a Living Well practice
Have you ever walked into a space feeling completely fine and walked out feeling like Mr. Hyde? I walked into a CVS one day feeling completely neutral. On my way through the store I passed a woman pacing the aisles, snapping into her phone, jumpy and impatient. Near the pharmacy, a man was getting louder and louder with the pharmacist about a copay. Back at the front register, an older woman was fighting to return a giant bag of items long past the return window, and the cashier had had enough. By the time I paid at the self-checkout and reached my car, I was shaking with an anger and no idea why, or where it came from.
I went home and did what I always do, journaled it. I walked back through every aisle on paper until the truth jumped out. The anger was never mine. I had moved through three clouds of other people’s energy and carried all of it out with me.
This was before I became a Reiki Master. I did not yet have words for what happened. Now I do.
This essay is one of four practices in the Living Well pillar at The Gracewell Studio. If you want the full guide to healthspan over lifespan, mind, body, and spirit held as one whole, start at the pillar here.
The science actually backs this up
For years I have been told that I am too sensitive but I now know that I am not.
There is a whole body of research on what scientists call emotional contagion and interpersonal synchrony. Thank you science!
When people are near each other, they unconsciously catch each other’s feelings, mirror each other’s faces, and even drift into rhythm in their heart rates and breathing. A 2025 review in a leading psychology journal lays out how this unfolds across all kinds of everyday encounters, not only with the people we know (daSilva & Wood, 2025).
So my CVS afternoon was not in my head. I walked through three nervous systems running hot, and my body did what human bodies do. It synced up. I felt it under fluorescent lights, holding a basket. The lab in the study I mentioned, measured this with sensors.
What this means about you
If you have ever left a room heavier than you walked into it, or felt lifted just by being near a certain person, you were not making that up either. We are permeable. We trade energy constantly, mostly without noticing.
This is not a flaw. It is a superpower, once you learn to work with it.
You can tend your own field
This is the part that changed my life. Once I understood that my energy was mine to tend, those CVS afternoons lost their grip.
I have been told and also agree, that I naturally carry bright, joyful energy. People tell me they feel good around me, and I love that about my life. But the same openness that lets me give that warmth is the openness that let a pharmacy hijack my mood. So I protect it. I stay aware of what is around me. I notice the moment a room shifts. I name the funk as not-mine, and I let it move through me instead of coming home with me.
That awareness is the whole practice. You cannot control what energy walks past you. However, you do get to decide what you carry out the door.
Where Reiki comes in
Reiki is one of the ways I clear and steady my own field, and help others steady theirs. It is a gentle, light touch or no touch practice for settling the body’s energy, and you do not have to believe anything for it to feel like deep rest.
If you want the fuller picture, what energy actually is, what the research shows, and how I hold all of it honestly as a nurse, I wrote a companion piece: Is There Real Science Behind Energy Healing?.
And because energy is not bound by the four walls you happen to be standing in, Reiki can be offered in person or at a distance. Distance sessions are something I will be opening soon, so you can receive this from wherever you are.
Keep going
To explore whole-person care, mind, body, and energy held together, wander into the Wellness Path.
And when you are ready to feel this for yourself, a Reiki session is a gentle place to begin. Come exactly as you are.
a blessing before you go
May you know which feelings are truly yours, and which you simply walked through.
May you set down what was never yours to carry.
May you tend your energy like the sacred thing it is.
And may the field you offer the world be steady, and warm, and kind.
Go gracefully. 🤍
Rev. Kristina Soto, RN, BSN
References
daSilva, E. B., & Wood, A. (2025). How and why people synchronize: An integrated perspective. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 29(2), 159-187. https://doi.org/10.1177/10888683241252036
