When Reiki Finds You

People often speak about finding Reiki.

Again and again, I have met practitioners who arrived at Reiki while searching for something else entirely. They were trying to solve a problem, relieve a pain, survive a difficult period, or make sense of something that no longer felt sustainable.

Very few began by saying, “I want to become a Reiki practitioner.”

Most were simply looking for relief.

What interests me is how often the beginning of the path feels accidental. A friend makes a suggestion. A treatment is booked almost reluctantly. A class is taken with no expectation that it will lead anywhere.

Only later do we recognize that we were standing at a doorway.

One story from my forthcoming book comes to mind.

The following story is adapted from Where the Light Touches: Reiki Stories of Healing & Presence.

Elliot Rosen arrived early, yet carried the tension of someone always running behind. He barely made eye contact, completed the intake paperwork, and sat stiffly in the waiting-room chair, his knee bouncing, his thick briefcase beside him like another presence. The Reiki master stepped in quietly, offering a simple hello, and motioned him into the treatment room.

He’d been to the ER twice that month with chest pain so tight he thought it was a heart attack. Each time they sent him home with a sedative and the same advice: “try to relax.”

She could feel the restlessness and anxiety beneath his well-groomed exterior. She’d learned from long experience that when anxiety is given words too quickly, it can anchor itself even more firmly. Watching him, she felt that quiet would serve him better than conversation, that stillness might reach where speech could not.

Elliot lay on the table with his shoes still on, despite being gently asked to remove them. The Reiki master noticed and let it be. Pressing the point would only add tension; this first session was about allowing ease, not enforcing form. The leather gleamed under the light, the polished toes pointing toward some invisible deadline. His arms were crossed over his chest. His breathing was shallow, the kind that forgets to let go.

When the Reiki master placed her hands gently on his temples, the silence deepened. The air seemed to shift, denser and quieter, the quiet deepening around them. No words passed between them. The breath told the story.

At first, Elliot resisted. Muscles taut, breath held, awareness hovering just above the skin, waiting for permission to go inward. Even with his eyes closed, a faint pulse trembled in his jaw. There was a long pause. Then, one long, involuntary sigh escaped through his lips. His body released an inch into the table. The next breath went deeper into his belly. The one after sounded fuller and more complete; Elliot’s body was remembering how to breathe again.

Out in the waiting area, his briefcase and phone lay untouched, small symbols of the world he’d stepped away from just minutes ago. The tension began to melt from his jaw, his chest, his hands.

When the session ended, Elliot sat up slowly. He didn’t speak at first. His face looked different, less clenched, less managed. The Reiki master waited, letting the silence settle between them; sometimes words arrive too quickly and try to explain what the heart has only just begun to feel. Finally, he looked up. “That was… strange,” he said at last. “But good. I feel like there’s more space in here now.” He tapped his chest lightly.

Three weeks later, his assistant called. Her voice carried a careful tone, matching the quiet she heard through the phone. “Mr. Rosen would like to schedule a package of twelve sessions,” she said. Then, after a pause: “Also… would it be possible for me to schedule one, too?”

Looking back, I don’t think Elliot came because he believed in Reiki.

He came because he had exhausted the alternatives.

Something in his life was no longer working. The strategies that had carried him this far could not take him any further.

Most people do not recognize the beginning when it arrives.

Neither did Elliot.

He simply took the next step available to him.

And that is often how the journey begins.

Not with certainty.

Not with understanding.

Just with the willingness to take a single step toward something we do not yet understand.

This story is adapted from the forthcoming book Where the Light Touches: Reiki Stories of Healing & Presence by Brian Brunius.

If you’ve ever found yourself taking a step toward something you didn’t yet understand, you’re welcome to stay.