What it really feels like to offer Reiki

One of the questions I hear most often after a Reiki session is:
"Aren’t you exhausted after giving that much energy?"
or
"Isn’t it hard to take on so much from other people?"

And I understand why people wonder.
Energy work can seem mysterious from the outside.
But here’s the thing:

When I offer Reiki, I’m not giving away my own energy.
And I’m not absorbing anyone else's, either.

Reiki doesn’t come from me.
It moves through me.

I’m a conduit, not a source.
I’m not pulling from my own reserves to help someone heal.
I’m simply making myself available — standing like a tree rooted to the earth, letting the current move through.

What It Feels Like

During a Reiki session, I often feel warmth move through my hands.
A soft hum.
Sometimes a deep stillness, as if the whole room is breathing slower.

It doesn’t feel like carrying someone else’s pain.
It feels like holding a door open and letting something wiser, steadier, and more ancient flow through.

Holding Space: A Different Kind of Energy

That said, there is an energetic cost to space-holding.

When someone is working through deep emotions, grief, trauma, or transformation, being fully present with them requires care.
It’s not about absorbing their pain.
It’s about staying grounded enough to witness it, honor it, and trust their own process.

The Reiki itself is nourishing.
It’s the holding — the human-to-human tending — that sometimes asks for rest afterward.

Closing

Reiki reminds me that healing doesn’t have to be heavy.
That energy moves best when we stop trying to control it.
That both the giver and the receiver can walk away touched by the same light.

It’s not about doing more.
It’s about allowing more.

And that is never draining.
It’s sacred.