Can Anyone Learn Reiki? Or Do You Have to be Gifted?

Maybe you’ve thought about learning Reiki. And then almost immediately talked yourself out of it.

You might say to yourself something like:

• I don’t feel gifted.

• I’m not very spiritual.

• I don’t know how to meditate.

• I don’t see visions or colours.

• I’m not intuitive.

• I don’t really feel energy.

• I have no idea what my chakras are or what they are doing.
  

Or the one I hear most often:

• Everyone else in the class will know more than me.
  

Good. Let’s start with these thoughts. They’re yours. And I don’t think you need to become a different kind of person before you can learn Reiki.

You don’t need to be gifted.

I’ve heard the strange idea around energy work that some people are naturally gifted and everyone else won’t be as good with energy work.

I don’t teach Reiki that way.

You don’t have to walk into my classroom already sensing energy.

You don’t have to know what every sensation means.

You don’t have to be wildly intuitive.

And you certainly don’t have to impress me or anyone else.

Come to learn. If you already knew everything, there wouldn’t be much point in taking the class.

What if you don’t feel energy?

Great. Then we start there.

Maybe another student puts their hands over someone and immediately says, “Wow, my hands are burning.” And you’re sitting beside them thinking, mine are just… hands.

Great. Notice that. And carry on.

I would rather you tell me honestly that you don’t notice anything than decide you’re supposed to feel something and make it up.

Please don’t use someone else's experience as your measuring stick. You are learning to notice your experience. And that simply takes practice.

What if everyone else gets it faster than you do?

Great. Someone probably will. And you'll probably understand something faster than somebody else.

Welcome to real learning.

I've spent a huge part of my life teaching people, and one thing has never changed:

People learn differently.

Some people want to understand the whole concept before they do it. Great.

Some people need to experience it before anything makes sense. Great.

Some people ask twenty questions. Great.

Some quietly process and ask one question three hours later that changes the entire conversation. Great.

Every one of those approaches, and every other approach, is welcome here.

My job isn't to make everyone learn Reiki the same way. My job is to help you understand the process well enough that it starts to become yours.

Do you have to believe everything I teach?

Nope. Take with you what has meaning for you, and discard the rest.

You don’t have to believe my beliefs, language or interpretation of Reiki in order to learn it. You do need to practice in a way that respects Reiki, you and the person in front of you.

If I teach you something and your brain immediately says huh? Or why? Or wtf are you talking about? Great.

Ask.

Some believe it’s better not to ask questions because it might be a dumb question. No such thing here. Questions are how we learn.

If something doesn’t make sense, say so. I’ll teach it a different way until it makes sense to you.

If you've heard another Reiki teacher explain something differently, bring that into the conversation, so we can all learn.

If you're skeptical about something, we can talk about that too. There’s likely someone else feeling skeptical too.

I don't want you memorizing words and repeating them back to me. I want you to really feel that you understand.

What if you don’t know how to meditate?

Well, you can still learn Reiki.

And while we're on the subject, let's remove another unnecessary hurdle. Meditation does not require you to sit perfectly still while your mind becomes completely empty.

Good luck with that.

Your brain thinks. It’s literally your brain’s job to think. Let it.

The fact that you suddenly remember that you had to buy carrots for dinner, you forgot to flip the laundry (there’s always laundry…), tomorrow's appointment, something your mother said in 1987 and whether you remembered to take the trash to the outside bin does not mean you've failed at meditation.

It means you’re human.

Instead, choose to notice your thoughts. Return. Continue. Adjust. Continue. That is practice too.

And now, what about intuition?

Intuition is another word that can make people think they're missing some special ability everyone else who does Reiki seems to have.

I see it differently. Intuition is built on noticing.

Part of learning Reiki is learning to allow what is, and pay attention. What do you notice? Where do your hands naturally want to go, or stay? What changes? What are you observing without immediately deciding what it means? Over time, you begin learning what your own experience feels like. You’ll learn to trust your own intuition.

That is much more useful than me standing beside you telling you what you're supposed to sense, or hear, or see. You do you. I’ll support you.

I believe teaching is really about helping others build more confidence in themselves.

I really want you to understand the foundation, then practice. And notice. And ask questions. And practice more. And ask more questions. Eventually, something shifts.

You’ll stop asking yourself, “Am I doing this right?”

And you’ll start thinking, “Okay. I know what I’m doing.”

That’s confidence. And with experience over time, confidence builds self-trust.

You are allowed to be a beginner.

As adults, we can be spectacularly bad at this because we like being competent and we like knowing what we’re doing.

Being a beginner messes with all of that.

Suddenly, someone is talking about Reiki, energy, hand positions and chakras and you’re wondering whether everyone else received an instruction manual you somehow missed.

They didn't. They are learning too. Please, give yourself permission to not know yet.

So, what kind of person learns Reiki?

I've taught Reiki since 2008, and there isn't one type.

Some people are deeply spiritual. Some aren't.

Some have received Reiki for years. Others barely know what it is when they register.

Some want Reiki primarily for themselves. Some want to support family members. And some know immediately that they'd eventually like to work with clients.

I won’t be issuing a personality test at the door, and there is no spiritual prerequisite. There’s also no competition to see who feels the most energy.

In my classroom, it’s just a bunch of people, learning, practicing, asking questions and figuring out what Reiki looks like in their own lives.

What does learning Reiki look like?

If you decide you want to learn Reiki, you don’t need to arrive already knowing how to do any of this.

I teach Reiki Level 1 & 2 together as an in-person, two-day weekend in Calgary. We start with the foundation. What Reiki is, its history, the Reiki Principles, grounding, chakras, ethics, consent and boundaries, and then we practice.

You’ll learn hand positions, self-Reiki, how a Reiki session flows, Level 2 symbols, distance Reiki and lots more. The best part is you’ll actually use what you’re learning. You’ll give Reiki. You’ll receive Reiki. You’ll ask questions. And you’ll leave knowing how to keep practicing after the weekend is over.

So, can you learn Reiki?

Yup.

If the thing stopping you is the shitty committee inside your head saying things like:

• I'm not spiritual enough.

• I'm not intuitive enough.

• I don't know enough.

• I haven't felt enough, or

• I'm worried everyone else will be better at it.

Then I would invite you to challenge those thoughts. Sounds like you may be assuming you're supposed to arrive already knowing how to do the thing you've come to learn.

Please remind yourself that you aren't.

Come curious.

Come skeptical.

Come with questions.

Come having never meditated successfully for more than thirty seconds.

Come knowing absolutely nothing about chakras.

Come unsure whether you'll feel anything at all.

We can work with all of that.

Because you don't have to start where somebody else is.

Start where you are.