My Healing Story
When the heart cries out long enough for change, the Universe provides.
On New Year’s Eve 2016, I spent the last $6 in my pocket on my first tarot card reading. After over thirty years of struggling with depression, anxiety, increasing doses of medication, low self esteem, suicidal thoughts, years of being in a relationship with a functioning alcoholic, my life was not truly my own. It may never have been. By that point, I was sleeping 10-12 hours a day. I felt alienated, useless, purposeless, wrong, like I had no place on this Earth. I would later learn that my so-called “personality” was more of a defensive shell I had to construct from codependent, avoidant behavior patterns and trauma in childhood. Books, crystals, fairies, herbs, and all the beauty of the natural world were my friends as the shy, lonely child of a struggling single mom with no family. But once I got to middle school, the merciless teasing derailed me from those interests and my true path.
All I tried to do for the next two decades was to keep my head down. I did not have the tools to know myself or stand up for myself. Survival was success. Going unnoticed, and therefore left alone, was the goal. I craved connection and love, but could not give or receive it in a healthy manner. I was often alone and lonely, losing friend groups often, feeling out of place and trying to “fit in.” I was always working some low-paying, soulless job from age 15 onward, barely scraping by from paycheck to paycheck, soon buried in debt after going to college without guidance or direction. At some point I thought I wanted to study psychology so I could learn to help myself and others, but a friend shot me down and I let the desire to help go back under the surface for a long time.
2017
Back to 2017. Emboldened by the strong positive messages in my tarot reading, I began to keep following the little pings and pulls that kept leading me back to books (and Instagram accounts) about meditation, about mindset shifting, about crystal healing, about manifestation, about astrology. I was struggling to continue down a long path that would lead me to becoming the photographer I am today. By the Fall of 2017, I had begun making enough money to get myself into therapy at a low-cost teaching clinic, and I forced my ex into couples therapy, too.
That Fall, I also went on a vacation to Mount Shasta with my mother, where I bought my first large crystal, a fire and ice quartz generator point whose nametag promised to help me transform the pain in my life and usher in a truer, freer me. Upon the advice of a book I had bought, I brought the crystal up to the top of the mountain at sunset, performed my first cleansing “ritual,” and dedicated the crystal to helping me find my way forward in life, instead of ending it. Soon after, around Christmas, I was driving part time for Lyft to supplement my income as I struggled through photography apprenticeship. I also made a list of things I wanted to have or achieve in 2018. For the first time, I made specific requests instead of piddly generalizations, and I let myself start to dream. To dream BIG.
One of the things I started crying out for, silently at first, though a few times I screamed it aloud during painful moments. I began asking for helpers. I asked for guidance, for teachers. I loved and appreciated my weekly therapy session, but I also wanted to have a loving, supportive community to help lift me up past the places I’d always been. I was starting to feel the stirring of energy, to understand the amount of work it takes to manifest massive change your life, and I asked for the people who could help me learn how to do it to come to me. I asked to be employed by a successful local photographer I admired. I begged for change.
2018
Less than two months later, a girl in town I’d befriended on Instagram invited me to something called a Full Moon Circle she was facilitating. She was a new Shaman and moving from one life to another. I was deeply unhappy with my relationship and looked forward to anything new. The morning before the circle, the local photographer in town I admired opened up a paid internship on her Instagram, and I responded immediately. She got back to me and told me she admired my work (gasp?!) and would love to take me on. I was floored!
When I pulled up to the beautiful mansion in the hills that was hosting the Circle, I began to shrink in fear and shame. I stood in the dark yard, looking in the floor to ceiling windows at this group of strangers in beautiful fancy clothes, and I turned around and headed back to my car, tears and self-hatred beginning to form. And my phone rang. It was the girl from Instagram, and I felt embarrassed that maybe she had seen me lurking outside. She told me they were about to start and to come inside, and I felt like I had to suck it up. I slunk in the door and kept my head down, taking off my shoes in the corner. And voices started calling my name from across the room! It was seriously like angels singing, I had never felt so welcomed and lifted up. One of the voices was that photographer.
The Circle was the beginning of finding all I needed. I cried almost the whole time, haha. There was the absolute safety of sharing in safe space, of feeling allowed to be unhappy, of being allowed to release. It felt nice not having to pay for the time and space, like in therapy. We meditated and journaled and shared. I felt like I had asked for something, and it was given to me. Given without a high price, with expectation. I met women whose success I admired, and learned that their lives were as complex as mine. I heard about energy healing and sound baths and lots of things I thought sounded very expensive and outside my reach. I heard about reiki for the first time.
After my second moon circle, I had enough clarity to know I needed to leave the home I shared with my ex. I did the hardest thing I’d ever done, and I chose myself and my needs over someone else’s. I moved out of our home and back in with my mom, I said it was just for a few weeks, but I would not go back. Within a few days of leaving, it was like a cork was popped. I started sleeping less than 6 hours a night and would want to make stuff and create and read all the time. I began going to Al Anon meetings upon the advice of my personal therapist. My ex did not go to AA. For me, Al Anon was another safe space, a circle of people who could hold a container for my experiences without judgement or stress. I also heard their stories, saw how lucky I was to still be young and able to take charge of my life and my codependent traits. I felt stronger knowing I wasn’t alone, that I had somewhere to go on a Friday evening that didn’t involve a bar or a twelve pack.
In March of 2018 I was covering photography at a professional beauty industry tradeshow. I was thankful for the moon circles, Al Anon, and meditation, but was still in pain and pretty directionless. I walked by a booth with rainbows and crystals on it, offering $35 reiki treatments. That stopped me in my tracks. Reiki! I’d heard about that! What was it?! This wasn’t expensive at all! - I thought all those things, and I signed up for a treatment. I was seated in a plastic chair, and a woman around my mother’s age walked up to me, spinning a piece of crystal on a chain. She told me that I wasn’t even in my body, I was trying to escape, that my lower chakras were completely blocked and my upper ones were overcharged. I started to cry, I couldn’t even believe it. I had not spoked one word to her yet, but she had already divined why I was there.
I was asked to choose a crystal from a bowl and hold it, headphones slipped over my ears to drown out the noise of the tradeshow, and I received a 15 minute treatment. I felt the heat coming from her hands, and the meditation helped me focus and release. Under the powerful warm hands of the practice, I shuddered and cried, and I felt a lot better immediately. I wiped my eyes and blew my nose, feeling lighter and relieved for a little while. I glanced at the price sheets, and my heart sank when I saw the prices of the courses and workshops. I figured this was a nice little interlude, a one-time thing where I got to try reiki for cheap, and I went back to work.
A few weeks later, I answered a phone call from an unknown number. It was Linda, the Reiki Master whose booth I had visited at the tradeshow. She asked me how I was since the treatment, and if I was interested in studying with her and learning to do this for myself in the long term. Her programs focus on healing the self, on transformation and giving women purpose. Figuring this was a sales call, and forgetting that I was supposed to be dreaming big, I told her I had a lot of interest in learning reiki but that I couldn’t afford her courses. I told her to forget about me because I couldn’t pay what she was asking. But Linda heard something in my voice, felt the pain in my energy reading, and she decided to find a way to help me help myself.
What Reiki Has Meant to Me
And suddenly, I looked up and realized I was receiving the help I’d called out for months earlier. I had not one but multiple open, smart, supportive, loving, successful, positive women reaching down to help lift me up. Instead of men who told me I wasn’t good enough, or people who judged my desires as too much, or old friends who could only seem to hold me to our past, I had examples of where I wanted to go and who I could be. I felt truly seen and appreciated, held with care and love. I felt like I wasn’t so alone, like maybe I had a reason for existing after all. I felt hope. And at the same time, I felt my bank account start to grow, with it the freedom to achieve more, and survival shifted toward thriving.
18 months after meeting Linda, I am finishing my Reiki Master Teacher studies. I have used reiki and other energy healing practices on myself daily and have found peace, balance, and purpose that I have never experienced before in my life. Healing has not been a linear journey, and I will always be a student on some level. But I have been able to release an incredible build-up of emotional blockages, negative beliefs, shame, fear, and self-hatred. Anxiety and depression are no longer my calling cards, they don’t shroud my true self. I have uncovered my natural confidence, energy, and personality, a deepening sense of purpose, a passion I always wanted. I ended my relationship and am relearning how to make healthy connections with myself and other people. I have had more than one $5,000 month in my business. I have seen magic happen in this world.
The more I can open and heal my heart, the more I know I am here in part to share this knowledge with others. I will help teach what I have learned to others, I will pass on these gifts of knowledge. I will hold out my hands with the strength and love I have built. Finding and expressing the individual’s highest good is the only way to help the collective consciousness leave behind the darkness of our past.
I will help as I was helped. A rising tide lifts all ships.
So… What is Reiki?
Rei = universal energy/the entire light spectrum / Ki = our physical energy/our measurable light spectrum
The Universe is composed of 99% energy and 1% matter. Humans can only perceive a small portion of the energy spectrum in existence. Reiki is a spiritual system and energy healing practice, defined as using universal life force energy to balance the chakras, which are dense energy centers in the body.
Imbalances and blockages in the Chakras, or physical energy centers, is thought to lead to emotional and physical illness. Reiki practitioners are able to channel pure energy through their palms into the energy fields of themselves or the recipients of their treatment, balancing the chakras back into harmony, opening blockages, and/or releasing stagnant or negative energy. Reiki can contribute to a greater sense of emotional, mental, and physical well-being and peace.
At level 1, students are attuned to channel universal energy through hands-on treatment, and are encouraged to practice on themselves daily before moving on to friends, family, or pets. Reiki 1 as I was taught includes the traditional Usui Reiki Level 1 attunement and treatment hand positions, plus how the Chakra system works, and how to use a pendulum for intuitive guidance and to read the energy of each chakra. Reiki 1 is often enough for many individuals to find the tools to release stress and bring healing, peace, and balance to themselves and their immediate circles.
At level 2, students are attuned to a higher vibrational level and given the ability to send Reiki across space and time. Level 2 Reiki allows for treatments and energy reading across distance, in addition to being able to infuse food and drinks with higher vibrations, and clear energy from spaces and objects. Reiki 2 often adds power and focus to the Level 1 practice.
In my direct lineage, you must be invited to Master Level. At Level 3/Master Level, the practitioner is imprinted even further with mystic symbols and vibrations. Only Reiki Masters hold the symbolic keys to passing on Reiki attunements, both to humans at levels 1-3, and to infuse reiki energy directly and permanently into objects.
My Reiki Lineage
I am finishing Level 3 certification, or Reiki Mastery, in the traditional Usui Method. I am seven master teachers removed from the founder of Reiki, Mikao Usui. Usui Shiki Ryoho, or the Usui System of Natural Healing, relies on the teachings passed down from Usui, who rediscovered and taught modern Reiki in Japan before his death in 1926. Usui was a spiritual and medical scholar, and passed his discoveries and Reiki Mastery Attunement down to a Japanese naval doctor, Dr. Chujiro Hayashi. Before his suicide during WWII, Hayashi passed Reiki Mastery to Hawayo Takata. Takata is credited with bringing Reiki from Japan to the West; she moved to Hawaii and passed on the Reiki Mastery attunement and knowledge as she understood it to 22 individuals before her death in 1980.
The 22nd of those Masters was Barbara Weber Ray, who formed the International American Reiki Association. Barbara Weber Ray passed mastery teaching to Maureen O’Toole, who initiated Kate Hughson-Law. Kate initiated Barbara Van Diest to master level. (Van Diest had received her level 1 and 2 teachings from another of Hawayo Takata’s lineage, Joyce Morris.) Barbara Van Diest attuned Linda Bertaut to Reiki Mastery in 2001. Linda has been teaching self-healing and transformation since then, and is my master reiki teacher and guide.
What Else Reiki IS and Is NOT
As part of a wholistic approach, Reiki can be a powerful tool to aid in reducing stress, releasing emotional trauma, increasing intuitive ability, and finding emotional and physical balance. Multiple modalities of body work, therapy, spiritual practice, and energy healing that are enhanced by the increased energetic ability Certified Reiki practitioners at level 1-3 have received.
Think of reiki as meditation, amplified. Reiki energy is only beneficial, balancing, and loving. During treatment, reiki can feel warm, tingling, or like nothing at all. You may feel joy, love, emotional release, tears, other strong emotions, or nothing noticeable. You may feel energized, or sleepy.
Reiki is not intended to replace professional medical care or advice. We are not licensed physicians or therapists. There are no known side effects or possible harmful effects. Reiki practitioners practice energy work according to their individual lineage, studies, and personal preference. Reiki is not a one-stop or permanent fix! Balanced chakras can go out of balance again, especially if no other changes are made in lifestyle. Occasional sessions can help keep balance, while more frequent sessions are needed to promote deeper healing. This is why becoming attuned to level 1 is so fundamental to those seeking a life-long ability to help balance themselves.
Reiki is not an occult practice. Reiki is not related to or in opposition to any spiritual, religious, or medical practice. It can be incorporated into all dogmas. There are no contraindications. Reiki cannot be practiced by anyone not initiated and attuned by a Master Teacher - the “laying on of hands” is not Reiki energy healing. Reiki energy is not transmitted to the general viewer by waved hands on a YouTube video. Yes, Reiki CAN be transmitted to large groups across space and time at once; but this requires focused attention and direction.
Other energy healing modalities often associated with or used successfully in conjunction with reiki, but that are not part of the traditional foundational teachings: crystals, visualization/manifestation, sound healing, meditation, shamanic practices, essential oil and herbal remedies, pendulum for intuitive answers, journaling, oracle card readings, chakra clearing, etc.
Moving Forward…
I write this story not to convince or explain, but to show part of where I’ve been. To share that transformation is possible. That hope can be learned. That healing and peace are not beyond your reach. I am truly honored when I hear that my treatments have helped someone, or that my presence was soothing. I lead my first New Moon Circle recently, and I am excited to now offer Self Healing Reiki 1 certification classes on an online and one-on-one basis. It’s been a wild ride and I cannot wait to show myself, so that my tribe can find me.
My greatest hope is just that people find their healing. Whether you go find a yoga practice that helps you find peace, or a book that gets your gears turning in a different way, or an acupuncturist who changes your life. Whether you want to try a meditation app or crystal healers or go on a silent retreat to Bali or try a DMT ceremony (also done that one) or even take a Reiki 1 class from someone else… just do it. You’re so worth it.
The beacon is on. Come dance with me in this light.
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Meghan Smolka is a professional photographer and energy worker based in Oakland, California. She is Certified in Level 2 Reiki, Energy Healing & Space Clearing, and will complete her Reiki Mastery and sound healing studies in March 2020. Meghan has also added Siddha Kundalini energy healing into her work as a sound and group healer, and facilitates all-gender moon circle ceremonies in person and online, with the intention of providing a safe place to bring people together for connection and healing as we move into an unprecedented time of human expansion and change.
Connect with me daily on Instagram at @meghansmolka or email me