Stefanitely Over It

About

My Healing Journey

My first experience with Reiki was in 2012.

At the time, I was carrying overwhelming stress, anxiety and depression. My mother had recently passed away, I felt trapped in an abusive marriage, and I was trying to navigate cosmetology school while simply surviving each day.

One afternoon, a Reiki practitioner visited our school to demonstrate Reiki for the massage therapy students. I volunteered to be the client.

After the session, I remember feeling something I hadn’t felt in a long time—peace. I felt lighter, calmer and refreshed. I thanked the practitioner, went home and continued with life, never imagining that Reiki would one day become such an important part of my own story.

Years later, in 2021, life had changed in many ways. I had divorced my first husband, moved to Egypt, remarried and become a mother. Yet despite everything that had changed, I found myself caught in another unhealthy relationship and struggling with severe depression, anxiety and burnout.

I was working as an early years educator while also doing hair for friends and family. During one appointment, I opened up to a friend about everything I had been carrying. I told her I hadn’t been sleeping because every time I drifted off, I would wake in a panic, gasping for air, terrified that something was wrong. I genuinely thought I was going to die. 

She asked if I had ever considered a holistic approach to healing.

Then she mentioned Reiki.

Instantly, I remembered that demonstration years earlier.

We exchanged services—a haircut and color for a Reiki session.

This experience was completely different. Years of suppressed emotions and unresolved trauma began to surface. After the session, I felt lighter, calmer and able to breathe more deeply than I had in months.

My friend warned me that I might experience what is often called a healing crisis. I smiled, convinced I felt wonderful and would be absolutely fine.

She was right.

For the next twenty-four hours, I felt as though I had the worst flu imaginable. Then, just as suddenly, it passed, and I once again felt lighter and more peaceful.

Like many people, I believed I was “fixed.”

Over the following years, I booked Reiki sessions whenever I felt myself slipping. I thought of them as occasional top-ups rather than part of a deeper healing process. Eventually, that wasn’t enough.

My depression returned, and I reached a point where I could barely function. I spent most days in bed, only getting up to care for my daughters before climbing straight back under the covers. I was eventually prescribed antidepressants. While medication helps many people, my personal experience was that it wasn’t the right path for me. Each adjustment would bring a brief improvement before I found myself back where I had started.

I also found comfort in travelling to Scotland whenever I could. Each visit allowed me to breathe again, to reconnect with myself, and to experience moments of genuine peace. But once I returned home, the heaviness gradually crept back in.

In 2025, I made the decision to find another Reiki practitioner.

Looking back, that decision changed my life.

These sessions were unlike anything I had experienced before. There was space not only for the treatment itself, but also for reflection afterwards. We explored the emotions that arose during the session, the images and sensations we both experienced, and practical ways I could continue supporting myself between appointments.

Most importantly, my practitioner never promised that Reiki would magically fix everything or replace medical care. Instead, she created a safe, compassionate space where I could begin processing years of grief, trauma, anger and emotional pain that I hadn’t even realised I was still carrying.

For the first time, healing became something deeper than simply trying to feel better.

Reiki became the doorway that opened everything else.

It encouraged me to look inward, to take responsibility for my own healing, and to begin rebuilding my relationship with myself.

My journey has not been linear.

It has been messy.

It has been uncomfortable.

It has been deeply emotional, and at times physically exhausting.

There have been moments when I wanted to give up entirely.

But once you’ve experienced what genuine healing feels like, it’s impossible to go back to simply surviving.

That journey eventually led me to train as a Reiki practitioner myself.

Today, I don’t believe my role is to “fix” anyone. Healing doesn’t work that way. Instead, I offer a safe, supportive space where you can slow down, reconnect with yourself, and begin your own healing journey—whatever that looks like for you.

Whether you’re carrying stress, grief, burnout, emotional overwhelm, or simply feel disconnected from yourself, you don’t have to walk through it alone.

Healing isn’t about becoming someone new.

It’s about remembering who you were before life taught you to believe you had to carry everything by yourself.

I choose to be in service of others and help others through their healing journey so that they don’t have to go through it alone. When you understand that we are all connected, you then understand that we are all in this together.

I would be honoured to walk alongside you as you find your way back to yourself.