7 Common Mistakes to Avoid in Your Reiki Practice

When I started my Reiki journey, I wanted to get everything exactly right. In time, however, I realized that the “mistakes” I was so afraid of making allowed me to deepen my understanding of the Reiki system. As the Dive Into Reiki podcast host, I ask every interviewee about their biggest “oops.” Here are seven of them:

1. Not practicing every day: It sounds obvious, but this is the single, most common mistake we make when it comes to Reiki practice. Our schedules get busy. We start skipping a day here and there. We try to recoup by doing a workshop or a more extended practice every so often. Slowly our commitment to practicing weakens. Reiki practice is like sleep; you can’t recoup what you have not practiced. It’s better to practice 5 to 10 minutes every day than one hour sporadically. Keep it simple: meditate with the precepts or do one hand position fully present. Expand it on the days when your schedule is lighter.
2. Offering Reiki only to others: In my first Reiki 1 training, I wasn’t even taught a self-care protocol. Nor was I in my second training. As a teacher, I’ve had students telling me they heard Reiki practice is only for others and that they should not practice on themselves. Self-practice is the core of Reiki practice. By compassionately holding space for our feelings of anger and worry, we release them. We feel energized; become more centered and hold the space for others from a peaceful, luminous place.
3. Trying too hard: We all have felt it at one point: the desire for the other person (or ourselves) “to feel” the session. For the session “to work.” We harden our focus and add rituals, tools, and breathwork. However, trying too hard tenses the body. Expectations get in the way. And the energy doesn’t flow the way it should. By letting go, our body and mind relax, and the energy flows freely. If we’ve done our daily practice diligently and approached the session without attachment to results, we did everything we needed to do for the healing to occur. The rest is not in our hands (literally!).

4. Not being accountable: One of the first Reiki teachings is that energy will flow where needed and do its thing. We are not the ones doing the healing. However, that doesn’t mean we should not bring our best selves into the equation. Do our inner work, communicate responsibly, stay focused during sessions, and respect the essence of the system and its rituals. It’s not about being perfect but being accountable as a practitioner versus sometimes getting sloppy and relying on external forces or beings to “fix it.”
5. Getting distracted by sensations: Sensations like heat, tingling, or colors during sessions (called Hibiki in Japanese) are meant to guide our hands. Nothing more. There is nothing to understand, nothing to analyze. Observe the sensations, follow their guidance for hand placement, let the energy flow, and let the sensations go. “Through the sensation of ki, the Japanese seem to have…