Distance Reiki: The Beginner’s Guide to Distance Healing

Distance Reiki is a technique within the system of Reiki that enables you to give or receive a Reiki session beyond the limitations of time and space. It expands the practitioner’s ability to transmit spiritual energy beyond physical touch. In other words, it’s a way to offer Reiki without the recipient being in the same room, or physical location, as the practitioner.

As technology allows us to connect with each other online more, the terms Remote Reiki, Virtual Reiki or Online Reiki healing are being used, and sometimes it’s referred to as Absentee Reiki. Basically, they’re all terms for the same thing, so pick your favorite.

What is Tao Hands Quantum Healing?

Distance Reiki isn’t the only form of distance healing. Another technique I use is Tao Hands quantum healing.

Tao Hands are Source Light Hands and a form of soul healing, while Reiki is energy healing. Similar to the attunement ceremony Reiki practitioners receive, Tao Hands practitioners are given a unique spiritual transmission that enables them to offer Tao Hands blessings.

Although both support healing from a distance, they work in different ways, which is why I combine them in my work.

You can read more about Tao Hands and how it differs from Reiki.

How Does Distance Healing Work?

People often ask how does Reiki work long distance.

From a traditional Japanese Reiki perspective, the Reiki Distance Healing Technique focuses on offering Reiki from a state of Oneness, or connection to everything. In this way, the practitioner isn’t “sending” Reiki, instead it’s feeling one with another person and sharing Reiki this way.

This Oneness state, beyond the limits of time and space, applies to other kinds of distance healing as well.

Distance healing can vary depending on if it’s a session with a professional practitioner or if it’s more informal with a friend or family member.

In both contexts, the practitioner schedules a time and date with the recipient or client for the remote Reiki or other kind of distance healing session. Although it’s not required, by setting up a specific time the recipient can be in a receptive state (such as lying down or meditating during the treatment).

What happens in a Distance Reiki session with a Professional Practitioner?

The session can be conducted by phone or online (using Zoom, Facetime, or phone, etc.) and usually begins with an Intake Form, or discussion of what you as the client wants the session to support and any relevant details.

Then you lay down or sit comfortably in a chair with your eyes closed if that feels comfortable. Head support is recommended so you can relax more easily.

Alternately, in advance of the session, you could email a photo of yourself to the practitioner, along with your name, age, location and any intention of what they want the session to support (e.g. a physical/health issue, specific goal, or relationship challenge).

Having these details will help the practitioner connect to you if you haven’t met before. There’s no requirement to speak online or by phone, it’s up to the preferences of the practitioner and client.  Then you rest comfortably or meditate at the scheduled time.

At the conclusion of the session, there’s either a brief discussion and wrap up, or an email exchange where anything the practitioner or client noticed during the session can be shared and any questions can be addressed.

Practicing Distance Healing with Friends & Family

The Distance Reiki Technique is usually 15-20 minutes long, but can continue longer depending on preference, and the recipient lies down or sits comfortably during the session as described above. There might be a brief discussion before or after the session as well, though it’s often a little more informal.

How to Prepare for Your Distance Reiki Session

There are several things you can do to prepare for a remote Reiki session and maximize the effectiveness of distance healing as both the client or recipient and as the distance healing practitioner.

Create Sacred Space:

Use candles, lights, music, flowers, crystals, incense, etc: whatever helps you get in the right frame of mind to be in a state of oneness and feel relaxed and receptive to receive spiritual healing or to offer it.

A Reiki Master graduate, Barbara Becker, gives a great example below about what helps her get into the right state of mind. This will vary depending on your personal preference so get creative and have fun with it.

Get in a Meditative Mindset:

If you’re the client, you can prepare for your Distance Reiki session by sitting quietly and taking a few deep breaths. You can also use an affirmation, say a prayer, or set an intention for what you want the session to support. If you have a meditation practice, you could meditate briefly before the session.

If you’re the Reiki practitioner, recite the Reiki precepts, sit in meditation while doing the Reiki Purifying Breath technique, etc.

Tao Hands healers can offer themselves a Tao Hands blessing before beginning the session and then recite the invocation and request for healing.

Work with a Mantra, Reiki Symbols, or Tao Calligraphy:

If you’re the client, simply relax; you don’t have to do anything as you receive. You could even drift off and take a brief nap; we often go quite deep into a healing state when we are asleep or in between that wake/sleep state.

It’s not necessary to fall asleep; the main point is not to force yourself to stay awake. If you need help focusing your mind to relax, you could repeat an affirmation or healing mantra such as:

• Peace begins with me
• I am a vital part of the universe
• Divine Love
• Source Light

If you’re the Reiki practitioner, chant, draw, or say the Reiki mantra or Distance Reiki symbol for HSZSN to help you access the oneness state of mind as you hold the client’s request in your mind.

Tao Hands practitioners could chant one of the many healing mantras shared in Divine Healing Hands, the companion book for the Tao Hands training.

Visualize:

If you’re the client, at the end of the remote session, you could imagine healing sunlight, golden or white light, filling the entire body. Take a few deep breaths as you integrate the healing from the session.

For the practitioner, imagine the recipient at their best and as if they were right in front of you—what they look like, sound like, etc. You could also imagine them filled with golden light.

What Should I Expect When Receiving Distance Healing?

Clients will sometimes notice physical sensations during the distance healing, just as they might during a in-person session—warmth, tingling, or a sense of relaxation or peacefulness, for example. You may also notice a quieting of mental chatter.

The potential benefits of distance healing are the same as in-person:

• Ease depression, anxiety, and grief
• Support your body’s ability to heal itself
• Relieve pain and stress (stress is attributed to 85% of all health challenges)
• Sleep more deeply and wake refreshed
• Feel calmer, more grounded and centered

How I Use Distance Reiki in My Practice

While Distance Reiki is a powerful healing modality on its own, it’s only one part of the work I do. In my virtual 1:1 Soul-Powered Breakthrough Program, I combine it with Hypnosis and Tao Hands quantum healing.

This unique layered approach helps you access the right part of your mind, rebalance your energy, and get to the root cause of what’s been holding you back.

I work with high-achieving women all over the world through my virtual one-on-one Soul-Powered Breakthrough Program and we’ll use Distance Reiki and Tao Hands as part of my intuitive, multidisciplinary approach.

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How Can I Learn Reiki or Tao Hands?

Reiki and Tao Hands healing are easy to learn and practice. This guide will help you find a qualified Reiki teacher.

Here’s more about Tao Hands Training, including an interview with teacher Hui-Ling Lin about how Tao Hands works, what to expect and what you’ll learn, and experience a Tao Hands blessing.

Learning any kind of self-healing is so key at this time to help ourselves, as well as our loved ones, to be healthier and happier and to bring more light to Mother Earth.

From my perspective, the flexibility of Reiki and Tao Hands are especially wonderful in that we can use these distance healing techniques to support others no matter where they are in the world.

For Reiki & Tao Hands Practitioners

Already a practitioner?

If you’re looking for practical guidance on attracting clients and growing a successful wellness business, you may enjoy my book, Building a Powerful Practice: Successful Strategies for Your Wellness Business.

In addition to my own experience, it features insights from a diverse range of expert, long-time practitioners, giving you a wide range of perspectives so you can build your own thriving practice.

From the Student’s Perspective:

I asked 3 Reiki III graduates to share their personal experiences practicing the Distance Reiki technique.

Here are their first-hand accounts practicing Reiki Distance Healing:

Sarah Koestner is an actor, teacher, and coach, as well as a Reiki III graduate:

Giving Absentee Reiki was a fascinating experience. I truly doubted my ability to give this kind of Reiki before being challenged by the certification process to give it a try.

I feel like I learned on a deep level that distance is an illusion. I had a profound experience giving Reiki to my sister, where I had a visions of “spirits” giving her Reiki. After it was over she told me that she felt like she had been given a “virtual massage.” I thought that was such a great description of what Absentee Reiki can be.

Other recipients had very visual experiences. Again, it was interesting to see how everyone’s experience of Reiki can be different, and yet equally profound.

Working with the Distance Reiki symbol and mantra HSZSN as part of the Absentee Reiki technique was enormously powerful. I feel like I can genuinely feel the illusion of distance fading away when I work with this symbol. It immediately gives me a profound sense of inner peace and calm, almost as if the world drops completely away.

Caroline Gomez is a yoga teacher, mom of three, and a Reiki III graduate. Here’s her experience using the Absentee Reiki technique:

I learned that just because I’m not physically with the person receiving Reiki, it doesn’t make the distance Reiki treatment any less powerful.

In addition, the absence of the physical body forces me as the practitioner to move inward and connect to my intuition even more than an in-person session. I’ve found that that the most profound and powerful treatments I’ve given have been distance Reiki sessions.

Barbara Becker is an actor and works in the arts, as well as being a Reiki Master:

After asking permission (which my mother gave with a degree of skepticism as to how Reiki can work from a distance, though she has gone to several Reiki circles at a Senior Center in Florida), I gave absentee Reiki to my mother on 4 consecutive nights, the same time each night.

She had recently fallen and was very bruised, achy and depressed/worried but relieved that she (thankfully) didn’t break anything. I hoped the Reiki transmissions would ease her pain and bruising, lighten her spirit, and aide in regaining her physical confidence during recovery.

Since this was my first time doing absentee Reiki, I set up a sacred space using John Levine’s music (Vision of Love) to relax and took purifying breaths while filling out a note card with a nature scene on the cover.

I chose to write in picture cards with their own envelopes instead of blank pieces of paper because this enhanced my ritual. I also used a lovely box which is now set aside to store future absentee transmission cards. Creating a special soothing environment grounded and strengthened my focus. Each night, I wrote down the date, my request, my mother’s information, her symptoms and my intentions after setting up my sacred space and then gave Reiki.

Over the 4 nights, I noticed that sometimes I was more focused than others, so I learned to give myself adequate time before beginning each transmission. My thoughts wandered at times beyond my mother to her two closest friends who are also dealing with health/pain issues, so I decided to include them on some level during the transmission while focusing mainly on her.

I discovered that visualizing my mom while holding a small stuffed animal and moving my hands over areas of her body that she had told me were affected helped because it made her more “tangible.” I am highly visual, so if I can “see,” it is easier to act. It helps to imagine, which in turn helps me to focus.

When I spoke to my mom after all 4 transmissions had been completed (as well as the day after my first transmission), she said she felt no improvement and was still depressed and sore. I was disappointed since I had hoped the transmissions would have immediate positive impact.

I believe that Reiki has enormous impact because of my own experiences. What I realized (yet again) is that I cannot control what she or anyone accepts or rejects on any level. Even though my efforts proved unsuccessful in her view, if one is open to something, it is more likely to have a positive impact and clearly if one is not, the opposite may occur.

All you can do is try/allow. Wanting it to “work” for her is like trying to control her. That is disrespectful. So I have to let go of that hope. I choose to believe that regardless of her current state, Reiki energy did move through her and will aide her recovery even if it doesn’t appear to have done so yet. She may not be able to accept this because her heart is sad, her body is sore, and she is not in a receptive state. That is now. My compassion must “see” that. The future holds possibilities. Tomorrow or next week may be different.

All one can do is allow the Reiki energy to flow. Where it lands, how it lands or is perceived by others is beyond our reach. One has to let it flow and let it go. One has to see that even within the “no” is a “yes” waiting to surface.

As an actress for decades (who continued my training for many years), I learned that once you develop a strong technique/foundation, you must trust it enough to let go of it in performance and rely on your gut/intuition. Not everything you learn serves you well for each role. Certain things may fall by the wayside and not work for you, while others will form the basis of what you do regularly as a performer. Knowledge is your toolbox. Each role may require different tools.

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It’s interesting to read how different each student’s experience was, and how trusting yourself and not judging the outcome is so key.

And to realize that there are many different tools and techniques in the healing arts practitioner’s toolbox, and both the practitioner and recipient will be drawn more or less to the various techniques. Both the flexibility of the system of Reiki and Tao Hands enable you to modify and adjust according to both you and your client’s needs.

Want to experience distance healing for yourself?

I work with women through my virtual one-on-one Soul-Powered Breakthrough Program and we’ll use Tao Hands and Distance Reiki as part of my intuitive, multidisciplinary approach.