From Pub to Practice

That Christmas was different.

The pub was closed. Literally and figuratively. I’d made the decision that I didn’t need randoms in my life anymore. The parade of acquaintances, the ceremonial ego displays – they were done. And in their place was something I’d forgotten I wanted: peace. Family. Presence.

That Christmas, I cooked without the stress. I ate with my family. I didn’t drink to take the edge off. I wasn’t performing. And, for the first time in a long time, I actually felt there.

It was during those quiet days – in the stillness that followed the chaos – that I had a thought. It might sound simple, even obvious now. But at the time it felt like a revelation:

What if I turned the pub into a healing space?

That idea stuck. So I started planning.

I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was still new to all of this. I thought back to my first time in “the healing room” – what was it that made that space feel sacred? Safe? I started there.

Obviously, I needed a massage table. So I bought one second-hand. Good condition. No one needed to know it wasn’t new. I got some fresh covers, something that felt clean and calm. Then I hit eBay and Amazon hard – chakra stickers, motivational quotes, cheap-but-cheerful electric candles (because let’s face it, I wasn’t ready to burn the place down), and even a dodgy Photoshop poster of the Reiki precepts overlaid on a waterfall in the Caribbean I’d visited years ago.

It was amateur hour. But it was mine.

I had a vision, and I could see it clearly. I just didn’t have a clue what I was doing. So I looked for structure – and found the UK Reiki Federation. At the time, it felt like a practical move. Something official. A certificate. Cheaper insurance. Access to client forms and templates. It wasn’t about community or belonging yet. That would come later.

I bought a lockable filing cabinet from Facebook Marketplace for a tenner. Client records needed to be secure, right? I was doing it properly. I had a space. I had a system. I was ready – or as ready as I was going to be.

And then I began.

There’s something humbling – and quietly electric – about offering Reiki to someone for the first time. Not in training. Not as a practice exercise. But as an actual act of support. A real session. Just you, them, and the energy between you.

December 2019 was when I crossed that threshold.

I remember those early sessions so clearly. The nerves. The inner chatter. Will they feel anything? Will I? Can I get it wrong? But Reiki isn’t performance. It’s presence. Once I remembered that, I could breathe again.

Some clients felt heat. Some saw colours. Some just drifted into the kind of rest you don’t realise you need until you’re there. Others said very little, but you could see the shift when they left. That was the bit that stayed with me – not the feedback, but the felt sense that I was doing something useful. Something human.

Reiki became a kind of meditation for me. A chance to slow down. To listen. To hold space without fixing. That alone felt radical – especially for someone like me, trained in operations, systems, control. This was different. This was trust.

And people kept coming back. I wasn’t advertising. I wasn’t pushing. But something was working. They felt it. And so did I.

By the end of that winter, I knew this wasn’t just a sideline. It wasn’t a nice hobby or an experiment. It was real. It was meaningful. It was calling me forward.

And then… Covid happened.

I don’t need to spell it out. You were probably there too. We all were. Except, as someone once said – we weren’t all in the same boat. Just the same storm.

I had to stop. I wasn’t allowed to practise. I wasn’t even allowed to see people. And just as something in me had started to take root, it was pulled out of the ground.

But I’ll come back to that later.

For now, this was the beginning. The pub was gone. The Wellbeing Cabin had arrived. And, for once, it wasn’t built to impress. It was built to serve.