(Reiki Practioner Guest Post)
Whitney is an amazing Reiki practitioner! I knew Whitney in high school and our paths serendipitously crossed at our children’s school one day. Shortly after, we discovered we only lived a few houses away from each other! When Whitney first explained reiki to me, I instantly wanted to do a session. I could feel its’ truth and felt the pull to learn more.
I initially sought out reiki after a back surgery to repair my second herniated disc. I quickly learned it did much more than help me physically. When I became pregnant with my 4th baby I used it to connect me to my body and my baby and found it incredibly helpful in the days leading up to my birth. It also helped me and my children transition to our new family dynamic after our baby girl arrived. Because of my reiki journey I have completed Reiki 1 practitioner training and plan to do more training as I explore how it applies to birthwork.
Whitney radiates light and has such a gift for loving others. She is humble about her experiences, is open to everyone’s individual journeys, and has amazing intuition with Reiki. I am so grateful for her willingness to share what Reiki is and how it can help you in your pregnancy and postpartum journey.
I am honored and excited to be able to write for this blog today! I am Whitney Johnson and I am a Reiki Master/practitioner. Today I am going to do my best to tell you what reiki is and how it is helpful through your birth experience.
Reiki is a Japanese method of energy healing. It is something that is becoming increasingly more popular here in the West. But when describing what reiki is, I find that it can be a little tricky. Though reiki is not tied to any religion, it does deal with things of the spirit that the eye cannot see. I love that reiki is a compliment to whatever your spiritual beliefs may be. I am personally a Christian, but if you have a belief in nature or the universe I believe that the language is all the same and fits with the practice of reiki.
It is my belief that we are composed of two major parts- a body and the spirit. To help these two systems communicate together there is the electrical system that runs between the two. This system consists of energetic centers called chakras. These are like the organs of the digestive system, they pull in information and transmit the information so that it can be distributed between the body and the spirit.
Imagine for a minute what a guitar looks like. On the body of the guitar there is a bridge. Below that bridge the strings are anchored, and it is the bridge that helps raise the strings up and keep the strings tight. As we move up the guitar there is a neck that serves as a fingerboard and connects to the head of the guitar. There at the top of the guitar the strings are also anchored and can be adjusted to create the desired frequencies of sound. I feel this is a beautiful illustration of our bodies and the electrical system. Our physical body is like the body of the guitar with anchor points by the bridge. The spiritual connections are at the top of the body, and we are able to tune ourselves into certain frequencies. These frequencies are emotions, and certain emotions provide certain responses within the body.
Now just like a guitar, our electrical system requires regular tuning and care. As a musician will check the integrity of the sound every time that they play, there are things that we can do every day to offer care and maintenance to the electrical system. Sometimes external support is helpful as we encounter the world around us and deeper tuning and care to our ‘instruments’ are necessary. This is where reiki comes in. When you come for a reiki session, you are coming for external support in balancing and clearing your electrical system. When the electrical system is clear and balanced, clear communication is then available between the body and the spirit.
In a reiki session, the practitioner will use the electromagnetic frequencies of their hands to help influence the atoms in your system. The reiki practitioner utilizes the frequency of unconditional love, the highest vibration available to us, to affect the atoms in the system of their client. As we have learned in physics, our atoms like to raise to the highest vibration available to them. Much like when we place a space heater in a cold room, the heat from the heater has an effect on the room around it. So do the practitioner's hands have an effect on the system of the client. Clients are seen fully dressed and the practitioner will tune into the system with hand on or off the body.
Reiki is helpful for whatever the ailment might be. If you are experiencing emotional ailments and trouble, reiki will calm and comfort your system so that emotions can still be seen as safe. If your ailments are physical, reiki will help calm and relax the system so that the body can tap into its natural ability to heal itself.
In birth there are many emotions and physical aspects that come into play. The process of building a baby includes much from the physical body as well as our emotions. During pregnancy, reiki is so helpful in helping keep the Mama centered and peaceful and connected to her baby through all these stages of development.
Through birth, I have found reiki to be hugely instrumental in keeping the body out of fight or flight mode. Birth is an incredible experience, but there are physical sensations that are not regularly experienced in our daily lives. In that, it is so helpful to have stabilization and support in highlighting what is being experienced. In my birth experience I found it so vitally important to have the external physical support of a doula, as well as the internal stabilization and support of reiki.
After birth, it is so beautiful to not only offer stabilization and tuning to the Mama’s system, but to the baby’s system as well. Birth is an intense experience for all involved, and tuning and calibrating the electrical system can be so helpful moving forward into postpartum.
I have such a love for reiki and the many and varied ways that it has supported my life the last 6 years. In our culture, it has been so fun to watch as people are highlighting more meditation and more natural ways of interacting with the body. Our bodies are so intelligent. We are interacting with information all of the time through our physical and energetic senses. I love any time we are able to highlight and emphasize the gifts and talents that we naturally have in our amazing physical, electrical, and spiritual systems.
I hope this has been helpful to read today. If you have further questions, I am always happy to answer them through my website at www.ccreiki.com. Or our amazing Erin Yates is also a certified Reiki practitioner and is amazing at connecting to what services and support you may need!