I haven’t really seen a good place to add in my reiki background so far, so I’m going to do this today. The reason I think it works well here is that a reiki practitioner is a channel for divine energy and another word for channel is medium – since we’re going to be discussing intuition in most of my posts, it’s good to have this context. Unbeknownst to me at the time, my reiki background provided a segue into my becoming a medium.
When I started working after university, I was lucky to find a job in the same field as my undergraduate degree. It was in the government sector, in an office environment, with lots of employees from different departments working in the same space, the first time I had worked in this setting. One of my colleagues was taking a reiki course one weekend and invited me along to participate. I did participate and after the weekend, I was given the reiki attunement from the teacher so I could practice healing myself and others as a first level practitioner.
Reiki is an energy healing technique that was developed in Japan by Mikao Usui, in the 1920s. The reiki practitioner is a channel or conduit for universal energy flowing through them into another via the channel’s hands. “Rei” is universal, and “Ki” is the energy that animates all living things, flowing through everything that is alive (including plants, animals and humans). Reiki is a gentle, relaxing process that can be “hands-on” and also “hands-off” or virtual/proxy. So, for example, I could give reiki to someone with only a photograph of the recipient. Reiki can be helpful in relieving or reducing pain and discomfort and I have found it especially helpful for anxiety. When the energy flow in your body is restored you are more likely to feel relaxed and your body’s natural healing abilities are utilized.
The reason why Reiki can be so powerful is because for each session, the practitioner silently asks the recipient to accept the flow of energy for their greatest good. The recipient may refuse the energy. I have had this happen, mostly with animals, and it’s always a learning experience – for example, horses don’t like to receive reiki in their herd but they are quite content to receive it when they are alone in a stall. I also know when an animal is end of life because they receive a huge amount of energy and they don’t want the reiki to end. The body takes what it needs at that point in time, there is no “directing” the energy by the practitioner.
Reiki was my first experience with energy healing and as part of the practicum, I participated in hands on group healing sessions for several weekends in the basement of the bookstore where I’d taken the reiki course. The recipient would lie on a table, fully clothed and often covered with a few blankets to keep warm. With two practitioners per recipient volunteer, one practitioner started providing reiki at the recipient’s head, while the other practitioner started on the body of the recipient. Once the practitioner had completed reiki to the person’s head, they moved down to the body to join with the other practitioner/partner. I practiced on many recipients, learning about my hand placement, sensing the rate and flow of reiki from my hands and getting feedback from the recipient.
One of the recipients during this time was a man and I had not practiced on a man at that point. I was still a bit nervous as a new practitioner and my partner, also a man, took the position at the head of the recipient so I was given the position to start with the body. I began as usual starting at the shoulders and chest area and moving down toward the feet, as per the reiki hand placements at the minor and major chakras. All seemed to be going fine, except that my partner did not move from the recipient’s head to join me at the body, he remained at the head, I’m not sure why. When I reached the root chakra area, the recipient’s penis began lashing around inside his pants and touched my hand as it lashed. I was shocked and disturbed and immediately pulled my hands away from the area, moving quickly down the recipient’s legs and feet to complete the session as quickly as possible while still trying to remain composed and engaged in the healing process.
I was quite upset by the experience and went to speak with some of the other practitioners to see if this was a common encounter. One of the other practitioners did say that this could happen as the energy is flowing through the recipient and it may have been an involuntary reaction. The practitioner then said if my intentions were for the highest good, there was nothing to worry about. At that moment, I decided I would no longer share hands on reiki with other humans outside of my immediate family. I was happy to provide proxy reiki but I have never provided a hands on session for anyone outside my family since.
Since then, I have offered reiki to many animals and to the natural world and planet – plants love reiki! I’ve provided reiki to several horses who were in the midst of colic, which can be fatal to horses and my own cats and dogs as well as to myself. And I send reiki energy via proxy regularly through a variety of means.
I’d love to know if you’ve experienced reiki and what you thought of the experience?