Learning to Let Go Without Losing Yourself

If you know me, you know I’m a little bit of a control freak.

Not in an OCD, washing-my-hands-300-times-a-day and checking-the-lock-14-times-before-I-leave kind of way. More in an “I love a good plan and don’t like leaving much of anything to chance” kind of way.

I am definitely not a lover of surprises. A day off can have as much of an agenda as a day in the salon. I can roll with things when I need to, but I very much prefer to have some say in the matter.

Which makes it kind of funny that Reiki found its way into my life so quietly.

I was first introduced to Reiki at a retreat for hairstylists and salon owners a few years ago. I’d heard of it before, but I’d never really felt like it was something I needed in my life.

Getting to experience Reiki in a group session at that retreat changed that. It made me curious enough to look into it more.

Not long after, I started receiving distance Reiki sessions from the Reiki master I met there. After about a year of consistent sessions, I decided I wanted to get attuned so I could use Reiki on myself.

And honestly, Reiki started out slowly for me.

Part of it was just getting used to the attunement, and remembering that I had this really useful tool for helping myself stay calm and grounded.

Then this year happened.

A brain tumor diagnosis, surgery, rehab, radiation, and all the strange, chaotic, unbelievable things that came along with them gave me more opportunities than I ever wanted to find out whether Reiki actually helped me.

And it did.

It didn’t make any of those things less scary. It didn’t magically erase stress or fear. But it helped keep me from spiraling when there was a very real chance I could have. It gave me something familiar to come back to when everything else felt completely unfamiliar.

My attunement also gave me the ability to offer Reiki to other people, but for a long time that felt very much like a “someday, maybe I’ll feel confident enough to actually do that” kind of thing.

I pictured maybe adding a little mini session onto a hair appointment for a handful of salon clients who were curious. Nothing more than that.

I also live in the heart of the Bible Belt, so I’ve always been pretty careful about who I talk to about Reiki. I know it can sound very woo-woo to people, especially in a place where so many people go to church every week, send their kids to Christian schools, and may not be especially open to something that isn’t easy to explain.

What changed was this year.

As clients started commenting on how surprised they were by how well I seemed to be handling everything that came with a brain tumor, craniotomy, rehab, and radiation, I found myself talking more openly about Reiki and how much I had leaned on it through all of it.

Somewhere along the way, the thought shifted from “maybe someday I’ll use this for other people” to “this has helped me so much, maybe I’m supposed to share it.”

And that’s really where Aligned started.

Not from some big dream of starting a second business, but from gratitude.

The real a-ha moment came when I decided to start radiation as soon as I was told I definitely needed it.

Meningiomas are slow growing. I could have put radiation off for months, maybe even years. But my immediate reaction was basically, “Nope. Let’s do it. Let’s check the box. Let’s get this handled.”

Hello, control freak.

Then it occurred to me that I was voluntarily signing myself up for something that would almost certainly make me more fatigued when I was already dealing with fatigue from brain surgery.

A few days later, I learned that neuro fatigue could potentially hang around for years.

That was the moment the bigger question hit me: what if I never go back to working the way I did before? What if life as I knew it has to change?

And then, almost just as quickly, another thought showed up.

Hello. You could do Reiki for other people.

I knew how much it had helped me. I knew how much I believed in it. So why wouldn’t I at least try to share it?

The harder part was getting past everything that came immediately after that thought.

What if nobody wants Reiki from me?

What if I’m not really qualified to do this for anyone beyond myself, friends, and family?

What if people think I’ve completely lost the plot?

Starting Aligned meant setting aside a lot of those fears before I felt fully ready. It meant deciding that wanting to help people mattered more than waiting until I felt perfectly confident.

And my hope for anyone who books with me is actually pretty simple.

I want you to walk away feeling a little calmer, a little clearer, and a little more relaxed than you did before your session.

Sometimes one Reiki session can make a noticeable difference. Other times, the shift is quieter and builds over a few sessions.

My goal isn’t for everyone to feel some huge, dramatic transformation the first time. It’s for the people who could benefit from more sessions to feel enough of a difference that they want to come back, and for the people who get a lot from that first session to start recognizing when they could use another one.

More than anything, I want Reiki to feel like something you can come back to when life starts feeling noisy, heavy, overwhelming, or just a little too much.

Bringing Aligned to life has been a huge lesson in letting go.

From building the website myself to working through my own imposter syndrome, I’ve had plenty of moments where I’ve had to admit just how little control I actually have.

And, as it turns out, not having complete control is not the end of the world.

I’ve finally gotten to a place where I don’t need to know every single detail before I say yes.

Would I still prefer all the details sometimes? Absolutely.

But I’m also learning that not knowing exactly what comes next can leave room for something better than what I would have planned for myself.

And maybe that’s what letting go really looks like for me.

Not giving up control completely, but trusting myself enough to move forward without having all the answers.