How Does Reiki Work With Life Coaching?
After I received my Reiki Master training years ago, I became more curious about the Reiki Masters in my lineage, so I began to read books and do research. That's when I first learned about Dr. Chujiro Hayashi’s approach to Reiki.
Dr. Hayashi’s lineage traces back to 1926, when Reiki was first developed by Mikao Usui in Japan. Usui’s teaching emphasized balancing the mind, emotions, body, and spirit—a principle that became foundational to Reiki as it spread globally over the next hundred years.
Because Dr. Hayashi studied health, he saw the potential for Reiki to change the way that doctors and nurses were working with patients in health. He worked with affirmations and intentional mindset practices, instructing his clients to work with new beliefs so create lasting shifts in their lives.
As I've worked with clients over the last 15 years I've seen how the healing energy of Reiki is accelerated when people take the time to adjust their mindset and habits. Over time, I've realized that Reiki works incredibly well with life coaching to help empower people in new ways of thinking and BE-ing in the world.
Reiki brings this beautiful, calming energy that clears out blocks and lets you reconnect with yourself. Then, with life coaching, we explore what’s lighting you up, what’s holding you back, with a focus on the steps that will help you move forward. These modalities bridge the spiritual and the practical, creating alignment in your life.
I once worked with a client who struggled with imposter syndrome. After healing energetic self confidence in a Reiki session, we did some coaching work around the source of the imposter syndrome and other limiting beliefs connected to it. Then we created a daily affirmation practice. She began saying, ‘I trust my voice and my vision,’ each morning, as well as posting it on her bathroom mirror. Over weeks, I watched her confidence grow as she started to own her creative gifts!
I've always felt that the heart of energy work is remembering of who you are. Life gets noisy—expectations, fears, and survival can keep us so busy we forget our true purpose for being here on the planet. Reiki and coaching both create spaces for you to pause and ask yourself, “What do I actually want? What am I ready to let go of so I can feel whole?” These aren’t small questions, but they’re the ones that bring us closer to the life we’re meant to live.
WHAT IS REIKI?
If you’re wondering, “Okay, but what exactly is Reiki?” it’s a healing practice where we channel universal life energy for healing. The idea behind it is that our bodies are naturally intelligent healers and what often slows or prevents healing is a lack of energy and focus.
You don’t have to do anything during a Reiki session except relax. It gently releases old patterns and calms your nervous system so you feel like yourself again. When your energy is balanced, your thoughts become clearer and your decisions naturally align with better outcomes. That’s where life coaching comes in.
WHAT IS COACHING?
Here’s a little fun fact: Life coaching as a profession wasn’t even a thing until the 1980s. A man named Thomas J. Leonard observed that his financial clients needed more than advice on their money—they needed guidance on their goals, dreams, and daily habits. Leonard founded the International Coach Federation (ICF) in 1995, setting standards for what coaching could be. His work bridged the gap between therapy and mentorship, offering clients a practical way to align their actions with their desires.
For me, coaching creates a space where you feel seen, heard, and supported. Unlike therapy which hold a space for looking at the past, and unpacking the present for the purposes of psychological healing, coaching is an practice that focuses on creating and manifesting the experience of your life today. Where healing may sometimes be called for, coaching hold space for what needs to be released so that focus can return to the present. Coaches and therapists are very different, and aren't really a substitute for one another--although their work is complimentary. (And yes, some therapists are coach trained, and vice versa)
In coaching sessions you can uncover what’s calling to you and pursue it with confidence.
People often come to coaching for:
help understanding and sorting their health issues
support clearing old relationships
bringing in newer healthier love dynamics
manifesting new visions and direction in life
understanding their spiritual gifts
and learning to tap abundance
I love holding space for students and clients to come into their own vision around these topics and others. I've studied and received my coaching certification through a few different programs, and love working with mindset.
However when clients get stuck in their minds, I work with NLP (neurolinguistic programming), EFT (emotional freedom technique), somatic movement (yes, even through zoom), and guided meditation in conjunction with Reiki transmissions to help people blossom. To me, it simply makes sense rather than keeping coaching solely in the sphere of thought work. Imagine the power of clearing limiting beliefs not only with mindset, but through your body as well!
I helped a coaching client through an EFT tapping sequence paired with Reiki, to release guilt around setting boundaries. As she tapped, tears streamed down her face, and she later shared that for the first time in years, she felt free to say no without guilt. From there we were able to begin looking at her true desires for what she wanted, going forward. It was a great coaching session.
Reiki and Life Coaching Together
Reiki works on an energetic and somatic level, while life coaching focuses on the mental and emotional layers of your experience. When you combine the two, the benefits are amplified.
Reiki clears out the energetic blocks that keep you stuck—whether it’s old fears, emotional baggage, or subconscious patterns in the byways of your nervous system and soma. As that energy clears, coaching becomes even more effective because you’re working from a place of energetic and emotional alignment rather than resistance.
For example, a coaching session might help you identify a career goal, but if you’re holding onto fear of failure, it can feel impossible to take action. You can work through the mindset of that fear, but adding Reiki and other energy-based modalities to the process helps release that fear energetically, so you can move forward with confidence. The synergy between the two practices creates deeper insights and quicker breakthroughs.
I often work with clients through career or entrepreneurship challenges. I had a client who struggled to leave a toxic job. During Reiki, we worked on releasing her fear of financial instability, and I could feel her energy shift. In our next coaching session, she boldly declared her intention to start her own business—a step she had been afraid to take for years. And she did!
The wildest part of my experiences with Reiki and coaching, is that I see these breakthroughs all of the time.
There’s something so profound about letting go of the noise in your mind and connecting with your heart.
There’s something so profound about letting go of the noise in your mind and connecting with your heart. I'm a fairly intellectual person and I've spent much of my life fascinated by the philosophy of living. But in fact, it's in our hearts where the most powerful actions are first conceived. I believe the more we are all led back to our hearts, the more peace there will be in the world around us.
The time of trying to sort the world's problems just on the strength of intellect, is ending. We're multidimensional beings, and answers to our greatest challenges come when we also heal multidimensionally.
Research has also shown that Reiki promotes relaxation and reduces stress by lowering cortisol levels and activating the parasympathetic nervous system. When your body is calm and centered, your mind is more open to new perspectives. Coaching conversations feels sharper, more purposeful. Our spiritual wellness feels more intact. You start to realize that the answers you’ve been looking for are all there, and the solutions seem to integrate more deeply.
Life Coaching and Spiritual (but not religious!) Self-Discovery
I like to think of this work as a kind of homecoming. There's a version of ourselves we can present to the world based on what others expect, and on what we've been taught. But the real, raw, beautiful version of yourself needs to have a voice, and space to emerge.
When was the last time you sat still and just asked yourself what you truly wanted? Not what would impress others, not what you think you should want, but what your soul longs for?
The practice of Reiki helps us anchor into this inner dialogue. Coaching helps you create a roadmap to bring those dreams into reality.
Said another way, it's like clearing the canvas before painting your masterpiece; Reiki helps you step into a clear space of possibility, while coaching then equips you with the tools to create.
If this article resonates with you and you're thinking it might be cool to explore some of this work with me, let’s have a conversation. Bring your questions, your curiosity, or even your doubts. We can explore where you are and where you want to be.
Let’s start with a heart-to-heart. Imagine an hour dedicated entirely to your dreams, your healing, and your next steps forward—a space where you can feel seen and supported. This is your time to pause, reconnect, and begin shaping the life that’s calling you. Let’s talk. Reach out to me.
Reiki blessings,
Dailey
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