to improve mental health. Instead, we understand that human health is holistic and requires mixed modalities, including energetic adjustments, just as we need to balance movement with rest, feeding with fasting, mental stimulation with meditation.
Prevention Is Where True Wellbeing Resides
Reiki is not just a pathway to healing, it’s a preventative approach to wellbeing. It quiets the body and mind, putting the recipient into a meditative state, while the Reiki practitioner “enters” their personal energetic space and moves the energy around, clearing areas that feel stuck or sticky.
While there are some common techniques and symbols, every Reiki treatment is different because it depends on what is experienced, what is felt. The practitioner’s “seeing hands” feel what needs to happen, without any attachment to meaning.
Those hands may sweep, hover, rise, lower, and touch. Should one watch a Reiki session in practice, it may appear as a kind of dance is taking place, in which the hands flit above another’s body in mysterious, somewhat rhythmical fashion. Having practiced Reiki for several years, I can attest that it feels as beautiful as it looks to an observer.
What Can Only Be Felt…
There is a scientific explanation for Reiki which satisfies most rational minds. However, Reiki is truly a faith-based, felt practice experienced on a subtle level. Reiki must be experienced to understand it. Even then, it will always remain somewhat mystical. Conceptualizing subtle energy work like Reiki is akin to trying to chase one’s own shadow. Science can explain it to a point, but you’ll never fully understand it. Trust is key, and therein lies its beauty.
(To learn more about the science behind Reiki, check out this article––Energy Medicine: New-Age Dogma or A Solid Science?)
If you live in the Durham region, I would love to share the healing powers of Reiki with you. Reiki can help relieve pain, anxiety, depression, trauma, injury, illness, and other energetic imbalances. If you’re interested in receiving a treatment from a Reiki practitioner in Bowmanville, or you’d like to know more, please connect with me here.