One of my goals for Scented Balance is to offer simple and effective tools to help you guard your health and take charge of your overall wellbeing. This week, in looking for alternative ways to stay healthy (especially since I’m uninsured), I explore the question: How does Reiki work?
I continually seek ways to protect and enhance my health without taking yet another pill. I’ve heard so many good things about Reiki over the last few years, but I don’t really understand it as it pertains to health care.
Today, my guest is Tressa Krenzer, a Reiki practitioner in Clemmons, NC and she provides insight and answers into just how amazing Reiki can be for your body, mind and spirit.
Reiki, Divine Intervention and Finding My Way Home: by Tressa Krenzer
Why did I become a Reiki practitioner 8 years ago? For me it came down to the desire I had to help people.
I had been helped so many times, up to that point, that I felt like a cat on my 6th or 7th life. I really wanted to return some of that kindness somehow, although I had no clue on how to do that.
At that juncture in my life I was looking for a way back to myself. I even started practicing yoga around that time. I was still very lost and my priorities were backward. I lived to work and spent way too much energy trying to prove myself and in the process climbed over others to rise above.
I am really not sure what provoked me to look to Reiki and the offering of training with Spiritual Care at the hospital I worked for in Syracuse.
I truly believe it was divine intervention. I was attuned to my first level in 2009 with a small group of individuals. I still remember that feeling of the gates of my crown chakra being expanded and filled with light as Reiki was downloaded into my being.
With the traditional training of Usui Reiki there are three levels of attunement. An attunement is exactly what it sounds like, you are tuned into the spiritual/God/higher-power (Rei) frequency of life force energy (ki). Once I was attuned I was able help myself and others. That is one of the really cool aspects of Reiki, when you are working with a client, that healing is also benefiting you.
Self-Reiki is a recommended maintenance tool for practitioners as your body and mind begins to re-align with each level. My sensitivities increased astronomically after my Reiki II attunement so I had to find ways to protect myself from being bombarded by the energies of those around me.
How Reiki Healing Works
Reiki isn’t directed; once it is invoked, it flows and goes where it’s needed. For example, a client might come in for an issue with their knee, but in reality they might have just started a new job or are in the process of moving. The real issue, which they are probably not aware of, might be they are feeling ungrounded; therefore the energy could be directed by spirit to their 1st or 2nd chakra.
For the first time in my life, I could help folks and not be in charge! When I worked at the hospital I was on call with the Spiritual Care Department to offer Reiki to patients who requested it. At first I was very nervous that I would “do it” wrong. I can tell you one thing, Reiki cannot be done incorrectly because I was never driving the bus, which was probably a really good thing at the time.
I like how one of my instructors described the Reiki process:
“You are just the toaster, if you are not plugged in…no toast, just bread”.
I remember one lady in particular that I worked with who was very close to her final journey in this life. I recall that she was so grateful to just spend some time with me and talk about her rose garden as I shared Reiki with her. She described her garden in such vivid detail that I could smell the fragrant blooms, see the brilliant colors and sense the joy that they brought to her life. She had a recording of blue bird song in her room, which added to the imagery and I think we were both transported to that time in her life. I believe she was open to the experience of Reiki at that moment because she was so close to her creator. Sometimes, I wonder if I got a glimpse of heaven through her eyes.
Then some weeks passed and I received a request to work with a woman who was very angry and agitated with the care she was receiving at the hospital. I really had a sense that she was hurt and scared because she had been just left there by her family. They never visited or inquired about her and she was really lonely. From the moment I cradled her head in my hands she instantly began to relax. I remember getting an image of dominoes falling one by one through her body as each muscle began to surrender to ease. After my Reiki session was completed she was sleeping with a big smile on her face, snoring like a boss! These experiences firmed it up for me: somehow this is what I wanted to do in my life.
How Reiki Helped Through My Own Tough Time
Just 2 years later I completed my third level/Master Reiki training and lost my job, all in the fall of 2011. I am so grateful that I had started my Reiki journey before this loss happened, otherwise I would have completely lost my mind. I was furious that I worked so hard at my job, spent countless weekends working, earned my degree and performed numerous other amazing feats of self-perceived awesomeness and I was still being thrown out with yesterday’s newspaper.
At that time, losing my job seemed to be a complete injustice, but was it? I know now that I was meant to leave that position and that city. I had hit a ceiling and I didn’t even know it. I was in a toxic relationship with what I thought I was and I was attached to it with super glue. Spirit had another purpose for me and I had to let that part of my life die away so I could be reborn and flourish.
That has happened here in North Carolina, my true home. Currently I have such a robust network of kindred souls in my life that it feels like my vibration is always humming. I spent 41 years in Central New York and never came close to finding my tribe.
Some days the gratitude I experience is overwhelming and there are tears of joy. I am still working in the corporate world but I have learned to leave work at the office. I am grateful for this full time job as it helps me prepare for my full transition into the work of my heart’s desire, yoga and Reiki.
I am starting to find my way and only fall off my path every so often when I start believing all the stuff that floats around in my head. Fortunately I have many tools to help me re-center and re-balance. If I can’t do it myself, I reach out to my network and ask for help.
Community is so important especially as you get older. I cannot stress that enough. My husband and I don’t have children and my family is still in New York so I really need my tribe. I believe loneliness can be fatal for some.
My business is Lovingkindness Reiki & Yoga and my studio is in the lower half of my home. I can also be reached through my Facebook page of the same name. This space is dedicated to providing a comforting container of healing light and love for all who visit.
My mission is to continue to learn and grow. I am currently in Yoga Therapy Training with East Coast Yoga Therapy. I do offer Reiki sessions in the evenings and on weekends.
All blessings to each and every one of you for allowing me to be part of your journey.
Namaste.
Tressa, thank you for sharing about the benefits of Reiki. Please do contact Tressa to explore more about how she can help you get and stay healthy – especially if you’re uninsured. I love reading the “why” of someone’s calling especially since Reiki is not considered “mainstream” yet. I’m so grateful to Tressa for sharing her “why”!
As always, I’m so grateful you stopped by. Aromatherapy and holistic life coaching go hand in hand with Reiki. Start your journey today by filling out this contact form. Do it today!
Blessings,
Melissa