This piece was published in 2006 in the Mahomet Citizen and The Hub, two publications no longer in operation. I went to Brenda Jamieson’s house for the interview. She led me to a room in back and closed the door. Her kids were playing somewhere in the front of the house. Brenda said I should get the full-on reiki experience for the article and asked if I would like to lie down on the table she used for clients. Nervously, I did as she asked and closed my eyes. She began rubbing my feet and telling me all about reiki and how it could heal. It was a soothing experience, but I couldn’t fully let go. I wasn’t sure if I should have been taking notes or allowing her words to take me away. At some point Brenda asked me if I wanted to ask her questions, which I did. I got off the table and interviewed her like any other interviewee, but unfortunately didn’t include in the piece the reiki treatment I received from the reiki master, Brenda Jamieson.

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“Breaking the chains that bind” is a phrase seen on Brenda Jamieson’s business card for Integrative Light Energetics, Jamieson’s part-time business that has turned into her passion.

“Your mind is very powerful,” Jamieson said. “If you can get your body, mind, and spirit all integrated, working together, you can do awesome things.”

“If you can get your body, mind, and spirit all integrated, working together, you can do awesome things.”

Jamieson is a reiki master who performs “energy and soul clearings” for folks wanting to rid themselves of resistances that have built up over time, things like emotional troubles, substance abuse problems, and libido issues.

Jamieson’s own medical problems led her to experimenting with alternative methods of healing such as essential oils and meditation, preventive practices she believes keep her healthy.

Word-of-mouth referrals and a growing desire by the public to live a more “natural” existence has helped Jamieson’s business grow, though it has been a slow process.

“This isn’t California,” said Jamieson, who helps her clients in the “healing room” at her Mahomet home, where she resides with her husband and children. “The Midwest is always late. This has been going on for years on the East Coast and West Coast.”

Jamieson, who was born and raised in Urbana, has done meditation work for around fifteen years. Soul clearing has been a more recent service that she provides, a process that helps rid the body of spirits and entities that can hold a person back.

Alternative healing therapies such as reiki and quantum-touch involve a “vital force” that runs through the hands, Jamieson said. Touching the release points on the back of a client’s head or feet relaxes her and releases “energetic blocks,” she said.

Jamieson also specializes in healing people “remotely” — energetic healing from a distance. Some of her clients live as far away as Michigan.

“This is something that does need to come to the forefront,” she said. “It’s awesome. It can help people, but people have to be responsible for their own issues and their own health.”

Jamieson said treating your body as best you can has become all the more important since we live in a time when the environment has become increasingly polluted and Illinois’ rich soil has been sapped of its vital nutrients. She recommends drinking pure water, eating as organically as possible, taking supplements, learning about essential oils that can heal, and listening to music to enhance your “vibration.”

“Your body knows what it needs. It’s a matter of you taking responsibility and tuning in to that,” Jamieson said. “Whatever God has given us naturally, I believe in.”

Jamieson considers herself a tool to helping people become healthy by releasing internal resistances that prevent a fulfilling, abundant life. Once a person corrects his or her internal balance, the abundance of life is there for the taking, she said.

Besides raising her family and working part time, Jamieson will soon begin a new full-time job in Mahomet teaching deaf and hard-of-hearing children. She admitted that at one point she was beginning to stray from her part-time job as an alternative healing practitioner, but a higher power and life forces brought her back to her true calling.

“It’s all been a hobby that’s kind of expanded. I would like this to expand because I really have a passion for this, but this is not the only thing that I do.”

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich