What Is Reiki, Really?

By Rainee Stevens Lehr

After practicing Reiki for many years, I’ve come to realize that the simplest explanation is also the most difficult to put into words.

Reiki is not something I do to another person.

It is something I learn to become quiet enough to receive.

The word Reiki is often translated from Japanese as universal life energy. There are many ways people understand or describe this energy, and I honor those differences. For me, Reiki has never required me to hold a particular belief system.

It begins with presence.

I place my hands gently on, or sometimes just above, the body. I become quiet. I breathe. I listen.

And then I pay attention.

Not only to what my hands can feel, but to the subtle language of the person beneath them—their breath, their softening, their tension, their stillness, and sometimes the things that cannot easily be described.

I don’t try to force anything to happen.

I don’t try to “fix” anyone.

I don’t believe I am the source of another person’s healing.

Instead, I see myself as creating a safe, attentive space in which a person’s own capacity for balance, restoration, and wholeness can be supported.

That distinction has become enormously important to me.

After decades of working with the human body through massage therapy and Reiki, I have learned that the body often communicates long before words do. A breath changes. A shoulder releases. A hand softens. The nervous system settles. Sometimes there is a deep exhale that seems to say, I can finally let go.

Those moments are sacred to me.

Reiki can be very quiet.

There may be no dramatic experience at all. Sometimes a person simply feels deeply rested. Sometimes they feel warmth, tingling, spaciousness, emotion, or a profound sense of peace. Sometimes nothing seems particularly noticeable during the session, and the effects become apparent later.

There is no correct way to experience Reiki.

And there is no experience I need to manufacture.

This is one of the greatest lessons Reiki has given me: healing does not need to be forced.

My role is not to decide what another person’s body, heart, or spirit needs.

My role is to listen.

To be present.

To offer compassionate touch when appropriate.

To create a field of safety and respect.

And then to allow the person to have their own experience.

Over the years, Reiki has become much more than a technique for me. It has changed the way I understand presence itself.

It has taught me that sometimes the most powerful thing we can offer another human being is not another answer, another treatment, or another thing to do.

Sometimes it is simply our undivided presence.

Our willingness to listen.

Our willingness to be still.

Our willingness to trust that something meaningful can unfold without our controlling it.

That is what Reiki essentially is to me.

A quiet communion with life.

A way of becoming present enough to listen.

A practice of compassion, reverence, and trust.

And, perhaps most beautifully, a reminder that healing is not something I give to another person.

It is something I have the privilege of witnessing.

— Rainee Stevens Lehr

Reiki Master Teacher ~ Healing Practitioner

Infinite Health Massage