Personally, I love Reiki. It's a beautiful, easy, comforting type of energy work. It's incredibly noninvasive and the very worst that will happen is you'll have a passably relaxed hour.
But... as a Reiki practitioner, I would never trying convince anyone to try it. We come to it because it's the kind of thing we need. We never push it on anybody. Now, I have no idea if she's pushing it on you, and we can never make any promises about helping with specific aches and pains. Without knowing her, I wouldn't say anything bad about the approach; it's just not the approach I'd take.
Since you're a skeptic, I'll tell you a little bit about Reiki because research always helps us skeptical types (and trust me, I am one). This is a very spiritual form of energy work. We know that laying on of hands is an ancient practice and goes back to biblical times; some people have the innate gift. In fact, in Reiki, we say that everybody has the gift. It's just that in some people it needs to be awakened, and that's why there's training in it. So it really is the ancient and very intuitive art of laying on of hands, layered in a more eastern philosophy.
The Reiki practitioner simply becomes a sort of conduit for universal healing energy and, through the hands, helps direct it to wherever in the body it needs to go. The session is done with the client fully clothed.
I liken a good Reiki session to a soak in the most relaxing possible hot tub: it's nurturing and blue in color and lets you simply float. A "bad" Reiki session (and by "bad" I mean less effective) is still an hour of nurturing, and we could all use that. There are other types of energy work that are more intense and electric, but to me, Reiki is like being protected in a little womb for the duration. It's very lovely.
So if you can be a relaxed skeptic for the duration, I think it might be worth it. At its core, Reiki is something given from the heart and that's never a bad thing. Also, I'm all in favor of whatever type of bodywork I can get. I used to trade for massages and that was lovely. I trade for Reiki. I'd love to trade for Polarity Therapy, which is my favorite but a bit too intense for some people. If you can find a massage practitioner who incorporates Reiki, then you might get the best of both worlds with the soft tissue manipulation (which probably will help with back aches and pains) and the nurturing healing of Reiki (which is nothing if not relaxing).
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But... as a Reiki practitioner, I would never trying convince anyone to try it. We come to it because it's the kind of thing we need. We never push it on anybody. Now, I have no idea if she's pushing it on you, and we can never make any promises about helping with specific aches and pains. Without knowing her, I wouldn't say anything bad about the approach; it's just not the approach I'd take.
Since you're a skeptic, I'll tell you a little bit about Reiki because research always helps us skeptical types (and trust me, I am one). This is a very spiritual form of energy work. We know that laying on of hands is an ancient practice and goes back to biblical times; some people have the innate gift. In fact, in Reiki, we say that everybody has the gift. It's just that in some people it needs to be awakened, and that's why there's training in it. So it really is the ancient and very intuitive art of laying on of hands, layered in a more eastern philosophy.
The Reiki practitioner simply becomes a sort of conduit for universal healing energy and, through the hands, helps direct it to wherever in the body it needs to go. The session is done with the client fully clothed.
I liken a good Reiki session to a soak in the most relaxing possible hot tub: it's nurturing and blue in color and lets you simply float. A "bad" Reiki session (and by "bad" I mean less effective) is still an hour of nurturing, and we could all use that. There are other types of energy work that are more intense and electric, but to me, Reiki is like being protected in a little womb for the duration. It's very lovely.
So if you can be a relaxed skeptic for the duration, I think it might be worth it. At its core, Reiki is something given from the heart and that's never a bad thing. Also, I'm all in favor of whatever type of bodywork I can get. I used to trade for massages and that was lovely. I trade for Reiki. I'd love to trade for Polarity Therapy, which is my favorite but a bit too intense for some people. If you can find a massage practitioner who incorporates Reiki, then you might get the best of both worlds with the soft tissue manipulation (which probably will help with back aches and pains) and the nurturing healing of Reiki (which is nothing if not relaxing).
Did that help?