What to Expect During Your First Reiki Session in Barcelona

Reiki with Practical Alchemy is an active, mind-body practice in Barcelona & Castelldefels combining theta facilitation, breathwork, and self-integration counseling to help you process stuck emotional patterns from a place of safety.

If you’re in Barcelona or Castelldefels and considering your first Reiki session, there’s a good chance the image in your head involves lying still on a table while someone waves their hands over you. I want to correct that picture early, because it changes what you should actually expect: in my sessions, Reiki isn’t something done to you. You’re an active participant in your own healing, from start to finish.

Reiki, Practiced as Participation, Not Reception

Traditionally, Reiki is often described as a form of energy healing you passively receive. That’s not how I work with it. In my sessions, Reiki is woven together with theta-state facilitation, breathwork, and trauma-informed counseling, and you are doing something throughout: breathing intentionally, revisiting memories from a place of safety, actively moving through stuck emotional and energetic patterns.

This distinction matters, because it’s the difference between a session that feels like a passive experience and one that actually builds skills you carry with you afterward, the very skills I’ll encourage you to return to after our sessions.

My Background, Briefly

I hold a degree in Psychology, and I spent years working inside mental health organizations before I leaned into holistic healing. That’s where a lot of my grounding comes from: regular, required training in trauma-informed care, and just as importantly, in knowing the edges of my own scope — how to recognize when someone’s experience calls for a clinical psychologist instead of me, whether that’s an imminent safety concern or something that needs a formal diagnosis and treatment I’m not licensed to provide. Referring out, when it’s warranted, is part of practicing ethically. Alongside that, I’m a theta-state facilitator and Reiki 2nd Degree, with training in Motivational Interviewing and Solution Focused Brief Therapy.

I mention all of this because I think it matters: this work isn’t energy practice instead of counseling, or counseling instead of energy practice. It’s a genuine weaving of both, grounded in mechanism and training, not just intention.

What Actually Happens, Step by Step

We start with a conversation. Before any energy work happens, we talk about what’s bringing you in, what feels stuck, and what you’re hoping to shift.

We build a safe place within you. This is usually anchored to a single word or image, something steady you can return to internally no matter what surfaces during the session. This safe place is what makes it possible to approach difficult material without becoming overwhelmed by it.

Breathwork brings things closer to the surface. Rather than diving straight into difficult memories, we use intentional breathwork to gently bring old memories, emotions, and stuck moments into view.

You revisit, rather than relive. From that place of safety, we approach old memories not as if they’re happening again, but as something you can look at with the wisest, most whole version of yourself present — the version of you who can offer what was missing the first time.

You stay active throughout. This is the part people are often surprised by. You’re not a passive recipient. You’re learning, in real time, tools to navigate your own healing, with me alongside you as guide and support, not as the one doing the work for you.

What People Often Notice Afterward

Every session is different. While we’ll always start our work with the Safe Place techniques to get you grounded and empowered, where we move to next will depend on what’s bringing you in that day. You may come in looking to process a heavy experience, an old wound that’s been coming to surface, or you may come in just looking for some support to get back to your sense of restoration and connection. What I can say is that clients frequently describe feeling lighter, calmer, and more able to respond to old triggers from a steadier place, rather than being swept up in them the way they might have been before.

A Note on What This Is and Isn’t

Reiki and Self-Integration Counseling, as I practice them, are educational and complementary. I’m not a licensed physician or psychotherapist, and nothing in this work is intended to diagnose, treat, or replace care from a licensed medical or psychological professional. If you’re navigating something that needs clinical or medical attention, this work sits alongside that care, not in place of it.

If you’re curious whether this is a fit for what you’re navigating, the best next step is a conversation. You can read more about the full approach on my Self-Integration Counseling page, or reach out with questions before booking your first session.