Have you ever noticed how your body reacts when you feel stressed or overwhelmed? Perhaps your shoulders creep up toward your ears, your jaw tightens, or your stomach ties itself into a familiar knot.
It is easy to assume these are simply reactions to today's busy world. But very often, these physical patterns are not new at all. Many of them are habits the body first learned in childhood, long before we had the words to describe what we were feeling.
When we step back from clinical labels and simply observe how we grow up, a gentle truth comes into view: the body often holds on to what the mind, as a child, did not yet know how to process.
This is where modalities like Reiki and LaHoChi can offer something valuable: a soft, non-invasive space in which the body may begin to release tension that no longer serves it.
How Childhood Experiences Can Become Physical Tension
As children, our nervous systems are still learning how to navigate the world around us. When we experience emotional distress, whether that is feeling unseen, sensing pressure to perform, witnessing a parent's anger, or simply feeling alone, we do not always have the tools to work through those feelings in the moment.
So the body adapts, in ways that are often unconscious:
Holding the breath, to stay quiet
Tightening the chest or stomach, as a form of guarding
Tensing certain muscles, as if bracing for what comes next
The somatic pioneer Wilhelm Reich described this kind of chronic physical holding as "body armor." What begins as a protective reflex in childhood can, for some people, settle into a lifelong pattern. Years later, someone might notice persistent tension, fatigue, or a low-grade sense of unease, without connecting it back to a much younger version of themselves who once needed to hold on tight to feel safe.
Creating Space for the Body to Let Go
Reiki and LaHoChi are not about extracting memories or forcing a release. Rather, they offer the nervous system an experience of stillness and unconditional presence. Many clients describe feeling a sense of safety during a session that allows something in the body to soften on its own terms.
Here is what a session often involves:
A Calm, Grounded Presence
As children, we rely on the adults around us to help us feel settled, a dynamic sometimes referred to as co-regulation. When that steady presence was inconsistent growing up, the adult nervous system can carry the sense that it has to manage everything alone.
During a Reiki or LaHoChi session, the practitioner's calm, grounded presence offers a different experience: one of quiet support, without needing to carry it all by yourself.
Working Beneath the Thinking Mind
Trying to reason your way through old patterns can sometimes lead to overanalyzing or replaying difficult memories. Energy work instead invites the body to settle at a more sub-verbal level.
During a session, it is common for clients to sigh deeply, feel gentle muscle twitches, notice waves of warmth, or shed a few tears without any particular story attached. This is not distress. Many describe it simply as relief.
Supporting the Body's Sense of Flow
In holistic traditions, unresolved tension is sometimes described as a kind of stagnation, often felt around the chest, throat, or stomach. Reiki and the higher-frequency current of LaHoChi are traditionally used to support a more open, flowing sense throughout the body.
Every Session Is Different
No two sessions are quite the same, because you arrive a little differently each time: your mindset, your stress levels, whatever has unfolded in your life since the last visit. What the body is ready to release varies too. Some patterns shift quickly; others soften more gradually, over the course of several sessions. There is no fixed timeline for this kind of work.
Often, as sessions continue, the process naturally deepens. Once the more surface-level tension has had a chance to settle, the body may feel safe enough to let go of what sits further underneath, layer by layer, as familiarity and trust build over time.
The Body Knows What It Needs
People often arrive with one thing in mind: a tight shoulder, a restless mind, a specific source of stress. But energy does not always follow the same agenda as the conscious mind. It is not uncommon for a session that begins with a simple physical complaint to open into something older, like a childhood memory or an emotion that has quietly been stored for years. We do not decide where a session goes; we hold space and let the energy move where it is needed. In that sense, we see ourselves less as directing the process and more as a channel.
The outcome does not always look dramatic, either. More often, it is quieter: a softening of tension, a nervous system that settles a little more easily. Some of the deeper work, including the gentle release of a past difficult experience, can happen in the background, without you being consciously aware that it occurred. Layer by layer, like peeling an onion, each Reiki or LaHoChi session tends to lift off what is ready to go, revealing a little more space underneath.
From Protection to Peace
The tension you carry is not a flaw. In many ways, it reflects how hard your body worked to protect you when you were young. That armor served a purpose, once.
But it does not have to be permanent.
Reiki and LaHoChi are not about "fixing" a broken part of you. They offer a space to remind the body, gently, that the past has passed, that the present moment is safe, and that it may finally be okay to soften.
Ready to Explore This for Yourself?
At Centre Reiki, we offer a calm, dedicated space to reconnect with your body's own wisdom. Whether you're looking to ease physical tension or soften old patterns, we invite you to experience the restorative quality of Reiki and LaHoChi.
Cédric Suming is a Reiki Usui Ryōhō Master-Teacher, trained in person at the San Francisco Reiki Center, and a LaHoChi and 13th Octave LaHoChi practitioner and teacher. He is the founder of Centre Reiki, 58 rue d'Argout, Paris 2e.
