For a long time, I believed I wasn’t a resilient person. As an empath and a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), I often felt overwhelmed by the world. I used to think that my sensitivity was a weakness. I thought being resilient meant being “tough.” However, as I entered my 40s, I came to a significant realization: I am incredibly resilient; not despite my sensitivities, but because of them.
This shift in perspective happened during one of the most difficult periods in my life. Within a short span of time, I lost my mother, navigated a high-stress career change, and managed the declining health of my father; all while raising two school-aged children. This period culminated in the death of my father. It was a period of grief and trauma, loss on many levels, and high stress. Yet in the middle of that storm, I discovered a self-care tool that transformed me: Reiki.
What is Resilience and Post-Traumatic Growth?
Resilience is defined in simple terms as “bouncing back” from an adversity or hardship (Kamenetz, 2025). Post-Traumatic Growth, a term coined in 1995, goes a step further to describe when people not only bounce back from hardship, but also show improvements in their lives.
Misconceptions about Resilience
I think it’s also important to distinguish resilience and post-traumatic growth from toxic positivity. It’s important to feel our feelings and to let them move through us, not to deny or repress them. Resilience does not mean that the stress and trauma was a good thing or that it “happened for a reason.” I am not grateful that the difficult things happened to me and no one should be. Toxic positivity on the other hand is that belief that no matter how difficult a situation is, you should have a positive mindset or “good vibes only.” It encourages our feelings to be invalidated and ignored, which is never helpful. Toxic positivity can promote shame by causing you to think you are doing something “wrong” if you aren’t happy.
I’d also like to make a second clarification. We often mistake resilience for ‘toughing it out,’ imagining it as a shield we carry to survive adversity. For a long time, I thought I lacked resilience because I wasn’t getting harder or more guarded; I was actually becoming softer. I realized I was looking for a rigid kind of strength that didn’t align with who I am.
To me, resilience is the courage to stay soft when life feels heavy. Instead of building a fortress to keep the pain out, I learned to breathe through the storm, trusting my ability to expand rather than break. I didn’t survive those years by bracing for impact, but by learning to stay compassionate, open, and fluid; like water that finds its way through the tightest spaces without losing its essence.
For me I’ve found that true healing (and true resilience) begins the moment you stop hardening and start letting the energy move through you again.
What influences resilience
It’s important to realize that resiliency is not something you either have or don’t have. Everyone has the ability to be resilient. There are several factors that can increase our resilience.
Protective factors
Protective factors are the key to resilience. Protective factors are both internal (personal qualities and characteristics about yourself) and external (things in the environment that help you). Internal protective factors include optimism and hope. External factors include community social supports and supportive personal relationships.
Internal Locus of Control
Another way to increase resilience is by having an internal locus of control. This refers to how much you believe that you have control over the outcome of events in your life. In other words, we can’t control the storms that blow in, but we can control how we manage our own inner environment.
Reiki and Resilience
Reiki has many benefits, the first and foremost is that it reduces stress. Regular Reiki sessions can serve as the external protective factors that help you reduce stress in the face of adversity. I began receiving regular Reiki sessions during the stressful period in my life that I mentioned.
While Reiki is not a substitute for medical care or mental health treatment, it is an excellent addition to it. Some Reiki practitioners, like myself, have backgrounds in psychology or social work, which is a nice bonus.
But what if you need more support in between Reiki sessions or during an in-the-moment recurrent stressful event? For me, this is the reason I became Reiki 1 attuned. The first degree of Reiki healing focuses exclusively on self-healing. You do not need to progress further in your Reiki training if all you want to do is to be able to help yourself. This was my initial goal with Reiki training: self-healing.
Self-Reiki can provide you with that internal locus of control. You have a tool literally in your hands and you can use it at any given moment to combat stress whether you are in a meeting, at a stop light, or watching tv. Having this tool available to you will help cultivate a sense of hope and optimism in you which is an internal protective factor.
Reiki can provide external social protective factors in many ways. I attend Reiki shares which are free events where we practice Reiki on each other. I have kept in contact with individuals from my Reiki classes and some of us meet as a group over Zoom. The Reiki Master I receive sessions from is a person I trust who I have built an important relationship with. There are also Reiki request groups where people can ask to have Reiki sent to individuals. All of these are ways Reiki can create relationships and community that serve as external protective factors.
Reiki and Post-Traumatic Growth
Reiki can also be a tool you choose to use to help others with. Once you receive the Reiki 2 training, you can then use Reiki to heal others in-person and send Reiki distantly to people not physically present with you. For me, this is how I found post-traumatic growth. I not only had a wonderful self-care tool for myself, but I expanded upon it and learned to use it to help others and to be able to teach others how to use Reiki. It has been one of the more fulfilling experiences I have had.
However, you don’t have to become trained to give Reiki to others to experience post-traumatic growth through it. Reiki can work on any situation you bring to it and it often helps you find new insights into situations. Through Reiki sessions, you might discover something that helps you find a passion, cause, or a hobby that brings you great joy and fulfillment. Post-traumatic growth might be something that seems small that brings greater meaning to your life. Reiki can help you find this just by receiving its energy.
Final Thoughts
Reiki can be a powerful tool to add to your toolbox and help you boost resilience. It can even help foster post-traumatic growth. Reiki can help build both internal and external protective factors to help you navigate the especially stressful periods of life. With Reiki at your side, you can handle any challenge that life throws your way.
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Disclaimer: These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This post as well as products or services listed are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Reiki is a powerful energetic tool, but it is a complementary practice and not a substitute for professional medical or mental health treatment, especially when dealing with trauma.
References
Kamenetz, A. (2025, May 8). You really can recover from a painful experience-and be better than before: It’s called post-traumatic growth. Scientists explain the keys to achieving it. National Geographic. Apple News+
Henderson, N. (2012) The resiliency workbook: Bounce back stronger, smarter, and with real self-esteem. Resiliency in Action.
