FAQs
​What can I expect from a standard 1:1 healing and coaching session?
You can expect a three-part experience as follows:
Expect a 30-minute intake (initial visit only), assessment of your current status (e.g., emotional state, stress level, how you’ve been doing since our last session, etc.), and intention setting for the session.
Once we’ve set an intention for the session, I will ask that you lay down or sit in a comfortable position and simply relax. For the next 60 minutes, I’ll conduct a healing session for you according to the intentions set. You may choose to play relaxing music from your own collection or from a Spotify playlist that I have compiled, according to your preference. (Please note that you will need to play or stream the music from your own location and/or music streaming account, as I am prohibited from rebroadcasting it to you via Zoom.)
Following the healing portion of the session, expect a 30-minute debrief, during which you can share what you like of your experience during the healing, process any emotions or sensations that came up for you during the healing, discuss resources you may wish to explore for your continued healing post-session, set intentions for your self-care post session, and schedule additional sessions if you would like to do that.
What does a Reiki healing session feel like in the moment?
How a Reiki healing session is experienced in the moment varies person to person and even session to session. Frequently, my clients have reported feeling surges of tingling or energy course through their body or sensations of touch whether or not they were actually being touched. On occasion, clients have reported soaring spiritual experiences. Just as frequently, clients have reported feeling nothing but relaxation. Almost uniformly, my clients fall asleep during their sessions, if only briefly.
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One important point respecting the sensations of the healing session, whether soaring and ecstatic or soothing or neutral: The healing is the same no matter the sensation or lack thereof. I cannot stress this enough. Some people finish a session feeling deflated if they expected an extraordinary sensory experience—perhaps based on their experience of a prior session—that did not manifest for them. Reiki healing frequently does produce extraordinary sensory experiences in the receiver, but it doesn’t always, and a ho-hum experience is by no means indicative of an insignificant or failed healing!
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What can I expect in the hours and days following a healing session?
Generally, clients of mine have reported feeling very relaxed—even tired or sluggish—for the balance of the day following a session, and I recommend that you plan to relax following your session. I would never recommend doing a healing session on an extended lunch break from work or before you undertake a task that requires a lot of physical exertion or intense concentration.
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Over a longer period, you may experience intense dreams or receive sudden flashes of insight into aspects of your experience. You may find yourself delighted by random, ordinary circumstances or events. You may find your outlook shifted; you may feel lighter and more hopeful around certain circumstances or more closely discerning of others.
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As with the sensory experience of the session itself, the post-session experience can vary widely person to person and even session to session. Also, what intentions you set for your self-care post-session and the degree to which to fulfill them or not will directly impact your experience.
What if I’m not religious or even especially “spiritual”? Can I still benefit from Reiki healing and spiritual coaching?
Absolutely! While I firmly believe a spiritual perspective is indispensable—to Reiki healing/spiritual coaching as to all of life—that perspective doesn’t have to entail explicit or implicit religiosity. Spirituality, for my purpose, is defined very broadly as whatever affords a person some means of gaining perspective on painful, limiting circumstances and events, of viewing them from beyond the confines of a narrowly delimited, individual experience, and arriving at some sense of meaning or peace. Many people find such transcendent perspective in spiritual practice of some sort, whether on their own or via engagement with an explicitly religious organization. But if you connect with such perspective through fly fishing, motorcycle riding, gardening, creating art, or whatever, that counts! Any means by which you are able to access this elevated view of things and gain a sense of calm will be a great help to you in this work. If you do not currently have access to such perspective but you’d like to find it, we can explore ways best suited to you to find your entry point.
How does Reiki healing work over the internet? The coaching bit, I get. But the healing itself, doesn’t that have to be done in person?
Not at all!
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Reiki is a method of spiritual—or energetic—healing. I have heard it described as highly focused prayer. I experience its delivery as intensely concentrated and targeted spiritual energy that absolutely finds its mark at distance and over the internet.
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I know this because I have attended online learning and healing retreats over the past year with a view to answering this very question for myself before presenting online sessions to you as a sound alternative to in-person ones. Since the onset of COVID-19, Zoom has certainly cast everything in a new and sometimes strange light, but some of the most powerful healing I have ever channeled and received has been shared among online retreat participants from around the world via the internet. Nearly to a one, my fellow retreatants offered similar feedback on their own experiences.
Can Reiki healing replace traditional medical and psychological care?
Absolutely not! Reiki—as is any healing modality that leverages energies of body and spirit—is a powerful complement to licensed medical and psychological care but never an alternative to these. I highly recommend you enlist the services of licensed medical and psychological professionals in your healing journey as you deem appropriate.
Since you’re a professional chaplain, would our healing/coaching sessions be completely confidential?
Yes, with caveats.
I promise confidentiality comparable to that of a licensed clinical setting. Should you ever wish me to share information from our sessions with a licensed medical or psychological professional, I will do so only with your written consent.
So, what are the caveats? In the event you express a credible, actionable intention to harm yourself or another, or if I am concerned you may already have done so, I will notify authorities positioned to prevent or curtail such harm.