A Beginner's Guide to Reiki

An Interview with Energy Healer Alix Camp of Ventura, California

Alix Camp is the owner of Earth to Alix, a Reiki and Energy Healing practice in Ventura, California. Alix is the creator of the Fresh Start Meditation to help you clear, reset and rejuvenate in under 10 minutes.

We recently sat down with Alix to discuss the benefits of Reiki and energy healing, how people can use Reiki in their everyday life, and her self-care practices.

What is Reiki?

Reiki is a Japanese healing modality, which means universal life force. During a Reiki session, practitioners use their hands to channel universal energy and support in energy clearing and healing.

"First and foremost, it's a relaxation technique," Alix explains, "but it's also a technique to remove blockages and energetic debris from your auric fields and your body so your energy can flow in a healthy way. When energy is not moved, it can get stuck and can create emotional and physical issues."

What are the benefits of Reiki?

For many, Reiki’s benefits include stress relief, clearing unwanted energy, and support in finding clarity and balance during times of emotional upheaval or major life changes.

"Reiki can really help to ground you and help you find the center when a lot is going on in your life"' Alix explains. "Maybe you're moving, going through a breakup, you're starting a new business or going through a major upheaval in your life in whatever way. Reiki and energy healing in general can kind of bring you back down to earth and help you to find some sense of clarity. So I really recommend it for people and my clients who are going through major life transitions and changes to help them start operating from a sense of stillness and peace rather than kind of getting pong ping ponged through their life and just so controlled by their external circumstances."

Can People Practice Reiki on their Own?

Reiki can be practiced by anyone, anywhere and can be used as an everyday ritual to support energy healing. Also, Reiki can be used to send energy healing to those you love.

For those that want to experience the full benefits of Reiki, but don’t have a practitioner, Alix has laid out the steps to practice Reiki on your own:

Find a quiet room or space and take a few deep breaths
Rub your hands together really fast
Then shake your hands side to side, like twinkle, twinkle, little star
Bring your palms together and focus on the space between your palms and that tingling or warmth that you can start to feel. There is your life force energy
You can now begin to guide that life force energy onto your body or out

According to Alix, if you would like to send Reiki to someone you love or are thinking of, you can use the steps above and, "If you have a picture of them, you can send it to the picture, even if it's just on your phone. Close your eyes and imagine the situation you want to send the life force energy to and just focus on that for five or ten minutes and you'll be surprised by the sensations you'll feel during that process."

How does Alix use Jihi in her self-care routine?

Alix uses Petal Milk daily. "I use it right after I shower or after I wash my face in the morning and at night. I love how light it is because I have pretty oily skin, actually, and I cannot use the heavy creams. So Petal Milk is perfect for my skin type. I feel so nourished and my skin feels really happy and glowy after I use it."

How does Alix practice self-centered wellness?

Alix has found that changing her rituals often has helped her maintain a good self-care routine. "My rituals change all the time because I get bored of the same thing all the time. I crave newness and newness is really healthy for me. So I bookend my days with certain rituals until I get tired of them."

Her current routine includes daily gratitude practices. "Right now I'm reading in a journal that asks me every day what I'm celebrating, and that's been really transformational for me. I mean, transformation in a super subtle way. Every day I'm writing three things I'm just really, truly feeling grateful for."

Alix also brings this sense of newness and exploration into her mediation and visualization practice. "The meditations that I like to do are very whimsical and magical, so it's kind of a way of opposing the mundane into something magical, because you can turn any mundane situation into a bit of a fairy tale."

These fairy tale meditations help Alix stay focused within the meditation, but also supports in keeping her practice more fun. "You know, it's things like that where there is this storyline and things are just unfolding in a way that feels really whimsical and light and easy."

Alix explains, "I grew up with a lot of Disney and believing in fairies. I still believe in fairies. So the visualizations I do right now, is you go to a little house and there's a fairy there and she tells you a mantra, and then she gives you a flower and it's your plant medicine and then you guide that energy to where you feel you need it most in your body."

Want to experience some of Alix's magic? Enjoy her 10 minute Fresh Start meditation, written and recorded for the Jihi community ✨