What to Expect From a Vibe Alchemy Responsive Reiki Session: Distance Reiki
One of the first questions people tend to have about distance Reiki is a fairly reasonable one:
What am I actually doing while you're lying at home and I'm somewhere else?
The short answer is: much the same thing I would be doing if you were lying on the Reiki table in my Auckland studio.
The physical experience is obviously different. You're creating a comfortable receiving space at home rather than coming into mine. But the Responsive Reiki itself—the dowsing, energetic inquiry, crystals, energetic frequencies and the way I respond to what I'm picking up as the session unfolds—doesn't become a simplified version just because we're working at a distance.
A useful way to think about it is:
You create the receiving environment. I create the energetic environment.
Here's what that actually looks like.
If you've found me through YouTube or you're exploring my work from outside Auckland: distance Reiki is how I offer the same Responsive Reiki approach I use in my Auckland studio to clients anywhere in the world. This guide explains what that actually looks like from both sides of the session.
At your end: your job is mostly to get comfortable
When your appointment time arrives, settle somewhere you can comfortably lie down or recline.
You don't need to meditate first, clear your own energy, work out what needs healing or concentrate on receiving Reiki correctly.
If you'd like to make the physical experience a little more special, I've created a separate guide to creating the Vibe Alchemy studio experience at home, including the music, scent, crystals, weighted support and other sensory elements I use for in-person sessions.
Then, once you're comfortable, you can simply receive.
Most people become very relaxed during Reiki. You might remain completely aware, drift around the edges of sleep or fall asleep altogether. My broader guide to what you may feel during Reiki goes into the physical, emotional and energetic experiences people commonly report, so I won't repeat all of that here.
What I do want to explain is what can be particularly interesting about experiencing Reiki at a distance.
At my end: Responsive Reiki is an active process
While you're resting, I'm working.
I don't begin a session with a predetermined sequence of energetic points that I'm going to work through regardless of what I find.
Instead, Responsive Reiki is a process of ongoing inquiry.
I'll use dowsing and clairsentient feedback to identify where your system is asking for energetic attention. I'll send Reiki into that area, observe what I'm perceiving as I work, and then return to the inquiry to ask where I'm being directed next.
So there is a rhythm to the session:
inquire → send → observe → inquire again.
As I move through that process, I'm also building a picture of what we appear to be working with.
That might involve physical or energetic locations, chakras, meridians, emotional patterns, frequencies or other layers that emerge through the session. I record this information on your session card as I work, which gives us a map of the energetic work that unfolded.
This is why I describe my Reiki as responsive. I'm not deciding in advance what your session should be. I'm following what your energy is presenting and adjusting the work in response.
I can also change the energetic qualities I'm sending
There is another part of Responsive Reiki that becomes particularly relevant when people wonder whether they're receiving the "same thing" at a distance.
Throughout a session, I may be guided to change or add particular energetic qualities to the Reiki I'm sending.
I sometimes describe this as “flavouring” the energy.
If you're curious about what I mean by that, I've explored the idea in more depth in Can You Give Energy Different Properties? How to “Flavour” Energy With Intention on YouTube.
Depending on what emerges through the inquiry, I may work with:
crystal frequencies, including crystals selected through dowsing for your current energetic state
aura sprays I've formulated using flower and crystal essences with specific energetic signatures
different energetic codes that I use to help target the particular energetic “coordinates” I'm being guided towards
Those elements aren't dependent on you being physically beside me.
I'll still have the crystals with me. I'll still work with the sprays and their energetic signatures.
I'll still respond to the information I'm receiving and adjust what I'm sending as the session progresses.
So while you won't physically smell the aura spray I'm using or have my selected crystals sitting around your body, I'm still incorporating those energetic qualities into the Reiki transmission.
This means the energetic methodology of your Responsive Reiki session remains the same whether we're working in person or at a distance.
You may actually feel me connect
This is one of the things that can surprise people about distance Reiki.
Some clients notice a distinct sensation around the time I begin sending Reiki or throughout the session...even though I'm nowhere near them.
It can feel remarkably similar to receiving Reiki in person: perhaps warmth, tingling, a subtle movement through the body or what I can only really describe as a gentle internal fizzle of energy.
Not everybody feels the moment of connection, and you don't need to feel it for the session to be meaningful.
But when someone does notice it, there's something particularly interesting about experiencing an energetic sensation and remembering that the person working with you isn't actually in the room.
Thoughts, emotions or memories might also surface
As you relax, you may notice thoughts, emotions, memories, images or other internal material appearing.
You don't need to analyse these while they're happening.
In fact, I generally recommend the opposite.
If something comes up, see if you can simply notice it without immediately deciding whether it is good, bad, important, inconvenient or something you need to solve.
Within the way I work, I often find that what surfaces for a client reflects the energetic material we're working with at that point in the session.
So if an unexpected emotion appears, you might approach it with curiosity and compassion:
“Okay. This is here right now.”
You don't need to push it away, but you don't need to chase it either.
Allowing yourself to notice what's arising without judgement can become part of beginning to clear or process the particular energy we're working with.
And if nothing comes up? That's completely fine too. You can sleep.
Distance sessions can have an interesting “parallel processing” quality
Something I've particularly noticed in distance sessions is that clients sometimes seem to receive their own information about what we're working on.
They might see an image, suddenly think of a person, remember an experience, notice a particular part of their body or have a thought arrive with unusual clarity.
Then, when we compare experiences afterwards, the timing can be surprisingly specific: what was happening for them internally corresponds with what I was working on at my end at that point in the session.
Again, I don't recommend trying to make this happen.
Trying to interpret every sensation in real time is a fairly effective way of spending your Reiki session doing homework.
Instead, gently notice.
If something feels significant, you can make a few notes once the session is over. I think of this a little like keeping a dream journal: capture the image, phrase, feeling or insight before ordinary waking consciousness gets busy and it disappears.
We can then compare what you experienced with the energetic picture I recorded during the session.
Sometimes there's an obvious relationship. Sometimes there isn't.
You don't need to manufacture one.
Your intuitive choices can become part of that comparison too
This is also why I encourage you, if you have crystals at home, to choose whatever calls to you rather than trying to work out which crystal you're “supposed” to have.
I'll independently select crystals through dowsing at my end, and these get captured on the session notes card you will receive later.
It can be fascinating afterwards to compare your intuitive choice with mine. Quite often, the two selections seem to speak to different parts of the same energetic narrative.
The same principle applies to your broader experience of the session: you don't need to know what I'm doing in order to participate correctly.
Your job is to experience your side.
I'll take care of mine.
What happens after the Reiki depends on the session you've booked
The Reiki itself uses the same Responsive Reiki approach across my distance sessions.
What changes is how much space we've booked for interpretation afterwards, and how you'd prefer to receive it.
60-Minute Distance Reiki + Insights
This session is deliberately tech-free.
There's no Zoom call to join. At your appointment time, simply settle into your receiving space and I'll begin working remotely.
I'll spend approximately 50 minutes on the Reiki itself. I then use the remaining booked time to record a short personal audio debrief covering the main themes or insights I think are most useful to bring forward.
You don't need to get up when the Reiki portion finishes. In fact, you don't need to know exactly when it finishes at all.
If you've fallen asleep, stay asleep.
Afterwards, I'll send you your session card and personal audio debrief, which you can look at and listen to whenever you're ready.
90-Minute Distance Reiki + Insights: Tech-Free + Personal Audio
If you'd like deeper interpretation but love the idea of staying completely offline, you can choose the tech-free version of my 90-minute session.
Again, there's nothing to join.
You'll receive approximately 60 minutes of Responsive Reiki while you rest at home. I'll then use the remaining booked time to record a more in-depth personal audio debrief.
This gives me more space to explore and interpret what emerged during the session while allowing you to stay exactly where you are—resting, sleeping or simply enjoying the post-Reiki state.
Your session card and audio are sent afterwards for you to explore in your own time.
90-Minute Distance Reiki + Insights: Live on Zoom
If you'd prefer the session to feel more relational, you can choose the live Zoom experience instead.
We'll meet briefly at the beginning and Zoom will remain connected while you receive approximately 60 minutes of Reiki. You're welcome to turn your camera off while you're resting if that's more comfortable.
After the Reiki, we'll use the remaining appointment time for a live debrief. This means I can explain what emerged, hear what you experienced and respond to questions or explore particular points further where time allows.
If requested, the live debrief can also be recorded for you.
The Reiki and intended depth of energetic inquiry are the same as the tech-free 90-minute session. The difference is simply whether you'd prefer to receive the interpretation live and conversationally, or privately in your own time.
Your session card and your debrief do different jobs
One final distinction is useful before your first session.
Your session card is the record of the energetic work.
I use it throughout the Reiki to capture the different information, frequencies, themes and energetic elements that emerge while I'm working.
Your debrief is my interpretation of that information.
That means you may see things recorded on your card that I don't specifically discuss in your audio or live conversation. Nothing has accidentally gone missing.
Particularly in a 60-minute session, I'm deliberately selecting the themes and insights I think are most useful to bring forward rather than attempting to interpret every individual thing I've recorded.
The 90-minute session gives us considerably more space for that deeper inquiry.
Ready to book your distance Reiki session?
If this sounds like the kind of support you're looking for, you can choose the distance format that feels right for you below.
The 60-minute session is a quieter, lighter-touch option with approximately 50 minutes of Responsive Reiki followed by a short personal audio debrief.
The 90-minute session gives us more room for interpretation and deeper inquiry, with the choice of a live Zoom debrief or a tech-free personal audio debrief.
All distance sessions use the same Responsive Reiki methodology described above, so choose based on how much space you'd like for the insights afterwards and how you'd prefer to receive them.
Not sure Reiki is the right place to start? You can explore all of the ways I work with clients online through Vibe Alchemy International.
So what do you actually need to do during distance Reiki?
Very little.
Create somewhere comfortable to receive. Start your music if you're using it. Let yourself become sleepy if that's where your body wants to go.
And if sensations, emotions, memories, images or unexpected insights appear, you don't need to immediately understand them.
Notice them.
Be gentle with yourself.
Let the experience unfold.
While you're doing that, I'll be at my end following the energetic thread—inquiring, sending, adjusting and building the picture of what your session is asking us to work with.
You create the receiving environment. I create the energetic environment.
And distance simply means we're each doing our part from a different room.
Comments