My Reiki Journey: From Pilgrimage to Practice

In 2016, at twenty-five years old, I ended up on the Camino Francés almost by accident.

I had been traveling through Europe. The Camino was not part of a lifelong dream or carefully laid spiritual plan. In fact, I knew very little about it — and even less about hiking.

But it was strongly recommended.

My mother and my cousin had both placed it quietly on their bucket lists. The suggestion lingered long enough that I eventually said yes.

And so I found myself walking across northern Spain with a backpack I wasn’t entirely sure how to pack and expectations I didn’t yet know how to name.

The Camino did not change me dramatically overnight.

It slowed me down.

For the first time in my life, I moved at the pace of my own footsteps. I began noticing small things — the texture of gravel under my boots, the way morning fog lifted from the fields, the shifting weather, wildflowers growing from stone walls. I listened to strangers’ stories with an openness that only long-distance walking seems to create.

The Camino teaches you to be intentional.

Everything you bring, you carry.

Physically.

If you pack too much, you feel it in your shoulders and hips. If you hold onto something unnecessary, it weighs you down mile after mile.

It was the first time I understood that life works in much the same way.

By the time I reached Santiago, something inside me had rearranged. My values felt clearer. Simpler. Less performative.

I got a small red thread tattoo while I was there — a symbol I had thought about constantly during the walk. The idea that certain things in life are woven together, stretching across time and distance. That what is meant for you will not miss you.

I didn’t yet know how much that symbol would come to mean.

Eight years later, in September 2024, I returned to the Camino.

This time, I did not arrive by suggestion.

I arrived through grief.

My cousin — the same one who had encouraged me to walk years earlier — passed away suddenly. When I arrived at her funeral, I didn’t deliberate. I didn’t weigh pros and cons.

I simply knew I was going back before the year ended.

It had also been a season of layered loss. My maternal grandmother. My father. And then the waiting — because people always say death comes in threes — until it did.

My second walk began as a grief walk.

The Camino has a way of dissolving barriers. I connected with people through loss — of loved ones, of identity, of direction. During the first ten days, I cried with a stranger daily — some I grew close with, others I never saw again. We walked together and carried what we could, and sometimes that was only each other’s stories.

Grief softened me.

It also connected me.

Along that same path, something happened that feels woven into everything that came after. I slowly and quietly met the person who is now my life partner — someone who bonded with me over the very things my cousin and I once shared in late-night conversations, like Reiki. It felt less like coincidence and more like placement. As though a thread had been gently guided into position.

One day, in the courtyard of an albergue, the two of us watched a Reiki Master working quietly with someone. No performance. No spectacle. Just presence.

I didn’t know then that this would become part of my own path. But something settled inside me when I witnessed it.

Before leaving Santiago that second time, I got another tattoo — an Irish Triskele, symbolizing birth, life, and death.

The cycle felt complete.

I returned home in November 2024 and booked a Reiki session almost immediately. I needed to rebalance after the emotional intensity of the walk.

During that session, my practitioner said something that stayed with me:

“I think you’re going to learn this practice yourself one day.”

It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t prophetic.

It simply felt true.

In March 2025, I completed Reiki Level I.
In April 2025, Reiki Level II.

Each step felt aligned — not rushed, not forced. Just steady.

Like following a thread that had been there all along.

For me, healing is not a destination.

It is a journey.

Sometimes slow.
Sometimes accelerated.
Sometimes circular.

We move forward, and sometimes we move backward. None of it is linear. None of it is wasted.

Reiki, in my life, exists at the intersection of the spiritual and the tangible. It is deeply spiritual — rooted in presence, intention, and unseen connection. But it is also grounded. Science is beginning to explore what are known as biofield therapies, studying how subtle energy may influence regulation and well-being.

Both perspectives can coexist.

Both can be true.

When I look back, I see the red thread clearly now.

The first Camino that slowed me down.
The grief walk that softened me.
The courtyard Reiki session.
The practitioner who recognized something in me.
The quiet decision to enroll.

None of it felt random.

It felt woven.

My practice today is not about fixing people. It is about holding space for their own unfolding — just as the Camino once held space for mine.

Everything we carry has weight.

But not everything is meant to be carried forever.

Sometimes healing is simply the act of putting something down.

And sometimes, it is the courage to follow the thread — even when you don’t yet know where it leads.

Written by Sarah Jan.