what is reiki healing energy work?

Reiki (pronounced RAY-kee) is a beautiful Japanese healing energy technique that harnesses and directs universal life energy in a way that can relax, heal, and energize. It is a safe and natural healing technique that works with your own life force energy, referred to medically as your “biofield.” 

During a reiki healing session, you might feel warmth, relaxation, a sensation of movement, or nothing at all. You might bliss out into a trance-like state, or you might even drift off into sleep. 

I supplement my healing sessions with a variety of other energy healing modalities, including mindfulness meditation, chakra healing & alignment, bio-energy wellness tools, infrared sauna, crystals, sound healing, plant medicine, and aromatherapy. 

After a reiki healing session, many people report feeling deeply relaxed, peacefully energized, and extraordinarily balanced. The benefits continue on for quite some time after a session. Over several sessions, you will start to experience permanent change for the better.

My reiki healing energy sessions are 90 minutes long (intro sessions are 120 minutes), and are done fully clothed while laying down comfortably. We work together in my beautiful private studio in the South Beach neighborhood of Miami Beach, Florida. 🌴

Scroll down to learn more!

The Well interviewed Liza Kindred & other healers about what reiki is, and what to expect from the experience.

Read “All About Reiki” here.

what is reiki and how does it work? 

The word “reiki” refers to universal life energy–the vital energy that pulses throughout the world around us. It’s that awesome feeling we get in nature, that flow-state, that life we feel when we take a deep breath in. In addition to referring to that life force energy, the word “reiki” also refers to formal treatments where that energy is harnessed and focused for healing. 

As a formal healing modality, reiki began with Dr. Mikao Usui in Japan in 1922. It was brought to America (specifically, to Hawaii) by Mrs. Hawayo Takata in 1938. My own reiki lineage can be traced back directly to both of them, as you will see below.

As a modality, reiki is a system of energetic healing that comprises hands-on (or hands-off) energy treatments, mindfulness practices, mantras, symbols, and precepts–sometimes called “guiding principles.”

what is a reiki session like?

A reiki practitioner, or healer, is someone who has received energetic transmissions and been formally trained and certified in the art of reiki. (Although some people do quick certifications through the internet, my own training lasted several years.)

Reiki, our universal life energy, is everywhere––but for a treatment, think of the healer as a conduit: someone who amplifies and channels this universal life energy to different places in your energetic body.

When I practice reiki healing, I am tapping into the energy that flows all around us, and directing it to certain places based on your present moment needs. This energy doesn't come from me, but rather flows through me. As a reiki practitioner, I don't have magic powers, but I am attuned to reiki energy and trained to direct, amplify, and anchor it.

A reiki session happens fully clothed, lying down on a massage table. I being by spending time getting to know you, allowing you to settle into our time and space, asking questions, and beginning to tune in to your energy.

During the treatment itself, I will gently places my hands on specific places on your body. Sometimes my hands won't even touch your body; they will gently hover instead. And, I am always happy to do a hands-off session if that suits your comfort level. I am trauma-informed and certified, and your safety and comfort are always paramount.

okay, but what does reiki feel like?

Reiki is a healing energy that goes wherever it is needed in our bodies and our energetic fields. Reiki energy is subtle and clarifying–it's not an exciting or frantic energy, but rather is gentle and curative. 

Everyone experiences a reiki treatment differently: some people feel nothing, others fall into a light sleep, and yet others feel warmth, buzzing, vibrations, or see colors. Often times the experience shifts over the course of a treatment, or changes from one session to the next.

Most people report a deep relaxation, which, when we treat ourselves gently after a session, can last a long time.

Want to educate yourself more about reiki? Awesome! I highly recommend my friend Valerie Oula’s book A Little Bit of Reiki: An Introduction to Energy Medicine.

Check out ‘A Little Bit of Reiki’ book

what are the benefits of reiki?

Many people use reiki to help them in healing specific physical ailments (it's a great compliment to traditional Western medicine practices) or to address difficult emotional states. Reiki helps to clear stagnation, or feelings of "stuckness," and can be extraordinarily grounding and centering. 

In her wonderful book A Little Bit of Reiki, The Well's Director of Vibrational Energy Valerie Oula writes, "We are all connected with every thing and every being on this planet. When we intentionally focus and tune in to universal energy, we can reset and come back into balance by opening ourselves and becoming attuned to the frequency of the universe."

Some people chose to do regular ongoing reiki treatments, and others opt to do a handful of sessions to help them get through a difficult time. I find reiki particularly useful for those times when everything just feels off; as we restore balance to our own energetic systems, we can begin to tap back into that feeling of wellness and of alignment with the world around us.

Reiki, like many healing modalities, builds on itself. So, the more sessions the better–but even one can make an enormous difference.

is reiki real? what does scientific research say about reiki?

From a scientific perspective, reiki is considered a "biofield therapy”: a noninvasive treatment where the practitioner works with the receiver’s own biofield to stimulate a healing response. 

What’s a biofield? Well, every living thing has a subtle energetic field around it–especially us humans! Think, for instance, of when a hospital gives an EEG (which measures electrical activity in the brain) or an ECG (in the heart)–or consider wrist watches that are powered by our own thermoelectric energy. As humans, we emit a lot of different kinds of subtle energies; science has figured out ways to measure some of them and we're waiting for the science to catch up on many others.

While the field of energy therapies will benefit from having more rigorous studies to tease out where and when it most helpful, many respected studies published by the US National Institutes of Health (links below) have shown that in medical settings biofield treatments–including reiki–are able to help to reduce pain, fight fatigue, decrease anxiety, and increase quality of life.

In fact, in some studies and for some health issues, it has even been shown that reiki can be just as effective as traditional medications. No responsible reiki practitioner would suggest that it can replace medical care, but its healing energy can be a wonderful compliment, and can treat the important subtle energetic field in a way that no traditional treatment possibly can.

If you’re interested in the science behind reiki, you might enjoy this article in The Atlantic: “Reiki can’t possibly work. So why does it?”

Referenced medical studies: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2816237/ and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4654788/

who is reiki for? 

Anyone that has an open mind can benefit from reiki–and even those that don't can benefit, too! One of the beautiful things about reiki is that the energy naturally flows where it is needed, and when it isn't needed there anymore, it stops flowing. It can do its work regardless of whether of not the recipient is "open to it"–although it can be a lot more powerful if they are!

Something that I find charming is how much pets like reiki. I can’t tell you the number of times I find a friend’s pet nestling their body under my hand, and I notice that the reiki energy is flowing. Pets know what feels good–and you do, too.

what are the reiki precepts? 

As I mentioned above, one part of reiki is the precepts, also called the “tenets” or “guiding principles”. They originated in Japan, and there are several English translations of the precepts.

The reiki precepts I work with are: 

• Just for today, I welcome peace. 

• Just for today, I am grateful.

• Just for today, I do work that honors my values.

• Just for today, I am compassionate and kind to myself. 

The precepts keep us rooted in the present moment, and remind us that reiki is always flowing through and around us.

Traditional translations of the precepts often name things we don’t want to do (don’t worry, don’t get angry) but my training in Buddhist loving-kindness, or metta, meditation has taught me the power in naming the things we do want. By adding the caveat “just for today”, we take the long-term pressure off and allow ourselves to simply live the precepts in this present moment.

what is a reiki lineage? what is your reiki lineage?

While some reiki “masters” buy quick certifications on the internet, I believe in the traditional method of direct training and transmissions. I practice reiki in the original, highly respected Usui tradition. This is my reiki lineage:

Doctor Usui > Doctor Hayashi > Mrs. Takata > John Harvey Gray > Brian Brunius > Liza Kindred

I have also received direct transmissions and teaching from the late lineage holder, Usui Shiki Ryoho Grandmaster Phyllis Furumoto. Here we are together:

why did you start practicing reiki, Liza? aren’t you a Buddhist meditation teacher?

I felt reiki energy before I knew the name for it; I was given a treatment by a trusted massage therapist and just had to know what the heck that amazing feeling was. After that I was fully on board–I loved getting treatments for years (and I still do.)

What finally motivated me to pursue reiki practitioner training was a highly energetic experience I had on a meditation cushion during a long retreat. I asked the retreat leaders and my meditation teachers about it, and they had no idea what had happened. There isn’t much language for energy in meditation halls.

I know now that far too much mindfulness meditation instruction focuses on the head and not enough happens in the body. This is why I have moved into teaching somatic meditation practice–the wisdom is quite literally in the body.

Learning and practicing reiki has given me a framework and a vocabulary for understanding what is happening to my body's energetic system when it reaches deep states of meditation. And through my formal study of Buddhism and mindfulness, I have become so clear that the wisdom we seek lives inside our bodies–and reiki is one way that we can connect more deeply to it.

So reiki feels good, yes! But it is also a path into our deepest wisdom.

who do you work with?

My one-on-one healing sessions are specifically tailored for high-achieving women. I work with women who are working super hard, and are stressed out, overwhelmed, and living in a perpetual state of wired–tired. While my clients are quite successful professionally, it often comes at a great cost to mental and physical health, relationships, and sense of self. Together we restore health, wholeness, and equanimity.

I work with cis-women (people who were born biologically female and continue to identify this way), trans women, and non-binary folx. I offer complimentary (free) introductory sessions for trans women and non-binary folx. If this offering is a match for you, I invite you to get in touch here.

Reiki is a powerful technique for affecting deep physical and emotional changes, and I super-charge it using complimentary healing modalities. Facilitating lasting health is important to me, and so I work with a small number of badass women in order to promote profound health and well-being and to support the amazing things that they are doing in the world.

Most “self-care” doesn’t work over the long-term because it can’t offer systemic changes–and in fact reinforces the harmful systems of inequality and disconnect that have created the mess we are all in today.

I offer a chance for reset: a break from hustle culture, a time-out from the wellness industrial complex, a moment to just… be. And it is in this rest that we are able to engage your own amazing healing capabilities, and re-align them with grounded intention. We work at the root, the core, the deepest wells of wisdom and health.

If you are ready to let go of deep-seated, long-standing struggles, to fully embody your own power, and to connect to the deep well of calm and love inside of you–then working with me might be exactly what you need.

Read testimonials from some badass women right here.

how can I learn more?

I invite you to learn more about me, explore what a session with me would be like, or read testimonials from some badass women.

You’re amazing for reading this far, and I love how you’re honoring yourself by exploring ways to care fo you. You deserve the all good things!