Today we’d like to introduce you to Melisa Mitchell.
Melisa, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I am a Holy Fire® III Usui and Karuna Reiki Master and crystal healer with a private healing and teaching practice, but I started out as a high school English teacher. Twenty years ago, I left my desk job working at a small publisher because I wanted to do more–in the words of my idealistic 29-year-old self, I wanted to be “part of the solution, not part of the problem.” Having no clue where to start, I decided to try my hand at teaching.
I found an ad in the paper for an English teaching position at a small Catholic school in Baltimore County. Though I had lived in Baltimore City since graduating from college, City Schools required a teaching certification; Catholic schools did not. I managed to get hired, though I had to talk the principal into it: I was taking a 40% pay cut to go there, and she did not think it was a good idea. I convinced her, though, and, with no training and little clue about what I was doing, I became a teacher.
During the first summer break, I needed to find a second job to help me make up for the pay cut (and for only getting paid during the school year).
I found a summer camp counselor position at the Carrie Murray Nature Center in West Baltimore, working for a magical human named Corinne Parks, who was also reluctant to hire me. I’m not sure what I did to give her the impression that I wouldn’t last there. Still, I was there every summer for ten years, helping to run the day-to-day operations of the camp, writing an environmental curriculum, doing programs, and learning how to handle and care for raptors, snakes, tarantulas, reptiles, and abandoned baby animals.
Corinne and I became friends, drawn to each other because of our mutual love of nature and all things “woo”–everything about the realm of spirituality and the paranormal–including crystals. Sometimes we would spend our lunch breaks “playing rocks,” going through each of our crystal and mineral collections, ooh-ing and ah-ing at our respective specimens. I began to learn more deeply about how to use these stones to support healing intentions.
Corinne also introduced me to Reiki: she is a Reiki Master, trained and given access to the energy by her friend, known to me at the time only as “Reiki George,” a brilliant man whose method of energy healing I accepted but did not understand. One day, when he was visiting, Corinne asked me if I wanted to get Reiki. Always game, I agreed to go into another room with Reiki George, where I sat in a chair with my hands in a prayer position and my eyes closed while he did a secret ritual.
Five minutes later, he pronounced me a Reiki I practitioner. I had no clue what this meant, how to use it, or where it came from. Corinne gave me the high-level summary that this energy is universal life-force energy that I can draw into my body and offer to others through my hands. I practiced a little, but I couldn’t feel it and felt like a poseur. That feeling and some challenging things in my life at the time pushed Reiki to the back burner in my mind for about 15 years.
Five years ago, my best friend Melissa asked me if I wanted to take a Reiki I and II class with her. I was eager to learn about this energy I’d had access to for so long but didn’t know anything about. When I realized that the teacher, Tracy Houchins, is the stepmother of my dear friend and acupuncturist, Tiffany Houchins, I was sold. The class was amazing. I sat through two more of those secret rituals that Reiki George had done, upgrading me to Reiki II.
I had the chance to practice on and with other people, to learn about the history and origins of the system, to learn about the structures within the system, to feel the energy for the first time, and to sit in meditation more deeply than my practice had ever taken me before. It was transformative. On the second day of the class, after our Reiki II attunement, Tracy said that we now had all we needed to hang out our shingles and call ourselves Reiki practitioners.
I chuckled to myself, assuring myself that I am a high school teacher, now teaching in Baltimore City Schools for almost a decade–I had planned to use the energy to create a comforting and healing environment for my students to learn in. Still, at that moment, despite my chuckling and assuring myself, I knew with absolute certainty that I would be a Reiki practitioner.
I talked through this epiphany with Tiff at my next acupuncture session. I am not impulsive. I don’t like change. I did not know how I could be a Reiki practitioner–I knew nothing about starting a business. I didn’t know how to get clients or what to charge them. I didn’t know where I could do this. I’d taken the class for my own edification and to support my students, but as much as I argued against it, I knew with deep certainty that it would be my next step. Tiffany smiled and said, very matter-of-factly, “You’ll practice here.”
I was stunned that, having never had a Reiki session with me (and only having finished the class a week or two before), she was willing to offer me a spot in her wellness center, Woodberry Wellness. I couldn’t turn her down–didn’t want to–so I agreed, but I had no idea where to start. I was scared that I was getting myself too deep into a situation that was out of my league, that I knew nothing about.
My resistance vanished in another acupuncture session, where Tiff strategically needled a spot on the bottom of my foot (Kidney 1, for those who know) that she described as the “push” I needed to jump off the cliff that I was standing on the edge of, looking down, knowing what I needed to do and refusing to do it. She was my first official client after that. I hired a branding expert to help me create my brand and to build my website.
Within six months, I had an established client base, with some who were coming to me every week, some who came every other week, and some monthly. People had epiphanies in their sessions, wept inconsolably as they released things they’d been holding onto for years, and joyfully shared the shifts they were seeing in their lives after they started coming. I went from feeling like an imposter who was getting paid money to stand over someone with her hands held out to feeling like a real Reiki practitioner.
I began to further my studies in Reiki, taking my first two master-level classes with a wonderful teacher named Emily LaBathe. I took additional classes in other forms of energy work and the chakra system. Emily is the person who introduced me to the Karuna Reiki system, as well.
This beautiful energy that aligns with the energies of Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion in Buddhism, and Mother Mary has been transformational in my own healing and in the healing of many of my clients. After those classes, I learned of the Holy Fire® energy discovered by William Rand. I traveled to Sedona, AZ, to learn about this energy from two of the most beautiful souls I’ve met in this life, Laurel Shanti Gaia and Michael Baird.
After spending three days with them, I was a Holy Fire® II Reiki Master. My practice continued to grow, I started teaching Reiki training classes to interested students in Baltimore. I started to offer other workshops about using crystals and working with the chakras.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Since deciding to open my practice, things have been fairly smooth. When the pandemic hit in March of 2020, however, I had to temporarily close my practice for six months. I taught school from home, allowing me to fully isolate myself from the world, and I continued to do distance healing sessions with a few of my most loyal clients.
When I was able to reopen in the fall of that year, my clients were excited, many telling me that they’d been eagerly awaiting in-person sessions. I began with booking one client a day. I was scared to be in a room with another person when I’d barely seen anyone outside of my family for six months, but as soon as I was back in the treatment room with some of these people who had become dear to me, my fear vanished.
I was vigilant, thoroughly protected with PPE, practicing in a heavily ventilated room that was cleaned after each client: I knew I was safe and that I was not putting my clients in danger. I began scheduling two clients a day, then three, then four–and my books were completely full almost every week, often with new clients. People seem to be feeling really drawn to Reiki in this traumatic, destabilizing time.
Though there are many of my early clients whom I’ve lost contact with, I have built up a post-lockdown client base that still keeps me very busy, even allowing me to expand to offer weekday sessions at Sustainability Wellness in Towson in addition to my Sundays at Woodberry Wellness.
I have expanded my “mobile” crystal shop as well from the little craft tote that I carried for years to be able to offer my clients tumbled stones that I recommended for their healing–I now have dozens and dozens of different stones in various forms. I’ve started to do events, and I hope to one day (soon??) open my own non-mobile crystal shop.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about The Space Within Reiki?
I specialize in the use and teaching of two different Reiki systems, crystal healing, and in offering resources to folks to help support their meditation practices, anxiety management, and a host of other inner work. I hold a compassionate space for people who are seeking healing, listen to people’s stories, and connect them to energetic shifts that could help bring about change.
I offer a safe space for people of every definable background to vent, heal, and celebrate their growth. As a veteran teacher in Baltimore City Schools and a resident of Baltimore City for over 25 years, I am deeply committed to offering a source of healing for our community and eagerly welcome anyone who is struggling with anxiety, depression, identity, societal and familial expectations, disconnection, aimlessness, destructive patterns, fear, chronic pain, another disease, or who doesn’t know what they’re struggling with.
My goal is always to remind my clients and my students that they are powerful, valuable, and worthy of all of the love and abundance that this life has to offer and that they have the power to heal. I apply this same approach to my teaching practice. I offer training in all levels of the Usui (“regular” Reiki) and Karuna systems, as well as workshops on how to choose and use crystals for self-healing, how to work with and support our chakras, and how to get out of your own way and welcome in the abundance that life has to offer.
All of these sessions offer information, but more importantly, they offer opportunities to heal, both in individual meditation and in the community The visuals and idea that generated my brand center around succulents. These beautiful plants that grow in spirals from their centers remind us all that “healing begins in the space within”–the moment we realize that something needs to change, healing has already begun within us.
In Reiki, the intention is everything, and I meet my clients where they are and support them in their intentions for their healing journeys with energy, empathy, and sacred space. They feel safe to go within, to find what needs to be healed, and receive energy and wisdom that will help them to change their lives.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
In light of all that is going on in our country, I expect that people will continue to crave relief, growth, and healing. It has become more socially acceptable to seek support for mental and physical health issues, but many people are feeling let down by Western medicine.
Additionally, as more and more people are searching for meaning and spiritual connection in their lives, Reiki supports growth and healing on every level of one’s being and works within any religious system. It helps to release fears and anxiety while supporting good sleep. It is a wonderful complement to medical treatments, psychotherapy, physical therapy, and chemotherapy. It can help to enhance the positive effects and mitigate the side effects of medications and invasive treatment protocols.
There are scientific studies that are now being done to investigate the impact that Reiki can have in a surgical and recovery setting–anecdotal evidence from Reiki practitioners has shown for decades that Reiki helps medical procedures to be more successful, recovery to be shorter, and pain levels to be lower.
As the science catches up to the experiential learning Reiki practitioners have always shared with clients, it is our hope that it will be a routine addition in hospitals, nursing facilities, and palliative care settings.
Pricing:
- Individual one-hour Reiki sessions are $100.
- Reiki training starts at $150 for a 7-hour Reiki I class. Prices go up with each level.
- Two-hour workshops run between $20 and $40, depending on the content.
Contact Info:
- Email: melisa@thespacewithinreiki.com
- Website: thespacewithinreiki.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespacewithinreiki
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thespacewithinreiki
Image Credits
Raven Keyes and Todd Houchins
