What's a Reiki Master, anyway?

I had never heard of energy work four years ago.  I’m a nurse, I come from a medical background, and I’ve worked with elderly patients and women who have just had babies.  I was living up in Iowa and a friend suggested going to her Energy guru for advice, and what she called healing.

I was pretty curious to see what she had to say, because she was a nurse too.  Gail was amazing, I could feel her presence as soon as I met her, she was positive and uplifting.  She was a Reiki Master and an LPN in the hospital who used what she called healing touch on patients.

When I sat down with her, she asked me if I knew anything about the chakras.  I had taken yoga classes when I was pregnant and knew a little bit about how the chakras open up when you do yoga, but not much more than that.  She presented me with a chart and showed me where each one was on the body.

After we talked about what my issues were, I laid down on her table, and she covered me up with blankets (it was winter in Iowa, so there were two).  She put her hands out and walked toward me, and said she was feeling my energy field.  She explained that the field should be about two to four feet out from my body.

She made some adjustments to my field and then swept her hands over me and cleared my field.  Then she worked on each of my chakras, passing her hands over them and making different motions to clear them.  Several things came up that we talked about when she worked on my chakras.

At that point I fell asleep.  I don’t remember much about the rest of the session except that I felt very relaxed when we were finished, and somehow better about my situation and what I was going through.  She suggested that I drink a lot of water the next few days while the energy I didn’t need continued to clear out.

The next time I went to see her was a little different.  We delved deeper into the issues I was having and she focused on the part of me and my chakras that were most in need of work and healing.  She cleared a meridian in my leg that had been bothering me, and for the first time in a long time it felt normal.

During our third session we were talking about the Energy of the Earth and how I see patterns, grids, and the way that people connect to each other.  I’m often the person who connects people to each other who need to meet one another, whether for personal or business reasons.  I’m also the person who connects people with the information they need.

These things happen to me on a daily basis.  I’ll see or hear something and the same or next day I’ll meet someone who needs that information.  Or I’ll be talking to someone who needs to know the name of a person for a specific service, and I’ll connect them to that information.



After I explained these things to Gail, she said that I’d be great at healing touch, since I was already seeing energies and connecting them together.  I thought she was crazy.  My medical mind could not wrap around the idea of treating people with just my hands, without medication, surgery, or treatments.

I went to her Healing Touch for Nurses class in June of 2010.  It was the first time I had felt energies with my hands.  I could feel the energy field around the body.  I could feel the chakras.  I could see the grids and cords that were linking people in the room together.  I honestly thought I was losing it.

We started working on each other in the class.  Gail came over to me and said, “Katie, you’ve done this before”.  I knew instinctively where to place my hands for the treatment techniques and was surprised to find out that a lot of what I was doing I had already done in the hospital with adult patients.

When I took care of patients in the hospital I would put my hands on their feet often and rub them a bit.  In the energy world that’s grounding their energy to the Earth.  The way I would place my hands on their arms or back was directly related to the chakras and the energy techniques we were learning.

I started to realize that I had been doing the same thing Gail was doing, I just didn’t know it at the time.  A lot of the counseling that I did with patients, rooting out their core issues that were making them sick, was very similar to the counseling she did at the beginning of our sessions.

I had patients all the time who would tell me that I was the first person to really listen to them, or connect them to the doctor they needed to talk to, or explain so that they could really understand the treatments and procedures they were going to have.  They would say that they could feel that I really cared about what they were going through.

I found that the longer I simply listened, the more I would find out and the more my patients would open up.  And once they opened up I could figure out what the cause was of their sickness, whether it was physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual.  Then I’d be able to connect them to the resource they needed.

My second job was working with new mothers and babies, as a breastfeeding counselor.  I did phone consults before I went out to their homes.  The phone consults were very similar in nature, the longer I listened, the more I found out and the easier it was to help them with the core issue that was blocking a harmonious nursing relationship.

When we got down to Florida in August of 2010 I started doing connection work with my friends and family, using the skills that I was naturally good at, connecting them with the information they needed.  I continued to use healing touch on my kids when they were sick and on my husband, and it was amazing to see the results.

I didn’t take my next healing touch class until July of 2012.  It was the same experience there, I was using advanced techniques my hands were guided to do, as if I had done them before.  My teacher was a bit disturbed that my hands already knew what to do before she had taught me the techniques.

In April and June of 2013, I took my Reiki I and II classes.  Reiki is a little different from healing touch as it’s not geared toward nurses and the techniques are different and a bit more general.   Reiki is also geared more toward removing the blocks in your life that prevent you from reaching your fullest potential.

I believe it was necessary for me to take Reiki classes before I continued my healing touch certification, because they helped me change a lot of the things in my life that were stopping me from helping and healing more people.  I took both Healing Touch 3 and my Reiki Master class in August of 2013.

What sets a Reiki Master apart from someone who has taken Reiki I or II and practices reiki is how far along they are in their healing process.  All of your life experiences lead you toward healing the root issue or cause of suffering in your life, the thing that your soul came into this world to do.

When you begin to practice Reiki, it’s required that you use it on yourself first.  As a nurse, caretaker, and healer, I had spent my whole life caring for others, helping others, and healing others.  I hadn’t ever taken the time to care for myself and doing Reiki for myself was life-changing.  I feel good every day when I get up in the morning, clear myself, and balance my energies.

When a Reiki Master is attuned, which is the process of activating the energies in the hands and body so that the Master can help and heal others, there is a spiritual initiation that takes place.  Reiki I and II open up the path for this initiation.  The purpose of the Master initiation is to heal the core issue in your life that is blocking you from living the life you want to live.

Reiki Masters go through this initiation process so that they can offer help and healing to others.  We are your guides through the journey of life, and we offer a modality that is rooted in self-care and spiritual wisdom. Clearing away the energy blocks that cause you to live at less than your full potential is amazingly powerful and life-altering.

There is space in the Universe for every Reiki Master to help and heal others.  My gifts are my nursing experience, my ability to connect people with the information and resources they need, my empathic and intuitive abilities, and the advanced healing touch techniques I use in my practice.  I have been down the path of self-healing and I invite you to walk it with me.

Call or book a session online today to start your journey toward health, harmony, and healing.