“My mood & behaviour has always been normal. However, towards the 3rd of 4th week after daily practice of Reiki, I started to have disturbed sleeping patterns where I will wake up in the middle of the night and am not able to get back to sleep until early morning. Having not been able to sleep well, the mood swings kick in. I have headaches and am frustrated easily. And this week, there was a change in my eating habits. I am very hungry and crave sweet food (My appetite has always been normal and I do not have a sweet tooth). I feel a lot of discomfort and need more time to be by myself. I have tried to Reiki myself during these sleepless times but it doesn’t help much.
I’m on the verge of stopping my Reiki practice because I’m not sure when can I return to being “normal” again. This sudden change in my mood and lifestyle feels miserable and I have difficulty in carrying on my daily life because I feel so tired.”
Obviously this is not a very nice result when we start our Reiki journey with such optimism, and we end up feeling much worse than when we started! Our knee jerk reaction is to stop Reiki because we naturally think it is the ’cause’ of all our increased suffering. But before you give up, do pause to ask yourself why you decided to learn Reiki in the first place.
People come to Reiki because they want something to be different from what is ‘normal’ for them. If your normal was so perfect, why even come to Reiki in the first place? Something encouraged you to learn – and that something, whether it was greater inner peace, happiness, contentment, health comes at a cost. If Reiki was a magic pill that only gave guaranteed happiness, Reiki Masters would be overwhelmed with students! It’s important to remember that Reiki gives you more energy and with that energy you begin to work through the issues that brought you to Reiki in the first place, and that sometimes gets uncomfortable.
Let’s say you decided to learn Reiki to gain more inner peace. Sure your life is fine, everything is ‘normal’ and by that I assume you mean ‘manageable’, but something in you is yearning for a deeper connection, a deeper joy within yourself. When we strip it all down, that is really what everyone is looking for – a ‘coming home’ to ourself. So how do you suppose this happens? Simply by Reiki alone? That really would be magic, and totally unrealistic. There is no magic pill, sad as this is. Our inner peace, our joy comes from an inner journey into our own truth, and that means taking a long hard look at what we’ve got going on…the beliefs that run our life, the habits and patterns we gravitate towards, our relationships with others, and more importantly our relationship with ourself.
For those that can only accept good times, with no deep (and sometimes painful) self-reflection, then yes, Reiki is definitely not for you. Reiki will always be an opportunity for deeper inner truth, and the more you Reiki yourself, the more authentic your search becomes, and the more fearlessly you look.
Do I get weeks of discomfort? Yes of course I do, in fact when I face a few weeks of sleeplessness its usually an exciting time for me as I know I am processing and adjusting to something new. Sometimes it lasts a few nights, sometimes a month or two, but it always adjusts itself again, and with hindsight I can see I was working through energetically a big shifts – so now I welcome such discomfort as I know the outcome is always a deeper, more joyful relationship with myself. Did I always know this and appreciate this? No, of course not, and to be honest in the early days of my Reiki journey I gave up and found myself coming back dozens of times – it is perfectly normal to be disgruntled, concerned, and frustrated at what Reiki throws up for you to look at.
So the upshot is: it’s really up to you. Of course give up and go back to normal, but do so with very honest, open eyes. Are you looking for more than normal? Do you really want to do the work required to achieve that level of self-honesty? These answers will guide you in terms of what you want to do, and when you want to do it. And of course, whatever you choose, do not judge yourself for it, as that’s just another belief to get uptight about 🙂
Big hugs to you and your own special journey <3
