Reiki and Payments

Article by Alejandro Sánchez Martínez

When I started my Reiki practice several times I had this question and now as a Reiki Master and Teacher my students sometimes have had problems with this too, is it ok to charge for a Reiki session?

Well, my answer would be ‘yes’, because you are doing a work for people and they are getting something.

Sometimes, especially during the first sessions of our Reiki practice it might be strange for us as practitioners to charge for a Reiki session since it is not something tangible nor visible to the patient, also sometimes the patient may say that he or she is feeling fine after the session but that during the session he or she could not feel anything. So, should we charge for these sessions? Of course!

Patients don’t always receive or feel the energy in the same way, not all the patients will have the same sensations during a session, but we are doing our part. It is important for any Reiki practitioner to remember that we are doing a job, it might be something spiritual but we also live in a material/real world where money is needed in order to live. You can make a living from Reiki, but in order to do that, eventually, you are going to need money!
You may start getting the people to know you and your work with a free-sample session, but eventually, you are going to need to set a fee. If at the beginning of our Reiki practice we do not feel comfortable receiving money, we always may allow the patient to choose the payment method, and in my experience this is one of the best things we can do, as I said especially when we are starting our Reiki practice, because it helps the Reiki practitioner to start getting used to get a payment for his/her work so later it will be easier to set a fee for a session.

I say that allowing the patient to choose the payment method is one of the best things we can do because the patients will pay for the session with anything they want, sometimes it can be something you may need in your daily life, or in your Reiki practice, (for example some patients may pay you with candles, incense sticks, books, food, mantra music CDs, etc., sometimes they may give you something they consider valuable or precious, or even expensive things!); but more than that, in the background I can say that this payment actually shows you how important is your work for them, and that doesn’t always happens with money when you charge an established fee, since money is a so over-valued, and ordinary thing people are used to spend just for anything they want as a common thing in their daily basis.

The only problem you may have to face later if you allow them to choose the payment method is to switch to money after that, I mean to change from a payment from ‘anything’ to ‘money’. This is why I only suggest this for people who is starting a Reiki practice, especially if you decided to start it with family members or friends whom, in some cases for some people, are more difficult to get them give you money.

It is also important to know that sometimes (it happened to me only once) a patient doesn’t want to or claims that he or she cannot pay for a session. In this case I would suggest that the patient MUST do something like praying, meditation or even something he or she considers as a little sacrifice, maybe stop doing or eating something he or she likes very much for a couple of days as a payment, because there always must be a payment; remember that if he or she doesn’t pay for what they are receiving, the Universe will charge them in some way. In a case like that, what do we get?, well we also must trust God and the Universe itself, just remember the laws of karma and dharma. We must get a payment and we will, it’s just that maybe this is not the person who must give it to us.

We must be sure we are going to get it from the Universe, it will give us all we deserve when it is the right moment for us to get it, as usual. Just remember, you must and you will always get a payment for your work (even for the free-sample sessions!), and sometimes the payment comes in the most strange and extraordinary ways! Just remember to be thankful when you receive it.

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Alejandro Sánchez Martínez is an Engineer, Hypnotherapist, Reiki master and freelance writer. As a Reiki master he teaches and practices Reiki on daily basis because he loves helping others, especially when he can teach them how to help themselves. Alejandro likes talking to others about spiritual things. Because of his Reiki practice he has been able to have visions of other realms, and angelic entities who usually help him and guide him during his practice. As a hypnotherapist he discovered he loves helping others live their lives the way they want to live them, and by using Reiki he has discovered he can help them achieve that on a much deeper way.

You can find more of his works on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Iris.ASM and on Twitter twitter.com/asm124.