"I didn't know my shoulders were up until they came down." I hear that sentence, or a version of it, in most first sessions in Cannes. The tension people carry in the back, neck and shoulders is the kind you stop noticing because it's always there — it becomes the shape of you. Reiki doesn't massage it out. It gets the nervous system to stop holding it, which is a different thing and, for a lot of people, the thing that was actually missing.

This is the plain version of what I see, what one client found, and when you should see a physio instead.

Why massage helps for a day

If your shoulders are tight because of a specific strain — you lifted something, you slept wrong — massage is the right answer and I'll tell you so. But if they're tight because they've been tight for two years, because the jaw is clenched by default, because you sit at a screen braced for the next message, then the tightness isn't in the muscle. It's an instruction the nervous system keeps sending: hold. Massage loosens the muscle; the instruction resumes by the next morning.

A Reiki session works on the instruction. For 45 minutes the whole system gets every signal that it can stop holding — stillness, warmth, nothing asked — and at some point, usually without you noticing, it does. The shoulders drop. The jaw softens. The lower back, which you didn't know was involved, goes heavy.

What one client found

A woman running a business between Antibes and London had carried tension in the back, neck and shoulders for as long as she could remember, and had been getting massage every couple of weeks to manage it. After a few sessions she said two things: that the tension had eased, and — the part she found stranger — that ease of movement was coming back on its own between sessions. She could turn her head in the car without thinking about it. That hadn't happened with massage alone.

I don't claim Reiki did what massage does. I think it addressed why she needed massage every two weeks.

What a session for this looks like

Forty-five minutes, fully clothed, lying on your back. I work from the head down, and stay longest at the jaw, the sides of the neck, the tops of the shoulders and the upper back — often with a hand under the shoulder blade, where a lot of people hold without knowing. Nothing is pressed. Most people feel the drop within ten minutes and describe a warmth spreading down the back.

One session shows whether yours is the holding kind. Four over a month — The Renewal — is where people say it stops coming back.

When to see a physio instead

Pain that shoots down an arm. Numbness or tingling in the hands. Tension after an injury or a fall. Anything that's getting worse, or that a doctor has already looked at and named. See the physio or the doctor first; keep whatever treatment they give. Sessions can sit alongside that for the holding and the rest — that's the right order. Reiki is complementary, not a replacement for care.

Where the hold actually lives

When I ask people where they carry tension, they say shoulders. When I put my hands on them, the hold is usually somewhere else too: the jaw, the base of the skull, the muscles between the shoulder blades, and — almost always — the lower back and the stomach. The shoulders are the part you can feel. The rest is the part that's keeping them up. A session works the whole chain, which is why people often say the shoulders came down and they didn't feel me do anything to them.

FAQ

Can Reiki help with neck and shoulder tension? It helps with the kind the nervous system holds by default — the tension that massage releases for a day and that comes back. People report shoulders dropping during the session and ease of movement returning between sessions.

Is Reiki better than massage for shoulder tension? Different job. Massage for a strained muscle; Reiki for a body that's been holding for years. If massage keeps helping and the tension keeps returning, that's the sign.

How many sessions for chronic shoulder tension? One shows whether it responds. Four over a month is where people say it stops returning on its own.

If your shoulders live near your ears

Message me on WhatsApp. One session, €180, or The Renewal, four sessions for €640, at your home or my space in Cannes. If it sounds like a physio problem, I'll say so first.