Reiki... AIBU to believe in it ?

[onlyoneglass]

I had a session of reiki for the first time ever.
I went into it with an open mind and didn't do any research beforehand .
I felt very relaxed but felt a pang in one of my ovaries!. I'm
Menopausal for the last five years. I also felt intense heat going up
And down both of my
Legs as well as a short sharp pain in a tiny area of my head.
When the session finished the practitioner told me
That she felt a lot of stagnant negative energy in my womb area.

Now, I've gone through a lot of trauma with an abusive marriage, affairs and I won't bore you but the last five years have been horrendously traumatic .
I've done a lot of work, coaching etc and feel in a great place. Good things are happening to me
Lately !

I'm a little thrown as the lady advised me
To mind and
Protect my health and then she asked me To choose an angel card. We had discussed angels as I believe that they have got me through the worst of times . We spoke about archangel
Michael who I speak to a lot
Mostly and then Lo and behold I chose his card which again advised me to mind my health and protect myself .

I'm a little
Freaked out .
Does anyone have any experience with reiki please.
I've booked to go again in a fortnight .

Reiki training is a pyramid scheme. You can also train by correspondence course. But the placebo effect coupled with a bit of peace and quiet and somebody being nice to you and listening to you can work wonders.

reiki is homeopathy for fuckwits.

Reiki is just a updated woo-ey waftier version of "laying on of hands" 'i heal you in the name of the Lord". There is no evidence for it, despite the claim it works on animals Fido and Tiddles aren't telling you they feel better, it relies on human interpretation of animal behaviour to decide they are better so it's absolutely subject to the placebo effect.

A friend of mine recommended reiki to me during a stressful time in my life and like you I went with an open mind.

I don't believe all of the energies stuff (it's just a little too out there for me), but I personally love reiki. I always feel like a couple of hours after a session it's like this calmness descends and that feeling of calm lasts for days afterwards. When things are very stressful at home or work reiki can take a huge chunk of the stress away.

Also for people saying they don't touch you - it depends on the person you go and see and what you want. I've seen two practitioners, one does touch and the other doesn't.

I was offered a Reiki session at the hospice where my mum was the last few days of her life with lung cancer, nearly 10 years ago. The hospice offered this and other alternative therapies both to patients and their families. I was very stressed (obviously) but during the Reiki session and for a long time afterwards I felt a lot calmer and at peace with my mum’s impending death.
Fast forward to a couple of years ago and I tried it again, I now go every month for a Reiki and Reflexology session. I’m definitely not a spiritual person, I don’t believe in god or that there’s an afterlife.
But the sense of peace I feel for days afterwards, I always sleep better that evening. She knows where I’m experiencing pain (I have arthritis in both knees) and I can feel intense heat on whichever knee joint is playing up, it’s not every time as my pain comes and goes anyway, I don’t tell her if I’m experiencing pain either. Earlier this year she was focusing on my lower abdomen and asked if I was having any pain there to which I said no. A few weeks later I woke up with excruciating pain and in the end I rang the NHS helpline who told me to go straight to A&E as it sounded like a kidney stone. I put the phone down and immediately felt I needed to wee (I’d hardly passed anything for hours), as I stood up the pain disappeared and I went to the loo and had THE longest wee ever, as I stood and turned to throw the toilet paper in the loo I noticed what looked like grit at the bottom. I had passed the stone (took a photo and GP confirmed it was one!)!
Now how did my Reiki therapist know that?!
I’d recommend Reiki to everyone who wants to try it.

The reiki therapist didn’t know anything. She asked if you had abdo pain. Maybe she asked you about various other pains. You remember she asked abdo pain cos (several weeks later) coincidentally something happened.

Not sure if this is confirmation bias, or it’s called something else!

What a load of bollocks

My mate had a reiki session at some dodgy place in Soho, he only found out later that you don't normally have to get naked for it. Didn't sort his ropy knee out either!

My sister set herself up as a healer and offers remote reiki 🙄 fml

So I’m the least woo person ever!

but when I was 19 my mum took me to see a reiki practitioner - there were a group of us. honestly i didn’t know what it was or believe in it. Perhaps I thought it was physio or something - ie not a spiritual therapy but more scientific

Anyway eventually I lay down and had my go -I had my eyes closed the whole time and had no idea what to expect. and I felt so much pressure all over my chest and stomach the whole time - it was really like someone was pressing on me. But alas they weren’t as confirmed by my mum - their arms were always a decent gap from me

I went in with no understanding or expectation but definitely 100% felt something. since I found out it was spiritual I haven’t gone back since

Utter nonsense but if it makes you happy then do it.

No, she NEVER asks me if I have any pains, anywhere! She’s actually a pain specialist in the NHS as well.
I’m not stupid or gullible. Stop being so negative and telling ME what I do or don’t remember.

It's a pile of crap and your money would be better spent on therapy. If you're of an age where you're likely done having kids then the "stagnant womb" comment is a fairly safe bet. Likewise "mind your health and protect yourself" - we all need to do that, don't we. These are soft openers, so-called "psychics" do the same. If they've got a middle aged woman in front of them they'll tell her she always puts other people's needs above her own. It doesn't take special powers to come up with generic phrases.

‘Earlier this year she was focusing on my lower abdomen and asked if I was having any pain there to which I said no’

She NEVER asks you, no?

I'm a total cynic but had reiki after a friend told me she was training in it, because I didn't really know anything about it. It wasn't my friend I went to, as she lives abroad.

I thought I felt some warmth and I definitely fell asleep, not sure if it was actually due to the reiki though. She didn't waffle about any negative energy though. I've not been since, mainly because I didn't like the smell of artificial air fresheners in her house. I am tempted to try it again though, if purely to see if the same thing happens.

She never asks me beforehand, just afterwards she might say she ‘felt’ something in an area and would then ask if I’m feeling pain in that place etc and on that occasion I said no, nothing.
When I feel heat (with her not actually touching me) it’s when I’ve been experiencing pain usually in one of my knees - she doesn’t know beforehand I’ve been experiencing pain in that place (it comes and goes with no rhyme or reason) yet I always feel the benefit of that heat afterwards. I could then go again and have no pain and I don’t feel that heat.

You fell asleep because of the relaxing atmosphere. You literally lie down and shut your eyes. If you’re especially tired and don’t get much sleep because your life is hectic and then a supposed ‘healer’ comes along convinces you something is going to work and you believe it enough to be going to a session in the first place then your mind will convince you it does. It’s a placebo effect. Plus you’ve got a person stood over you with their body heat and warm breath etc so that can account for the warm feelings

Inflammation can cause a hot feeling in itself, so if you’re having air wafted over that area then it’s not really some miracle.

I have really warm hands, you can feel the heat when I hover my hands above bare skin.

I know I could make a fortune out of this, but can't bring myself to do it.

This.

Yes, I’ve just done it myself. I hovered and waved my hand across my face and felt it . Plus if people are having sensitive areas such as the soles of their feet touched or wafted over they will feel tingles etc, it’s normal. It’s exactly the same sort of thing when someone leans over your shoulder and breathes on the top of the head/ back of the neck, it causes tingles down the spine. It’s not by magic 🤣. If you’ve got a reiki practitioner breathing on you at your head end or near your feet that’s exactly what will happen, it’s not energy it’s nervous system reflexes.

It was a different sort of heat, felt like it was within me if that makes sense. True, I could have fallen asleep due to being relaxed but it's unusual for me to be able to relax except at home 🤷‍♀️

But if you’re even open to the idea of going to a session, then you expect/want it to work and so it does, so you felt more relaxed because of the expectation, and if you’re being instructed to relax and close your eyes to get the full effect then that’s what you will do, obviously. Add to that you are in the company of a friend whom you trust and not a stranger. People really underestimate the power of the mind, that’s why there are so many things out there that easily fool people en masse. We aren’t as in control as we think we are sometimes.

Sorry, just read you weren’t with your friend, but you were doing it on your friends recommendation whom you trust which will have had an influence.