Reiki the Power to Heal is Within
What is Reiki?
Reiki is an energy healing technique that promotes relaxation, reduces stress, and anxiety through gentle touch. Practitioners use their hands to deliver energy to the recipient’s body, improving the flow and balance of their energy to support healing. The term “Reiki” was derived from the Japanese words “rei,” meaning “universal,” and “ki,” which refers to the vital life force energy that flows through all living things. Developed by Mikao Usui in the early 1900s, Reiki is now used worldwide, including in hospitals and hospices, to complement other forms of health treatments.
Here are some key points about Reiki:
Health Benefits of Reiki:
Relaxation: Reiki promotes relaxation and stress reduction, which can improve overall well-being.
Meditative State: It can induce a meditative state, fostering mental and emotional balance.
Healing Support: Reiki may aid tissue and bone healing after injury or surgery.
Immune System Stimulation: It stimulates the body’s immune system.
Natural Self-Healing: Reiki supports natural self-healing processes.
Pain and Tension Relief: It can help relieve pain and tension.
Complementary to Medical Treatments: Reiki can be beneficial for people receiving traditional medical treatments such as chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, and kidney dialysis.
Reiki and Traditional Treatments:
Reiki should not replace traditional medical or psychotherapeutic consultations.
Instead, it complements other types of treatments and can enhance their efficacy.
For those in good health, regular Reiki treatments can serve as preventive medicine and improve stress response.
Conditions Reiki May Help:
Reiki works on the entire self—mind, body, and emotions.
Remember that Reiki is not a religion, but it can enhance your connection with your spiritual experience. Living harmoniously with others remains essential, regardless of one’s beliefs.
Chakras are energy centers in your body that play a crucial role in your physical and emotional well-being. The word “chakra” comes from Sanskrit and means “wheel” or “disk.” These spinning energy centers correspond to nerve bundles and major organs, and they need to remain open and balanced for optimal functioning. When a chakra becomes blocked, you may experience physical or emotional symptoms related to that specific energy center.
Here’s a closer look at the seven main chakras:
Root Chakra (Muladhara):
Located at the base of your spine.
Provides a foundation for life and helps you feel grounded.
Responsible for your sense of security and stability.
Sacral Chakra (Svadhisthana):
Located just below your belly button.
Governs sexual and creative energy.
Linked to how you relate to your emotions and the emotions of others.
Solar Plexus Chakra (Manipura):
Located in your stomach area.
Influences confidence, self-esteem, and control over your life.
Heart Chakra (Anahata):
Located near your heart, in the center of your chest.
Associated with love, compassion, and emotional well-being.
Throat Chakra (Vishuddha):
Located in your throat.
Relates to your ability to communicate verbally12.
Third Eye Chakra (Ajna):
Located between your eyebrows.
Associated with intuition, insight, and inner wisdom.
Crown Chakra (Sahasrara):
Located at the top of your head.
Represents spiritual connection, enlightenment, and higher consciousness.
Balancing and harmonizing these chakras through practices like yoga, meditation, and visualization can promote physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
Reiki, as described, has three fundamental pillars that form its foundation. Let’s explore each of them:
Bringing Hands Together at the Heart Center:
This practice helps ground the individual and center their energy.
By placing the hands together at the heart center (often in a prayer position), the practitioner establishes a connection between their own energy and the universal life force energy (Prana or Reiki).
It’s a symbolic gesture that sets the intention for healing and opens the practitioner to receive and channel energy.
Invocation of Reiki Energy:
After grounding, the practitioner invokes Reiki energy to flow.
This can be done through a simple intention or a specific mantra.
The practitioner becomes a conduit for this healing energy, allowing it to flow through their hands to the recipient.
Chiryo (Healing Techniques):
Chiryo involves two main approaches:
Hands-On Healing: The practitioner places their hands in various positions along the recipient’s body. These positions correspond to the major chakras or energy centers.
Beaming Energy: Instead of physical touch, the practitioner directs Reiki energy toward the recipient from a distance (beaming).
The recipient receives this loving energy, which promotes relaxation, balance, and healing.
Reiki energy is only positive. Reiki Energy goes where it needs to go. Reiki can be done anytime and anywhere. There are many variations within Reiki. Experiment, explore, get feedback from your clients. Reiki is a simple technique that anyone can learn. It is not dependent on intellectual capacity and requires no prior experience with healing. Meditation, or any other kind of training inside each one of us on this planet is the innate ability to facilitate healing. Energy flows thought and intention is an integral part of Reiki. Reiki practitioners are not transferring their own energy to their clients when giving treatments. The energy comes through the practitioner. Reiki practitioners receive healing themselves during a session as the energy passes through them and they enter a higher healing frequency.
Offering Reiki does not deplete the practitioner's energy, rather it increases the flow of life force energy in the practitioner. Reiki will always be there for you when you need it. The more you use Reiki, the more you will cultivate your healing gifts. Reiki is not just for humans. Use Reiki on animals, plants, crystals, trees, cars, wallets, written prayers or wishes, homes, etcetera. You do not ever need to be afraid of Reiki energy. It can become very powerful, and you may very well begin to sense things you've never sensed before. Remember to breathe through it, trust your experience, and do whatever, whichever grounding practices resonate with you.
Ultimately, it is not the Reiki practitioner who is the healer. Rather, it is the person receiving the energy. Only we can heal ourselves, just as only we can digest our own food. In the end, it is the cells that can heal themselves. Cells desire to be well, and given the right energetic, emotional and nutritional environments, they will do just that. The body has extraordinary intelligence and the ability to heal itself. As Reiki practitioners, we simply help people heal themselves.
Reiki attunements are essential for practitioners to connect more deeply with Reiki energy.
Each level (I, II, and III) corresponds to different attunements:
Level I: Focuses on self-healing and learning the hand positions.
Level II: Introduces symbols for mental/emotional healing and distant healing.
Level III (Master Practitioner): Further deepens the connection and allows the practitioner to teach and attune others.
In modern Reiki, there are both healing attunements and initiatory attunements. A healing attunement is similar to an initiatory attunement but is focused on amplifying the recipient's ability to heal herself and increase the energy available for healing, rather than on the ability to share Reiki with others. Healing attunements can be received by anyone. It is another tool in your toolbox whenever you want to help facilitate healing for someone and help them open up to receiving Reiki. It can be especially wonderful at the beginning of a session to increase the effectiveness of the session, or at the end to magnify client's ability to integrate and continue the healing that occurred. The healing attunement was first developed by the International Center for Reiki Training to help recipients and clients open to receiving Reiki energy and to boost their Life force. The receiver of the attunement generally is seated, their eyes are closed, and they are in Gassho. Depending on the practitioner, the attunement process can last anywhere from 30 seconds on up. There is no limit to the number of healing attunements someone may receive, and Japan attunements are often repeated on a weekly or monthly basis and do not imply certification.
The underlying notion is that each attunement is a blessing, and the recipient will only become enlivened with it with and open to Reiki at the pace that he or she is able to. Don't worry about making a mistake during the attunement, just offer it wholeheartedly and with a powerful intention and let go of all fears. Someone who has received a healing attunement may experience emotional release, spiritual awakening, physical detoxification, more awareness of their energy, body, increased warmth and or sense of peace magnified love and connectedness right afterwards or in the coming days or weeks. Just as Reiki sessions last far beyond what occurs during the session itself, the same is true for healing attunements.