Reiki: What is it?
Reiki can help with a variety of physical and emotional problems, including insomnia, stress, depression, anxiety, and pain. I always explain Reiki as an ancient Japanese practice of balancing energy - and it is - but it doesn't really go into much detail.
I feel like a lot of people have come to believe that true lasting change can only result from taking prescribed medication or from surgery, and that people like to look for a quick fix. As a consequence, a lot of other approaches outside of traditional medicine are written off as pseudoscience; and Reiki is definitely one of them. There's a big divide between science and spirituality, and I think Reiki gets thrown into the spirituality camp and is often referred to as 'woo-woo'.
In the USA, the top 15 academic hospitals, including Yale, Duke, and John Hopkins now offer Reiki amongst other therapeutic healing modalities. So despite Reiki getting a bad wrap, people are obviously feeling a real benefit.
Contrary to popular belief, a Reiki practitioner does not 'heal' a patient in a sense that they fix something that is wrong with them. The goal of the practitioner is to direct energy to help facilitate the person's own healing response. A student is trained by a Reiki Master during what they call an attunement or initiation process. This process opens the crown, heart, and palm chakras in the student and creates a special link between the student and the Reiki source.
A Reiki practitioner is able to promote a deep state of relaxation to stimulate the body's own innate healing abilities, releasing blocked, stagnant energy. Laying fully clothed on a massage table, a Reiki practitioner uses gentle hand movements to guide the flow of energy through a client's body to reduce stress and promote healing. This type of energy medicine aims to help the flow of energy and remove blocks in a similar way to acupuncture or acupressure.
If we think of our body as energy, and if we think of that energy as in a constant state of vibration - a Reiki practitioner is just smoothing out that vibration to be more harmonious, more coherent. In Tradition Chinese Medicine they refer to this life force energy as 'Chi' (also spelled qi), and when our Chi is flowing - our life and the world around us flows better. We feel less tired and more energetic, we can handle the problems we come up against and we generally feel more loving, open and compassionate towards others.
As well as practicing Reiki on people, you can also use Reiki to attune objects - and that's exactly what I do to every crystal that is sent out from Cryst Collective. For example - if a customer purchases a Calming and Healing Crystal Trio, I use that intention as I reiki the crystals. I focus on what I want the person to feel when they open up that box of crystals. I want the crystals to soothe their hearts and help them to have compassion for themselves and the people around them. I want their minds to feel more at peace and clear. I want their space to feel more harmonious and calm. I want them to connect with and believe in the energy of the crystals so the crystals are more powerful.
I always joke around that everything I do is woo-woo, and it's probably a protection mechanism, as I know a lot of people think the world of Reiki and crystals is just a pile of mystic bullshit. But I can't tell you how many times customers have told me that after using my Chakra Crystals and listening to the guided meditation how at peace they feel. Or a client after a Reiki session telling me that they went home and felt a 'lightness' in their being that they had never felt before.
I just ask people to open their minds and experience it for themselves.
