"Reiki Changed My Life."

Former IT manager Julie Speetjens shares how this Japanese healing shifted her life and opened up peace, calm and spiritual connection. My experience was similar.

Physical pain and a lifetime of perfectionism, anxiety and people pleasing nearly toppled Julie Speetjens in 2019.

An IT manager at the time, Julie was recovering from a major hip surgery that put her in a wheelchair and her best friend had just lost her young son in a car accident. Add to that: Julie was deeply burned out on her job and the treadmill of life.

“I was like a robot going through the motions of life and it felt like, ‘There’s got to be more to this. There’s got to be more to life. There’s got to be more than work, pay the bills, raise the kids, try to exercise and eat,” she says. “I was empty, I was numb and I was completely in an emotional, energetic and spiritual deficit.”

When the doctors offered to prescribe antidepressants, Julie sought an alternative and stumbled onto Reiki. Out of desperation, she tried the ancient Japanese energy healing, and the experience was transformative.

“I felt the tingling. I felt the floatiness. I felt my brain finally breathe,” she says. “I’m a chronic overthinker, and so this moment of intellectual peace, this moment of spiritual nourishment… it reignited the spark within me that had long been exhausted.”

Julie went on to learn how to give Reiki to others and seven years later is now a Florida psychic medium, Reiki master, and owner of Soaring Heart Energies, which puts on retreats and hosts mediumship sessions online called Soul Journey Sundays.

She is interviewed in my upcoming book, Tapped In: Spiritual Insights of Mediums, Healers & Near-Death Experiencers.

“Reiki was the gateway for me to understand that we are so much more than these physical bodies,” she says. “It gave me hope, it gave me peace, it gave me calm. It changed my life.”

So what exactly is Reiki?

Reiki is a form of Japanese energy healing that means “universal life force energy.” Rei= holy, spirit, nature, gift, invisible spirit. Ki= energy.

We know the universe is made up of energy, but we often overlook this life-giving energy, and we forget how to use it. Yet there’s energy in everything—your brain and your heart both harness energy, for instance.

In an hour-long Reiki session, a person lies fully clothed on a massage table while a Reiki practitioner uses breath and intention to channel universal energy into a client’s body using the hands. Reiki healing can also be sent remotely to people, which makes sense since we’re all connected across time and space.

Becoming a Reiki practitioner requires “attunements” or sacred rituals that open those energy channels we all have. The practice is handed down by Reiki masters (the highest training of the practice), and there are thousands of lineages. Some practitioners place hands on the body; some hover the hands. Some use different symbols and hand positions. But the movement of energy is the same.

It’s not a medical practice. It’s a phenomenon. We don’t know how it works. It just does. To me it’s a deeply spiritual practice.

“Author Raven Keyes said, ‘Reiki invites us to be mystery grateful,’” Julie says. “I invite people to be skeptical but receptive, because it might just change your life.”

Hospitals embrace Reiki

Dozens of top medical institutions have embraced Reiki as a complementary therapy for comfort, symptom relief and emotional wellbeing. The list is long: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the Mayo Clinic, The Cleveland Clinic, Yale-New Haven Hospital, Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Hospital & Health Systems, George Washington University Hospital, MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and more.

This Atlantic story looks at the mysteries of Reiki and how it’s increasingly being used to help with pain, PTSD, insomnia, and anxiety and to improve overall wellbeing. Add to that, I found more recent studies that found it may work better than a placebo, and it may reduce pain, decrease anxiety, and improve quality of life.

Reiki, however, isn’t a silver bullet to fix all your subconscious patterns and traumas or to find instant spiritual enlightenment.

The road of spiritual growth is long and winding. It takes work. It takes many modalities. There is no one single route and no clear finish line.

But Reiki can set people on the right path, if they allow it.

Julie and I both agree that Reiki is good for people who have experienced trauma, stress, anxiety or depression. And for people who are dealing with a chronic illness or wrestling with their sense of mortality. Or just those who have this nagging feeling that there’s something else to life, who want to feel connected to some sense of spirituality.

Oftentimes, those benefits go beyond the time on the table. It plants positive seeds to make powerful choices, such as making healthier decisions, and healing relationships, Julie says.

How I found Reiki

My Reiki story is much like Julie’s. A friend first told me about a session she had in 2020, and I immediately wanted to try it. That first session, as energy moved through me, I wept.

I had been through a whirlwind over the couple decades prior—pregnant amid divorce, single motherhood, parenting struggles, limiting beliefs, and desperation—and suddenly, all that stuck energy started moving.

Not long after that, my Reiki practitioner Dana Theresa invited me to join a program that involved deep self-inquiry, receiving reiki and learning how to give Reiki to myself and others.

Like so many moms, I felt guilty spending money on myself for such a program, but I was searching on behalf of my son at the time. I signed him up, but he ended up not being able to do it. So I ultimately took his place. This was how the universe got me to invest in my own spiritual discovery. (And got me to drop that guilt when I took care of myself.)

I called Dana’s program “spiritual therapy.” It unpacked all my life experiences and habits and patterns that kept me floundering. I looked at what fueled my anxiety and hindered my confidence. Even after the program, I kept coming back to learn more.

Dana became my mentor, and through her guidance I went on to study so that I could offer it professionally and teach it to others.

Gateway to intuition

For me, giving Reiki is meditative. I feel energy flow through my hands and body, and I often find that what I feel and what I see and hear in my mind’s eye mirrors what the client is experiencing.

The energy can feel thick, it can feel buzzy, it can feel wave-like and soothing. I may see colors and images, sense a client’s deceased loved ones or spirit guides or get intuitive information about a client during a session.

The clients’ own experiences vary: They may feel sensations like tingling, tightness, pulsing, pressure, or rushes of energy. My hands may feel hot or cold to them—often the opposite of what my hands feel to me. They may see imagery, colors or hear things in their mind. They may feel deep emotion or an overwhelming sense of peace. Some people fall asleep.

Some people feel nothing. But they still get the benefits of energy balancing throughout their bodies. It’s deeply relaxing.

People tend to feel grounded and refreshed afterward.

Julie says she was frustrated when she didn’t initially feel everything as a practitioner.

I find it moving to witness the shifting of people’s energy, and I’m deeply honored to be part of that experience. I’d say that, much like Julie, Reiki changed my life. It was the springboard for healing, opening my mediumship and setting me on a spiritual journey.

“It’s the gateway to intuition,” Julie says.

I agree 100%.

Have you experienced Reiki? How did it feel? If you haven’t, what interests you about it?

Click here if you would like to try a virtual or an in-person session with me.