Many of my Reiki students are professional bodyworkers and massage therapists. Reiki is a lovely complement to massage, both for the recipient and the practitioner. I highly recommend that students incorporate Reiki into their massage therapy sessions as both the practitioners and their clients have reported immediate and noticeable results.

Even seasoned healers experience huge shifts from Reiki attunements. One highly successful therapist, Stephanie Andersen LMT reported: “I am a hands-on healer and massage therapist for 13 years and after your Reiki I seminar, there is a noticeable bumping up of what I feel in my hands, and how my clients are responding to the sessions. In the first week, one regular client who had her painful arm in a sling after an injury, commented the next day, ‘It’s unbelievable. The magic you have is just phenomenal. I woke up today with good range of motion, my pain level is at a one, and I have not had to use a sling. It’s like night and day, from yesterday to today.’ Thank you for a wonderful, rewarding seminar! This Reiki flow of love and healing heals me as well, and it fills me with a quiet joy as I do it.”

Not only is Reiki effective for the client, it speeds up the healing response and is beneficial to helping the massage therapist recharge. Massage therapist without the support of Reiki can often become injured and frustrated.

Several years ago massage and holistic health veteran Jan O’Han, LMT, owner of Positive Change Health Center in FL had this experience: “I was ready to quit my massage practice after 22 years, due to increasing pain in my elbow. Kumari suggested I take a Reiki class, and that it may help shift the space I am working from. After the first day of Reiki Level I class, I practiced on my 11 year old daughter, who immediately commented on the heat coming from my hands. As I worked on her a bit longer, I noticed a huge shift. For 22 years of massage practice, I had always felt like I was working hard to produce a release; that it was my energy directly that had to move things through the recipients’ body. For the first time, I felt that there was something (energy) moving through me, not coming from me, which was supporting the release. What a relief!” PS I have not quit yet!”

Similarly, in a recent article from Massage Mag.com, author Patty Nuovo, LMT, expresses beautifully:

“Reiki is a natural method of healing and self-improvement that can benefit everyone. It has shown to be effective in helping illnesses and maladies, and also works in conjunction with other medical or therapeutic techniques to relieve side effects and promote recovery.”

A recent article published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, titled “Effects of Reiki on Autonomic Activity Early After Acute Coronary Syndrome,” by Rachel S.C. Friedman, Matthew M. Burg, Pamela Miles, Forrester Lee and Rachel Lampert, stated: “In the above study, published in one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed conventional medical journals, patients who received a 20-minute Reiki treatment within three days after suffering a heart attack showed improved mood and heart rate variability (HRV).”

The ability to use Reiki is not taught in the usual sense, but is transferred to the student during a Reiki class. This ability is passed on during an “attunement” given by a Reiki Master and allows the student to tap into an unlimited supply of life-force energy to improve one’s health and enhance quality of life. Hence, the name rei is life force and ki is energy.

What sets Reiki apart from other touch therapies is the attunement process. During attunements, there are various stages of energy amplification, which is why Reiki is divided into three levels. Because each level of Reiki increases a person’s vibratory rate, it is good to allow a sufficient period of time in order to adjust to the higher vibration and the sloughing off of the old patterns before progressing to the next level of Reiki. The attunements affect each individual differently, depending upon that person’s vibratory rate at the time of the attunements.

If you have already spent time on your inner wellness, personal growth and expanding your awareness, the attunements will provide a quantum leap in your personal and spiritual growth. However, the expansion of energy will be relative to the level you start from; therefore, you will never receive more than you can handle.

Reiki goes beyond the level of gross physiology and conventional medicine. It is able to access the power available at the quantum level of existence, which is much greater than that found at the grosser levels. We are all energetic beings vibrating at a level which manifests as physical density. However, since our true essence is energy, then we continually have energy running through us.

Deepak Chopra has helped people understand how Reiki truly works through his explanation of quantum healing. The difference between a person attuned to Reiki and one who is not can be easily explained: A laser and a flashlight both utilize light; however, the laser takes the same light, and by organizing it into a coherent quantum vibration, boosts its power enough to cut through steel. Someone who is not attuned to Reiki is like the flashlight whose band of light is much more spread out, and a person attuned to Reiki is like the laser.” (Reprinted from Massage Mag.com, 1/3/2011 “Reiki and the Massage Therapist”)

Who is ready to upgrade their flashlight to a laser?