Like all relationships, our relationship with Reiki will ebb and flow. There will be periods when we feel really connected to it and have the energy to pour into nurturing it, and phases when we don’t. And this applies as much to our personal Reiki practice, as it does to our professional practice.
In our professional practice, an ebbing period might manifest as the internal push to take a step back from our business. And there are lots of valid reasons for this.
For one thing, you might need to regroup: Reiki sessions can be uplifting and healing for practitioner and recipient alike. But they can also be emotionally taxing for the practitioner, in more ways than one. Being a channel for the energy and emotionally holding space for others as you do so can sometimes leave you feeling drained, to say the least.
Additionally, stepping into the role of a healer, especially if you’re doing it for the first time, can bring up a lot of unresolved psychological baggage and resistance for you to work through.
As such, stepping back can be a great way to not only replenish your reserves but also process and integrate the lessons that embarking on this journey inevitably comes with.
Taking a break could also be a way to rebrand or change how you show up professionally. Before starting out, you might have some idea about how you want to approach your practice and what you want to get out of it. But often it’s only through direct experience that you gain greater clarity regarding who exactly your ideal client is and how best you can serve them.
This information is vital: it has a bearing on everything – from the message you use to market yourself, to how you structure your treatments, to the degree of energy and passion you bring to your practice. And taking a professional break can help you strategize and plan for the way forward effectively.
Yet another reason you might have considered taking a step back is that you have felt called to dedicate more time to mastering another healing or spiritual modality besides Reiki.
The beauty, power, and mystery of Reiki cannot be overstated. But other holistic, and equally powerful ways to heal do exist and their existence do not take away from the magnificence of Reiki.
It does take time and commitment and real effort to incorporate a new spiritual or healing practice into your life and to get fairly good at it, however. And sometimes that means de-prioritizing, at least to a degree, the practices that we have already established, which could mean putting on hold your professional Reiki practice.
This, of course, does not in any way negate the importance of Reiki. If anything, because of how versatile Reiki is, learning a new modality of healing might broaden your capacity to work with Reiki in ways that surprise you.
Whatever our reasons for feeling pulled to hit the pause button on our professional practice, when we do finally decide to do it, it can be all too easy to slip into thinking that maybe we’re not cut out for it, or that our foray into professional Reiki was a mistake. And that’s normal. But I invite you to trust that the nudge to start practicing Reiki in the first place was just as valid as the nudge to pull back; that the two are intimately tied and were both in service of your growth.
Article by Thandiwe Msimuko
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Passionate about energy work, Thandiwe Msimuko took up Reiki in 2021, eventually getting certified when she saw how much it helped her heal aspects of her childhood sexual trauma and felt inspired to help similarly affected women.
Besides Reiki, she’s committed to learning to access her own and other people’s Akashic Records, and is fascinated by the connection between Reiki and Akashic energy. She shares tips and insights gleaned from her Akashic journey at: dailydoseofakasha.substack.com
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