How to Be Your Own Reiki Healer

Reiki is Japanese for “spiritual life force energy,” and is often known for its hands on healing sessions. This healing technique is commonly thought to have been discovered in Japan in 1922, by a Buddhist monk named Mikao Usui. However, various forms of what we call Reiki existed centuries before.

Reiki works by supplying additional energetic support to the body’s intrinsic ability to heal itself with the universal life force energy available to everyone. If the body’s energy flow is disrupted by illness, injury or trauma, Reiki assists our own ability to restore balance. Understanding the concept that Reiki also spans space and time, is the heart of shifting consciousness for spiritual growth.

My level 1 Reiki master mentioned they attuned autistic children to Reiki to help heal themselves. Before then, it never occurred to me that an individual could be attuned to Reiki merely to heal themselves. How empowering it is to unlock one’s inherent healing powers! Think about when something hurts in your body; your hands automatically go to the point of pain, you never realized you were sending healing energy. We’re wired to heal ourselves, but society teaches us we need someone outside ourselves to complete the healing.

When you perform Reiki on yourself, in addition to calming your mind, you can also clear your chakras, heal joint pain, body aches, and pains, and grow confidence in your proactive strength. Studying Reiki with or without an attunement can jumpstart your entire spiritual growth journey by strengthening your intrinsic abilities.

How to Find a Reiki Teacher

You’ll greatly benefit from any form of Reiki attunement, not just Usui, but you can attune yourself as well, which I mention below.  There are commonly three levels of Reiki before Master training. Often level 1 and 2 are taught together, which is a great way to move forward faster. I found my Reiki teachers through a simple Google search. I’ll be offering Reiki attunement and trauma healing retreats in Costa Rica, so please join the mailing list to be notified.

If looking for a teacher, the two questions to ask a prospective Reiki master are:

1. Do you think Usui was some kind of saint and do you spend a whole day telling that story?

2. Do you believe there’s a wrong way to perform Reiki?

If they answer “yes,” to either, I suggest you keep looking. Healers are all deeply wounded people who’ve found some healing and want to relieve others of their suffering. But what type of trauma they’ve healed from can leave scars of their shadow that affect their abilities as a healer and teacher. Case in point was my level 1 Reiki master. The program was two days long, and for the first day all he did for hours was tell this most incredulous over-the-top story of Usui, canonizing him as a saint, along with manipulating the tale of student Mrs.Takata’s journeys across the seas from Hawaii to Japan as harrowing, to selflessly bring these healing arts to the West. Not only was it boring, but it was also demeaning, like telling adults to believe in Santa Claus.

Then came the big red flag the next day when we were practicing the hand placements. The teacher said that if we didn’t do Reiki exactly as he showed us, we could connect to negative energy. The truth is, it’s impossible to connect to negative energy while performing Reiki, if that’s not your intention.

While there’s no rule precluding a Reiki practitioner from practicing a religion, I would surmise this person suffers from religious trauma, perhaps from being brought up in a fundamental Christian household, or they were taught by Catholic nuns. It appears they still see everything through that fundamentalist lens, with a lasting need for a savior and rules that, if broken, create evil. His unsuspecting students now hold toxic fear in their practice, unwilling to try new things to personalize their treatments. Usui himself wanted practitioners to experiment, as that’s what he spent his life doing.

As mentioned, I believe there’s a way for someone to attune themself to Reiki. The entity of Bashar, channelled by Daryl Anka, tells us that many of these rituals are simply “permission slips,” and not really needed to make a divine connection. With that argument, conventional attunement process could be considered a non-required tradition. So I came up with a 5-minute self-attuning meditation; maybe even less is needed. If you’ve already been attuned, this meditation can be used every few months to enhance your connection and commitment.

• Sit in silence with eyes closed: feet flat on the floor: arms by your side.

• Take 5 deep breaths in through the nose, holding each for 4 seconds before exhaling forcefully through the mouth.

• Visualize a point of light from above coming down through the crown of your head.

• Allow the light to completely fill you from your skull to your toes.

• Feel it traveling up and down your spine.

• Feel it swirling around every organ.

• Then say out loud:

  • I am connected to universal life force energy.

  • I feel connected to universal life force energy.

  • I love being connected to universal life force energy.

  • I feel gratitude being connected to universal life force energy.

  • I am committed to universal life force energy.

  • I feel committed to universal life force energy.

  • I love being committed to universal life force energy.

  • I feel gratitude committed to universal life force energy.

• Take 3 deep breaths in through the nose, holding each for 4 seconds before exhaling forcefully through the mouth

• Open eyes.

You’re now ready to heal yourself by placing your palms on areas of distress, changing positions every 5-10 minutes. Before each self-healing session, take a moment to reconnect to feeling that Reiki energy flowing in your body by saying: “I feel gratitude connected to universal life force energy. I feel gratitude committed to universal life force energy.”

Always consult a physician, to rule out anything acute.