I’m not sure if I found Reiki or if Reiki found me. Whichever way it was, it transformed my life, filling it with this beautiful universal energy that nurtures, strengthens, heals and supports overall well being and growth.

My first brush with Reiki occurred in the shape of a small miracle back in 1996. My mother was laid up in bed with severe damage to the sciatic nerve, which starts in the small of the back and goes all the way down to the feet. She had been lying in bed – 24 hours a day – for more than a month. She could not even sit up in bed. We had been told she needed surgery and, if the surgery was successful, she might be able to move around in a wheelchair. But she would still not be able to stand.

While we were waiting for the surgery, someone suggested Reiki and my mother agreed. A healer began to do distance Reiki from his home. Once or twice a day, my mother would tell us she could feel energy moving along her legs and feet. My father and I assumed it was “all in her mind”. We were happy she was more cheerful, even though we were sure it was false hope.

We could not have been more wrong. In just over a week, Mum was walking around on her own two feet – no surgery, no wheelchair, no cane … nothing. Just her two feet. The orthopaedic surgeon said he had never seen anything like it and had no explanation for it.

This incident aroused an intense curiosity in me and I determined to find out all I could about Reiki, mostly through reading about it. Some of my reading raised more questions than it answered. But slowly, I began to understand: it is an energy, accessible to all, that heals and removes blockages to growth. It clears one's mind and lifts one's spirits. It helps us to be calm and peaceful, restoring our natural balance and bringing us into harmony with ourselves.

I discovered that the Reiki lineage goes back to Dr. Mikao Usui, who meditated on a mountain near Kyoto for 21 days before he found the energy he called Reiki, a Japanese word that can be translated as Universal Life Energy. I found out that anyone can access this energy with the help of a Reiki practitioner and that anyone can become a practitioner after a brief initiation and training by a Reiki Master. In the traditional system of Reiki founded by Dr. Usui, there are three levels of Reiki learning, with Reiki Master as the highest level.

It would be several years before I myself became a Reiki Master, qualified both to teach and practise Reiki. The journey started in earnest in late 1998, when I moved from Indonesia to the Philippines. One day, in casual conversation, one of my new Filipina friends told me about a massage centre where one could also learn yoga. "Do they also teach Reiki?" I blurted out. My friend had never heard of Reiki, but she gave me the number of this centre and the next day I was talking to possibly the only Reiki Master in the Philippines at that time! When the student is ready, the teacher appears, as they say. And so it was that I received my Levels 1 and 2 Reiki initiations in Manila and did Reiki for several years for family and friends.

In 2006, I became a Reiki Master after a seven-month course in Singapore and started teaching it, at all levels, the following year.

Once I started Reiki, I found myself interested in spiritual matters and other forms of healing as well. I have found this same blossoming of interest in many of my Reiki students, which I always encourage. The gentle, beautiful energy of Reiki not only improves our physical health, it also supports our overall wellbeing and growth.