Transcript of Samantha’s Story:

“When I started diving into Reiki 1, I had lots of questions and wondered if what I was getting into was something that my God would be okay with.

I think that came from the idea of the spirituality that’s connected with Reiki. The idea of there being something we look to connect to that wasn’t defined as God or that wasn’t defined as the Spirit. As someone who was raised in the South deep in the Bible belt, that something is not something that is spoken of by name in the Bible.

It’s something that’s a little bit unknown. And whenever it’s something that’s unknown, it oftentimes brings up several questions and fears. So prior to actually taking the Reiki 1 Class, I did not think very deeply about how it might fit into my faith, or if it would bump heads with my faith or go against it in any way. Honestly, I didn’t know enough about it. It was whenever I started learning more about it in the Reiki 1 Class that I started having these questions.

I think my biggest fear was the idea of doing something that God might deem “Not of God” or that God might deem as otherworldly. Something we typically think about as “Going against God”, because I wasn’t relying on God, I was relying on another entity of some kind.

Whenever I look deeper into what I was really afraid of, I think I feared that I was looking to something that was not God instead of looking to God. And that was therefore going against my faith. So I did take quite a long break in between Reiki 1 and Reiki 2.

During that time, I had a very strong detox to Reiki 1. I didn’t realize that’s what it was, even though we were told to look out for these things, that it can affect us in different ways. I had a very angry reaction, which was very unusual because I’m not an angry person, but that’s the kind of reaction I had.

Initially, I was put off, and I thought, “This is my answer; I shouldn’t continue forward with this.” As the detox wore off and I started to get more clarity, I prayed about it. I asked if this was, in fact, something that was okay for me to do because I was curious about it.

I love the idea of connecting with other things, and I love the idea of using this energy for good. The deepness that comes with this healing through this practice. It was something I was very interested in.

I prayed to God. I said, “If you’re okay with me doing this, please just let me have peace about it; let me be okay with it. Let it come to me naturally.” I didn’t necessarily get an answer right away. So I kept praying about it, and I kept learning more on my own and trying to piece things together.

I thought, “What if Reiki didn’t come from God? What if I practice this and God doesn’t like it? OR what if this is actually a part of God’s plan, and this is me tapping into it?” Different questions from different sides. Ultimately, I decided that-and this is through a lot of time spent in prayer because I knew that God knew my heart-I did not want to do something that was going against God. I didn’t want to go against God’s plan for me or for the people of this world. And I wanted to do right by God.

I knew that God knew my heart. Whenever I stopped and listened to my heart, I knew. And it actually came from a book from Father Richard Rohr, who is a Franciscan friar. He’s just an amazing Christian mystic. And he talks about the divine dance in his book, about how the Holy Spirit is in everything.

He describes this scene where he goes into a grocery store and he’s looking at these Tide boxes, you know, the laundry detergent, and how he’s finding God in this place because God imparts his spirit within all things. When I started thinking about, I realized that we are all connected to all of creation with God. It started to make sense to me that, if God created our bodies perfectly, then God also probably created a way for us to help our bodies and put that within us already. The same way that God gave us the food that we need, the water that we need, the shelter that we need, we have all of these things that were made perfectly for us.

Then, it started to make sense what we call Reiki would fit into that category as well. And so that gave me the “Okay” to go ahead and sign up for Reiki 2. So that’s what I did. I followed that prompting because it was something that was interesting to me. Leading up to that class, I continued in this place of prayer and I realized that I could help people through this. I can help people find peace and release things that are within in the same way that I had that really strong detox and was able to release things through Reiki 1.

I know that energy is a real thing. I know that energy flows through each one of us because even though I am dedicated to my faith in God, I know science is also real. I feel like God and science go hand in hand, and we know through science that energy lives within our bodies.

It flows through our spinal cord and into our brains, and into our fingertips. And so again, it was created perfectly. In my mind, it was created by God. It made sense to me that if there is a way to harness the energy that is flowing through the earth and flowing through the trees and that connects all of creation to one another, then how could that be bad? Why would we have this available to us? Why would God say, “No, you can’t do that”? Whenever I came to the Reiki class, I knew that God had led me to that place. I knew that God had given me a gift that I was able to use to help not only myself, but others too.

After taking Reiki 2 to sign up for the Reiki Master Program, I didn’t hesitate because I wanted to go as far as I could go with it. I wanted to deepen my understanding. The longer that I’ve been a practicing master and the longer I’ve seen clients, not only people who just wanted to see what energy work was about, but for people who were going through cancer treatments or traumatic periods in their life, I’ve seen how much good has come out of it for them.

I truly believe that Reiki is a gift. I’m sure that there’s another word that God might use for it, but that’s the word that we have for it. It’s something that connects us to all of creation and then to one another.

In knowing the love that God has and the way that we are connected through the Holy Spirit, I feel like that’s just another tool that God gave us to utilize and harness, it’s something that is good. I’ve definitely combined the two, I’ve combined my practice of Reiki with my practice in my faith.

As a person of faith, faith is not always personal, but collective. And so it is a responsibility of ours to help others whenever we are able to. In seeing the good that being able to give someone a release has brought to me, it has strengthened the idea that we are all connected. The Bible specifically talks about whenever someone is ill or whenever someone is in need of prayer to go and lay hands on that person.

I don’t necessarily think people in the Bible were using Reiki in those instances, but I think that there is a connection there. Touch and laying of hands and inviting prayer into somebody is very powerful. And I think it connects to Reiki in that way because when we lay hands on them, that is inviting that energy to flow through us.

From my perspective, God uses us as a conduit. This energy was created by God, and we are used as a conduit in the same way that you teach that we are the conduit of universal energy. The only difference I feel is that I believe this universal energy was created by God, and that’s the purpose of it.

Even the Reiki principles are very much aligned with what Jesus says. That also helped me to bring a few things into perspective, namely, “Just for today, do not worry. Just for today, do not anger,” in the same way that it says in the Bible, “How can any of us through worrying add a single moment or a single hour to our lives?” We can’t. Or even “If you have anything against your brother or your sister, stop what you’re doing, go and talk to them and work that out between them, and then go back to the altar before God.”

The Reiki principles align very much with the teachings of God. I think in the same way, whenever you reinforce those ideas in different ways, through different avenues, you start to realize “Hey, this really is the truth.” This really does make sense, and it leads to a better life.

I might view this differently than other people, but the way that the Reiki mantras and the symbols work for me is they help me to focus my intentions. I don’t find them to be magical or anything of that nature. I find them as a way of saying, “This is where my focus is going at this point.”

It’s the same way when you meditate on a certain word to really align yourself and your thoughts and your intentions in that direction. That’s the way that I take the Reiki symbols and mantras.

Or I’m thinking “Okay, God, I know that this person has trauma from the past. And so I’m asking you to heal all of that which has come through and help them to bring that to the surface, my intention is to do good at this time. And my intention is to see this person and recognize the light in them, recognize the life and the love in them.” I want to be in harmony with them and in harmony with this practice of love. That’s what I use the symbols and the mantras for. Whenever I think about it in that way, it really is beautiful.

I think that this is an important part that whoever is struggling might need to hear: God is not afraid of these questions, God is not afraid of the fears that you have. Whenever we bear this open and say, “God, this is something that I’m curious about. This is something that I’m wondering about, and I’m afraid for these reasons, or I’m wondering if this is okay, or if it’s not.” I know that God is so compassionate and so open to hearing these questions and to know what’s honestly in your heart. You just want to do the right thing, and you want to be good in God’s eyes. God recognizes that. God honors that every single time.

Sometimes we are in a place in our lives where it’s not the right time, and we have to honor and respect that. But that doesn’t mean that later on, we won’t have something revealed to us that says, “Okay, now is the time to walk down that path. Now is the time to open up that door and you can understand a little bit better the way that this works.” Everything that I have said feels so true in my heart, and I feel so strongly about it that I got permission from God to share it because it’s what I needed to hear.

Sometimes that’s what we’re looking for, someone to say, “It’s okay.” And if this helps somebody else feel good about this gift, then I would love to share it with the world.”