An email arrived inquiring about Reiki classes — a good thing, right
Until I read this part: “How long after I get my First degree certificate can I hang out my shingle?”
Aargh and aargh again. The writer thought the First degree Reiki class was a fast path to a new career.
The good news was that she wasn’t looking to become a Reiki master in a few days (or hours).
I wanted to help, and contemplated how best to communicate how much more there is to Reiki practice than she had been told.
Reiki home practice
Yes, Reiki practice is easy to learn, especially First degree practice. And First degree Reiki practice is truly all most people need to practice Reiki for themselves and family, friends and pets.
But aren’t learning to practice and being a professional two very different things?
How can we know we want to be professionals if we haven’t practiced Reiki on ourselves every day for a while, and also practiced on other people? A lot.
How can we know we love a practice enough to become a professional if we haven’t given ourselves time to experience what Reiki practice brings to us, how daily self practice enhances our experience of ourselves, our lives, and the people around us?
And then there is all we learn from receiving Reiki treatments from friends and professionals, and from participating in Reiki community.
Yes, Reiki practice is easy to learn, but it takes time to develop ourselves as practitioners.
We take a Reiki class to learn how to practice, and then practicing is how we really learn, about ourselves, about healing, about the profound value of practice.
Continuing our home practice creates the foundation for Reiki professional practice if — after much home-and-elsewhere practice experience — we decide we want to prepare ourselves to be Reiki professionals.
Reiki professional practice
Practicing Reiki professionally involves so much more than Reiki practice.
Reiki professionals need to develop various skills to function and carry themselves professionally. For example, Reiki professionals need to learn:
- how to communicate Reiki practice so people are comfortable and interested;
- how to structure client sessions so that clients are informed and supported;
- how to maintain healthy clinical relationships, gracefully and confidently maintaining boundaries (ours and our clients);
- how to organize the business details so our professional practice is financially responsible;
- what local regulations might be relevant to our business and professional practice;
- the list goes on.*
And that’s just for seeing clients.
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*Whether you are preparing to be a professional or a professional looking to hone your skills, the Reiki Professional recorded trainings will help you. This week’s training is How to Hold Professional Boundaries.
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Pamela,
I got certified in Reiki level 2 in march. Since then i have faithfully done self practice everyday, worked on some family members and have gone to reiki shsres every month. I have discussed doing reiki on clients with my reiki teacher and also some other reiki masters such as Raven Keyes via email. They all told me the world needs more healers and what am i waiting for? just go for it..thats’s the only way. You’re artical confuses me by saying the opposite. Your saying that it’s very different to be a practitioner working on clients, but how will i ever learn and develop accept to do it! I loved your book which I have , but I want your opinion on this a little more, what do you suggest I do before working on clients?
Wendy, March was just two months ago.
Since you found my book valuable, why don’t you read it again? People tell me they understand more each time they go back to it.
Also, I suggest reading the articles in the Clinical Practice and Communicating Reiki categories of this blog, and looking at the Talking Reiki https://reikiinmedicine.org/reiki-webinars and Mainstreaming Reiki https://reikiinmedicine.org/mainstreaming-reiki-healing webinar series.
Why not ask your Reiki master to mentor you in a gradual transition from home practice to professional practice?
Once again I am profoundly struck by your graceful and contemplative language surrounding the practice of Reiki.
Thank you for sharing your thoughtful ability to communicate your own carefully considered viewpoint regarding this practice in a non-judgmental and clear way, so that others may gain more clarity and understanding.
Regards,
Rosanne Cassidy
Great article Pamela :-)
I’ve been a Reiki Master for about a year now and am really keen tonstart teaching soon. One of the thigs I struggle with is the idea of “rubber stamping” people with a Practitoner certificate after 2 attunements.
Do you give extra training or guidance on how to work with clients, etc? The reason I ask is I also trained as an energy healer in the UK, and to pass our certification process we had to do loads of healing on ourselves, and to record dozens of case studies, etc. It helped us gain confidence and experience with clients before “going out into the world” …
love your blog, by the way :-)
Thank you for your kind words, Regina.
I offer continuing education for Reiki practitioners both in person, such as the Communicating Reiki Mainstream talks which I’ll be giving in London and several European cities this summer https://bit.ly/RComm and through the Mainstreaming Reiki https://bit.ly/MainReiki and Talking Reiki https://reikiinmedicine.org/talking-reiki-extended webinar series.