My Reiki Story

Reiki came into my life at a time when I was feeling very scattered, disempowered, and heart-broken. I had a friend who was a Reiki healer, and I had done a few sessions with her before. I had found the sessions to be absolutely magical, and deeply transformative. Reiki seemed so mysterious to me, and I didn’t yet understand that practicing Reiki was something that I was capable of.

When I next reached out to her about booking a session, she told me that she was teaching her first ever Reiki 1 class, and that she wanted me in it. “Can one give Reiki to oneself?” I asked. “One can,” she said, “and should, often.” The fates were aligned, and I said “yes”, still not 100% knowing what I was getting myself into.

To be honest, I showed up to that Reiki training in a Brooklyn yoga studio in June of 2016 a little hungover (do not recommend!), dressed casually in a skirt, and felt a little intimidated by the fit folks in yoga leggings around me, who seemed to already be on this path. I had a few years of personal yoga practice under my belt, and a lifetime of magical thinking and witchy curiosity, but I had never thought of myself as a “spiritual” person or capable of being a “healer”.

That first Reiki 1 training was a mystical experience for me. Learning the history, receiving my first attunement, and being in a space of such intentionality and sacredness completely shifted my energy and my mindset. I felt powerful, connected, and capable of taking the reins of my own life.

What followed was an intense period of clearing and synchronicity. The few half-baked romantic entanglements I was clinging to suddenly cleared away (definitely for the better), and I started seeing little moments of magic and messages from the universe in my day-to-day. I started treating myself better. I committed to doing my daily self-healing treatment and repeating the Reiki principles every day. I started to notice shifts in my energy, my magic, and my emotional resilience. I started making major moves and shifts to break cycles and patterns that had been deeply ingrained in my self-destructive habits and beliefs. Things were majorly shifting for me, but I still hadn’t considered treating anyone else, or becoming a practitioner.

Then, the 2016 election happened. It become brutally clear to me that the world was f*cked up, and that I needed to do as much as possible to help others as I could. I registered for my friend’s Reiki 2 training that was happening a week later. Before that training, I haphazardly gave my first Reiki treatment to my friend Annie, in her bed (do not recommend) to intense classical music (also do not recommend), which is so funny to look back on now! 

Reiki 2 was even deeper, even more mystical and even more transformative. Directly afterwards, I volunteered for a Community Reiki event the teacher had organized to raise money for Standing Rock. Nervous as all anything, this was the first time I ever shared Reiki in any kind of public way. I’ve come a long way since then!

What followed was an even more intense period of personal transformation. I began to make real progress healing myself and my past, and putting Reiki & magic towards my future. I read books on Reiki, and started practicing on friends and family on a yoga mat on the floor in my house. I kept up with my self-healing. The deeper I leaned into and committed to working with Reiki, the stronger I could feel it flowing through me, and the more confident I was becoming with my practice.

That winter of 2016/2017, I started attending Reiki shares for practitioners. That is, as the (very true) legend goes, where I met the love of my life, Kat. We were acquaintances at first, and after my teacher/friend and I moved the Reiki shares to the magical healing shack in my backyard, Kat and I became closer. I later realized that we likely fell in love in that little healing shack, sharing Reiki treatments and sly smiles.

Because our love was blessed by and ushered in by Reiki, it came about in a magical, synchronistic, and undeniable way. The first time we cuddled, I could not BELIEVE that another person’s energy could feel that good. We started dating a year after *almost to the exact date* I had taken my first Reiki Level 1 class. A month later, we went to a music festival, declared our love for one another, and gave super powerful joint Reiki treatments to lovely strangers all night. That is where “Reiki with Love” was born.

2017 was a whirlwind and powerful year for me magically, professionally, and personally. I had fallen madly in love with my “Reiki friend” Kat, I had started giving others paid Reiki treatments, I had decided that would be the year I was going to quit my hospitality industry job, and my teacher/friend and I manifested / schemed / dreamed and actually f*cking accomplished our bold vision of opening up a community wellness center in my basement. Kat moved in, along with another collaborator of mine, and we were living the wild spiritual dream life on the compound of 236 Richardson St.

Kat and I completed our Reiki Level 3 and Mastership training the following Spring, and I taught my first Reiki Level 1 class in July of 2018. Over the next year, I taught more Reiki 1 and 2 classes, saw clients, and started my own community wellness / community Reiki program at Firebird after my former business partner had moved on. I hosted my first retreat with my dear friend and collaborator, Kristen. I made incredible friends through my students, clients, community members, and colleagues.

In 2019, Kat and I moved out of Brooklyn, closed the Firebird space, and uprooted our lives to come out to Portland, Oregon. I found an incredible, even *more magical* healing cottage to see clients out of, and started organizing similar types of events that I had hosted in Brooklyn. Then, of course, the pandemic happened. I had to re-format and pivot almost everything about what I thought my business would be.

I started giving powerful distance Reiki treatments online, and started including group Reiki healings in some of my online events. Eventually in 2020 I started seeing clients in-person again (masked up and gloved up), and people started coming back out of the woodwork to receive the Reiki energy healing in person, and find some much-needed connection in the pandemic times. I educated myself and started to consider the ways in which I could begin to decolonize my Reiki practice, and put some thought towards how that would shift my teaching practice and style.

& Now we have arrived to the present moment! In August of 2021, I did my first in-person group Reiki healing event, and it went fantastically! It was so extremely powerful for people, and I found out a lot of folks were interested in learning Reiki from me. It became clear that it was time to start teaching again, and I scheduled my first Portland Reiki 1 Training for October of this year.

I am absolutely honored to share this gift that has done so much for me, and helped me to heal, expand, and feel confident on so many levels. I am overjoyed to initiate others into this gentle energy healing method that can have such potent results of magic and profound, soul-level healing. I feel ready to hold bigger space than ever as a teacher, a mentor, a practitioner, and a compassionate guide. I am ready to keep building community here in Portland centered around healing and magic, and to be the tender of that flame. I am ready for you, should you choose to step into this portal. So much is possible for you here.