Reiki is not a full-time job for me. My other work is as an editor, mainly of reports, for United Nations agencies and government bodies like the City of Sydney.
It’s a great combination for me. As I work from home, when I have a reiki treatment, I swap rooms from my home office to the reiki room. It gives me a break from my editing work to do something completely different. I get to be in a quiet, meditative state during my work day. Very occasionally, I’ll have to limit the reiki treatments so I can meet deadlines for my other work.
I’m not sure if there are many or any folks in Sydney who manage to survive as a full-time reiki practitioner. I think some people combine giving treatments with teaching and then also offer other services: massage, crystal healing, clairvoyance, counselling or more. But even though more and more people are learning about reiki, I think it’s not mainstream enough in Australia in the big cities to support reiki practitioners full-time. Maybe in places like Byron Bay or Bali, it’s more popular.
This suits me fine. If I had to rely on reiki for a living, it would really change the nature of my whole practice. I’d have to be more aggressive about trying to find clients. I’d have to try to convince clients to come back more regularly rather than whenever they feel called to have a treatment. I’d have to charge more. And I’m sure it would cause some level of stress and anxiety, which runs counter to the whole idea of a reiki.
So, I feel lucky that I can offer treatments from my home, where I don’t have the extra costs of renting a space, and that I can be happy with the number of clients I get and not worry about whether I have enough clients to survive. At the same time, I’ve found it enjoyable to learn aspects of running reiki as a business: how to provide a good service, how to seek feedback and reviews, how to promote my services. The treatments are all the better and more professional because of it, instead of thinking of reiki just as a hobby or as a favour that I’m doing for someone.
I’m grateful to have reiki as a part-time job; in fact, I’m quite proud of it too!