It was not until I discovered a life-changing podcast this summer that I stopped rolling my eyes at new age healing and started putting it into practice. Listening to Kathrin Zenkina talk about the millions of ways manifesting has changed her life on her podcast has encouraged me to try it out myself. Manifesting my desires has helped me increase my freelance income, cultivate better relationships with my friends, family and partner, and has helped me learn to love myself, flaws and all, too.
After listening to Zenkina talk about her own reiki experience in her podcast episode, “My Alternate Reality Reiki Experience & How It Can Help You Manifest,” I knew I needed to try it out for myself. I have been on a roll with my manifestation practice, and have been up for anything in my pursuit of up-leveling my life — even if that involved crystals, healing energy, and the “woo-woo” stuff I have always doubted.
Before my first session with Amy Miller, an intuitive healer and owner of the Healing Haus in Boston, I did not do any research on reiki apart from Zenkina’s podcast episode. I wanted to keep my mind clear of any negative energy or opinions about reiki before, during, and after my first session, so I avoided Google’s search box at all costs.
Miller was wearing a boho hat, flowy kimono-like cardigan, jeans, and light-brown booties when she arrived promptly at my Back Bay apartment on a Monday morning. Based on her barely audible knock on my front door, I knew she was going to be a gentle, compassionate healer the moment she set foot in my apartment.
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Before we got settled, I told Miller I had not done any research on reiki, and did not know what to expect for the next hour. “Reiki is a healing form of energy, which is the life force that moves through all living things, linking us to animals, plants and crystals, and makes us different from inanimate objects,” Miller told me. “Reiki can help remove energetic blocks, move stagnant energy, release emotions, and bring alignment and balance to the body.”
According to Miller, a reiki healer will use a hands-on or hovering technique to deliver reiki to the client during a reiki treatment, using different points on the body while the client is fully clothed, seated or lying down. She also informed me that she offers distance sessions through Skype, too, where she and her clients are in two different places, sometimes across the world.
“I like to begin my sessions with a short guided meditation to allow the client to be present, and at the end of the session, I spend some time talking with the client about what I observed happening energetically in their body and answer any questions they may have,” explained Miller. “I report on their chakras and give them some guidance on how to continue working on these areas after our session, taking their healing into their own hands.”
Before my own treatment, we took a brief tour of my apartment to see which spot would be best to practice. We agreed on the couch, and Miller instructed me to lay face up while she gently placed my hand-embroidered throw pillow under my knees. After turning on a soothing playlist from her phone, Miller lit some Palo Santo, a scent that sent me right back to a memorable family vacation in Big Sur more than ten years ago. The treatment was already off to a great start.
“Anyone in any stage of life could benefit from the healing essence of reiki.”
We first began the treatment with a brief meditation using breathing exercises, and Miller let me know that it is okay if my mind begins to wander throughout the process. “Just try to focus back on your breath when that happens,” she said.
Once we were done with that part, she fell silent and began to place her hands on different parts of my body. The crisp fall breeze was drifting in through the open window in my living room, and because I was a little chilly during the treatment, Miller’s warm, direct touch felt that much more intense. She started at my head, cupping her hands along my scalp, then moved to my shoulders, chest, stomach, hips, thighs, knees, calves and feet.
As she traveled from head to toe, she placed eight different healing crystals throughout my body. The various crystals included: amethyst on my third eye chakra (forehead), which helps with intuition, inner wisdom, and introspection; pink Lemurian quartz on my heart chakra, which is a very loving stone associated with ancient female wisdom; carnelian on my sacral chakra (pelvis area), which is great for cultivating creativity and creative energy; Shiva lingam under my right hand to balance my masculine energy; moonstone under my left hand to balance emotions and tap into wisdom, intuition, and feminine energy; amethyst by my right knee to balance the masculine energy; morganite on my left knee to balance the feminine energy; and two pieces of black tourmaline at my ankles to absorb any energy that is flowing out of me.
My mind did wander a lot throughout the process, and I could not stop thinking about all the things I needed to get done after Miller left. Filled with anxious thoughts, I found it difficult to experience any intense feelings in my body throughout the treatment. “During reiki, clients usually feel different sensations in different parts of their body — I have heard everything from warmth on their hands to pulsing in their feet, to tingles, a whoosh of energy leaving, an emotional release via tears, sighing, light twitching, or seeing colors and visions,” Miller explained to me after our session. “Each person is carrying their own traumas, emotions, experiences, beliefs and habitual patterns, so what and where they are releasing will vary.”
During some moments throughout the hour, I noticed that the right side of my body was twitching significantly, while my left side was basically immobile. “Some clients can feel nothing at all during a session (it depends on how sensitive someone is to energy), but even if they do not feel anything, the reiki is still working,” Miller said. “Reiki can vary from individual to individual, but someone could expect to leave feeling more aware of their body, more connected to the self, and with an overall sense of relaxation and wellbeing.”
Miller rang a small singing bowl once our session had ended, and she instructed me to start wiggling my body and to slowly begin to sit up whenever I was ready. I opened my eyes to an intense feeling of serenity and calm.
Maneuvering my body up off the couch was actually rather difficult — I expected to feel light, weightless, and even airy after the treatment, but I felt like I weighed 3,000 pounds. After I was able to get seated upright on the couch, I felt peace, and the list of things I needed to get done moved to a spot way, way in the back of my mind. “After reiki, clients generally feel a little physically heavy which could also be described as grounded or embodied (in their body vs. in their head),” Miller said. “Some feel a little tired, because they are so deeply relaxed in a way they have not experienced in some time, and many go on to have a really good night’s sleep afterward.”
Miller began walking me through what she felt during the treatment and offered advice on what areas I might need to work on based on my chakras (or areas of energy along my body). “I check the chakras with a pendulum as a quick jumping-off point, so I know where to focus,” said Miller. “Once my hands are at the specific chakras, I can feel and ‘translate’ sensations like heat, throbbing, crunchiness, etc. I also might experience something in my own body that reflects what is going on with the client, like a sudden sadness or a feeling in my heart or hands.” Other times, she tells me, she just has an intuitive knowing that she can’t explain.
She could tell that my mind was racing during the treatment and that there was a lot more going on in my head than in the rest of my body. She told me that she could see my third eye chakra clearly, which is the ability to focus on and see the big picture, and that the color purple surrounded that area, too. According to Miller, my throat chakra was a bit blocked — our throat chakra gives us the ability to communicate and form self-expression — and that I should work on clearing it through guided meditation, especially since I work in a creative field as a writer, and the communication is imperative for my job.
Miller also noticed that the right side of my body was considerably more active than my left, and explained to me that the right side of your body is associated with more masculine traits, while the left side is more feminine. Unsurprising to me, Miller described my overall energy as more masculine than feminine, and that I am usually more focused on giving and controlling (masculine) than I am on receiving (feminine).
“Our feminine energy is more open to receiving, like receiving compliments and nice gestures,” Miller said. “I bet you have a hard time accepting compliments from others, and rather than taking them in and saying, ‘thank you,’ you just brush them off and offer up various excuses.” She was absolutely right and suggested that I absorb the compliments I receive rather than brush them off.
Considering my masculine energy was so strong, Miller suggested that I try and get in tune with my feminine energy by activating my sacral chakra more, which can be found in the lower abdomen above the navel, and is associated with emotions, sensuality and creativity. “Instead of lifting weights or doing yoga, which are both more structured exercises, try dancing around or just sauntering your hips back and forth when you are moving around in your apartment, which will help empower your feminine energy,” she said.
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After I had escorted Miller out the door, I immediately began swaying my hips around while tidying up and preparing for work. I felt incredibly relaxed and at ease the rest of the day, and was able to get my work done efficiently, without stressing about it. That evening, I made a nice birthday dinner for my boyfriend, connecting by candlelight at our new little IKEA dining table by the window. Post pulled pork and a mochi dessert, my calm continued as I chose to skip my usual nightly Bravo show and plopped on the couch with a good book. My sleep that night was long and uninterrupted, and my productivity at work the next day was impressive.
Miller tells me that reiki can be instrumental in working through difficult times for her clients, and she has had clients who come see her every two weeks while they are processing trauma or unraveling some long-held limiting beliefs. She also has clients who come in because they are curious about reiki and end up returning monthly as upkeep because they love the way they feel after a session. “I always tell people that your body will let you know when it is time to come back — you will begin to feel disconnected to yourself again — and that will drive you to make another appointment should you choose,” she says.
Even if everything is going well, reiki is a great way to relax and release stress or pent up emotions. “I do reiki on myself near-daily to remain a clear vessel for the energy to flow through,” explains Miller. “Anyone in any stage of life could benefit from the healing essence of reiki.”
And benefit I certainly have — my session was on Monday morning, I am writing this on Friday, and I have gotten more work done this week than any other week in the year and a half that I have been full-time freelancing. What was once a “woo-woo” treatment for me has become more like a “woo-hoo” treatment — my business, and I, can’t wait for our next session.
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