From My Father's Arms to the Healing Arts

As an infant, I suffered from colic. My father tells stories of carrying me around the house late at night, my tiny belly draped across his forearm while he gently soothed me back to calm. My mother, exhausted from caring for a restless newborn, would finally get a moment of sleep in the quiet of the night.

Looking back now, I sometimes wonder if my little stomach was unsettled by the bottle-fed formula she had been told to use — or if I was just a sensitive soul, upset with my choice to come back to earth for yet another round of lessons. In any case, I formed a deep bond with my father very early on. He became a place of safety, comfort, and grounding.

 Over the years, he taught me many things — not only discipline through martial arts, but also deeper teachings about energy, awareness, and the spirit of life itself. Some of my favorite memories were sitting down together to watch and retell stories such as Star Wars and The Karate Kid.

He would often quote Mr. Miyagi while teaching karate classes, sometimes slipping into the accent with a grin while his students tried not to laugh. Two to four times a week — often for hours at a time — I watched lessons unfold that extended far beyond foundational movements. He taught respect, patience, balance, and discipline. Ultimately, I learned to trust in myself.

 I've also always been a huge Star Wars fan. It just makes sense to me — galaxies constantly trying to maintain balance between light and dark, mirroring life itself. We are always working to find that balance within; work and rest, logic and emotion, strength and softness, giving and receiving. Maybe that's why these stories stayed with me for so long. Beneath the fantasy, they were always teaching something deeply human.

At the time, I didn't fully understand what I was witnessing. To me, karate was about connecting with my father, making new friends, and competing against a past version of myself. But as I grew older, I began to realize martial arts was never just about self-defence. Beneath the disciplined movements were deeper teachings about respect, awareness, emotional control, and energy.

Team Kata (1997) - Gold medalist

Long before I ever practiced Reiki, I was already being introduced to many of the same principles through karate. Breath. Presence. Grounding. Balance. Learning how energy moves through the body. Understanding when to soften and when to stand firm.

In many ways, both martial arts and Reiki teach the same lesson: true strength is not about overpowering others. It is about learning to understand yourself.

 As I have stated before, movement and emotional energy are deeply connected — because emotions are not just thoughts. They are physical experiences happening within the body.

 When we experience stress, grief, fear, excitement, joy, or anger, the nervous system responds in real, measurable ways. Muscles tighten. Breathing changes. Posture shifts. The heart rate fluctuates, hormones activate, and energy either expands or contracts. The body remembers these experiences even when the mind tries to move on.

This is why people so often describe their emotions in physical terms — a weight on their shoulders, a knot in their stomach, a feeling of being frozen, or simply unable to breathe. The word emotion can literally be read as "energy in motion." When that energy is suppressed, ignored, or held for long periods of time, the body begins to carry it — as tension, fatigue, overwhelm, or emotional dysregulation.

Movement helps interrupt that stagnation. Practices like martial arts, dance, yoga, walking, breathwork, and strength training give the body a way to process and release what the mind has been holding. We can feel emotions shifting even when we are not consciously "working on" anything.

Focused physical movement teaches grounding under pressure, controlled breathing, body awareness, and emotional regulation through repetition and focus. There is something deeply healing about learning that the body is not your enemy. Many people live disconnected from their physical selves due to stress, shame, trauma, or chronic overwhelm. Intentional movement can rebuild that trust.

Unfortunately, some emotions cannot be exercised or “therapized” away. Sometimes the body needs energetic movement to release what words cannot.

This is exactly where Reiki comes in…

Reiki & Crystal Healing Session

While physical movement works from the outside in — loosening tension through breath and action — Reiki works from the inside out. It is the practice of channelling universal life force energy, known in Japanese as ki, to support the body's natural ability to heal and rebalance itself. Where movement interrupts stagnation through the physical, Reiki addresses it at the energetic level, working directly with the subtle currents that run beneath the surface.

Central to this work is understanding and supporting the chakras — seven primary energy centers that run along the spine, from the base of the body to the crown of the head. Each chakra governs different aspects of our physical, emotional, and spiritual experience. When energy flows freely through these centers, we tend to feel grounded, clear, open, and well. When it becomes blocked — through unprocessed emotion, chronic stress, old wounds, or disconnection from self — we begin to feel it. The body speaks first, often long before the mind catches up.

In a Reiki session, a practitioner gently places their hands on or just above the body, moving through each of these energy centers with presence and intention. The energy goes where it is needed. What is blocked begins to soften. What has been held begins to release. Clients often report a deep sense of calm, warmth, tingling, or emotional release — sometimes laughter, sometimes tears, often simply a quiet feeling of coming home to themselves.

What moves me most about this work is how it mirrors everything I learned early on — from my father's steady hands guiding me through a kata, to the quiet wisdom of Mr. Miyagi, to the Force itself. It has always been about the same thing: learning to feel the energy within and around you, trusting it, and allowing it to move.

Healing is not always loud. Sometimes it is simply learning to be still enough to listen — and gentle enough to let go.

What is Reiki and How Does it Work? | Reiki Healing in Edmonton

Reiki is a gentle, intuitive form of energy healing that originated in Japan in the early 20th century. The word Reiki comes from two Japanese words: Rei, meaning spiritually guided, and Ki, meaning life force energy. Together, Reiki translates to “Spiritually guided life force energy”. This term refers to the subtle, intelligent energy that flows through all living and material things.

If you’re searching for Reiki in Edmonton or near Sherwood Park, Beaumont, or Leduc, this practice offers a natural, holistic way to support your mind, body, and spirit.

At its core, Reiki is about connection—helping you reconnect with your body, mind and spirit.

How Reiki Works

Energy Flow

Reiki is based on the understanding that life force energy flows through every person. This energy is known as Ki in Japan, Chi in China, and Prana in India. When this energy is balanced and moving freely, we feel aligned—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

However, stress, emotional experiences, and daily life can disrupt this flow. These imbalances may show up as pain, tension, fatigue, anxiety, or feeling disconnected.

Reiki energy healing is designed to restore this natural flow of energy gently.

A Non-Invasive Experience

Reiki is a gentle, non-invasive healing modality that requires no physical manipulation or tools.

You remain fully clothed, lying comfortably as you receive energy—making it an ideal option for those seeking natural healing in Edmonton, especially if you’re drawn to a calm, supportive, and restorative experience.

During a Reiki session, the practitioner channels an unlimited supply of universal life force energy through your physical and energetic bodies (aura), allowing it to flow where it is needed most. To support this, you will be guided into a deeply relaxed state with a grounding, transformative meditation that helps your body soften, your mind quiet, and your energy open.

Using light touch (or hands just above the body), Reiki works to remove energetic blockages while promoting deep relaxation and healing on a cellular level. Reiki is a conscious energy, meaning it flows intuitively so that your body receives exactly what it needs in that moment.

Many clients seeking Reiki therapy in Edmonton report feeling calm, grounded, and deeply relaxed after a session.

Balancing the Body, Mind & Energy

The Benefits of Reiki Healing

The goal of Reiki is to gently guide your body back into a state of balance—where true healing can naturally unfold.

By calming the nervous system and clearing energetic blockages, Reiki supports a shift out of stress and into restoration. This allows your body, mind, and energy to realign in a way that feels both grounding and expansive.

The benefits of Reiki healing can be both immediate and long-lasting. While every experience is unique, many clients notice:

• reduced stress and anxiety

• improved sleep and deep relaxation

• relief from physical tension and discomfort

• emotional release and greater clarity

• increased energy and overall balance

• a stronger connection to self and intuition

Many people turn to Reiki sessions in Edmonton and Sherwood Park as part of their self-care and wellness routine—seeking not just relief, but a deeper sense of peace, alignment, and connection within themselves.

Intuitive Guidance

During a session, intuitive insights may also arise.

As a Reiki practitioner, I often receive guidance connected to the body, emotions, and energy patterns present. These insights are shared to help you better understand what your body may be communicating.

Reiki creates space not just for healing, but also for awareness, growth and transformation.

Reiki healing in Edmonton — supporting you on your journey, meeting you exactly where you are.

Reiki and Generational Healing

Sometimes what we carry doesn’t begin with us.

Patterns of stress, emotional responses, and deeply rooted beliefs can be passed down through generations—shaped by family experiences, environments, and unprocessed emotions. These are often referred to as generational wounds or inherited patterns.

Reiki offers a gentle and supportive space to begin bringing awareness to these layers.

By calming the nervous system and creating a sense of safety within the body, Reiki can help you become more aware of what you’re holding—physically, emotionally, and energetically. From this place, you may begin to soften patterns that no longer serve you and create space for new ways of being.

This doesn’t mean reliving the past.

It means allowing your body to release what it’s ready to let go of—at its own pace.

For many, Reiki becomes a way to not only support personal healing, but to shift patterns that have been carried forward, creating a ripple effect of change, clarity, and balance.

A Holistic Approach to Healing

Reiki is a holistic practice that supports the whole person—body, mind, and spirit.

It works beautifully alongside other treatments and therapies, making it a powerful complement to your overall wellness journey.

Whether you’re new to energy work or already exploring your path, Reiki healing online or in Edmonton meets you exactly where you are.

If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed, disconnected, or simply in need of a reset, Reiki offers a gentle space to return to yourself.

Book your Reiki energy healing session in Edmonton or Online today and experience the benefits of energy healing for yourself.

How Pole Fitness Helped Me Find Confidence, Community, and Myself

“I just want to help people find their inner confidence.”
— Chantelle Beasley, Owner of Aradia Fitness

This quote stopped me in my tracks.

If it weren’t for the staff and students at Aradia Fitness, I honestly don’t know who I would be today — and that truth deserves to be witnessed.

Dance has always been something I sought out, both as a child and as an adult. As a kid, it felt natural. As an adult, it became more challenging to find spaces that felt welcoming, challenging and aligned—but they existed, and I had a lot of fun learning different styles and meeting wonderful people. When I found Aradia it felt exciting yet familiar, like something I didn’t know I had been missing.

My very first class was at the old Whyte Ave location with one of our incredible instructors, Charlie. She was effortlessly cool with long, colourful dreadlocks, and she always asked what music we wanted to dance to. There were only a few of us in that class, trying it for the first time.

We loved it.

I remember finishing that first class and immediately wanting to go home and practice so I wouldn’t forget anything before the next week.

Fast forward a few months and I was taking more classes—so many more—that I installed my own pole in my basement so I could practice every single day. I was obsessed, but in the healthiest way. My kids got involved, and our home was filled with dance parties for years after. Even when studios were closed due to government restrictions, I had learned enough foundational movement to keep me going… for a while.

When I returned to pole fitness semi-full time, I started learning inverted moves—going upside down. They terrified me. They exhilarated me. I remember Chantelle once saying that the first time she went upside down, she realized she could do anything. I understand that now.

There is something profoundly empowering about training your physical body in a way that your mind has no choice but to follow. Between pole fitness, running and hot yoga, I became the strongest I had ever been in my 40+ years of life. All while being a mom of two boys and navigating the messy, beautiful challenges of life.

Aradia was there through all of it.

I remember storming into a class one morning at the old Sherwood Park studio, climbing to the very top of the pole, and asking permission to rage about the frustrations of life. My pole mama and sisters cheered me on the entire way. Those classes became my therapy—healing my physical, emotional, and mental body.

I felt focused, determined and ready to create a different reality than the one I was currently living.

Around that time, Aradia posted that they were hiring party instructors. The hours were Saturday nights—literally the only night I had to myself and I usually no plans anyway. Getting paid to dance felt like the perfect segue back into the workforce. What I didn’t realize then was how completely that decision would change my life.

The moment I became part of the instructor team, everything shifted. I was suddenly surrounded by over 50 women—supportive, encouraging, and genuinely rooting for me. I became part of a team led by one of the most inspiring and grounded women I had ever met.

At the same time, the idea for a spiritual business had been brewing in my heart since before I had kids. I knew I didn’t want to return to the public system to teach. I was exhausted by childcare, too tired to serve tables, and craving a challenge—something I could build on my own terms.

Enter opportunity.

I was considering running a business out of my home, but anyone who’s worked from home with kids knows it’s not quite as glamorous as it sounds. Just as I was asking Chantelle if I could sell crystals (yes, rocks) out of one of the Aradia locations, she presented an entirely different opportunity: renting a room in the new space and working alongside her and other like-minded women.

I remember her encouraging words, “This is literally the safest place to try something new.”

Of course, she was right.

When I decided to take the leap, she lovingly asked a promise of me.
“Angela, please give it at least one year.”

November 1, 2023 Sacred Connections, my passion project was born.

That was two and a half years ago.

Today, both of our businesses are growing and thriving. I have become the most confident woman I have ever been and I owe so much of that to this community.

Chantelle and the women of Aradia are some of the most genuine, nurturing, and supportive souls I have ever known. I truly don’t know where I would be without this community. I am deeply proud to be part of it, and I will always strive to uphold the safe, sacred and empowering space that Aradia represents—for every person who walks through its doors.

Use Code: ANGELA25 to receive $25 off any level 1 6-week class series and see how your confidence can be transformed!

Roots of Energy: How Movement Shaped My Healing Journey

I grew up in a small farming community in Saskatchewan. At that time, I didn’t realize I was already learning how to work with energy — I just knew that movement made me feel alive. My father, a devoted traditional karate sensi, began teaching me at the age of five — not only the physical forms of the art, but the spiritual awareness that flowed within every movement.

In karate, I learned to focus, breathe, and sense the energy around me. My father used to call it our “sixth sense” — the ability to feel a shift in an opponent’s energy before they moved. We were taught to listen with our bodies, to be aware of our surroundings, and to always be on alert for potential threats.

As I continued my journey with karate, I found another source of movement that made my heart full — dance. Tap and ballet were my first languages of true self-expression. While karate taught me grounding, discipline, and structure, dance showed me flow, rhythm, and release. I loved how the same energy that focused my karate kick could also swirl through a graceful pirouette.

Those early lessons — in both martial arts and dance — were the beginning of my lifelong relationship with energy.

 The Balance of Yin and Yang

It’s funny how life prepares us for our purpose long before we realize it. Karate and dance may seem like opposites, but they share a sacred symmetry.

• Karate taught me awareness, protection, and the strength of stillness.

• Dance taught me surrender, trust, and the beauty of flow and release.

Angela, 7 years old. Performing Karate in the street.

Together, they created harmony between the masculine and feminine aspects of energy — what we often describe as the balance of yin and yang. One anchored me in discipline; the other opened me to grace. Both taught me that energy is not just something we feel — it’s something we become.

 Energetic Awareness as a Way of Life

Even as a child, I could feel the energy of a room shift when someone walked in. I noticed how music could change my mood, or how a kind word could instantly lift my spirit. These were early lessons in what I would later come to understand as vibration and frequency — the foundations of Reiki energy healing.

Over time, I realized that these practices weren’t separate paths. Karate, Dance, and Reiki all lead to the same destination: connection to the self through energetic awareness.

When we move our bodies, we awaken energy within us. We release what no longer serves us, and we create space for light, healing, and joy to flow.

Embodying Energy Today

Today, as a Master Reiki Therapist and Healer in Edmonton, I continue to honor the lessons my body first learned through movement. I see energy not as something mysterious, but as the natural rhythm of life — constantly flowing, shifting, and seeking harmony.

Movement is medicine. Whether through Dance, Reiki, or mindful breathing, energy finds its way through us. When we learn to listen, we discover that our bodies have been whispering wisdom all along.

Reiki: The Stillness That Balances the Dance

For much of my life, movement has been my medicine. Karate gave me power and precision; dance gave me rhythm and release. But what I’ve come to realize through Reiki is that true healing happens in the stillness between the movements.

Reiki is the breath after the leap, the pause between the notes — the quiet moment when the body recalibrates, and the spirit returns home. It’s the energy of recovery, restoration, and integration.

Just as our muscles need rest after exertion, our energy body needs stillness to realign and flow freely again. Reiki offers that — a sacred space where movement settles into harmony, where the chaos of life softens into clarity.

Whether we move through dance, strength training, or merely through the challenges of everyday life, Reiki reminds us that healing doesn’t always require motion. Sometimes, it’s found in the simple act of being — of breathing, receiving, and allowing the energy to do what it knows best: restore balance and bring us back to center.

Feeling called to explore your own energetic awareness?
Reiki helps you reconnect with your body, mind, and spirit — restoring the flow of energy that keeps you grounded and inspired.

Learn more or book a session with me at www.sacredconnectionsreiki.com and begin your journey of healing, balance, and transformation today.