When someone talks about Reiki, they can mean two things:

• an energy healing modality that consists of letting energy flow through from a practitioner's hands to a client, or
• the energy itself.

'Reiki' is a combination of two Japanese words, which can be translated as such:

• Rei - Higher Wisdom/Power
• Ki: life force energy (similar to Chi or Prana as a concept)

This is why it's often described as "spiritually-guided life force energy", which in my opinion does translate very well the experience of it all.

When we talk about learning Reiki, essentially we mean two things:

• we get connected to (attuned to) the Reiki energy, and
• we learn the steps that are associated with this healing modality.

What's really wonderful about Reiki is that you don't actually need to know/do anything in particular before your first class, and that it's a really simple methodology to learn and follow! It makes it accessible to all, and I especially appreciate that about this magnificent gift we have on Earth at this time.

It's simple, it's safe, and it can be used for all sorts of healing: mental, emotional, physical... a common response that people have when experiencing Reiki for the first time is that they notice how relaxed they feel compared to just moments prior.

Reiki has its recent roots in Japan, and so it's often thought of as a Japanese technique; over the past few decades its prevalence has exploded in the West, and with that has come a beautiful enrichment of the tone of the whole thing. I just love and feel so grateful for how it's traveled the world to find us here today!

When you get connected to Reiki energy, you get the ability to have it flow through the palms of your hands, moving to whatever needs energetic rebalancing. Its Higher wisdom implies that our human ego does not need to force the process, which is a wonderful way to relax into the experience of learning how to use it.

When near a person, Reiki can be administered via a "laying on hands", which pretty much means that you'll be laying your hands on a person (or hovering! It's actually not at all necessary to touch a person for the process to work).

When performing Reiki from a distance, you will choose a method (we learn some of them in Reiki Level 2) to send the energy to a person from a distance.