The Reiki Dojo

I was delighted when one of the students on the current professional Reiki practitioner courseasked this question recently.  What my student is referring to is that when people come to us for a Reiki session it is always advisable to let them know that there may be some uncomfortable responses to the treatment (as well as some good ones), sometimes known as a healing response. This is commonly experienced in many healing modalities, such as massage, homeopathy or acupuncture.

Reiki master Susan Mitchell told a story told about how she felt really sick after receiving Reiki from her master Hawayo Takata. She felt unable to eat the fish dinner that Takata had cooked for her. As she rushed to the bathroom Takata commented: “Not sick: healing crisis” and sure enough the nausea passed after few hours and Susan felt able to eat dinner.

Uncomfortable symptoms are a common result of the body’s healing process. We are all familiar with the way our noses run if we have a cold, with the flu you may have a fever and of course if you have food poisoning you may have vomiting and/or diarrhoea. Your body’s immune system is activated and is trying to get rid of invading organisms, be it virus, bacteria or other. 

When we receive Reiki, it supports our body to go into the ‘rest and heal’ state, which allows the immune system to activate. The immune system is supressed when we are stressed, because this state evolved to help us stay alive in physically threatening situations, such as being chased by a bear. Your immune system is not needed in that moment, you just need to be able to fight, run fast or freeze so that the bear doesn’t see you.

Once the bear has gone you can relax again and your immune system re-activates to heal any wounds. However, in modern life, especially with the constant attention-demands of technology (like a bear that never leaves), it can be more difficult to relax and get back to the rest and heal state. Most people find that when they receive Reiki they do relax – indeed it can be so deeply relaxing in spite of other demands going on in our lives that people fall asleep in spite of themselves!

Our immune systems take this opportunity to get working, sometimes resulting in uncomfortable symptoms such as headaches, flu-like symptoms (though not usually actual fever) and even vomiting and diarrhoea. Sometimes we feel very tired which can be about realising how tired we really are after a stressful or busy time when we haven’t had enough rest.

What Reiki also teaches is that the underlying cause of physical disease mostly lies at the non-physical level of mind/emotions/spirit. Reiki, perhaps because it is a time of restful pause, allows uncomfortable thoughts and feelings we have been pushing aside to float into consciousness. Sometimes we may not be able to process them completely during the Reiki session and it can take a while longer and we need some caring attention to the emotional wounds or negative thought patterns we carry.

Not every Reiki treatment will result in uncomfortable symptoms. Sometimes we work through the emotional or mental issue during the session, so we leave feeling lighter and more joyful. If more time is needed for processing, these good feelings will just come later. If we have uncomfortable physical symptoms these too will pass and we find ourselves in a better state of health and well-being.