Children are always asked the question “what do you want to be when you grow up then?” but I always dreaded having to answer and disappoint! By the time I was 16, all the other girls at school were buckling up and narrowing their focus for futures in law, medicine or business but I felt lost, inadequate and only ever certain of three things.

1. Drama was the subject I lived for, I could study endless texts and perform all day long and never tire. I would memorize lead roles for 2 hour long plays weeks before the first rehearsal, desperate to get the emotion to life on stage. Curtains Up! Unfortunately, a career in acting was somewhat frowned upon and considered rather beneath the young ladies of ‘Queens Gate School for Girls’. Drama was simply a polite box ticking nod to the arts curriculum, not a serious career option.

2. My Dad was my absolute hero and his amazing voice shone a very bright light in my world. Singing was one of the passions we shared and no matter whether it was the playful joy of ‘The bare necessities’ or the power of Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’, I would hit those notes with an energy that was ‘super charged’ by connecting to his. However, I was never going to pursue a singing career. True to form, I was only brave enough to go as far as the school chamber choir (and sing down the phone to my grandparents in Denmark when my mum insisted!)

3.) I wanted people to be happy. That was my core ‘raison d'etre’. If everyone in my presence was ok, so was I.

I was the kind of child who would naturally be drawn to the one person in a room of a hundred who was carrying a sadness or discomfort. I was labeled as ‘sensitive’ and my confidence suffered as a result but it was more than that, I knew I could feel what other people were feeling. I would feel it so intensely that I would go out of my way (for as long as it took) to find their smile and make them ok again. I could sense suffering as if it were my own.

With very little careers advice from my school (other than a somewhat unhelpful aptitude test suggesting I pursue a career as a nun), I opted for a BA Hons in Film & Theatre at the University of Reading. Although it had been drummed into me at school that this was not a sustainable career for the rest of my life, the emotional connection between theatre and it’s audience was my ‘home’ and it brought me a full heart of abundance.

The seed of my Reiki career already had it’s roots in the ground of emotional connection and compassion, but it would be a journey of 30 years before the shoots found their light to grow.

After all “Reiki is love” - Dr Mikao Usui