The Reiki Dojo

In our session of the Professional Reiki Practitioner Course this month, the students and I were exploring the important question of self care. We noted that receiving treatment is a fundamental characteristic of our Reiki practice, whether we only have a ‘home’ treatment practice, offering Reiki to family and friends, or are a full-on professional Reiki practitioner working regularly giving Reiki to people we don’t know.

I have noticed over the years many Reiki and other complementary therapists are givers, who will prioritise the care of others over caring for themselves. In Ludlow a herbalist recently died in her treatment room, leaving everyone shocked and saddened. In our discussions one of the students shared how she had become ill after some treatments, which I assured her is not necessary or desirable when working as a practitioner!

When we give treatments to others as a professional we need to be consistently there for them. This means that it is important to keep ourselves in the best possible health, so that we don’t fall ill and have to cancel sessions. This means ensuring rest and nourishment for body mind and spirit.

When I first learned Reiki I remember finding the teaching on self-care through daily self-Reiki quite challenging. Like many people I was brought up to believe that it is better to care for others than to look after our own needs. However my Reiki practice and life experiences have taught me that in order to really care for others we need to care for ourselves! If we don’t, our own health and well-being suffers and we are eventually unable to offer our gifts. 

Good self-care is not easy. It requires willingness to take time out, to listen to our bodies and take action when something is off balance. We can be so busy doing things for others that we completely ignore the discomfort or pain in our bodies that is trying to tell us something. Sometimes we mistakenly assume that nothing can be done to improve it or worse that there is something noble about sacrificing ourselves.

When we show up to do a Reiki treatment for someone feeling stressed, tired or ill we are not serving them in the best way. There is an expectation that those working professionally are ‘fit to practice’, which includes mental as well as physical health. I think most of us would know that if we had flu or tested positive for Covid we would not be ‘fit to practice’ due to the risk of passing on the virus. However, would we think about not being fit to practice due to a mental condition such as grief if our beloved cat had just died? I heard of a practitioner who spent the whole treatment crying and talking the client about her cat. She was clearly not in a state to listen to the person she was giving Reiki to and the client found the treatment less than relaxing to say the least! So, it’s important that we don’t bring our own issues into the treatment.

So when we care for ourselves we also care for those we give Reiki to.