While coping with the stress of her high-powered job in New York City, Rye resident Andrea Deierlein was grinding her teeth so much that they broke.
She has found a better way to live, and hopes to help others cope through the practice of reiki, an alternative energy treatment that promises to heal and relieve stress.
Deierlein, now a reiki healer, for nine years has practiced the Japanese energy healing art that involves moving hands over the body to activate the body’s own natural healing response from her office near the Rye YMCA. Most clients find her through word of mouth. Of German and Indonesian descent, she jokes that she blends the mystical and practical aspects of her respective cultures. She specializes in stress relief and energy management.
She’s just one of many Rye residents who are professional healers (or clients of them). In a town where type-A overachieving is the norm, and fast-paced high-stress jobs leave many residents strung out, many are searching for relief. A quiet group of “healers” has sprung up to take care of them. While you won’t find many of them advertised, scratch the surface lightly and you will find reiki healers, breath workers, meditation teachers and more.
And while the science on some of these practices is not proven, many Rye residents find all the proof they need in their own experiences of the practices.
“I like to tell my clients that we are human beings, not human doings,” Deierlein said. “We live in a world that values doing and we wear our busyness like a badge of honor. People are not even aware anymore what it means to relax and that their bodies can even do that. I like to help my clients restore their balance … many of them say it’s like a weight has been lifted off them.”
Rye resident Kathy Yavari, an integrative nutrition health and wellness coach and Ayurvedic specialist, runs White Orchid Wellness, a wellness website through which she said she helps clients who are in life transitions restore both mental and physical balance to their lives.
“There are 12 different pillars in our lives that nourish your soul and circle of life,” Yavari said. “I help my clients identify which pillar is out of balance and then formulate a plan to correct it. Sometimes it’s a client who is lacking energy that needs help with a nutritional plan or sometimes it’s a client who is struggling to find their life’s purpose.” Sessions range from $175 to $250 or more, depending on the service provided.
Lisa Palmer, another Rye resident, holds meditation circles in her home. Attendees describe them as a non-judgmental, safe space for people to self-reflect openly.
Laura Cunningham-Barrett, a Rye high school teacher, has been one of Deierlein’s clients for more than six years, since facing a major health issue.
“I was somebody who worked incessantly,” she said. “I was a fulltime clinical professor at Hunter College before I became a high school teacher and it was always, go, go, go. My sessions with Andrea were a revelation for me. She taught me how to quiet my mind and then all of a sudden, my body felt different. I don’t think I understood what true relaxation was before I saw her,” Cunningham-Barrett said.
Councilwoman Jamie Jensen has been going to Palmer’s meditations for several months.
“Whether you view her work as a spiritual practice or simply a powerful way to reduce stress, Lisa’s weekly group offers a warm and welcoming space to explore the benefits of meditation,” Jensen said. “I often attend her sessions on the same day as my City Council meetings, and I’ve found that taking part beforehand helps me stay open, calm, and grounded throughout our discussions.”
Western Medicine is Making Room for Alternatives
“In Western medicine, if you bring a symptom to a medical doctor, they say, ‘I have a drug or protocol’ for that,” said Kathy Casey of Rye, clinic director at Touch Stone Acupuncture in Mamaroneck. She has been practicing for more than 15 years. “In Eastern medicine, we are trained to look for patterns. Nothing shows up out of nowhere.”
Casey’s interest in alternative healing was ignited by watching her father, a doctor, experience the limitations of traditional medicine. “My work is less about illness than it is about prevention,” she said. Sessions start at $300 and are not covered by insurance.
Dr. Andrew Illig, DO, a pain management specialist at Summit Health’s Stamford, Ct. office, said alternative treatments can be beneficial.
“Alternative forms of medicine can be useful at any time during a patient’s management and can be used prior to traditional Western medicine, and also when patients have ongoing pain in spite of treatment.,” he said by email. “Most patients ask about acupuncture, which is the most common form of alternative medicine that we recommend, and it can be effective when other treatment fails; however, it is often not covered by insurance, which can be a limitation for patients. Breath work/meditation is often recommended for patients with chronic pain and there are many apps such as Calm and Pacifica that can be downloaded onto your smartphone to facilitate bringing this modality into daily life.”
He added, “Reiki is not regularly recommended in my experience, but there are no contraindications to this treatment.”
She Became a Reiki Believer
Knowing it couldn’t hurt, Rye resident Lisa Lusby, who was diagnosed with tongue cancer when she was 28, decided to give it a try at the same time she was undergoing radiation.
“I am a therapist and speech is very important to my job,” said Lusby, a mother of two. “I was totally lost and I needed to find something to help me heal. I don’t remember how I got to reiki, but somehow I got there.
“The whole time I was doing it, my radiologist would always say to me how remarkable it was that I could still speak. Most of the people with my condition and treatment could not,” she recalled. “The reiki therapist was working a lot on my inflammation and I do believe the fact that I could speak was a direct result of that. But what completely blew my mind, was that the reiki therapist kept telling me that in addition to my tongue, she could sense there was something wrong with my stomach. ‘No, that’s not a thing,’ I kept telling her. A year later my doctors found a tumor in my abdomen.”
Lusby was healed. “I can’t explain it,” she said.
Other Ways to Change Your Energy
Palmer, who leads meditation circles, said they are intended to help people find the energy they need to live better lives.
“I started the group to help people align with their higher self; to help them become more aware of the energy in which they live their lives and make choices,” said Palmer, who charges $20 per person to participate in her circles.
Rye resident Molly Scioli offers guidance in mindfulness. She is a breathwork facilitator and reiki master who says her sister’s death led her to search for alternative ways to find relief from her grief.
Breath work, which asks the participant to focus on different breathing exercises, can release stalled energy from our nervous system, Scioli said. She works with many clients who are suffering from anxiety, trauma and grief.
“Breathwork can serve as an alternative to talk therapy and helps the breather come to a meditative state,” she said, noting that sessions cost $150 each and are not covered by insurance. She explains that breathwork is different from reiki in that “in breathwork the client is actively participating in their own healing after being guided into the breath, while the facilitator is there to witness.” By contrast, in reiki, the recipient is receiving healing from the facilitator.
Jackie Frederick-Berner, who also contributes to The Rye Record, teaches a mindfulness and mediation class on Zoom for Soul Ryeders that offers support for those affected by cancer.
“People who come to my classes are drawn to meditation for different reasons,” Frederick-Berner said. “For those experiencing a major, life-threatening disease like cancer, how can they get through their diagnosis and the side effects of treatment along with the uncertainty? For others, maybe they come because they feel overwhelmed by the daily grind and are trying to find peace.”
Meditation may be one of the few alternative modalities with hard science to back its use. “Neurologically, meditation has been shown to promote positive changes in the brain,” Frederick-Berner said. “Neuroscience tells us that our brains are molded and shaped by experience. Meditating regularly can shrink the part of our brain responsible for anxiety and stress and increase the parts responsible for memory, emotional regulation, and executive function.”
Alternative practitioners are emphatic that there is no magic bullet and that these methods take time and commitment before results emerge. But with so many people reporting feelings of stress, many alternative healers are sensing that the time might be right for what they have to offer.
