How does Reiki work?

There are different forms of energy in the universe, Reiki being one of them.

One way to categorize energy is by its frequency, and generally speaking, energies that are in a more physical form (like the energy forming your body) are considered to be vibrating at a lower frequency.

Lower is often confused with “bad,” but this isn’t the case. When energy is vibrating at a lower frequency, the energetic particles are simply moving at a slower rate. This slowness allows these particles to get cozy with their neighbors, forming more solid-seeming structures.

You’re already well familiar with this concept. When you boil water, the water molecules move faster and faster as the temperature increases, eventually moving so fast that they travel away from their molecular neighbors in a cloud of steam. In contrast, water molecules sloooow down as they form ice, which allows the molecules to get up close and personal with each other, giving ice its solidity.

Good Vibrations

Reiki is said to vibrate at a very high frequency, and I believe this allows Reiki to enter our personal energy field and break up pockets of stagnant energy, along with causing other shifts (more on those in a minute).

One of my teachers uses this analogy: Picture a glass of water with some mud on the bottom. The water is your energy field, and the mud is the inevitable bits of ick we all pick up here and there as we’re going about our lives.

Now, imagine someone pouring a stream of clear, pure water into the glass from a pitcher. This is Reiki. As Reiki pours into the glass, it might stir up some mud, causing the water to become cloudy, but after a certain point all of the mud is flushed out and we are left with a clean glass of water.

In a similar fashion, a Reiki treatment can temporarily stir up a little energetic “mud” during the cleansing process, causing us to become more aware after our session of issues in need of TLC, but as the mud washes away, we find ourselves feeling clear and on track, something I talk about below under Reiki’s ability to heighten awareness.

What happens as Reiki enters our energy field?

Here are a few possible mechanisms that make sense to me:

1. Changing the location of energy.

Using the above analogy, while we don’t want mud in our water glass, that very same mud would be quite welcome on the forest floor, where it acts as a fertile substrate for life. It’s all about context. Energy that doesn’t serve in one location might be just what the doctor ordered when moved to another area, and Reiki seems to have the ability to shift our energy in this way.

For example, do you ever get that nervous, butterflies-in-the-stomach sensation? For me, if I’m able to take some deep breaths and gently move that energy a little lower, into what’s known as the tanden or hara, it no longer feels anxiety producing and instead feels energizing and motivating.

2. Reintroducing movement.

Movement is a crucial ingredient for life. On a physical level, research has shown that our individual cells need to be moved, squished, stretched, and otherwise deformed on a regular basis in order to maintain health, and a lack of movement is being implicated in numerous health issues, including cancer. We’ve evolved to move, down to the smallest structures of our biology, so it would make sense that our energy, which is the very stuff that makes up our biology, follows similar principles.

Not all movement is created equal, either. If you routinely use your shoulder in a dysfunctional way, you can stress the joint and generate wear and tear on the tissues, so it’s not enough to simply move–we must move functionally. I believe that Reiki can a) reintroduce movement to stagnant areas and b) redirect current movement into more functional patterns.

3. Heightening awareness.

Reiki also has the ability to draw our awareness to certain aspects of our energy field (and to parts of our life), and quantum physics shows us that by observing, or becoming aware of, particles, we change them. Why would this not be the case with our personal quantum particles?

This ties into something I’ve experienced in my own life and have witnessed with clients again and again: Over leaving a Reiki treatment 100% “cured,” we often find ourselves drawn to the next step that needs to be taken in our healing journey. You might find yourself repeatedly hearing about a particular supplement or “just happen” to meet an integrative physician who specializes in the condition you’re struggling with. In my own life, regularly using Reiki seems to increase these “chance” encounters and keep me in a state of flow.

I have no doubt that the full picture of Reiki’s underlying mechanisms is much richer than this tiny sliver, but hopefully these ideas give you a little Reiki food for thought!