The Lounge Q+A: Michelle Kennedy, Reiki Master

How have you pivoted in your career?

This past January, I shut the doors of my yoga business and went fully Reiki. It was mostly yoga before. When I became a Reiki master, I was doing it here and there and having healing circles. I would say over the past two years, it seemed that Reiki was getting more business and yoga was lightening up. I think there are a lot of energetic shifts in the world that maybe were pulling people more towards energy and less towards physical workout. If they wanted a physical workout, they would go to the gym. I just kind of took that leap and said, okay, I’m going fully into Reiki. I feel like it was perfect timing, divine timing, because with the shutdown, I had a good group of regular clients that come to me for different reasons, whether it’s anxiety or stress or trauma, and they need regular work.

What would you tell an aspiring Reiki healer?

I always tell everybody, the first thing you should do is try a session. Call around or email or text and contact people and see if you fit with their vibe before you even have a session. If you have a session with them, say, ‘I want to do this”, because everyone brings their own thing to the practice of Reiki healing. Where I can connect to the past lives, somebody else may connect to different things or be more of a medium and do card readings. The other thing that I always say to people is that even if you don’t want to be a Reiki healer or Reiki master, like I am, the intro to self-healing is good self-care for every person in the world.

What are some new aspects of your business?

I recently started doing more mini workshops and some of them that are accessible to people who do not practice Reiki, because I know that’s not everyone’s path. Last month, we had a class on crystals, this month I’m doing one on chakras. I’ve also thought about it for many years, but haven’t had the time to sit down and write a book. Everybody who works with me says you say so many wise things, and they’re so helpful to me. You should write a book. Now that we’ve been slowed down by the world, I have been starting to jot down notes, paragraphs, and forming chapters in my head of what should be included in this book.

What is something you live by?

I’ll say that our best life is not happy, happy, joy, joy, all the time. We have to have these different shades. So a big thing that I tell people is to embrace your light and your dark. When you embrace it, your darkness comes into the light, and you can start recognizing the dark elements of yourself. The skeletons in your closet make you who you are, and you are just perfectly you. When we embrace that and feel more confident, we have contentment come in and have inner peace come in. And when we have all those things in alignment, we feel strong and confident about ourselves. And then we can live our best life.

What did you do before becoming a Reiki healer?

I was an optician, which is kind of like a pharmacist for your eyes. I can take measurements and make glasses, sell glasses, etc. I transitioned from that job into becoming a yoga teacher because I felt more called to do that. I fell into the optician thing out of a college job, and that made sense, it was stable, and I was good at it. But the thing that I loved most about it was helping people, and I wouldn’t say I liked the retail aspect, retail hours and unhappy customers. When I got into yoga myself, just as a practice, I felt at home like I touched on something in myself, and that led me to Reiki after that. I’ve had many lifetimes of jobs in this particular life, but now I’m home.

What tools help you in your business?

First of all, I love Pocketsuite. I’m so glad I found you. I left MindBody when they jacked their prices way up because I’m a solo practitioner, and I couldn’t afford them. I was there in the early days of Pocketsuite, and I loved that. I was with you before you had classes as an option, and I was like, “Hey, I need to do class and packages and boom, somebody did it!” I love Pocketsuite and feel like it’s a community, and I’m thrilled to be having this conversation.. I’m sure many solo practitioners like me use Pocketsuite. It’s great that you’re bringing us all together. I believe that many “Helpers” use Pocketsuite, therapists and trainers, and people like that. So keep doing that! We are called to be the Helpers of the world. So keep at it!