r/reiki

Something I didn’t expect when I got deeper into this work was how much harder it made my relationships at home, at least for a while.

The sensitivity you build up doesn’t switch off when you leave a session. I’d walk into my parents’ place and feel my mother’s worry before she’d said a word. My partner would come home quiet and I’d already be “reading” what was going on. And because I’d spent the whole day helping people, I just kept doing it. Offering a session for my dad’s back. Suggesting my sister should get some energy work done after her breakup. Picking up on everyone’s stuff and trying to fix it.

I genuinely thought I was being loving. What I was actually doing was turning every relationship into a client relationship. Nobody said it to me directly, but I could feel people getting a bit guarded around me. My sister once laughed and said “please don’t scan me, I just want to have dinner.” It was a joke, but it stuck with me for weeks.

The other side of it was that I was exhausted. I’d be careful about grounding and closing sessions with clients, and then come home and soak up three hours of family tension with zero protection. I’d be short with my partner by nine at night and couldn’t figure out why.

What changed things was honestly pretty unglamorous. I started doing my own self-healing every morning again instead of only when I felt bad. I stopped offering Reiki to family unless they asked, and if they did, fine, but I’d offer once and leave it. I started talking like a normal person at home. “I’m wiped out, I need ten minutes” instead of going silent or saying something about someone’s energy, which, I’ll admit, does not land well with a partner who’s sceptical about all this to begin with.

One thing I had to be careful about, though, was overcorrecting. For a while I tried to just shut the sensitivity off around family, and that didn’t work either. I went flat. I stopped noticing when I was running low, and I stopped noticing when someone I loved actually needed me. What helped was staying receptive to my own energy first. Checking in with how I’m actually feeling before I walk into a room, noticing when I’m getting heavy or irritable, and treating that as information rather than something to push through. When I’m tuned into my own state, I’m much less likely to absorb everyone else’s, and I’m still open enough to be there for them properly.

And the big one for me was realising I’d been using the work to dodge conversations. It’s easier to quietly “send healing” to a tense relationship than to actually sit down and say the uncomfortable thing. Reiki helped me get calm enough to have those talks, but it couldn’t have them for me.

These days I think the most useful thing I bring home isn’t a technique at all. It’s just being steady, present, and not trying to fix anyone. People seem to relax around me again. My sister actually asked me for a session last month, completely on her own, and I think that only happened because I’d stopped pushing.

I’ve started writing more about this side of the practice on my profile, the grounding, closing sessions properly, not running on your own energy, mostly because nobody explained any of it to me early on. If that’s useful to anyone, you’re welcome to follow along.

But mostly I’m curious about the rest of you who do any kind of healing or caring work. How do you stop being “the healer” with your own family and friends? And has anyone else had to unlearn the urge to fix everyone at home?

Hi all,

I had reiki done to me yesterday for the first time. It was so surreal I can’t even describe it. Anyway today my heart rate and anxiety have been through the roof. Everytime I walk around I have this weird Pitt feeling in my chest that I could just drop dead any minute and I feel like floaty? (It also brought on my menstrual cycle which is weird cause I wasn’t due for another 4 days yet)

The reason I went to reiki is because for the last 2 years I’ve had a tremendous fear of dying from something health related (heart brain etc) so I wanted to try and change that energy.

The lady told me that whole time she was doing it the words “you are safe in your body” kept coming up

Anyway I just want to know can crisis healing look like this? Cause I just don’t feel right.

What are your thoughts on reiki and chronic illness, specifically fibromyalgia and borderline hEDS? How often does someone with these conditions need to attend reiki sessions? I felt really good after my first ever session but then the pain flared up again pretty bad. Just curious if I should keep trying it for an extended period of time.

I tried reiki once a while back when someone was learning, and a few times I had been in the hospital. I had a few profound experiences with it that I didn’t expect which lead to seeing someone every once in a while to recieve it. I was so enamored with it that I ended up taking a reiki level one course. Again, open mind and no expectations. This was last September I was certified for reiki level one. I wanted to practice on myself really, and be able to practice it on others however no one in my immediate circle wanted to go with it.

There have been 3 people who let me practice on them however it still felt very new and odd to me. I received positive feed back from the sessions but I just didn’t know really what I was doing. I have only ever practiced on myself.

Tonight, after a very off weekend. Decided to give it a go and did my thing, I cleared everything first and I closed my eyes and did a scan from head to toe. It was very subtle but felt everything. I think the clearest way I can explain it is I felt colors. Crown felt bright and vivid. It felt just right. Third eye was on fire and spent time here alright down and cooling. I got flashes of green here. Throat nice vivid blue and deep. It was dense though and worked a bit to settle it. My heart chakra is a bit harder for me, it always feels fine and I don’t get much insight here. I saw pink and green but i passed it quickly. My solar plexus was a bright shade of yellow, brighter than the others but it was wrong in a sense that it needed to slow. Like a flame that is jerking around and then slowly becomes still. I worked on this area and moved (hastily) to my sacral and immediately a dim faded almost deep brown- orange, under active and emotions quickly began to surface. I guided my yellow down a bit and then checked in with my sacral before moving on to my root. My root chakra was a deep dark shade of red, nearly black. I continued to push light down and even circled back to my crown, pushing light back through. I definitely felt a shift in my mind, my body, and spirit. I feel more balanced for sure.

The line between insanity and wonder is really thin.

It’s not that it goes against my training because truly it doesn’t. From what I’ve understood there are different processes internally for people I’ve had practice reiki on me. This is just new to me and I needed to acknowledge it somewhere. I’m curious to hear thoughts. Thanks!