Reiki: What It Is, What It Isn’t, and What the Heck Just Happened in There

Whether you’re thinking about booking your first Reiki session or you’re a practitioner trying to figure out where the lines are — this one’s for you.

In this episode, I will do my best to break down what a Reiki session actually looks like in the Western world, what’s traditionally part of the practice and what isn’t, and why the gap between those two things matters more than most people talk about. We get into informed consent, psychic expectations, sound therapy, crystals, and the honest reality that Reiki doesn’t need anything added to it to be profound.

This is also a conversation about accountability — on both sides of the table. If you’re booking in, what are you actually showing up for? If you’re practicing, does what you’re offering match what you’re saying you offer?

Just me as usual, no script, dogs for sure and 44 minutes of real talk from someone who’s been on both sides of this for over 20 years. Which makes me sound old, cause I kinda am, and thats cool.

Find more at dianalynnmayorga.ca

Questions or thoughts?    Email: intuition@dianalynnmayorga.ca

If this resonated, please share and follow The Unwritten wherever you listen.
The Unwritten — Archives of the Realm

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello. Thank you so much for tuning in. This is the unwritten. My name is Diana. I wanted to do what I am going to promise to both myself and yourself will be a shorter. Let's aim for that 20-ish minute mark. Conversation around what to expect in a Reiki session. And I'm gonna come at this from a few different angles. So you might be listening to this because you're curious and you would like to go for a Reiki session, and maybe you've stumbled upon this somehow. Maybe you want to consider being a practitioner of Reiki. And you're listening to get a perspective on this. Okay, so from the perspective of what's commonly experienced. Now I'm in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, but I can due to having a large Reiki community internationally that I put a lot of time and energy in to staying in touch and on kind of the pulse, fingers on the pulse, so to speak, with things. What realistically an individual going for a Reiki, receiving a Reiki session under the more traditional practice of Reiki in this part of the world should expect, along with the more untraditional, but still very valid and wonderful, mixed therapy possibilities. And just sort of summarizing what I personally and professionally would recommend for both recipient and practitioner. So the person that's going for the session and the person that's performing the energy healing Reiki session, you know, how to really just stay in line with integrity and to make sure we're just keeping ourselves professional, okay? Because, you know, without the proper education, I and bear with me here. So I'm I'm not finding the words I want, but I understand because I've made so many mistakes as a practitioner myself, without the proper example, mentorship, you could even say, or just material, education, experience, or exposure to this spectrum. It's you know, you do learn by mistakes. It's hard to know what that professionalism for you is gonna look like. Okay, so let's start off for those of you that don't know. Very quick little blurb on what Reiki is. And I'm gonna speak again from this from both. I'm gonna oscillate from Western Reiki perspective and a traditional, more traditional Asui Reiki, which is the most commonly taught and practiced, at least in Calgary, Alberta, in Western Canada. And then I think I could say, you know, for the vast majority of the Western world, Asui Reiki is the more commonly practiced and taught version or branch of Reiki. Okay, so Reiki, without going into a lot of details, I am gonna speak about this very big, very large aperture here, okay? Reiki is from Japan, and that is one of the most important things I'm gonna highlight always. Reiki in origin is from Japan. Reiki is the kanji word, okay? Reiki. We won't break that down, but I just want you to remember that there are an excessive in the best way. Like there are so many different branches and different traditions in Reiki. Although they're, and I'm saying it that way just to help anyone that's new to this really grasp because it is in a different language to really grab that. So most importantly, here we need to acknowledge that there are many different ways to practice Reiki. There's traditional foundational pieces that I would hope are a part of all teachings and practices. I know they're not, and that's okay because there's a lot of very sincere, legitimate reasons that they're that they're not. And we're working on that, I think, as a community and as a whole. Okay. Reiki is energy, it is a type of energy, and what exact type we don't really know. And that's okay. Some people might feel like they really have a good idea, some people are just maybe gonna say it more like I am right now. We we don't know. It's something, but we don't know, and all of it's true and all of it's good. Okay. Reiki has been around in Japan for an extremely long time, and I'm not gonna get into dates and details because that will go down other rabbit holes. But think thousands of years. Asui, who you'll hear a lot of, a Sui did not discover Reiki. Asui was practicing and teaching Reiki in the 1920s in Japan, very likely learning it long before the 1920s. Reiki has beautiful roots in the Japanese Shinto Buddhist philosophy and practice. Seeing that Reiki itself is not considered a religion by most, by anyone that I've known. Reiki, I would say some would call it a spiritual practice, particularly if you're treating yourself for others. But it's fluid, it's flexible, it's it's not a static thing, it's a very dynamic thing. What I mean by that is there are many, many branches of Reiki because each sensei, each master may have their own way of sharing that experience. And again, I won't go down this rabbit hole, but it that's really reflective of some of the principles and teachings of it. So when one goes to receive a Reiki session, say I'm a client, I've never experienced Reiki before. There's definitely a need, and I'm not by no means am I blaming or criticizing anyone in this conversation because I've been there, done that. I've experienced from recipient to practitioner such a diverse spectrum of this myself. And again, I've made my own mistakes. Oh, yes, I have. When someone goes to schedule, if you are considering scheduling a Reiki session, please do your due diligence. We are not a regulated practice here in Alberta. Most provinces, most countries do not have such institutions put into place. You can be part of associations, but that is very different. That does not mean that just because someone has an association number or someone has a regulate, sorry, not regulated, but a an insurance policy and number with something more regulated. That still does not mean they are a registered or regulated Reiki practitioner. This is not a thing as far as I know. Definitely not in this part of the world for now. Whether it should or shouldn't be is another conversation. But that's important to know. That means that you need, as the recipient, to do some research on your part to know what you're looking for. What you like, what is it you actually want out of an energy healing session? And then when you find a clinic or practitioner, does it fit in align with what your expectations are, what you want? And it's fair if you don't know what you want. That's totally fair. I think if you're not sure, and if maybe there's just some vague things, which is very normal, and I hear that a lot in my own practice as a Reiki practitioner on my intake form. Sometimes clients just write in things like, I don't know what my intentions are, I just want some balancing, maybe some clearing, whatever that means. But I'm just open to whatever, you know, those, although that might not seem like good data, it actually is for a well-practiced practitioner, that is pretty good data. And I think that considering even just what you're really showing up for and what you want out of whatever you're showing up for for a Reiki session is incredibly important. Because at least then, once we go to what the practitioner needs to do, if the practitioner is clear on what they can offer and what they will offer, then you can see where there might be contrast. So, in summation, if it is you, in fact, that's considering going for a Reiki session, my first advice, first piece of advice to you would be to get really clear, even if that clarity is still a little vague, that's okay and very common. Just within yourself, within your own mind and heart, so that you can be accountable for your intentions, get clear on what those are. Even if, again, you're you're like, well, I don't know. I've never been for any sort of session like this. Just take a minute, just take a beat, even if it was a recommendation, which it often is a recommendation from a friend or family member, like, oh, this practitioner's awesome, you should go see her. And, you know, they might have some insights that they're not going to fully articulate to you for whatever reason. Sometimes it's just life or they don't have the language or whatnot, but they just know when they saw that particular practitioner for Reiki or energy therapy of some kind, it helped. Period. That's not bad advice simply because it lacks detail at all. Usually we, as friends of family, and colleagues know each other well enough, it was it's probably quite good advice. What I'm saying is if you are going for Reiki, even if you've been for Reiki before, and this is key too, if you've been for Reiki before, and you get a recommendation for a different Reiki practitioner to the one that you usually go to, is you still want to do your due diligence, gathering information on their practice, touching base if you can with them. And if you want to just wing it and trust that it's the right thing, that's fantastic. I'll always be an advocate for doing that. Just give the practitioner some wiggle room, then, because as the recipient, you have to be accountable to a degree to what that session's gonna look like then. So let's jump into that. A Reiki session in this part of the world, in the Western world, but I'm gonna speak a bit more to my scope of what I have more experience in, and that's connecting with and receiving Reiki from practitioners in Western Canada, okay, in person and long distance. So I would say that the majority of Reiki practitioners will include some other energy therapy models or tools in the Reiki practice. That is the majority, very common. So it might be very subtle or small amount of time and energy that is dedicated to something other than Reiki, which might be seen as let's say crystal therapy. There may be some semi-precious stones underneath the massage table. There may be laying other stones on the body, there might be some sound therapy. You know, singing bowls are really popular right now. Back when I was first practicing professionally in the early 2000s, it was tuning forks. So again, frequency, sound therapy. And that was common. You know, I would take the earth frequency, the ohm, and I would often at the end of a Reiki session place them on the bottom of the feet for grounding and whatnot. I would often have crystals under my table, like been there, done that, and it's often really good. And the recipient is often like, wow, this is so cool, thank you. But then every once in a while, the recipient's like, I didn't consent to that. What is this? You know, maybe they're within their spiritual religious beliefs, maybe they're comfortable with Reiki, but maybe they're not with those other things, and maybe those other things remind them of some woo-woo, you know, witchcraft or something. That's whether that's correct or not doesn't matter. It's that if we don't ask permission for those tools to be used, we have to really consider the impact of that. So again, my experience has been that most Reiki practitioners, even if they're like marketing optics, the communication that they use to describe their services is explicitly Reiki. Like there's no details around, oh, and I use crystals, oh, and I use sound therapy, oh, I'm also a medium. So if a deceased loved one comes through, I'm gonna just share that with you. I do find that that's those extras or add-ons to Reiki, or sometimes they're the primary, actually. I've had a lot of clients come to me for Reiki and say, when I ask them, have you been to Reiki, a Reiki session before? Maybe they just outright ask me what my Reiki services are like before they even come in, and they'll share their stories. And often those stories do include things like, yeah, I've been for Reiki, but I don't think it was Reiki, and I hear that all the time. I think over Reiki session, but I don't think it was Reiki because da-da-da-da-da, and then they'll explain the uniqueness of that experience. And I so believe that every sort of, like there's no better words for me, every sort of energy therapy, whether you made it up yourself, whether it's old or new, they're all of value and they all have beautiful medicine. And we have to be authentic as practitioners. Saying that, I also believe that as practitioners, we have a responsibility to be transparent and to have really strong. I don't know if calling them even morals and ethics, because here's the thing we have to have a baseline, some sort of understanding to start with, to have access to that. So again, I've made these errors myself, and I've had clients perturbed in the past that the Reiki session wasn't exactly what they were anticipating. And I, of course, corrected pretty darn quick. And I know for myself, a lot of that was a lack of dialogue with myself and my teachers, and a big gap between Western and Eastern Reiki. So this is a great segue into more of a more traditional Japanese. In Reiki, because there's many different nuances to different Reiki practices, it's not ever about right or wrong or better or worse, and I and I do want to make that really clear. It's more about again how we're communicating our services, the clarity, the integrity around that, and then what they actually are in practice and making sure those two match. And for Japanese, Reiki, a Sui Reiki, rarely is there in traditional practice a psychic exchange. So I have students often talk about how they felt really guilty or pressured by their clients. And this seems to happen often with long distance Reiki, but in person as well, where the client, although they don't ask about what the Reiki session actually looks like, you know, they don't do their due diligence. They assume because they received Reiki from one or two other people in the past, or could it could be many, because as I mentioned, it's very common in this part of the world for these modalities to be mixed together, but they will outright assume and then aggressively expect some sort of psychic feedback, fortune telling you could call it, to be given during or after the Reiki session, which is just not historically a part of it. And if I'm wrong and there's evidence in any way, even in oral traditions and teachings, please, I would love to hear about it. And again, I know if we're looking at a westernized version of Reiki, it becomes much different and more nuanced. And I'm very supportive and embracing of that because I myself offer different Reiki services, which I'll mention here shortly. Saying that, the traditional Asui Reiki practice, as far as I am aware from both traditional Japanese senseis that I've had the privilege to learn from, and even my Western Asui teachers, the ongoing dialogue of intuitive psychic, whatever you want to call it, feedback is not an innate part of that experience. There are some practices within not just Asui, but Reiki in general, where the practitioner may give generalized feedback of how the Reiki moved through the system and where they may have been, you know, hot spots, sticky spots, and so forth, in sort of an intuitive Reiki flow. But adding on fortune-telling psychic advice on when they're gonna meet their life partner or if they should get a divorce, or when money's gonna get better, or when their health is gonna get better. Like these are these are things that most intuitives won't even try to just outright answer themselves. I mean, unless you're in a full-on fortune telling sort of framework, that's a very specific framework. And I've been there and practiced it all from palmistry to tea leaf reading, tarot card reading. The interesting thing is those practices in divination, they aren't innately fortune-telling either. This has been again a bit of a westernized Hollywood thing, anyways. So if you're a Reiki practitioner, you're thinking about being a Reiki practitioner, I want to make this so clear. And this is when I can get a little spicy, a little intense. The only expectation from the actual practice itself, because obviously there's there's a lot that's put in outside of the practice that the recipient often doesn't see the setup, the administrative relay, everything else. And then we always consider, as Reiki practitioners, doing it in a good way. Safety and well-being, number one, and creating really good space. Safe. I mentioned that, but a very much on purpose again, healthy, relaxed, creating the ambiance and energy of our practicing sacred space. And then within ourselves, like there's so much we do to prep, but the actual practice itself of Reiki should primarily in the expectation, unless you as a practitioner say it otherwise. The expectation should be Reiki. And that's it. It doesn't have to be more. Reiki in itself is immensely impactful. And you should never feel as a practitioner like you're doing less than if you are explicitly practicing just Reiki. Because there's no real just with it. It's an incredible thing. It's a a gift of a practice and of a tool. Now, if you choose to add anything else to it, fantastic. If you choose to change the practice, mostly so, call it something else. Don't call it Reiki. You can highlight that you were you are and were a student of Reiki, that you have certificates in Reiki, that your energy healing modality or practice is informed by Reiki. But if you're 90% sound therapy, crystal healing with some psychic intuitive feedback, and there's some energy moving through that is much like Reiki, my suggestion for many reasons would be to call it something else. You can even add to the word Reiki. Like, well, see, I'm bad with names, so don't take my advice here. But I was gonna say, sound magic and Reiki. That is a ridiculous name. Don't use it. But you get the idea. You can call yourself, you know, maybe you're saying in general, I do I practice energy medicine, and my technique is a mix of Reiki and so forth. It's not that you I'm suggesting you should exclude it because there's a mix, not at all. And I think mixing is amazing. So for myself, for example, I have Reiki mixed with intuitive readings, for example. So I call them, here's the example of the terrible naming, Reiki readings. I mean, it's to the point. I couldn't imagine up anything better than that. So I call them Reiki readings because that's what they are. It's an intuitive reading mixed with Reiki. Now, just for the practitioners listening out there, because I'm desperately trying to stay even close to my 20 minutes hearing. The amount of years it took me to get to a place where I felt really comfortable in blending the two together was over a decade. So it's okay if it takes time. It's also okay if it doesn't take time. Merging the intuitive reading and Reiki together was something just natural and organic that happened eventually. And I still have my Reiki reflections. That's a cheesy name. That is just a Reiki session with a smaller amount of feedback at the end. If the client is, you know, looking for some feedback on and off, then that might happen. But it just gives my clients an opportunity to book in for one or the other. And whatever they book in for, I'm still confirming, like right off the bat, of what they booked in for. You know, did they book in for a Reiki session where they just wanted it quiet and peaceful and just the Reiki, or did they book in for a Reiki session where they were getting that intuitive feedback? And then even then, what sort of intuitive feedback are you looking for? Because we need to understand their comfort zone there. They also have to be accountable for communicating it. So it goes both ways. In traditional Japanese Reiki, sometimes we see a very organized, formal hand positions, which is much more of a western in some regards, depending on what that looks like. Sometimes there'll be just fluidity throughout the movement, moving intuitively with, I like to say the Reiki will have a conversation energetically with the person's subtle energy bodies, and then there'll be a beautiful sort of it almost looks like a a dance or that sort of energetic combo that happens. And the client often has their eyes closed, so they're unaware, and that's okay, like it's all okay, but just to give you an idea of how different it can look like. So I'm gonna summarize this because I am already at that 27-minute mark, and in summary, for me, it's like this both the recipient, the person booking in the session, and the person received or giving the session, the practitioner are responsible for what that session looks like. If you book in with a practitioner who has a description on a website or description anywhere, and you expect something above and beyond that description, why? You know, you got to reflect back on yourself. Why? And did I do my best to communicate my expectations as a practitioner? If you're not articulate and clear with what you're offering, that's on you if there's issues there, and don't ever assume that your client is going to be comfortable with the addition of or removing something traditional of Reiki with such access to information and data now, it does make us more accountable. We have to acknowledge that the client booking in could have easily gone online and Googled what does traditional Reiki look like in a Reiki session. That one word, traditional, is gonna change what that AI output is, for better or worse. And if they just Google what does a Reiki session in Calgary look like, that's gonna be a very different outcome as well. So both you booking the session and you performing the Reiki session should consider what part you're playing in that exchange, and then to really hold that, hold it in a responsible, mature, sacred way. And if you do that, honestly, you're gonna have a good experience. Or I would hope. I would hope that you would. I think there's a much higher probability of that. Okay, thank you so much for listening. I hope this is helpful and feel free to reach out. You can leave a comment or reach out to me at any time with further questions and keep this conversation going. Bye.