82 : What Is Reiki? A Former ICU Nurse Explains Energy Healing & Divine Love
💫Episode 82 : What Is Reiki? A Former ICU Nurse Explains Energy Healing & Divine Love
"If you've ever felt like being sensitive or intuitive or deeply feeling is somehow a flaw — something to manage, fix, or apologize for — I want you to sit with this conversation. Because my guest has spent his whole life learning that the opposite is true."
That is the invitation Charla Goodnight extends at the opening of Episode 82. And if you have ever carried your sensitivity like a burden instead of a gift, this episode is one you'll want to return to.
Jay Vee Jackson grew up in the remote Blue Mountains of East Central Oregon, playing with stones for hours as a child, studying them, meditating with them. When his parents started a gem faceting business, Jay became a master faceter by his late teens — discovering early that if he slowed down enough to truly listen to a stone, the design would reveal itself. That single thread — listening instead of forcing — has quietly run through his entire life since.
Today, Jay is a senior licensed Reiki master teacher with the International Center for Reiki Training, a former ICU and hospice nurse, a widowed gay man, and the founder of Illumine Reiki Academy. He teaches Usui and Holy Fire III Reiki, Holy Fire Karuna Reiki, Animal Reiki, and Reiki Crystal Healing — helping sensitive, spiritual, intuitive people build confidence and a deeper relationship with their own inner light.
What Is Reiki — Really?
Reiki is not ancient in the way many healing modalities are. It was discovered in the early 1920s in Japan by a man named Usui, who had spent years studying world religions and esoteric teachings, searching for something deeper.
His master teacher offered him an unusual path: a 21-day fast and prayer vigil on Mount Kurama, a sacred mountain in Japan. To participate, Usui had to be willing to die in order to receive enlightenment. He was that committed. He went.
At the end of 21 days, something like a bolt of lightning moved through him. He fell unconscious. When he woke the next morning, he was full of energy — not depleted. Running down the mountain, he stubbed his toe, grabbed his foot — and felt the pain vanish instantly beneath his hands. He understood: he had been given a healing gift.
From that experience, Usui developed what we now call Reiki — a practice of channeling divine energy for healing. And one of the most important things Jay says about it: Reiki has no specific religion. It weaves threads from many traditions but belongs exclusively to none. Jay has Jewish friends who teach Reiki. Hindu friends. Muslim teachers. All speaking the same language.
"We all sit around and speak the same language — and that language is love and peace."
Reiki Is Not Performance — It's Listening
Here is the distinction Jay makes that reframes everything:
Reiki is not something a practitioner performs. It's something they listen to.
When Jay does a Reiki session, his clients are not receiving energy from Jay. They are receiving it from the divine. He is simply the conduit — holding space, opening the channels, getting out of the way.
He describes two types of blocked energy in Japanese Reiki tradition: byoki (negative or blocked energy) and jinki (healthy, flowing energy). A Reiki session works by locating the byoki, moving it out, and amplifying the jinki — bringing the person into a state where their own healing intelligence can do its work.
Early in his practice, Jay used to read everything he perceived in a session and report it back to clients. He's learned to stop. His filters are not his client's filters. His interpretations may not be theirs. The healing is not his to direct.
Except — occasionally — when spirit says otherwise. He shares a story: giving a prenatal massage, he kept seeing ruby red energy in the corner of the room. Not his usual experience (he feels more than he sees). He finally mentioned it. The mother said: "The baby's name is Ruby." The girl was born red-headed.
"There are times I am divinely guided to say something. And there are times I witness and stay quiet. The discernment is everything."
The Divine Loves Everyone — Even the Ones We'd Rather Not
Two stories from Jay's years as an ICU nurse stopped Charla in her tracks — and they will stop you too.
The first: a difficult patient, refusing care, causing chaos. Jay walked into the room ready to intervene — and instead felt the Reiki energy show him something. He felt the divine's love for this woman. Not despite her flaws. Because of her humanity. Her anger dissolved into ice chips she'd been waiting hours for. The moment he stopped trying to manage the situation and started listening, everything shifted.
The second: a prisoner, shackled at hands, waist, and ankles, unresponsive, intubated, actively dying. No family allowed to visit. Two prison guards. Jay went in simply to change a medication bag — and felt it again. That same overwhelming sense of the divine's love for this man. For his life. For his soul.
"I thought — if the divine loves even him, that must mean there might be some hope for me."
This is the theology at the center of Jay's work: the divine is not judgmental. It does not sort us by behavior or belief or circumstance. Its love is available to everyone — always, no matter what has been done, no matter where someone stands.
That love is what heals. Reiki is simply a practice of connecting to it.
Protection Versus Presence — A Different Way to Think About Energy
Jay offers a reframe that challenges one of the most common things you'll hear in spiritual spaces: the idea of protecting your energy.
He's learned that when he focuses on protecting himself — building walls, shielding, contracting — he actually limits how much divine light he can shine out into the world. He restricts his own capacity to be a conduit. And paradoxically, that makes him more vulnerable, not less.
He grew up wanting to be invisible. If he was invisible, the bullies wouldn't find him. He spent decades trying to disappear — and Reiki has slowly, persistently called him back into the light. Not to be seen. To shine.
"We can shine out bright enough that our energies all interconnect throughout the world, throughout the universe."
Presence, not protection. Openness, not armor. That is the practice.
Sending Reiki Across Time — and Across Generations
One of the most remarkable aspects of Reiki that Jay explains: you do not have to be physically present with someone to offer it. He does all of his sessions via Zoom. Distance is not a barrier.
And even more extraordinary: Reiki can be sent not just across space, but across time — to the past, and into the future.
For generational healing work — the patterns and wounds passed down through family lines — Jay can send Reiki to the source event, the original trauma, and allow that healing to ripple through every generation that came after. This is not metaphor. This is the practice.
The Light Within — A Practice You Can Try Right Now
Jay guides Charla and the listeners through a simple, grounding practice rooted in the Reiki principles. Try it now as you read:
Pause. Just for today. Just for this moment.
Place a hand on your heart — or your solar plexus, or your throat, wherever feels right.
Listen. Notice the sensations and emotions that are present. What is the quiet inner knowing that's already there?
Trust. Trust and discern what's flowing through you — feelings of love, compassion, groundedness. Let them be there without analyzing them.
Allow it to shine a little brighter. Even just one thread of that light. Just a little.
Ask: What is one small step that reflects this wisdom? One thing I can do today that honors this thread of light inside me?
That's it. Simple. Quiet. And powerful enough — if practiced consistently — to shift everything.
A Final Reminder
Jay's entire life's work rests on one foundational truth, and he says it plainly:
"There is a divine presence in each one of us. We are worthy to accept it and to feel that divine love. By remembering that divine — and tapping into that divine wisdom and energy — we can do incredible and wonderful things."
You are not broken. You are not too sensitive. You are not too much. You are a conduit for something that has been trying to work through you all along. The invitation is simply to stop protecting against it — and start listening to it.
Connect With Jay Vee Jackson
Website: illuminereikiacademy.com
Free 30-minute clarity call: available through his website for anyone curious about whether Reiki is right for their path
Jay is based in Ecuador and works with clients worldwide via Zoom
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Sending love, remembrance, faith, and creativity,
