Reiki healing is a gentle, flowing and intuitive healing art. In a standard Reiki session we can trust to the feeling of the energy in our hands, and read the client’s body as we work. We can trust to the healing source to work in the body – it is a simple and deeply relaxing experience for the client and the practitioner. But at a certain point on our healing path, we want to engage more directly with the needs of our clients. We want to engage with them and empower them, which means uncovering the unknown with them – and this requires real confidence in the healing space, and a different skill set than Reiki training gives us.

This is not to say that the standard Reiki treatment set up doesn’t require skill, it does. It also requires commitment: your continued connection to source is what makes you a more powerful and effective channel for healing. However, standard Reiki training doesn’t necessarily give us the skills we need to respond to a client’s situation in the moment.

How do we do the work if we don’t know what’s going to happen?

Advanced level healing work tends to be collaborative and intuitive. It requires us to listen to our client and respond to whatever they bring to that moment, and especially in client-led work we can’t know what is coming. We need to stay centred and present in the work, and our client needs to feel (and be!) safe as we guide them through their own unique process. So how do we respond if they become frightened, or agitated, or say they don’t know what is needed?

In my Reiki Cord Cutting course, we spend a lot of time on important principles of a shamanic worldview and what “attachments” are. But the nature of cords and how to cut them are only half the story. Like many advanced energy healing methods, the work is being co-created, the healer and client working together. Until my client tells me, I don’t know the true energetic nature of the connection that needs to be released. And I don’t know if the release will bring them elation, grief or anything in between. The most important principles taught here are to think on our feet, to be able to respond with compassion and expertise when faced with something we’ve not witnessed before and can’t necessarily see coming. We need the confidence to direct the session as the unknown reveals itself.

Cord cutting isn’t the only healing method that demands these skills, but it is a perfect training ground for building them. Clients come to energy healers to release grief, reclaim their personal power, let go of old identities and come face to face with challenging truths. They come to us to change their lives – that is not an exaggeration. It is also something we can’t do for them, we can only support it, fuel it, or witness it. Whatever role we need to take in that moment, it is our responsibility to create solid ground within that moment of uncertainty, so that true healing can take place.

Ready to step up into advanced healing work?

If you find yourself called to more advanced work, you need to ensure that you have the skills – for your client’s safety and your own.

For Reiki 2 and above, grab a place on the next Reiki Cord Cutting course on Saturday 19 October in Glastonbury. This is just one part of a curriculum of Shamanic Reiki training that supports your elevation into mastery and skill in energy healing.

Not a Reiki person yet? Why not – it’s the best resource a healer can have! There is only one place remaining on my next Reiki 1 on 25 October, book on today if it’s yours.

Questions? Contact me to ask. (Or come along to tonight’s Reiki share at White Rabbit!)