Reiki Healer Thara Natalie Explains How The Practice Changed Her Life – Exclusive
Reiki is a Japanese healing practice developed by Mikao Usui, according to the International Center for Reiki Training. The practice is based on the idea that we all have an energetic life force in our bodies and that imbalances in that energetic life force can lead to mental and physical ailments. Reiki energy healing teaches practitioners how to tune into the energetic life force and regulate it to resolve physical and mental issues.
When yoga instructor Thara Natalie first heard about Reiki energy healing, she was pretty sure she didn't want anything to do with it. She'd always learned that your energy is something sacred and special — something you protect. The thought of having anyone working with her energy made her nervous. But when a close, trusted friend got certified in Reiki, she decided to give it a shot.
In an exclusive interview with Health Digest, Thara shared the story of her first experience with Reiki, how she decided to become an energy healer, and how she uses the practice to help people all over the world.
Thara's first healing experience
Thara Natalie's first experience with Reiki was enough to convince her that the practice is just as transformative and essential as yoga. She did her first session with her close friend who'd recently been certified. After the session was complete, he asked her if she'd been having issues with her knee. Though she hadn't told him anything about it, she'd been having chronic knee pain.
"I actually went to an orthopedic specialist. I had an MRI done and the surgeon was hysterical because he had the nerve to tell a yoga teacher that she needed to do more lunges and more squats. And I was like ... 'I'm a yoga teacher. I'm teaching 10 yoga classes a week. I could not possibly be [doing] any more lunges or squats. I don't need to strengthen my knee. There's got to be something else.'"
Thara's friend told her that he believed there was something she wasn't dealing with, and it was creating an energy blockage that manifested as knee pain. Thara reflected on her life, trying to identify a situation she wasn't confronting, and landed on a broken relationship that she'd been avoiding healing. As soon as she identified the situation, the pain moved to her other knee, Thara said. Her friend told her that this was progress — the energy was moving. So, she continued her Reiki sessions, reached out to the person to repair their relationship, and now she says she's pain-free.
Becoming a healer
Thara Natalie continued to get regular treatments and recommended the practice to anyone who would listen. But, she didn't consider becoming certified at first. "I thought maybe it was something passed on through a family lineage," she told Health Digest. "I didn't really understand it."
A conversation with her husband and one of her yoga students prompted Thara to look into it. As soon as she found out that she could, in fact, study to be a Reiki practitioner, she signed up to learn. Interestingly, years later, Thara remembered that energy healing actually was a tradition in her family.
"My grandfather was also an energy worker. It wasn't Reiki, but he was an energy worker. And he had taught me about energy from when I was 8 years old, but I never connected the dots. So it's all been this really beautiful circle for me that, in essence, it was passed down to me in some way." His legacy lives on in Thara's work. "It's a really beautiful connection that I get to have to my grandfather as well in the practice," she continued. Thara says Reiki has helped her make amazing physical and mental breakthroughs, so now her goal is to help others find those breakthroughs. "I call it a little bit of magic," Thara said. "We have to believe in magic and we have to believe in the miracles of this life of what we are, right?"
You can learn more about Thara Natalie and follow her journey by checking out her Instagram.