My first experience with Reiki
Warning: This post contains references to anxiety. It is meant to share my experience and should not be considered medical advice.
I am a long time sufferer of chronic anxiety. And when I say long term, I mean long term, like my whole life, since I was four years old. Over the years I have tried many ways of managing my anxiety. I’ve always been drawn to meditation, yoga and natural remedies. These have had varying effects on my anxiety.
When I initially tried meditation, I would get very frustrated with myself. I had a lot of trouble focusing and could never seem to stay at it for longer than a few minutes. Racing thoughts are a big part of my anxiety and I couldn’t seem to turn them off no matter how much nature sounds music I played.
If this story resonates with you, please know you are not alone. Many people struggle to focus and get calm when they first start the meditation process. It’s important to remain patient with yourself. It’s just like learning anything new, it takes time, patience, and practice.
After several years of attempting meditation, I have finally found some practices that work for me. I now understand that it’s okay if my mind wanders during a meditation because I can just let it wander and then come back to the meditation. Reiki is one practice that helps me achieve this.
Reiki is a form of energy healing. It focuses on the flow of life force energy through the chakras (energy centers in and around the body). For the purposes of this post, I’m not going to go into detail on how Reiki works (that will be coming in another post), but instead I’m going to discuss my experiences with it and why I think it’s beneficial.
My first experience with Reiki was through a youtube channel called Lune Innate. She does energy work by proxy. I have loved ASMR since my first encounter, but this was something more. I responded to what she was doing right away. It was through this experience that I started to notice my focus for meditation became better. By focusing on my chakras, I had something to visualize which made it easier for distractions to slip away. But it was more than just a visualization, I could feel the energy within me becoming more balanced.
She has so many amazing videos. I can’t remember anymore which was the very first I found but I’ve linked one below that is a great example of her work.
I frequently use these videos before going to bed. They work wonders on my stress and anxiety.
My second experience came when I had a reiki session in person. This experience came into my path at a very tumultuous time. I had a terrible job in a toxic work environment. My stress was off the charts and at the point where it was affecting me physically. I felt terrible all the time and nothing seemed to help.
It’s difficult to put into words how life changing this experience was. Going into it I didn’t exactly know what to expect. I figured that it would be relaxing. But I had no idea how impactful it would be. During the session, I was able to achieve the deepest meditation of my life. As I had previously thought that I just wasn’t good at meditating this alone was enough to hook me. But there was more, when the session was done I felt healed. I no longer felt like a victim of my circumstances and I was so much more aware of my own energy. The session also effected me physically. I have chronic pain in my shoulder and when my session was finished it was all but gone.
This experience allowed me to experience true meditation. And once I had experienced it I knew I wanted more! When I lied down to meditate, I now knew I could do it and that I would feel so much better when I did. Ever since experiencing Reiki my meditations are far more beneficial and purposeful. That doesn’t mean I don’t still have times when I struggle, because I do. But I now know that it’s just part of the process and when I have trouble focusing it’s not because I’m not good at meditating, but because I’m going through a rough time or having a rough day which is all the more reason to take the time to meditate.
If your anxiety makes it difficult to meditate, I highly recommend exploring Reiki and energy work in general. If your mind wanders, let it wander. When you’re ready come back to the meditation and try again. As you practice it will become easier to focus and you may even find that your invasive thoughts are more manageable.
