When she first heard about reiki, a method of alternative healing through energy-field manipulation, Megan Fife-Boswell was less than impressed.
“I was probably a little bit skeptical, you know?” Fife-Boswell said. “It’s kind of like a little like ‘woozy Susie,’ whatever, you know, energy or spirit and all this stuff.”
Now the co-owner of Norman’s Transcend Wellness, a recently opened “alternative and holistic health” service center specializing in reiki, Fife-Boswell has since changed her mind.
“In my experience of having it done on me and seeing other people’s enlightenment moments in the journeys they’re on, I’ve discovered that, the phrase I like to use is that ‘Everything is spiritual,’” she said. “We’re not talking about anything different; we’re just talking about tapping into yourself and the energy that you have on the inside of you that, for some reason, you’ve been blocking or you’ve been holding back. And I think what we’re finding, or what I’m finding anyway, going from a skeptic to where I am today, is my skepticism was what was holding me back. That was my block.”
One of the transformative personal experiences Fife-Boswell witnessed was that of her wife, Ashton Boswell, who began seeking holistic healing methods for her abdominal pains when conventional medicine offered no answers.
“I exhausted all my Western medicine options,” Ashton Boswell said, “and so I started looking at alternative things that I would never have tried before like acupuncture, massage, chiropractic, energy work…. I started first having energy sessions done on myself and then once I saw improvement and things started helping that nothing else had helped thus far, I was like ‘Oh, there’s something here.’ So after that, I actually had to learn it.”
Certified as a reiki practitioner in 2015 after traveling to Asheville, North Carolina, to study the hands-on healing method, Boswell received her master certification in January, enabling her to teach reiki classes of her own.
“I had the idea that I wanted to be able to give back to people and help them the way reiki helped me,” Ashton Boswell said, “and there wasn’t a whole lot like that here in Oklahoma just because we are behind the times a little bit.”
Rocks on
Fife-Boswell, who also works as a real estate agent, said the scarcity of alternative healing services in the Norman area inspired them to open Transcend Wellness.“We knew that reiki is something that isn’t offered in Oklahoma as much as other parts of the country and world,” she said, “but Eastern medicine is only going to continue to gain traction as other people keep hitting roadblocks and brick walls with Western medicine.”
A typical reiki session lasts one hour, but 90- and 120-minute sessions also available. Boswell said new clients can also expect an element of “life-coaching” as she determines the best approach to their specific situations.
“Say it’s your first session,” Ashton Boswell said. “We would sit down for like 15, 20 minutes before your session and have a consultation, basically just to see where you’re at energetically, to see what’s been going on with you, what you’ve been doing, what we really need to focus on during the reiki session.”
Clients remain fully clothed during the session, which Boswell compared to acupuncture therapy, with a few notable differences.
“Reiki is similar, but instead of needles, we use our hands. Instead of meridians, we’re putting them on your chakras to get the same life force energy to flow through you to be able to heal. People that aren’t sick can have it too, for well-being and balance of mind, body and spirit. People come in all the time just to ground and balance themselves.”
For an extra charge, Ashton Boswell will incorporate elements of aromatherapy or crystal therapy into the reiki session. Transcend Wellness also sells healing crystals and sage bundles for smudging, the ritualistic burning of herbs. She said the long-term objective for the business is to branch out into several different types of holistic healing.
“The goal is to have a center in Norman that offers multiple alternative therapies all under one roof,” Ashton Boswell said. “An acupuncturist, a nutritionist, massage therapist, an herbologist. Float tanks, salt rooms, a dietician.”
Transcend Wellness currently refers clients to other practitioners for these services. The website, where clients can schedule session appointments cautions: “Reiki is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent disease and is not a substitute for medical care. Please consult an appropriate health care practitioner about any medical concerns that you have.”
Fife-Boswell said the health service center is also beginning to build a sense of community among its clients, dubbed the Good Vibe Tribe.
“I think our mission at Transcend is really to hold a space for people,” she said. “When people start to experience that peace of mind and heart and body and start owning themselves again, they’re really excited to know that there’s other people like them who aren’t OK with just the grind of daily life but really want to tap into a deeper meaning outside of maybe church or religion or something like that. So we’ve also really begun to create kind of a small community of people male and female, young and old who really like to interact with one another.”
Print headline: Good chi, Transcend Wellness builds positive energy with its reiki treatments.
