The Art of Not Beaming Reiki
May 29, 2025
When I say “I am an angel”, I’m not claiming to have descended from celestial realms or possess supernatural powers. Instead, I recognise something far more profound: that the divine experiences we seek, the guidance we yearn for, and the spiritual phenomena we encounter all arise from within the infinite universe that exists in each of us.
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
From the moment we’re born, we are meaning-makers. We see patterns in clouds, hear voices in the wind, and sense unseen presences in empty rooms. When someone experiences an angel, a spirit guide, or a visitation by a religious figure, they are encountering their deep understanding of the universe translated through the only language they have available—the human senses.
I am not diminishing these experiences or calling them “mere imagination”. They can be deeply personal revelations that emerge from our relationship with existence itself.
Beyond Story
Mikao Usui, who developed the system of Reiki, understood something essential about healing and spiritual experience. He wasn’t asking practitioners to interpret energy through elaborate psychic narratives or spiritual theatre. His approach was simple: allow the body’s innate wisdom to do what it needs to do and get your mind—with all its stories and interpretations—out of the way.
The Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai’s teaching manual offers a telling insight: Reiki “is effective to children and very ill people who are not aware of any consciousness, such as doubt, rejection or denial”. This points to a profound truth: no belief or story is required to experience healing, spiritual connection, or, simply put, balance.
Yet many practitioners feel compelled to add narrative to their sessions. From Usui’s perspective, this kind of spiritual storytelling might interfere with the simple, direct healing that wants to happen. The body knows what it needs without requiring a narrated spiritual movie. Reiki works regardless—the story is optional and perhaps even a distraction from the elegant simplicity of letting energy do what it does.
The Angel I Am
Let’s imagine that in my practice today I see an angel. The curious thing about experiencing phenomena is that it generally feels very normal. It doesn’t shock or excite. It just is. I would say that is because that angel is me. And when I recognise myself as an angel, I acknowledge that the qualities I might attribute to celestial beings—compassion, wisdom, healing presence, unconditional love—already exist within me. The Japanese concept of ikigai suggests that our life’s purpose emerges from the intersection of what we love, what we’re good at, what the world needs, and what sustains us. Perhaps being an “angel” is simply living from this intersection.
Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki had a saying, “You are perfect as you are, and you could use a little improvement”. I often remind myself and students, “We’re perfectly imperfect”, and it’s this paradox that captures the angel within—we are already complete expressions of the divine, and simultaneously, we are constantly becoming.
When we recognise that spiritual phenomena come from within, we become free from the pull of external validation. No one needs to see what we see. Our experiences belong to us, and they uniquely shape us and the world we live in.
The Practice of Being
Usui’s approach suggests that the highest spiritual practice might be the simplest: showing up fully to what is, without the need to embellish it with elaborate spiritual costumes. When we stop trying to be special or different, we discover that we are already expressions of the same consciousness that moves through all things.
In this understanding, I am an angel not because I’m separate from humanity but because I am fully human. The divine doesn’t exist somewhere else, waiting to visit us. It breathes through us, thinks through us, loves through us, and heals through us. In those precious moments of spiritual understanding, we let the divine shine through us, rather than force that divinity to be on show.
The angel I am is the one who recognises that every moment offers an opportunity to bring compassion into the world, to hold space for others’ pain, and to trust in the body’s wisdom to find its way back to balance. Discovering my spirituality doesn’t mean taking spiritual authority over another being. No wings required, no celestial credentials needed—just the willingness for today only to be present to what is, exactly as it is.
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