Reiki is a hands-on healing system introduced almost a hundred years ago in Tokyo, Japan, and which has been adopted worldwide. A method of therapeutic touch, Reiki helps the body balance itself on a deep level. It releases blockages that cause pain, make you feel sick, stressed or without energy. For a more scientific explanation, click here and here.
What can be treated with Reiki?
Reiki is a balancing practice. Rather than addressing a specific ailment like a headache, it influences the whole organism towards balance. As your system comes towards balance, pains recede and symptoms pass. As a non-invasive complement to Western therapies, Reiki may help ease conditions such as
headache
migraines
insomnia
physical injuries
lack of energy
tiredness
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
stomach ache
backache
knee injuries
bone-related issues
Autoimmune disorders
allergies
depression
anger
fear
overwhelm with daily life
What are some other benefits of Reiki?
Reiki can help you increase your energy on a physical and mental level. It will enhance your sense of calm and help you find your balance. It will stabilize you emotionally. It will balance your chakras. It can provide relief for chronic pain. Reiki can boost and strengthen your immune system. It can unblock suppressed emotions and feelings.
What does a Reiki session look and feel like?
During your Reiki treatment, you will be fully clothed, sitting or lying down. I will gently place my hands either above or on your body, in a sequence of positions from head to toe in order to pass the Reiki energy to you.
Generally, you will feel a sense of calm and peace. Where my hands are placed you might experience a warm and tingling sensation and a subtle flow of pulsating energy throughout your body. Or you might just be relaxed and in touch with yourself, without having any particular sensations.
What happens after a session?
The session starts off the healing process and your body moves towards a balanced state.
It’s possible that it will detoxify in the days after the treatment. Your symptoms could temporarily worsen before getting better because old blockages come to the surface. While the energy within you is shifting and re-balancing, even additional symptoms might occur. This is known as a “healing crisis”, and is perfectly normal. The side effects are positive signs of your healing process and will pass soon. You are on the path to a new you.
If you take note of any such experiences and sensations, we can adjust your next session accordingly. Drinking lots of water and allowing yourself to rest as much as possible will facilitate the healing process.
How many sessions do I need?
Clients usually feel better after just one session, but depending on your condition, your body may need more to harmonize, stabilize and strengthen your system. For conditions like chronic back pain, I recommend four to five treatments in short succession because each treatment builds on the last. To keep your energy flowing, a follow-up once a month is advisable.
I obtained my Reiki Master in 2004 and have been treating patients since then.
My Reiki master is Anne Cook in Dubai. She studied with William Lee Rand, founder of the International Center for Reiki Training and one of the most influential Reiki practitioner in the world.
How did you get into Reiki?
A friend of mine in Germany told me about Reiki. She was getting divorced and going through some rough times. Her six-year-old was stressed out, had trouble breathing and sleeping, and wet his bed. Through Reiki, she wanted to help him, her other children and herself.
I myself was stressed at the time. As a teacher, I was handling kids from morning to evening, and then correcting homework till late at night. I suffered from breathing problems and pain in my chest.
I had used homeopathic remedies and Bach flowers for years, but they only go so far. After all, they are external means and it can take a long time to heal. Reiki, on the other hand, has an immediate effect and triggers the internal healing process right away.
I got intrigued when my friend first told me about Reiki because you can initiate the healing yourself. All you need is your hands and contact with the source. No medicine necessary.
How was your own first Reiki session as a patient?
Before learning, however, I wanted to experience it myself. Reading was just not enough for me. So I went to my future teacher and had a session as a patient first.
During this session I started to cry, out of the blue. But it wasn’t like weeping. The tears just came out like that. It felt as if they were coming from deep inside of me. And then I could feel the stress coming out of my belly as well, physically.
And afterwards, I could breathe deeply again. I felt relaxed, happy and light. This lasted for 10 days, but by then, I had already decided to take the course.
How did you become a Reiki master?
During the training, I started to feel the energy. It has always been there, but I didn’t know. I couldn’t perceive it. It’s like air. Everybody knows it’s there and breathes it but nobody “feels” it. Then suddenly, what was invisible before became physically touchable to me. I can feel the energy around me and in other people.
It took me three years of learning and continuous practice, but eventually I reached the master level. It’s a life-changing experience to directly connect to the source and feel the invisible energy around you. But what kept me going was being able to help others while at the same time healing myself.
How does the healing work?
As a Reiki practitioner, I am not a healer per se. I rather help your body to heal itself by triggering the healing process.
Throughout our daily lives, our energy channels increasingly clog, sometimes from our environment but often by our own bad thoughts. Or smoking, for example. Each cigarette pierces holes in the smoker’s energy field and continuously weakens it. Eventually, the smoker’s bodies ends up out of balance.
Reiki opens and cleans these channels. It rebalances our energy field, the aura, and also our energy centres, the chakras. Slowly, the body regains its ability to heal itself. In case of the smoking, it starts closing these holes again. And not only energetic holes, but mental and emotional ones as well.
In all of these, I merely act as a facilitator. It’s your body that reacts to the transmission of the energy. It’s you who does all the work and the healing.
What is Chakra Balancing?
Within us we have 7 main chakras, centers that are responsible for the energy flow in our subtle body. Blockages in any chakra can lead to an imbalance, the results are physical and emotional weaknesses. Through Chakra balancing you will feel harmonized and happier to cope with your daily life.
How do I know a healer is a good one?
The short version: trust yourself, you’ll know.
The long version: For healing to take place, there needs to be a human connection. It’s like at the office, if you want any work to get done, you need to trust your co-workers, at least to a certain point. Similarly, you need to trust the Reiki practitioner (or any healer for that matter). Have a little chat beforehand, and check if you feel comfortable. If you do, it’s a good sign and if not, just choose another practitioner.
How do I know it’s working?
The only true way of knowing is to try it out and experience a treatment for yourself. You can have a treatment when you have a migraine, for example. After a couple of minutes, your migraine should be gone, or you might even feel a bigger shift in energy.
It’s not me healing you. I’m just asking for universal help and transmitting the energy to you. You don’t have to believe in Reiki for the treatment to work.
Especially with physical injuries, you might not feel a difference right away. But the body usually begins the healing process right away. It might take more than one treatment, but eventually you start to feel it.
That is also the case for deeper problems, for example chronic disorders. That’s the reason I always talk to my patients first, to get a better understanding of what the root problem might be.
How does it work over distance?
Since Reiki works with the universal energy field, it doesn’t really matter how far away you are from your practitioner.
What’s necessary though is confidence in the energy that surrounds you. Since I am just a facilitator while your body does the healing, the trust in the principle is what makes a big difference. That’s why I always ask you before any treatment if it’s ok and I am allowed to help you.
And here is a more practical, step-to-step description of a long-distance Reiki treatment:
We make an appointment.
When the time comes, I send you a message.
You send me a confirmation message that you are ready to receive the energy.
Take your time and relax.
I start the treatment, connecting to the universal energy and transmit it to you.
Can you tell me about some of the people you have helped?
Just recently, I helped a patient who fell after slipping on the ice. She was in pain and had physiotherapy treatments scheduled when she told me about her pain. I treated her and the body started the healing process. The pain subsided after the first treatment and she canceled her physiotherapy.
Another patient had a broken wrist and had been going to physiotherapy since a month. Because of the pain she was not able to work in her ice cream parlor. I treated her for half an hour. On the following day, she was able to move her hands and started to serve again. Her pain was gone and no more physiotherapy was necessary.
An example for a long-distance treatment is a patient that lives 45 minutes from here. She had ongoing problems with her heart, liver and kidneys. The medication she took did not always help with the pain. At times, she couldn’t even fall asleep because she hurt so much. When it became too bad, I did several quick 20-minute remote sessions with her. Afterwards, the pain either dissipated or went back to a manageable level. She was able to sleep again and relaxed, so much that she even stopped smoking for long periods.
My first patient ever was very active and loved dancing, but eventually, she started to suffer from back problems. Constantly blocked in her lower back, she could not stand for long or bend. It was so bad that she could not participate in any physical activities for seven or eight years. All the while she was receiving regular physiotherapy treatments. She tried everything for many years, but nothing worked.
I treated her three times, for an hour each week. Her pain was gone after that and she started standing, running and jumping again. It was such an extraordinary result that her astounded doctor canceled the remaining physiotherapy. That’s when her physiotherapist started to take treatments with me as well, to alleviate stress and back pain due to her work.
But Reiki works for small ailments as well. Whenever my kids have a problem, a twisted ankle from playing sports or a headache, I helped them feel better, even over long distance.
