When most people share about their Reiki healing experiences, they often express feeling more relaxed and calm. Some may even share they notice reduced physical pain and at times spontaneous healing. However, there can be the occasional situation where a person expresses discomfort after receiving reiki treatment. In this article I offer insight into why some people may have this unexpected experience. This is a known part of the healing process within the Reiki community, yet not always spoken about in public.

It’s a fascinating topic to be aware of because Reiki treatments do not involve physical invasive procedures. There is no massage or the application of any type of physical pressure. The Reiki practitioner offers subtle touch with their hands to different appropriate regions of a person’s body. Or, sometimes the Reiki healer never touches a person’s body and just allows their hands to hover above. Other practitioners may offer distance healing, which means they are not in the same room as the person receiving Reiki.

What does it mean if a person who received Reiki shares an experience of discomfort after a session?

The Reiki community (along with various other metaphysical healing communities) refer to this experience as a ‘healing crisis’. This means during the healing process old symptoms could temporarily resurface as the subtle body frequencies are letting go of physical, emotional, and mental “toxins” that have been stored within their cellular memory. Causes to these toxic buildups could be a result of past traumatic experiences - illnesses, surgeries, poor health and pollutants in a person’s current, past and/or parallel lifetimes. To be clear, Reiki is not creating new uncomfortable sensations, its bringing awareness to imbalances that are already active within your energy system that are in need of healing.

How would you know you are experiencing a ‘healing crises’ after a Reiki session?

Some people may notice a shift in their energy within a few minutes, hours, or days after the reiki treatment has been completed. Common mild symptoms may include aches, soreness and subtle pain in areas of the body that have dealt with trauma in the past.

For those who are very sensitive to energy healing, their healing crises may show up with more intensity. This typically happens with clients who have held onto and repressed emotions from experiences such as grief, fear, depression, sadness, anger, frustration and overall immense levels of stress. More intense symptoms may include:

• flu-like symptoms

• fever

• crying

• headache

• sore throat

• coughing

• aching joints and muscles

• tingling sensations

• nausea

• constipation/diarrhea

• temporary changes with sleep habits

• more noticeable pain in areas of the body that have experienced previous trauma

To offer a quick example of a ‘healing crisis’ I’ll share my own experience…

3-years after my mother and Feng Shui Mentor, Carole Provenzale passed away in 2010 I was learning Reiki level 2 and blending that with various other healing modalities (inner child work, hypnosis, weekly healing meetings, etc). One evening I was standing in my bathroom and a strong feeling of wanting to throw up came out of no where. A huge release of buildup toxins came purging out of my subtle bodies and whole being through intense dry heaving. While in the process of this experience my inner guidance told me, “don't fight this, allow it to pass, it’s part of the healing process”. Within a few seconds (which felt much longer) the dry heaving stopped. Does this mean everyone will dry heave or have some dramatic release like that? No. Each person is uniquely different. As for me, that is how my healing crisis expressed itself.

What can be done to help process a ‘healing crisis’?

Let your Reiki practitioner know of your symptoms and they can offer guidance in how to process the experience. Perhaps this is done with guided meditation, journaling or having another session with them to further extract any stuck energy, as appropriate. From that point, the energy recalibrates and settles down and clients have reported feeling more calm, relaxed, less pain (if that was one of the symptoms) to no pain in areas that felt unbalanced. Reiki is a complement to your regular healthcare provider,

Please remember…

What you have read is not fear based information. It’s to help alleviate worry and concern. Our bodies are amazing capsules of history and can hold onto traumas knowingly or unknowingly. This article is offering a barometer of logic to an unexpected Reiki experience after receiving treatment. Awareness, knowledge and experience leads to wisdom.

Its understood this topic of discussion can feel uneasy for some because their expectation of what Reiki should be and feel like has been adopted from other people’s experiences. The best approach to receiving a Reiki healing treatment is to go in with your own clear intentions, an open heart, open mind and allow your experience to be uniquely yours.