There’s No Distance in Distant Reiki

This article is based on Beyond the Reiki Gateway’s podcast “There’s No Distance in Distant Reiki” created by Reiki Masters Kathleen Johnson and Andrea Kennedy.

Kathleen Johnson:
Today’s subject is Distant Reiki. For those of you who are Reiki practitioners, distant Reiki is something that I know is met with skepticism, especially by clients who have never experienced Reiki or clients who have only experienced in-person sessions.

Speaking as a Reiki practitioner of, I guess about 12 or 13 years now, even I was skeptical about distant Reiki when I first learned about it. It seemed a little out there, if you will. However, after years of conducting distant Reiki sessions, since overcoming my initial skepticism, I have come to know that distant Reiki is amazingly effective and just as effective as the traditional in-person session. So, we’re going to address a few things today.

How distant Reiki works?

First of all, how does distant Reiki work? We get that question a lot. And Andrea will certainly confirm that. How does distant Reiki work? That’s a big question we get a lot. Also, we’re going to talk a bit about how we do it, how Andrea and I conduct a distant Reiki session. We will share some feedback from clients that we’ve received and if time permits, we may delve into some other aspects of distant Reiki that you may or may not have considered. But to start us off, I’m going to turn it over to Andrea and she is going to help us all understand a little bit better about how distant Reiki works.

Andrea Kennedy:
Thanks Kathleen, and yes, I certainly do want to underscore what Kathleen mentioned earlier and thanking our listeners and subscribers for that feedback. Absolutely.

A common question I get from students, practitioners and also clients is how does distance Reiki even work? There is quite a bit of skepticism as we know their skepticism with in-person sessions. So then you add those whole distance element to it and I think it really takes it to a whole another level of doubt, and for practitioners I think that’s very normal. Kathleen mentioned for her, she was skeptical, and boy, I was skeptical of everything about Reiki let alone distance! That was again a whole another level of doubt for me.

But I have to say, I love distance Reiki, absolutely love it! It’s just amazing to me. It’s important that we do have understanding so that we can explain it to potential clients or anyone interested in finding out more about Reiki.

And one of the ways that I describe it to people that might make it a little bit more tangible is if we think about Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi is energy. It’s out there; it’s all around us, really. I think if we could see it be quite a bit alarming to us, but so Wi-Fi is really waves of energy that are around us that we cannot see and if we didn’t know what was there, we would not be able to recognize it, it’s invisible. However, we have so much opportunity to engage with someone else or get information, all the possibilities that being connected present us through this technology. So, these invisible waves are there. And if I have an intention to connect to these waves, there is someone else out there who has the intention of connecting to the waves. So, let’s say they’re going to send information out, and that information is what I’m interested in. So, we really do this every time we might google something on the Internet. We’re intending to ask a question to receive an answer and then the answer’s out there.

The importance of intention to connect – for both practitioner and client

So, if we intend to connect and the other person or party is on the other side and they’re intending to connect, we can use this invisible field of energy in order to connect. And so it takes intension on both sides and energy. That’s really what we’re doing in distance Reiki. I am intending to connect with my client and they are intending to connect with me and in that space, we do have a common goal, and that is to offer the highest frequencies of Reiki energy for their highest good. And so we’re in agreement about that. And when we have intention to connect or a common goal, that’s all it is. That’s all it really takes, because it is energy, Reiki is energy, it isn’t bound by time or space.

And I think that is maybe a more simple way to explain it. Of course we might delve into quantum physics and all of that, but if we get a question from a students or just a person curious about Reiki, we need to have an easy way to, to perhaps convey this complex idea. I’ll take it one step further. In my computer example, we are connecting, we’re using the Wi-Fi, but even on both sides of that, we’re using hardware, we’re using our computer, our smart phone matter to, to download that information, and so we can draw another parallel there, and that is in distance Reiki. We’re also using our physical bodies, right? So the energy is coming into our physical bodies, just like with our Wi-Fi it’s coming through our computer or phone. That’s the hardware of the energetic transfer. You probably hear that question a lot too, I’m willing to bet. So how would you describe how it works?

Energy follows intention

Kathleen Johnson:
Not an as scientific a matter as you did, Andrea. I don’t have the science background that you do and please don’t ever start talking quantum physics to me, ever. Just don’t!

One of the first things I remember about learning Reiki in my Reiki one class many years ago was our teacher said if you remember anything from today, remember these 3 words, and those words are: energy follows intention. I still use those words when I teach my students, because that, to me at least, distills the very essence of what Reiki is all about.

Quantum theory has established that everything is energy without exception. And when you place an intent or a point of focus in your mind or in your heart, wherever it comes from, energy will follow that. And the way you explained it is perfect.

We set the intent as practitioners to channel energy to the recipient. The recipient is intending to receive that energy for his or her highest good. That is really all it takes. I have to say though; I like being compared to a smart phone. No one’s ever compared me to a smart phone before. But that works probably not nearly as smart as a smart phone, but it makes perfect sense. We are the hardware in the exchange of energy. So I like that you said that was an interesting way to view myself.

Andrea Kennedy:
Intention does really play a key role for sure, Kathleen. I want to just mention that there are circumstances where we might want to offer distance Reiki and the other person might not be aware that we’re sending it. For whatever reason, could be a situation where they’re hospitalized or perhaps a baby, something like that.

And so we get into other topics related to distance Reiki, for example, permission and those kinds of things. That’s a really big topic. I think it’s a big topic, just like intention is. Intention in Reiki is very important, but it’s also, some people think counter to Reiki because we’re supposed to let Reiki flow and let Reiki guide. So how does intention really meld with that? And so I would invite us to put on the back burner, anything more about intention and permission. And maybe we can talk about that in a future episode or 2, because those are really big topics.

In our example today we’re talking about where the Reiki practitioner and the receiver have decided to engage in a Reiki session. Does that sound ok, Kathleen, should we talk about that later?

Kathleen Johnson:
Yes, yes. Those topics are both huge topics in Reiki world, if you will. Permission is still a point of controversy among many practitioners. Intention can also be so I think that’s something we need to make a note about to address in a future episode or 2, as you said.

Andrea Kennedy:
Oh, fantastic! So why don’t we move to something else that I think naturally stems from our first topic and that’s if we’re going to do a distance Reiki session, how do we do it? I hear that question a lot and I’ll bet that you do too. Do you want to explain a little bit how you do your sessions today?

Practical instructions on how to perform distant Reiki

Kathleen Johnson:
Sure, that is a question I get a lot and even though, I know, when you teach Reiki two, which is where the students learn to conduct distant Reiki. And when I teach Reiki II, I go over the whole concept of it very thoroughly, we practice in a group distant Reiki session. I give the students a lot of information, but yet there is still a lot of hesitation there as far as doing it “right”. In quotes, of course.

I think if you were to ask 100 Reiki practitioners, how they conduct a distant Reiki session, you would very likely get 100 different answers. The way I conduct a Reiki session resembles nothing at all the way it looked when I first started practicing Reiki. It has evolved over the years, it has grown, it has changed and I owe that to Reiki because Reiki has been a guiding force in how I conduct my sessions and I am open to its guidance and I trust its guidance. So, my sessions nowadays look nothing like they used to, and I imagine that’s the same case with you, Andrea, because I know you’re very much in tune with Reiki’s guidance.

How to use a surrogate

When I conduct a Reiki session distantly, it’s very similar to how I conduct an in-person session. OK, so what do I mean by that? First of all, I conduct the session in my healing space where I conduct my in-person sessions. I have a table cloth that has a silhouette of a person with the primary chakras highlighted upon it. I use that on my Reiki table when I’m conducting a distance session, so I am then able to better focus on the chakra areas, the body areas, etc. It helps me feel closer to the distant client, with help from me just in that regard. My client seems to enjoy it too because I will then take a photo of the layout, especially because I use crystals in all of my Reiki sessions and I have the crystals placed appropriately on the table cloth. The clients can see in the photos how the crystal layout appears and the various stones and where they were. That’s how I begin my session in my Reiki room. I didn’t used to do it that way. I’ve been doing it now like that for, I’d say 4 or 5 years, but it started off a lot differently.

Starting the session with a phone call

So when I have a Reiki session with a client who is far away from me, which they generally are, I start off with a phone call. And during the phone call, we discuss their intention for the session, if they have one, sometimes they just say whatever Reiki wants, that’s good with me, and we talk about maybe some goals or any areas of concern they may have. And following the phone call, we hang up, they make themselves comfortable, laying in a comfy and quiet space. I conduct the session and my healing space and as I do so, I make notes during the session so I can remember any information or impressions that come in. Following the session, I will then text the client to let them know it’s done. I then prepare an audio report and I email that to the client along with photos of the crystals and the crystal layout that we had during the session.

Getting the client’s feedback

I always encourage the clients to provide feedback if they’re so guided and to, of course, ask any questions or relay any concerns they may have. This is how I do my sessions now, but like I said earlier, they haven’t always looked that way. This way seems to be working out for quite some time and we’ll just see how it goes. So how do you do yours, Andrea? I know they’re different from how I do mine, and it’s always interesting to me to hear how other practitioners conduct their distant Reiki session.

Andrea Kennedy:
Yes, we have some similarities in how we do our sessions and some differences, so I think it is fun to compare and contrast, and there are so many other options that I’m sure we’re not even doing, but are fantastic ideas for people. Again, whatever works for the practitioner is the best way to do it.

Like you, I use the phone and I call the person at our appointment time and we talk for a few minutes. That conversation is just to make sure they understand what Reiki is, if they’re a new client of mine, and we talk about if they have an intention, and oftentimes it is just a general type of intention, but sometimes people can be specific. I like to talk to them about that, to have them speak those words to me even though they have already submitted those ideas to me through the intake form. Sometimes those change, but I think for me the act of them speaking the words to me in those moments at the beginning of the session helps almost prime the pump, so to speak, on the Reiki, on our connection, that kind of thing. So right here, I get their intention in their own words, then I explain that I will be hanging up the phone, I invite them to relax and just take that time to tune into their own an experience.

Client’s relaxation only affects their awareness, not the Reiki flow

They will be more likely to feel sensations of the Reiki session if they do relax. But if they don’t relax, you and I both know that it doesn’t ruin the session at all. The Reiki is still received. It just really affects their own awareness and maybe how much they’re able to relax in that moment but they deserve that time to relax. And so I invite them to do that, and I let them know that I will be calling them back with about 15 minutes left at the end of the session. So I’m pretty streamlined, I have my 75 minute appointment and I have a certain order of everything that I do. So I’ve pretty much stick to that, but when they are ready, when we’ve discussed these things, we get off the phone and then I’m in my space and like you, I’m in my Reiki room. I sit in a chair.

Use crystals during distant Reiki session

I don’t even have my Reiki table most times and I just sit in my chair, I don’t like to use any object that distracts me because I feel that being very neutral helps me, which is interesting because I also love your idea about the shape on your cloth with the chakras. I love that, but for me, what I like to do is use a crystal, just a lemurian quartz crystal that’s somewhat large and I just hold it in my hands. And I imagine it is actually their body. And because there’s really nothing representing a person on the crystal, it’s very neutral to me, so I don’t get distracted. I like that. Sometimes I use a teddy bear. I just follow my guidance in any particular session as to what might be most appropriate for that person.

Write down your impressions and messages for your client

I conduct the session, I keep a note pad next to me, I write down impressions and things like that. Then what I will do near the end of the Reiki session, this is a new thing for me since the pandemic started is I ask, is there a message for this person? And every time there is a message for them. And I just basically take dictation and write down what that message is for them. It’s very personal to them, but I also think it has a universal quality to it, which is fascinating and then the time is up. I call them on the phone and check in with them.

And they’ll sometimes offer feedback right at first. And sometimes not, I audio record our conversation where I go over my notes. I invite them to ask any questions or offer comments, and I emailed them the recording at the end of the session when we’re all finished. And that’s really how I do my session. But like you, it’s very much changed over the years. When I first started, of course I was just practicing. I didn’t have clients, per se; I was practicing on friends and family. I feel distance Reiki is such a help in developing our Reiki skills, especially for new practitioners.

The best way I think, to help lessen our doubt or skepticism about distance Reiki is to practice it. Because the more we practice it, the more experience we get with it. And then we see the results, we get feedback and that is, I think, the key in whether really whether we’re in-person or distance. I think all Reiki, once we just practice and practice, it helps dispel the skepticism and doubt. Kathleen, do you have anything to add?

Making audio notes and share them with your client

Kathleen Johnson:
You’re absolutely right. It’s, we call it a practice for a reason, it’s, we have to practice. So what I find interesting about our sessions when you compare and contrast is that we both do audio reports. I don’t really know that any other Reiki practitioners that I know do that. I don’t know that they don’t, but I came to that over time, I used to do written reports, but quite honestly, I found them to be so tedious. I got tired of typing; it was just enough.

I think Reiki guided me to start doing audio reports and something else that Reiki told me about audio reports that I often tell my clients is that when I do that report, I am reliving the session because I have my notes in front of me and I can see that, and I can place myself back at the time of the session and what I was feeling and how it was affecting me, etc. When the client hears that they are actually receiving the energy of the session again, it is something that they can then play over and over again as much as they want or not.

But that was what Reiki told me some time ago, was that the energy of the session is contained within the audio recording, which I find just an extra valuable and bonus option for doing distant Reiki.

Andrea Kennedy:
Yeah, that is awesome. Yes. And hearing you say, that’s exactly right, as far as my audio recordings go, I can see that, and especially with the message that I supply them now. Those words are imbued with an energy. I have heard feedback from my clients. When I’ll say this, even the in-person sessions, I would do the same except we were in person. But in the last 15 minutes I would give my impressions, walk them through the session, that kind of thing and often wisdom would come through and we got to the point where generally the client would use their phone and record that for themselves was a natural progression that when all of my sessions went to distance work with the pandemic, I saw the value in the recording. It’s always a change. I like to just go with what works and I would have never felt comfortable recording myself 10 years ago or something like that. So it’s just really a progression, but you’re absolutely right.

There’s energy and the recording and feedback from my clients is they will often replay it and replay it. I’m shocked how often they replay it, but they’ll also use the recording and what comes through for other work. They will journal about things that have come up and they use it for their own healing and whatever it is that resonates with them, perhaps in meditation or something like that, but they’re getting a value out of that, that is far beyond what the session was, but just for that 75 minutes and, and I really love the recording idea. And so, thank you for that.

And speaking of feedback, that’s the thing that can really help us to spell the doubt. So the more we experience, the more feedback we get, did you have some feedback from a client that we might find interesting or surprising?

If you’d like to listen to the “There’s No Distance in Distant Reiki” podcast from the Beyond the Reiki Gateway, please click here.

Distant Reiki – Case Studies

Kathleen Johnson:
I had a session with a client on Friday just a few days ago and it’s a client with whom I’ve been working for, oh, I guess 6 months now. She’s very open to the energy. She is a delight to work with and she’s always so amazed at how aligned my experiences are with her experiences. She’s also great about providing a lot of feedback which I so appreciate as a practitioner, it really helps me to, I don’t know how to say it except, hone my skills and highlight areas where I may need some improvement, those kinds of things. And I really appreciate the feedback more than I can really state. She is great about providing a lot of feedback and I will read her emails with her experiences and they always make me laugh because it feels so, it’s: Are you sure we were like several states away? because it seems as if we were in the exact same room together, because it’s identical, the things I say. OK, this is what I got. This is what I experienced. I had a message about her hair of all things. And she said that was on point for her because there was something about her hair that she was thinking about and resonated with it entirely.

So it’s those kinds of details that are just you can’t make this stuff up and you know that this is real. Something has happened. There is an exchange of energy; Reiki works even when you’re not in the same room together and feedback like that is really not unusual.

I do a lot of animal Reiki sessions as well. I love working with the animals. Last week I had 2 animal sessions, a dog and a cat, the owner of the dog, told me that he has noticed since the dog has been receiving regular Reiki sessions, she gets hers once a week, that her whole demeanor toward her people has changed, where she used to be a little stand-offish and somewhat cold toward them. She was a rescue. And he said that since having these sessions her whole demeanor has changed significantly. She’s very affectionate. She seems to be very engaged with the family now where she wasn’t before. What my Reiki sessions were able to discern was that she had a great deal of anxiety because of her previous owners’ behavior. She was abandoned by her owner. So she didn’t feel comfortable in her new home because of fear that she would be abandoned again. And that was contributing to her anxiety and her withholding any affection from them. She didn’t want to get too attached because she wasn’t sure if she was going to be there for long. So, hearing that change in her behavior and her demeanor, it just made my day as, here I am working with this dog, I think her next session is this week, and it has made such an amazing difference.

Hearing that feedback means everything to me and I so appreciate it when a client takes the time to do that because I know it takes time and I don’t expect it, but I certainly do appreciate it when it happens. And Andrea, I know you get a lot of feedback from your clients too.

Andrea Kennedy:
Yeah, I do and, like you, I love it because to hear about a session from their perspective, there’s just nothing like it. I just value it so much that they would share it with me. Oh, but I have to say, hey, oh, you’re animal story. I used to exclusively work with animals when I really first started branching out from family and friends and, ah, they are amazing to work with. So I love your story. Absolutely love it.

For me, you mentioned you just had a client on Friday. I had one on Saturday that comes to mind probably just because it’s been so recent. And during this session, I saw this person buried in sand. Imagine vertically, standing in sand buried all the way up to just above the hips. And the feeling was very good, the feeling conveyed stability and roundedness, groundedness, surety. It was wonderful from my perspective; this was much progress for this person because they had been coming. Oh, I don’t know probably for a few years, every now and again for a Reiki session.
And I had never seen this strength in, I would say, the root chakra area, and I had just never seen that, it really got my attention. I really just marveled at that and appreciated being able to sense that and see that in a session. And at the end, when we were talking about that particular part of the session, there was an acknowledgment by them about it.

They went on to tell me that during the session, they felt very obvious sensation in the legs. There was a feeling of, I’d see how did they put it, that it felt as though they received a sedative just for the legs, which was so interesting to me. But the other words used were relaxing, so comforting, and a wonderful feeling that they had in the exact area that I was explaining. And even upon further comparison, it seemed as though we both had these impressions, these feelings at around the same time in the session. And so how cool is that? It was such a neat thing and other parts of that session lined up as well. There were other commonalities between our experiences. And that’s really neat. And I’ll say one other one.

I had a client who came for years in-person and just loved our sessions. But once the pandemic came and everything switched to distance Reiki, that was a bridge too far for her. She just decided she would just wait. But one of her friends who was also a client, decided to actually do a distance session and take that leap. And her session that she had was so mind blowing to her; she ran back and told her friend about it. So, that woman said: Alright, I’m going to try this distance Reiki then, but I don’t know about this. She didn’t hide her skepticism with me at all, which is great. I totally get that. But we had a session and she, when I called her at the end, oh my goodness. She just gushed about all the sensations she felt, she couldn’t believe it, and she went on and on. She, one of the things I remember she said was, as soon as the session began, she just felt a rush of energy through her body, unmistakable, and so powerful and I tell you it was just so awesome to listen to her experience with that. It was really a delight.

Reiki is an intelligent energy

Kathleen Johnson:
That is awesome. It’s, I don’t know about you, but I never get tired of hearing those stories from clients. It is, it just makes it all worthwhile. And it’s funny because you talk about this client’s skepticism.

It’s almost as if, and I actually feel this, that as we know, Reiki is an intelligent energy. It has its own wisdom, it is not a static kind of thing that’s hanging out there waiting for us to invoke it. It is an intelligent energy. So, sometimes it feels as if Reiki has a sense of humor. Okay. Got a doubting Thomasina here. So we’re going to really let her have it with both barrels and let’s see who the skeptic is now. Doesn’t seem that way sometimes?

Andrea Kennedy:
Yeah, it really does. Yeah. Though, something that comes to mind is we might have practitioners listening and they might say: I haven’t gotten feedback like that. Or sometimes I get good feedback, but other times maybe they don’t say anything or maybe they don’t come back and that might actually be furthering or deepening their doubt or skepticism as practitioners.

And one week I’m sure we could both talk to this, but from my perspective, I will say not every session is fireworks, not every session is like that. And one of the reasons that I wanted to share some of what has stood out to me or my clients and one of those reasons to share that is to let people know that this works. And so in those times that a practitioner might doubt what is happening for their client or if it is working remember what I’ve offered here, what Kathleen is offered here, because we’re all tapping into the same thing and please know that Reiki is working, whether you hear the feedback or not, whether you’re intuitive or not, Reiki is working. And please remember that.

And I’d invite you not to judge yourself and don’t compare yourself or your sessions to every little thing here that we’re offering. Just keep at it, and keep practicing, and the more you practice the more opportunity you have to get different feedback. And that’s all I think that we’ve done, we’ve just been practicing for ever. And so, stay with it, have trust in Reiki and know that when you are offering Reiki, it’s the real deal. It is an intelligent loving energy. And every session I do, as I say, it’s not all firecrackers and huge epiphanies that happen. It does happen, but there’s variation.

Kathleen Johnson:
Andrea, I’m really glad you brought that up. That’s an excellent point. And I surely don’t want any practitioners out there thinking that this is typical event during a distant Reiki session. It’s not, it’s not all fireworks as you say, not at all, but I have to say after doing this for so many years and for so many different types of clients, animal and human, that the vast majority of them experience something, even if it’s subtle.

Reiki will give you exactly what you need in that moment

And sometimes we do not receive feedback from a client but don’t let that thing make you think that they didn’t experience anything. Maybe they just didn’t provide feedback and that happens. Don’t think of that as a judgment upon your abilities or Reiki.

One of the things I emphasize again and again to clients and to students is that Reiki is going to give you exactly what you need in that moment, whatever that is. And that’s true for every recipient, whatever the individual needs is, what Reiki is going to give them. What that is, I don’t know. And the chances are that the individual doesn’t know either because Reiki is working for that individual’s highest good. And more often than not, we are not privy to what is the highest good. Okay? We can speculate, but that’s about as far as it goes. The person who has a peaceful, kind of relaxing Reiki session, that’s exactly what they needed at that time. And the person who has the fireworks and the “Oh, my goodness! You’re not going to believe what happened!” kind of session, that’s what they needed. And everything that goes in between there.

So please, if you’re listening to this and you are a Reiki practitioner, remember that Reiki is always working with you, just as Andrea said. And Reiki is going to do for the client or the individual receiving the energy exactly what that person needs at that time.

Now, just like Andrea, I have clients with whom I’ve worked for years, literally years and every one of their sessions is different. Same person, same place, same time, sometimes weekly, sometimes bi weekly. It doesn’t matter. But every session is unique because their needs shift. What they need today is going to be different from what they need the next time they have a session. So, have to trust in Reiki, accept that what is happening is in their highest good. And please don’t judge yourself or should yourself. We’re going to go back to that again that we’ve mentioned in previous episodes. Just trust Reiki to do what is needed. I think that’s about all I can say about that, Andrea. I know that in my heart and soul, that’s the way it works now.

Andrea Kennedy:
Yeah, I so agree, but I tell you, it’s tough. It can be tough for practitioner. And this is a whole
another episode down the line, but I made some YouTube videos about it, but in my early days I didn’t feel anything, so you talk about doubt there. So that, as I said though, that’s a whole another episode.

But what struck me when you were talking is I made this connection, a connection about just as we offer Reiki, we get out of the way because it’s Reiki that is offering the healing and offering exactly what that person needs. It isn’t us. Well, so too is it, when we reflect on a session and it isn’t about what we experienced, it isn’t about anything. It’s really still just the Reiki. So we can think about a session all we want or what occurred or any of that.

I think that’s more about human curiosity. I think for us, I know for me in particular, I want to understand Reiki, it’s so mysterious, so hard of me thinking about a session and going back over it is in a quest of that knowledge.

But when I remind myself, especially if there weren’t the fireworks when I come back to centre and I think: “Oh, yeah! Reiki. It’s just the Reiki. It’s all about the Reiki. I’m just watching. I’m an observer.” And when I go back to that, it helps me settled down and feel better, no matter what the session was like and helps me just trust in the Reiki, as you said. So, thank you for that.

Kathleen Johnson:
Andrea, as you said, we are the observers. It’s the Reiki that’s doing the work, the Reiki that is doing the healing. So to quote you from earlier we’re the hardware, right? That’s it. We are the hardware. And our particular type of hardware seems to always want explanations for everything. However, I knew that I’m like that too.

I know you have the science background, which of course you know, that why all the time to get an explanation and an answer to everything. Although I don’t have a science background, I’m very much a why person as well. But with Reiki, I have come to accept and embrace the fact that some things don’t need to be explained. They simply don’t. And that’s ok with me.

I think the mystery of it is one of the things I love about it because all I need to know about it is that it works. It works for me. It works for my clients. And after years and years of doing this, that really is all I need to know.

Andrea Kennedy:
Yeah, I love that. And what I thought of when you were talking is yeah, every time I flip a light switch on, I don’t have to understand how that electricity gets to that light’s switch. But, I’m just glad the light comes on.

Kathleen Johnson:
Exactly.

The Covid Pandemic and distant Reiki: the subtle evolution of Reiki practice

Andrea Kennedy:
We were talking about how our distance Reiki sessions have evolved. I think it’s interesting with the pandemic, because; did you notice this? Everything, all the businesses, all the things we were used to, all were scrambling to come up with; Oh, we have to now do this at a distance. And I chuckled because I thought: Oh, we’ve been doing distance for, forever, for decades and decades, from the beginning of Reiki. I really chuckled about it. And I, even as I changed my website and everything over to distance Reiki and started to have those conversations with regular clients about this change, I found myself telling them: This isn’t a new thing for us. We’ve been doing distance Reiki, to help them understand, this isn’t something we just came up with to respond to the pandemic about.

So, we’ve had practiced doing this, and I think sometimes I wonder, I don’t believe in accidents. So I think that this whole pandemic and the distance Reiki, and I think it’s all just coming together for us and, and we were talking about our practices evolving. And have you noticed anything since the pandemic and you started doing everything from a distance? Anything, you wanted to share about that?

Kathleen Johnson:
Yes, and first of all, I wanted to comment on what you said, it’s true because everybody was scrambling to: Oh, no, how do we do this from a distance? And I’m thinking, I’m already doing that. I’m good. It was, it was not difficult at all. It was just a matter of changing my website, shifting a few things around on Facebook, etc, etc. And I was still operational. So, that was wonderful.

And yeah, my practice has evolved over the years, not just distant Reiki, but my practice, in general, has evolved so much over the years. What I do today resembles not at all what I did at the beginning, and I imagine you can say the same thing about yours. Although my practice has evolved over the years as I’m sure yours has too, Andrea, I have noticed a distinct shift in my sessions since the beginning of the pandemic. I refer to those sessions as the pandemic sessions, very original, but it helps me place them into some sort of a context.

And some of the differences I’ve noted are surprising to me and I know that they’re not coincidental. Everything is purposeful. And these differences are happening for a reason. The reasons why I don’t know, we’re not always meant to know the reasons, but there are definite spiritual significances to the things I’ve been experiencing.

One of the things I noticed fairly early on was that for the first time in a very long time, I was receiving a lot of brand new clients who were interested in distant Reiki, and as you would mentioned earlier, going from in-person to distant is a bridge too far, I think you said and that’s a good way to describe it. But I was getting a lot of new clients who were just interested in distant Reiki. And when I question them about that, like what, what made you want to do this? I always ask that question to new clients and almost all of them said that they had an overwhelming compulsion. And that was the word they used. They felt compelled; they had a compulsion to schedule a distant Reiki session. I thought that was remarkable because I’ve never heard that before. That was very surprising to me. So there’s that which I thought was just amazing. And also, yeah, it just doesn’t happen like that, I mean, a compulsion to schedule. Anyway, yeah, that was interesting.

Another thing for me was when you do a session, of course, it tends to be very client specific as you would expect; it’s all about the person on the table. When I was working with clients, I would say about midway through last year, when the pandemic was truly raging and it was clear that it wasn’t going away anytime soon, the sessions were telling me, the energy was telling me that the information I was getting was more directed toward humankind in general, not so much client specific. I was still getting some client specific information. However, I was not receiving as much as I had become accustomed to prior to the pandemic. And Reiki was letting me know that the information was applicable to humankind, not just this particular client. That was also startling. I didn’t know what to do with that, so I didn’t do anything with it. I just: Ok, this is the way it is right now. I found that to be really intriguing, as I said, very surprising.

Working with past-life chakras

The chakras that I work with in sessions, I always work with the primary chakras and some of the lesser-known ones as well, along with the body areas, etc. I was being increasingly directed to work with the past life chakras. Almost every session I was receiving guidance to treat the past life chakras. And of course, I’m a why kind of person. I think I mentioned that. I’m like: Why, why all of a sudden are we doing the past life chakras? Why are they getting so much attention?

The answer I received was that because much of what’s going on now, the pandemic and the global unrest, everything going on right now is part of a karmic debt, and not just specific to each individual, but to, again the Human collective. So treating the past life chakra is going to help smooth the path. Again, that was surprising. I would treat the past life chakras once in a while, I’ve got the guidance to do, but it wasn’t something I did regularly. But this time, during the pandemic, it was every session where I was guided to treat those chakras.

For those of you who don’t know where those are located, they are off body chakras. They are slightly above and a few inches out from each ear. That is where the past life chakras are located. And if you’re a Reiki practitioner and you would like to maybe tune up your past life chakras, you can do that by giving yourself Reiki on your past life chakras. It certainly won’t hurt. That’s for sure.

So the past life element seems to be very important in today’s world and karmic debt, karmic residue and balancing that. I can’t say any more than that. I don’t understand the full import of it. And I probably never will. It’s not for us to really know, it was simply for me to be guided to treat those areas.

Using Selenite and Shungite crystals for distance Reiki during the pandemic

I guess the final thing that I’ve noticed in the pandemic sessions is the use of my crystals. Prior to 2020, I always used crystals in my session, that didn’t change, but I was receiving strict and I mean strict instructions to use two crystals in particular. Before I would always use the ones that I was guided to use. It was a very intuitive choice. And that worked well, I always did it that way. Now I was receiving information, I was to focus on Selenite and Shungite. And I was told that those were the stones that were needed for mass healing in today’s world. So I was using Selenite and Shungite like crazy in 2020 and I was honestly getting bored with using them because I wanted a little variety. But I thought that was interesting. I’ve never been so strongly instructed as to what crystals to use.

So, speaking for myself, those were the main areas that I noticed were different and there were more, I actually wrote an article about this several months ago, and which I go into a lot more detail. But I still marvel at all the ways that my sessions have changed since 2020. And even though it’s eased up a bit, I still do things very differently than I did pre-pandemic.

And I’m wondering about our listeners, if you are Reiki practitioners, have you noticed any difference in your sessions, either in your self-Reiki practice or with clients or family and friends? I would love to hear from you if you have because I’m curious about that.

And actually this is the first time I’ve spoken about this publicly. I said I wrote the article, but speaking about it publicly, this is the first time I mentioned it. So I’m curious as to whether any of you out there have experienced this or can relate or resonate with this in any way.

Andrea Kennedy:
Yeah, I would love to have that feedback too. And I didn’t know any of this either, really, Kathleen. So I’m over here, just my wheels are spinning about all these wonderful things that you’ve told us and so just right off the top, I’m thinking: “Wow, this is great,” because you’ve given all of us practitioners, some new stuff to consider perhaps and it’s new to me, the past life chakras, where they’re located. Oh, maybe I’ll investigate that for myself. So, I think we all have a little bit of homework if we’re up for it and exploration.

The other thing that struck me about what you said was the idea that the information was more about humanity. It was more about the collective. That takes me back to what I mentioned earlier about my sessions, how I do those, the message for every client now. You see almost all my clients were in-person before the pandemic. So, I had a complete shift over not to say I didn’t, every now and again do a distance session, but I was almost exclusively in-person. And in the in-person sessions, I didn’t take notes during the session. I just made notes in my mind. And then I would tell them afterwards, then I would often channel information just through conversation to them. But the distance sessions for me brought the message part front and center.

The message that I do at the end of my sessions, it is very applicable to… it’s got a universal message even though it homes in, right on them as well. There is this element of ha, and I’ve often thought, well, other people could benefit from hearing this, putting it out there because I’m sure it would resonate with other people. I don’t know, I’m excited. I’m going to have to sit on all the stuff and mulling over that you’ve mentioned, but I definitely like to talk more about that in the future. And I think that may tie into that episode that we had previously alluded to about the spiritual significance of these times.

Kathleen Johnson:
I agree. I think at some point it’s going to become something we’re compelled to do, that it will the time to do that episode will reveal itself and we will know when it’s time.

Andrea Kennedy:
Yes. Yes. And I look forward to that as I do every episode. And I think it’s about time for us to wrap it up unless you have anything else you’d like to add.

Kathleen Johnson:
No, I think we’ve covered; actually we’ve covered a lot more than I expected to cover.

Andrea Kennedy:
Great, with that will go ahead and wrap up this episode. We’d like to thank you so much for listening and we also invite you to leave us a review if you don’t mind wherever it is that you listen to the podcast, that’s always helpful.

It will encourage other people to listen so we can reach more people and bring these ideas to more and more listeners. We also invite you to correspond with us. You can go to beyondtheReikigateway.com.

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Connect with Kathleen and Andrea:
Website: www.beyondthereikigateway.com
Kathleen’s Website: universoulheart.net
Andrea’s Website: www.mainstreamreiki.com
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