I came to Reiki as a skeptic, full of resistance, caught off-guard. One day, I got caught with one of my familiar but dreaded migraines at a new-agey store, while looking at some crystal jewelry. Mind you, I was there only because I liked how the jewelry looked- I was one to laugh at the preposterous idea that stones could have any power other than to break bones.
A clerk at the store noticed that I was ill (the migraines blinded me, and I was worried about getting home) and asked if she could try to help. I agreed, and she put her hands on my head and shoulders, and after a short time, that migraine that had made me nauseous and concerned about driving was a mere, niggling headache.
Of course, I asked what she’d done, and she said it was Reiki, and I could learn it at the store. So I whipped out my credit card and signed up immediately.
It took me as long as the ride home to tell myself that it had not been a “real” migraine, that she hadn’t really done anything special. So I called to cancel my participation in the class.
But, as luck would have it, the store did not give refunds, only credit. And there was nothing in the store that would come close to costing what the class did. So I resigned myself to taking the class.
When I arrived, the teacher was wearing a long muumuu and all the students were twenty years my seniors and looked like holdovers from the hippy era. In other words: not my type. Then the teacher passed out a card to each participant and told us that what was depicted there was our spirit guide. Mine was a rodent. I wasn’t buying it. I spent the rest of the class nitpicking in my mind, feeling stupid when I followed along, and laughing at how gullible everyone else was. I didn’t listen to any of the instructions; I was just waiting for the day to end.
When I got home, I put it all behind me. There were some instructions for the next few weeks that I never even really heard, let alone following them. 
And yet… I kept thinking about it. And, finally, about three months later, I decided to test something out. I needed conclusive proof. So I hung a necklace from the vertical arm of my lamp, and put my palm under it, to see if something happened. I couldn’t remember how to summon Reiki, so nothing happened at first. And then, I remembered, and the little necklace pendulum started swinging, very gently, but also very definitely. I decided there might be something to this Reiki thing, and I began to practice on myself, and then on others. I took more classes (with teachers I felt more aligned with).
And then, one ordinary day, it occurred to me that I could not remember the last time I had had a migraine. I still don’t know exactly when they stopped. But I had been living with them for over a decade, and now they are gone, and I can only attribute it to Reiki.
