CRYSTAL REIKI

A Handbook for Healing Mind,
Body, and Soul

KRISTA MITCHELL

author of Change Your Energy

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Text © 2018 Krista Mitchell

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ISBN 978-1-4549-3026-6

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Cover Design by Igor Satanovsky

Interior Design by Sharon Murray Jacobs

Image Credits: Caroline M. Casey (stone illustrations): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20-21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29;

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INTRODUCTION

Being a healer is a noble calling.

As I typed these words, I’m looking out my writing room window to the great maple tree in my back garden, to the busy country road with people driving home from work. I’m surrounded by my crystals, metaphysical books, and candles that have been charmed with reiki and sacred oils. My dogs are sleeping at my feet. My altar to my ancestors is on my right, and photographic prints of New York City, taken by an artist friend, hang on the wall to my left. And I’m thinking: “I’ve come a long way.” It feels like it was a lifetime ago that I, rather timidly, built a small e-mailing list of friends’ names and addresses, and hit SEND on the message announcing that I was offering my first professional reiki sessions.

It’s been almost fifteen years since then, and I’m now a published author on crystal healing. I’ve performed thousands of professional Crystal Reiki sessions, taught numerous certification courses, conducted countless workshops, given talks, and led guided crystal meditations and rituals both online and all over North America. I’ve gone from being dismissed when I say I am a crystal healer, to being interviewed for print and online magazines like Vanity Fair, the Huffington Post, Today, Elle, and New York magazine. It’s been a pretty wild ride so far, fueled by my passion for crystals, healing, and spirituality, and it’s been a lot of hard work, but that hard work continues to pay off.

My purpose in writing this book is to teach you the art of Crystal Reiki, a combination of two healing modalities and a system of healing that I developed during my years of professional energy work in New York City. But it’s also my story as a healer and what I learned from being a profes–sional energy worker—from offering alternative therapy to a wide cross section of big city people, to developing the guts, magic, discipline, and faith it took to succeed as a spiritual healer.

I officially started my training and opened my practice in New York City in 2004. It was a trial by fire. Those were different times then, when people didn’t believe you could earn a living from energy work, so most sought training for the sole benefit of their own spiritual growth and experience. I was the only student in my reiki class who, when asked, put my hand up and said I wanted to be a professional healer. It was a signal to the Universe.

A mere month after I’d earned my first degree in reiki, the first level of certification in the reiki system of natural healing, my teacher began referring clients to me because he was too busy with his day job to take them on. I remember feeling terrified on the subway ride to my first-ever client. Who was I to be doing this? What was I doing? I thought to myself, I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING!!!! But then a soothing message from my higher self cut in: “You’re nervous because you care, and that’s a good sign. Keep going.” So I did.

I honestly didn’t know at the time if reiki worked. I knew that I liked doing it, and people liked receiving it. I didn’t believe that I could make it as a healer, and yet there seemed no other option. I felt compelled to pursue it. And so I did.

When I introduced crystals into my healing work, it was a game-changer. Rather than sitting quietly and listening to the hum of reiki as it flowed through me, I was now tuning in to the frequencies of my clients’ chakras, gazing at their auras, hearing guidance from their spirit guides, and seeing visions of crystal placements and combinations that could help them. I was able to address people’s needs more specifically, help accelerate their healing process, and work at a deeper and more engaged level than I had before. It felt like the possibilities and opportunities

for my work were dramatically expanding, and that I’d found my true calling.

Despite the opening up of these new possibilities, it wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns. In New York City, crazy high rent is a very real thing. And for someone who is an empath (someone who can feel energy and be influenced by other people’s emotions), who was recovering from being broke and heartbroken, it was a hard place to live and a very challenging time. When the global investment banking company Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy in 2008 and the United States hit an economic downturn, it was a scary time for everyone and probably the wrong time to be running a spiritual healing business. Or was it?

As I sit here and reflect on how much I’ve learned, I realize that I don’t just have teachings to share about Crystal Reiki, but also wisdom to share on how to be a professional healer. I’ve had to peel myself off the floor many times. I’ve had failures and enormous fear. I’ve been wrong. I’ve called friends, bawling my eyes out and needing confirmation. I’ve had to grit my teeth and push past boundaries on every level to get to where I was headed. But I did it.

I’ve had dark nights of the soul when I wondered if I’d made the right choice. There were certainly jobs out there that could have been easier, more profitable, more securely established. But something about this work came from my soul, stirred my heart, and gave my life purpose and meaning. So I kept going, even when I despaired that I’d never make it.

Being a healer is a noble calling. It’s deeply fulfilling work, and much needed in this world of ours. I read an article recently by Oprah Winfrey in which she said: “Everything you do that leaves a handprint or a heartprint is your legacy.” I used to think that creating my system of Crystal Reiki healing was my legacy, that my first book, Change Your Energy, was my legacy, that the healers I trained in this work were my legacy. But I also helped people change their lives, heal, and transform, and, in the process, I, too, changed my life, healed, and transformed. It’s all a part of my legacy.

To be a healer is to leave a handprint and a heartprint as your legacy. Your life is your school, your art is your work, your teachers are your clients, your modalities are your tools, and your path of mastery is lifelong. Always remember this, and in good times and bad, moments of triumph or failure, you will stay aligned with your calling and purpose.

I write this book about Crystal Reiki in service to you, dear healer, as you continue to pursue your calling and purpose. One of the things I’ve come to love about healers is that they are a tribe that is devoted to enriching their spiritual path and to advancing their healing knowledge. Thank you for being part of my tribe. The world needs you.

—Krista Mitchell

SOMEWHERE IN CANADA, 2017

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

CRYSTAL REIKI is a holistic system of energy healing, and this book is based on the style of Crystal Reiki I developed while working full time for years as a professional spiritual healer in New York City. It’s by no means meant to be a bible or to negate the value of other systems. What I can say about this one is that it was successful. It was tried and tested over years of in-person, professional client work, and everything I’m sharing has been culled from session notes, testimonials, case studies, anecdotes, and my own life experiences.

The purpose of this book is to teach reiki practitioners how to offer Crystal Reiki in a way that is safe, effective, and professional. It is therefore assumed that readers have already been trained in reiki, having at least received their first-degree certification. Many reiki practitioners worldwide intuitively add crystals or combine crystal healing with their reiki sessions. This book is meant to provide a solid foundation of knowledge and expertise that can support a reiki practitioner in offering Crystal Reiki as its own modality at a professional level of service.

You can use this book as a manual for your own education and training as a Crystal Reiki practitioner, as a reference book for crystal combinations and layouts to be used in your energy healing sessions, and to learn fundamental skills and expertise that are often required of a professional spiritual healer.

The book is structured to help guide you through the process of first learning about Crystal Reiki, including the background and history in Part 1: The Fundamentals; how to properly prepare for giving a Crystal Reiki session in Part 2: A Healer’s Preparation; and then how to give a Crystal Reiki session, including crystal layouts and in-session techniques for physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and aura healing in Part 3: The Practice.

Part 4: Self-Care for Healers provides guidelines and suggestions for crystal self-healing, self-care, and support for professional energy healers, again culled from years of my personal and professional experience. I consider Part 4 to be of particular importance, as healers tend to put their own care last, and yet have needs that are unique to their vocation. In some ways, Part 4 should really be at the start of the book, as healers’ own health, well-being, and happiness are the foundation upon which everything else in their life and work rests.

My hope is that, in reading this book and using its information, you will deepen your healing skills and wisdom and be of greater service to your clients. Crystal blessings to you!