The Importance of Finding the Right Practitioner for you.

Hurt people, hurt people. Healed and healing people, heal people. It makes sense. You know it to be true in your own life, and if you’re in the healing arts, you know it to be true because you’re a product of it. 

The past few weeks, and probably longer than that if I take the time to look back, I’ve had some troubling conversations with clients. Now, I have the conversation with peers often and it’s frustrating in that context. But when a new client comes to me with this information, this experience...it’s concerning. 

What am I talking about.

Here’s the deal that I’m not sure anyone knows about: Anyone with $500 a free weekend can become a reiki practitioner. All of the other requirements and prerequisites are self monitored. There is no test you need to take, no application to fill out. You don’t have to register with an association, no one checks up on you, there is no continuing education requirements. 

In part, this is because the very nature of reiki invites that anyone is capable of this type of healing, and a major pillar of reiki is that it should be available to all. And I don’t mean it lightly when I say that I think that’s a beautiful feature of reiki. 

Honorable as that accessibility is, this much freedom lends itself to a host of risks. This is exactly the thing that allows hurt people to hurt people, relatively unchecked. 

Now’s as good of time as any to tell you that this isn’t about a specific practitioner, I am not ragging on anyone in particular, and I am not going to name names so don’t even let your mind wonder that way. I have high regard and esteem for both reiki as a practice and the practitioners that I know. 

That being said. I have felt compelled to share my concerns with you, not for my benefit, but because I want to make sure you are seeing the very best person for your spiritual health. I don’t want you to settle because you’ve been seeing that person for a while or because you don’t know where else to look, or you don’t want to start over with someone new. Basically, I don’t want you to stay with the subpar boyfriend because you don’t want to be single or dating again. 

I also want to share these concerns in a manner of protecting reiki as a reliable, credible spiritual healing practice. I think you’ll see what I mean as I go. 

As I said, I’ve had some new clients recently, which is such a blessing. I always ask my new clients if they’ve received reiki before and what their experience was like. Some report that they had received reiki in the hospital after a surgery and it was very relaxing. Some report that they have received a distance session before and really enjoyed it. More often than I’d like to report, people share things like “I have had reiki before and it was not a good experience.” They’ve shared that they left with more questions than answers, that the practitioner made them feel bad about something, that the practitioner tried to drudge up painful things that they had already spent money and time in therapy working through. They’ve shared that they were incredibly uncomfortable with the last person that they had seen. 

This is very disheartening for me. And in fact, I get pretty angry about it. I don’t take reiki lightly. I don’t take spiritual direction lightly. I have enough degrees in Jesus to know where one or two gather in His name, is a holy place. And in whatever spiritual practice we take part, we are opening up and laying down the picnic blanket that invited God to sit down with us. I know that this time, this space we create together is sacred. There is a reason I don’t wear shoes in our sessions and it’s not because I don’t like them. 

Getting down from the pulpit, let me share with you that I don’t think any reiki practitioner has any ill intentions. As a Two on the enneagram, however, I know how easy it is to get caught up in trying to help people because it makes you feel so good. And I know what that pride and joy feels like. I’ve been there. I also know that being good at giving advice, doesn’t make you good at giving counsel. 

My husband is an incredible listener. Ask any of his friends from high school, you’ll hear about how great of guy he is. He listened and people came to him seeking advice and he offered it and it usually helped. It makes him a great friend. It makes him a wonderful husband. I would not pay him for this advice. 

Why? Because he’s not trained! Furthermore, he is younger than me, a man, and a software engineer. He hasn’t experienced traumas like mine, he doesn’t work in any manner close to mine, our brains function very differently, and so on. But I’ll get to this part in a little while.

Back to where we started, the training process required to become a reiki practitioner is a rather light one. It’s a certification. The training is completed in two consecutive days. There are recommendations for best practice but very little accountability. Again, I don’t say this because I think they should change this. I DON’T. I think there are certainly appropriate levels of training. Think about parenthood. A beautiful caring profession. Parenting is a high honor. It’s a powerful influence. YOU ARE PRODUCING HUMANS. No testing required. Relatively little checking in. Why? Because how would we even do that?! This metaphor isn’t quite right but I’m keeping it. Let’s use prayer, because basically that’s what I think reiki is. Prayer is free to everyone to use. On themselves, on others in the family, the room, the whole church, whole city, an entire country. We get to use prayer whenever and however we want. 

And that’s in part because what can prayer harm? The silent kind? Absolutely no one. But the kind you share with others? They are words and can harm just like any other type of communication can. 

What I’m getting at is this, we are trained for two days in the on the table portion of reiki. This is different for every practitioner, but with me, that’s about 40 minutes of a 75 minute session. The rest of the time is talking. Some practitioners don’t talk as much, mine doesn’t. But what I am concerned about with the reiki practice as a whole has almost nothing to do with the hands on part. This is because I believe that it is made up of and comes from the loving light energy of God and that can’t be messed up. Truly. 

But then we, as humans, open our mouths. To give insight and understanding to what happened on the table. And that’s where I am inviting you to be critical. This is where I’m inviting you to question how you feel in your session. 

Surely if you’re not feeling comfortable and loved and cared for on the table, please hop down and run out of there as quickly as possible. 

But it’s the relationship, conversation, connection part that I’m worried about. I invite you to look critically at how your practitioner is talking to you. Where do they steer the conversation? Are they hearing you and what you want? Are you excited when you come to your appointment? Do you feel empowered when you leave? Are they digging up the past over and over? Let me be clear, sometimes this is an important part of the healing process. But if you’ve worked through something and aren’t feeling like this is a time to heal a little deeper on that specific wound, please check in with why you think they are stuck on that. Countertransference is a term in the psychology community. It means that the practitioner is having an emotional response to the clients’ experience. To think that it stays in the therapist’s room and doesn't touch any of the other healing professions is foolish. This is different from empathy. This is letting my feelings about your feelings influence the way that I care for you. 

Other things to look for is how they respond to the good things in your life. Are they celebrating with you and encouraging you? Or are they waiting for you to share the problem stuff that they can fix?

Is your practitioner helping you to understand what came up in your session and give you clear insight so you can go home and reflect and grow? Or are they pointing to problems and sending you on your way?

These are things I hope you feel empowered to watch for. Especially if I’m your practitioner. Because the way a practitioner talks to you, the way they invite that conversation to go matters, arguably more than the practice of reiki, itself. And as much as it matters, there is little to no training on that piece of reiki in the attunement training. 

This likely brings you to the question, What makes you different, Jada? What makes you more qualified to speak?

Before I became a reiki practitioner, I was certified as a Spiritual Director and earned my masters in Christian Leadership. Before that I worked in ministry. Before that I earned a bachelors in Clinical Psychology and Theology Youth Ministry. Furthermore, I believe I’m designed for this. My Enneagram type is TWO the helper. My Strengths according to the Clifton Strength Finder are Relator, Strategic, Intellection, Developer, and Communication. My spiritual gifts are Shepherding, Teaching, and Hospitality. I’m an ENFJ, whatever that means. In short, I’m made for this. I’ve trained for this. And the most important piece for me, is that I don’t believe I’m doing any of this alone. The Holy Spirit is working through me. 

Now. It’s not in my nature to throw something like “be ware of your reiki practitioner” and then leave you at that. So I’ve created a bit of a worksheet for you. It is going to be a simple hand out-type download for you to print out and fill in. It’ offers you questions that will empower you in your spiritual journey. Because I want you to come to reiki. I want you to prioritize your spiritual wellbeing. I just think that if I’m able to offer you some guiding questions that will equip you to choose the right practitioner for you, I ought to do that. And, I recommend you look to it every 3-4 sessions. So if you’d like it, enter your email below <3

Check in with yourself. Are you getting what you want and need? Because you absolutely should be.