Energy Healing
Are You Longing to Feel More Grounded, Resourced, and at Home in Yourself?
Sometimes we carry more than we can name. Stress settles into our shoulders, grief sits heavy in the chest, and old patterns keep looping even after we've talked them through. Many of us sense that healing asks for something beyond words.
Energy healing offers a way (to access) the body's own intelligence. In a Reiki or intuitive healing session, you're invited to slow down, receive support, and let your system recalibrate and return to a more balanced state.
At the Somatic Nature Therapy Institute, we see energy healing as one more doorway into the wisdom of our body-minds. Whether you're moving through a life transition, recovering from a hard season, or simply wanting to feel more like yourself, we'd love to support you.
What is Energy Healing?
Energy healing is a broad name for practices that work with the subtle life force moving through all living things. Traditions around the world have a word for it: qi in Chinese medicine, prana in the yogic traditions of India, ki in Japan. Across cultures and centuries, people have understood that when this energy flows freely, we tend to feel more vital, clear, and connected.
When we move through stress, trauma, or loss, that flow can get stuck or scattered. You might notice it as fatigue, restlessness, numbness, or a sense of being cut off from yourself. Energy healing works with these patterns directly, supporting your body's innate capacity to settle, restore, and heal.
We offer two forms of energy healing: Reiki and intuitive healing. You can receive either one on its own, combine them in a single session, They may be an “add-on” to your ongoing therapy session to help integrate the material you are exploring.
Who Can Energy Healing Support?
Energy healing can be a nourishing support in many seasons of life. People often come to us when they're:
Feeling stressed, depleted, or burned out
Moving through grief, loss, or a major life transition
Wanting extra support alongside trauma therapy or EMDR
Living with anxiety or a nervous system that won't settle
Craving deeper rest and better sleep
Feeling disconnected from their body, intuition, or sense of purpose
Preparing for or recovering from a medical procedure, as a complement to their care
Longing for a more spiritual dimension to their healing
Simply wanting to feel more like themselves again
Energy healing complements medical and mental health care and is never a replacement for it. If you're managing a health condition, we encourage you to stay connected with your healthcare providers.
A Brief History of Reiki and Energy Healing
Hands-on healing is one of the oldest forms of care we know. Healers, elders, and medicine people in countless cultures have worked with touch, prayer, breath, and presence to restore balance in body and spirit. We honor these lineages, many of them Indigenous and ancestral, and the land-based wisdom they carry.
Reiki as it's practiced today was developed in Japan in the early 1920s by Mikao Usui. The word joins two Japanese characters: rei, often translated as universal or spiritual, and ki, life energy. Usui's student Chujiro Hayashi carried the practice forward, and in the 1930s Hawayo Takata, a Japanese American woman from Hawai'i, trained with Hayashi and later brought Reiki to the United States. From there it spread around the world.
Today, Reiki is offered in hospitals, hospices, and integrative health centers as well as private practices, often alongside conventional medical care. Intuitive healing draws from many of these same roots, along with each practitioner's own training and inner listening.
What is Intuitive Healing?
Intuitive healing is a more personalized, responsive form of energy work. Rather than following a set sequence, the practitioner listens to your body, your energy, and their own inner knowing, and follows what wants attention. A session might include hands-off energy work, reflections on patterns or parts that are asking to be seen, imagery, breath, or connection with the natural world.
Intuitive healing is collaborative. You remain the authority on your own experience, and anything that arises is offered as an invitation for you to explore, never a verdict.
What is Reiki?
Reiki is a practice of light, non-invasive touch, or hands held just above the body, that supports deep rest and balance. You stay fully clothed, while the practitioner moves through a series of hand positions. People often describe warmth, tingling, waves of relaxation, emotional release, or simply the best rest they've had in weeks.
Reiki doesn't ask you to believe in anything or do anything. Your role is to receive. Because it works with the nervous system's natural movement toward ease, many people find it a supportive companion to trauma healing, especially in moments when talking feels like too much.
What Does an Energy Healing Session Look Like?
Every session begins with a conversation. We'll talk about what's bringing you in, what you're hoping for, and anything that would help you feel safe and comfortable. From there, we'll set an intention together.
During the energy work, you'll rest in a chair, fully clothed. Touch is always your choice; energy work can be done with hands just above the body, and we'll check in about your preferences before we begin. Some people drift into a dreamy state, others stay present and notice sensation moving through them. There's no right way to experience it.
We close with time to integrate: sharing what you noticed, grounding back into your body, and sometimes a simple practice to take with you.
Sessions are 30-60 minutes and offered in person at our South Boulder office, outdoors on the land near Ward, Colorado, and as distance sessions online.
How Energy Healing Weaves Into Our Somatic and Nature-Based Approach
Energy work fits naturally into the way we already practice. Somatic therapy teaches us that the body holds our stories; energy healing gives us another language for listening to them.
Our Background With Energy Healing
Anne-Marie Chmielewski is a nature-based chaplain. As a nature-based chaplain, her role is to support you in exploring questions of meaning, purpose, identity, values, and belonging—especially as they arise through your relationship with the natural world. Anne-Marie offers a grounded, compassionate, and nonjudgmental space where you can reflect on your spiritual and existential journey, including your connection to land, place, ancestors, seasons, and the more-than-human world.
Anne-Marie has the following training and experience as it relates to energy healing:
Plant Spirit Medicine Mentorship- Ongoing
Reiki Levels one and two
Two plus years training at Academy of Intuitive Medicine
Graduate degrees in Consciousness, Healing and Ecology and Women’s Spirituality
Frequently Asked Questions
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No. Many people come in curious or a little skeptical. All you need is a willingness to rest and notice what you experience.
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Reiki follows a traditional set of hand positions and focuses on deep rest and balance. Intuitive healing is more responsive, following what your body and energy seem to be asking for in the moment. Many sessions blend both.
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Yes. Distance sessions are a long-standing part of Reiki practice. You'll rest comfortably at home while we connect by video, then close with time to share and integrate.
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Energy healing sessions are private pay. We're happy to provide a receipt, and you can ask your provider whether it qualifies.
Are You Ready to Reconnect With Your Innate Capacity to Heal?
Your body has carried you through so much. Energy healing offers a chance to return some of that care, to rest, receive, and open yourself to more compassion, health, and flow. If you're curious whether Reiki or intuitive healing might be a fit, we'd love to hear from you.