I am based in the beautiful village of Stretton On Dunsmore, in the Warwickshire countryside, just a short distance from Rugby, Leamington Spa and Coventry, where I'm currently running my part time business with the hope of seeing it expand and grow over time. I love catching up with friends and family over food and getting out in nature for walks, exploring coast, old country houses and castles, especially when there's a tea room at the end of it with a good flat white and a chocolate brownie waiting for me. I've always had an interest in holistic therapies and spirituality, but this has definitely increased in recent years following a number of life changing and life affirming events.

 

They say that Reiki finds you and that was certainly the case for me. It seemed to keep appearing in my life as if trying to tell me something, which indeed it was. ​It was around 2010 that my uncle started receiving regular Reiki treatments at a hospice day centre that he attended weekly. He found it to be extremely calming and spoke of the heat and energy that he felt from the healers hands, along with the beautiful colours and aura's that he experienced during treatments. I was intrigued.

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​​​​​​​​​​​​Over the course of the next few years I found myself bumping into Reiki practitioners and teachers without ever seeking them out. Eventually I had a short Reiki taster sessions at a workplace Health & Wellbeing event which lead to me booking my first full Reiki treatment. I felt so good for several weeks after this and believed that I could really benefit from having regular treatments, so I approached one of the Reiki teachers that I had met along the way and asked if he would consider treating me on a regular basis. His response was that I should learn Reiki, as I would then be able to treat myself as well as others. So, in early 2021 he gave me my first Reiki attunement, just before the UK went into the first Covid lockdown. I felt that I had been reconnected with something familiar, something ancient that I had somehow known long before, maybe in a previous life time, even. I was seeing the world through fresh eyes with a new vibrancy and I was immediately hooked.

 

Lockdown meant that I was unable to get together with my Reiki teacher and continue my training but what it did offer me was plenty of time. So I threw myself into it and started to meditate daily, researched and studied Reiki, read many books, and practiced self-healing almost everyday. Reiki helped me to become calm, centred and grounded; to feel balanced, grateful and contented and it reduced my usual state of worry in a time of huge uncertainty, when cases of anxiety were on the increase globally. Reiki also helped me to process emotions and deal with the then recent grief and the loss of several family members.

 

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I have always loved helping others and have always worked in service roles but I have never really known what I wanted to do, but by the end of 2021 I felt that I'd found my calling and knew that I had to become a Reiki practitioner and share this amazing energy. So in January 2022 I dropped a day from work and used the time to complete my training, work towards building my own business and getting The Reiki Bear off the ground.​​​​​

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In 2026 in search of clarity and wanting to be able to offer the most authentic Reiki experience that I was capable of, I went back to the beginning and restudied Reiki level 1 (Shoden) & level 2 (Okuden) in the traditional Japanese system and lineage, Usui Reiki Ryoho. It has been interesting to see how this has transferred and developed into the Western system and lineage, Usui Shiki Ryoho. Reiki essentially is a meditation practice and is about a journey of self development and spiritual development. The palm healing that we learn and come to use on ourselves and others and which has become known as Reiki, is very much a secondary part or bi-product of the original practice, yet such a powerful thing to be able to share.

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