Reiki Brings Healing, Calm to Others

is using the gift of touch to help inspire healing in others through her own reiki practice and collection of reiki-infused jewelry.

“Friends would always ask me to work on their shoulders or get kinks out of their necks, and I noticed that I started feeling warmth emanating from my hands, and I started experimenting holding my hands a little away from their neck, and a friend of mine said it seemed like I was doing reiki,” she said. “At that point in time, I don’t think I even knew what reiki was.”

Shah of Regent Square was working full-time in H.I.V. prevention research when she decided to start her own reiki practice last year. After a friend told her that she may not have the gift for practicing reiki forever, she immediately took classes and gained the training she needed.

Natural stones also are incorporated in her reiki work, which lend themselves to her jewelry making craft as well.

“I was craving working with people and just being able to see the impact of my work and being able to connect with people,” she said. “After I left my job last year, I decided to start the reiki business.”

Shah sees clients at in Regent Square and at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill.

“I went from helping people on a macro level behind the scenes and moving from that to affecting people one person at a time,” she said.

With reiki, the practitioner is a conduit of energy. There are hand positions over the joints or seven energy centers—also known as chakras. The energy always goes where it needs to go, Shah said.

“The most important thing is the intention for that session,” she said. “It’s whatever they need from it. People respond to it differently, but it has shown to help with depression, anxiety, chronic pain and the effects of medication.”

Reiki also can cut down the effects of chemotherapy, she said.

“It’s amazing that once you get the body to relax, what it can do on its own,” Shah said. “We are kind of hard wired now to go, go, go and always be connected to some kind of a device or another, and it just seems like, when I get a massage and what I am spending, it feels like a luxury to do these good things for yourself, but it’s really taking care of yourself. It’s not self-indulgent.”

Everyone responds differently to reiki—some people get cold, others get warm, others feel tingling and some don’t feel a thing. All responses are normal.

“It’s important for them to feel what they feel,” Shah said. “Sometimes, there is an emotional release.”

For Shah, it’s all about bringing joy to others.

“I love making people feel good,” she said. “I feel like there is so much stuff going on in the world today that it’s not always easy to be relaxed and find joy in the little things.”

Shah’s jewelry is available at in and at the . Custom pieces are available as well and reiki is done on each piece before it is sold.

“It’s not just jewelry—it is something more than that,” she said. “One woman called it wearable art. It’s so personal.”

For more information, visit the Beads of Light Facebook page here.