How can Reiki support you with your healing journey?

People often turn to complementary therapy to support them as part of a longer and deeper healing journey. Perhaps you're already receiving medical care, having counselling or taking active steps to reduce your stress, improve your well-being or explore spiritual development. Reiki could help you to take this healing even further.

How can Reiki help?

Reiki, which has a strong focus on the healing ability of the individual, is a very nurturing therapy that helps people navigate their own healing process in some interesting ways. Let's explore how Reiki can help you on your healing journey.

Relaxation

If you have a long-term health condition or are experiencing overwhelming demands at work or home, perhaps the most obvious benefit of a Reiki session is that it provides an opportunity to relax in a quiet environment.

After an initial consultation, your therapist will ask you to sit or lay down and invite you to close your eyes. They will then hold their hands gently on your body or just slightly above in various positions, moving around quietly for the duration of the session.

Reiki is usually given in silence, with perhaps some soft music in the background. This allows you to rest, while the practitioner is focusing on sending Reiki. 

During this time, you may find that a racing mind is calmed and new perspectives arise on worries and problems. As the mind and body relax, you may fall asleep or enter into a meditative state, where the discomfort of symptoms may be relieved. 

Therapeutic touch

Reiki can be performed hands-on or hands-off and usually, during a session, there is some non-intrusive contact with the body through your clothes. For example, I always touch the client’s shoulders from behind for the first few moments of a Reiki session. Your therapist will discuss this with you prior to the session, and you can always specify if there are places that are sensitive to touch that the therapist should avoid. 

Contact in this way provides therapeutic touch, which helps to establish a loving human connection and rebuild a more positive relationship with the body - especially if you have been exposed to medical interventions that are invasive. Not everybody enjoys massage, and Reiki is a passive and gentle way of receiving non-medical, reassuring and comforting touch.

Reiki can result in feelings of increased well-being and spiritual renewal, which can help you to feel more like yourself again.

Time for you

Sometimes, having a Reiki session may be the only time in a busy schedule that people find to take themselves physically away from a stressful situation at home or at work.

Going out of your normal environment with the specific intention of receiving therapy is an act of self-care, giving you headspace and physical and emotional distance from your circumstances. You get an hour of time that is dedicated solely to you. Carving out time in this way sends a powerful signal to the self and to others that your well-being matters.

Support from your therapist

The therapeutic power of a positive and supportive relationship with a therapist is perhaps less obvious but is also key to the healing process. Because appointments are typically an hour long and include a consultation, there is the opportunity to talk in confidence about all aspects of your well-being in a way that is not rushed.

Complementary therapy is client-led and tailored to your individual needs and, for many clients, this contributes to a sense of taking greater control of your health. 

Trust builds between a Reiki practitioner and a client, often as a result of the connection forged through the therapy itself. As your therapist gets to know you better, you can often find solutions together that you might not have considered alone. Many complementary therapists have been on their own healing journey and will have great empathy and respect for your decision to attend to your well-being.

Therapists will often have knowledge of other services that may be useful for you. They may gently encourage you to take up something you used to enjoy again or reassure you it’s OK to go back to the GP with a niggling issue and ask to try another approach.

Support during talking therapy

The gentle, nurturing quality of Reiki also provides an additional source of support during a course of talking therapy, which takes considerable courage and commitment and, whilst worthwhile, can be very challenging for the whole system on all levels:

• Mentally - you may be having intrusive thoughts, vivid dreams, and memories.
• Emotionally - you may be reliving past trauma, crying, feeling angry or despairing.
• Physically - you may be exhausted from the energy you are using up dealing with your thoughts and feelings.
• Spiritually - you may have some questions about the purpose of your suffering.

Sometimes, it can feel very difficult to deal with all of this whilst still carrying on with daily life. It can help you to be safe and quiet with another type of therapist who doesn’t need you to talk or use up any energy and who recognises the nature of the healing journey you have undertaken.

Reiki for life

Reiki is suitable for all ages and all stages of life. It is an empowering therapy, gently supporting you to feel more whole, more in control and more able to take positive action to make healthy changes. It is a spiritual therapy, gently leading you back to yourself through stillness and connection. And it is a joyful therapy, helping you to remember your essence is wholeness.