_edited.png)
Understanding Reiki Healing Benefits
- Anika Naneyshvili
- Nov 3
- 7 min read
Most people discover energy healing as adults — through books, workshops, or curiosity. I met it half-asleep at five years old, holding my stomach in the dark.
I had constant stomach pain as a child. The kind that woke me up crying without fully understanding what hurt or why. My sister would shake me awake, worried and confused, and my mom would call my godmother — who happened to live next door. Within minutes she’d be in my room, quiet, steady, waving her hands slowly over my belly like she was smoothing invisible threads.
No medicine, maybe some herbal tea at times. No ritual. Just presence, intention and energy.
Warmth would spread through my stomach — unmistakable, real — and the pain would release enough for me to fall back asleep. I didn’t question it. Children don’t analyze what works; they just feel when something is true. So I grew up knowing that some grown ups are having magic in their hands and kids are getting better. That was normal.
Years later, around twelve, she told me in the same casual tone someone might use to talk about homework:“You’re going to heal people too. That’s your path.”
I shrugged it off. I wanted normal teenage goals — art, school, my own life. Healing sounded too strange, and I was already strange enough. I wasn’t chasing spirituality; I was trying to blend in.
Then, much later, during an art therapy training, I learned I’d accidentally signed up for a Reiki Level 1 attunement. I remember thinking I’d missed a line in the course description. I went through with it anyway, not expecting anything. But when the energy moved through me that day, the warmth was familiar — the same quiet certainty I felt as a child under my godmother’s hands.
I didn’t enter energy healing through ambition or because it became trendy. It returned to me like a memory I couldn't ignore anymore.
The Essence of Reiki Healing Benefits
Reiki comes from Japan, and the idea is simple: life has a current running through and around us, and sometimes that current gets tangled or tired. A practitioner places their hands lightly on or above the body and helps guide that flow back into balance.
It isn’t forceful or invasive. More like someone turning on a gentle light in a dim room.
If the body is a garden, Reiki doesn’t “fix” the soil — it reminds it how to nourish itself again. Soft, steady, not dramatic — yet deeply felt.
Over the years — in my own body and in clients — I’ve watched what can shift when the nervous system finally exhales:
Stress unwinds. Muscles soften, breath returns, the body stops bracing.
Emotions settle. Things you’ve been carrying show themselves, then loosen their grip.
Pain eases. Sometimes subtly, sometimes surprisingly fast.
Sleep deepens. The system resets; the mind quiets enough to rest.
Clarity rises. A sense of connection — to yourself, your intuition, your inner agency.
It’s less “magic trick,” more the body remembering its own wisdom.
Most people describe a heaviness lifting, warmth spreading, or a peaceful wave moving through their chest or stomach. Some simply feel like they finally got a real rest.
Reiki doesn’t demand belief. It just meets you where you are, and the body takes it from there.
Exploring the Path: How Reiki Healing Works
Reiki healing benefits begin with a simple understanding: every living thing carries a current of life energy.
When that current flows freely, we feel balanced and alive. When it’s blocked or depleted, the body whispers — sometimes through fatigue, sometimes through stress, sometimes through discomfort we don’t have language for yet.
A session is quiet. Unhurried.You lie fully clothed on a table or sit comfortably in a chair. The practitioner places their hands lightly on or just above you — listening with their palms more than doing with them.
There’s no pushing, no forcing, no “fixing.”Energy finds its own way.
People often describe warmth, tingling, or a soft wave moving through the body. Others simply feel like they can finally exhale fully for the first time in a while. Occasionally, emotions rise — not as chaos, but like something old deciding it’s safe to leave.
Reiki doesn’t override the body; it collaborates with it. It meets you where you are, respects your pace, and supports your system’s natural intelligence.
You stay present, aware, and in charge of your experience. Healing here isn’t something “done to you” — it’s something awakened within you.
If this path calls to your curiosity, find a practitioner who treats the work as more than a technique — someone who honors the subtle, the sacred, and the quiet language of energy.
The Quiet Truth: Limitations & Realities of Reiki
Reiki is powerful in its own way, and it’s also humble. It doesn’t pretend to be a miracle cure or a substitute for medical care. It lives alongside medicine — not instead of it — supporting the body as it heals, rests, and recalibrates.
Some people feel shifts immediately: warmth, relief, emotional release, deep calm. Others notice changes slowly, like tension dissolving over days or clarity arriving in layers. And a few don’t feel much at first — not because nothing is happening, but because their system opens at its own pace.
The work is subtle. And subtle can be misunderstood in a world addicted to instant results.
Skepticism is natural. You don’t need blind belief — just curiosity. Reiki isn’t about convincing the mind; it’s about what the body eventually admits when it feels safe enough:something in me is unwinding, softening, reorganizing.
It also isn’t a “one-and-done” experience.Healing tends to ask for patience — and a willingness to meet yourself again and again.
If someone is looking for a magic button or a quick escape from discomfort, Reiki may feel too gentle, too slow, too honest about the process of returning to wholeness.
But if you’re open to a practice that works quietly — the way plants grow, the way dawn replaces night — Reiki can be a profound companion on the path.
Getting ready for a Reiki session isn’t complicated.Think of it less like “preparation” and more like quietly arriving to yourself.
A few simple things can help you settle in:
Give yourself a moment before you come. Not to overthink or set grand goals — just pause and notice what you’re carrying.Maybe you’re seeking rest. Maybe clarity. Maybe you’re simply curious. Whatever is true, let it be enough.
Wear something you can breathe in. Soft clothing, nothing that distracts your body. Comfort invites openness.
Come with space inside you. Not belief — just willingness. Reiki meets you where you are; you don’t have to force anything.
A little water helps. Hydration supports the body’s natural rhythms — the same rhythms Reiki listens to.
Eat lightly beforehand. A comfortable body makes it easier to relax into the experience.
Once you’re on the table, there’s nothing to “do.”Close your eyes if it feels good. Notice your breath. Let your thoughts come and go without wrestling them.
After the session, give yourself a beat before rushing back into life. Tune in. You may feel softer, heavier, lighter, clearer — or simply more aware of yourself in a quiet way.
Reiki doesn’t demand effort from you. Just presence.
Sometimes the most healing thing is allowing a moment where you don’t have to hold anything together.
Integrating Reiki into Your Daily Life
Reiki isn’t only something that happens on a table.It can seep into ordinary moments — the pauses between breaths, the first light of morning, the quiet before sleep. It becomes less of a practice and more of a way you relate to yourself and the world around you.
Here are gentle ways Reiki can live with you day-to-day:
A few moments of self-healing
Touch becomes presence.Hands resting over the heart, the belly, the head — not as a ritual to “do something,” but as a reminder that your body responds to attention the way a flower responds to sunlight.
Breathing with awareness
Sometimes one slow inhale and one honest exhale change the whole tone of the nervous system. Reiki flows easily when breath isn’t rushed.
Meditation or quiet sitting
Let Reiki soften the edges. Not striving for stillness — just allowing space to feel what’s here, without tightening around it.
Writing what moves through you
A few lines in a journal after a session — or after a moment of self-healing — can reveal more than you expect. Healing often speaks softly; writing helps catch the whispers.
Caring for the body like a companion
Rest when it asks. Move when you feel stagnant. Eat food that feels alive. Your physical system is not separate from your energetic one — they listen to each other.
Reiki doesn’t demand daily discipline.It invites relationship. A quiet friendship with your inner life.
Over time, the practice stops feeling like something you “add” — and becomes the way you meet yourself, moment by moment.
Embracing the Journey of Healing and Transformation
Healing isn’t a destination.It’s a quiet returning — to your body, your breath, your own inner knowing.
Reiki can be one way back to yourself. Not the only way. Not the “best” way. Just a doorway that has helped many, including me.
And I don’t know if it’s the right path for you. No one can decide that on your behalf.
But there is a real possibility that something in you remembers this work —a softness, a steadiness, a way of being that heals by presence more than effort.
Maybe you’re not here to “fix” yourself at all.Maybe there’s a healer in you — quiet, patient, waiting for permission to take a breath and step forward.
If that whisper exists, even faintly, follow it at your own pace.See where it leads. No urgency, no pressure.Just curiosity, and the courage to listen.
And if Reiki becomes part of your journey, may it feel like coming home to a part of yourself you forgot you knew.
Comments