Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexandra Fleder.
Hi Alexandra, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Five years ago, I was working as a litigation paralegal in a prominent law firm. It was considered to be a good, secure job to have – well-paying with good benefits, even with some prestige, yet I was miserable. I felt like I was doing a disservice to humanity with the types of cases I worked on and in some cases, was even hurting people. I longed to have a profession that I could feel passionate about and help people at the same time. I wanted to have a job where I could use my intuition instead of just my logic.
I noticed that some of the attorneys I worked for liked having me around even when I wasn’t working on a project. During some late work nights, they would ply me with busy work that I knew would never get looked at. At first this made me angry – I just wanted to go home! Why were they keeping me in the office? But I came to realize that my presence made them feel calm, which helped them focus on work. I had a sneaking suspicion that this meant I was supposed to be a healer but didn’t know anything about what that meant at the time. A few months after making this discovery, I read a Louise Hay book (the original self-help guru). The book I was reading (I don’t recall the title) referenced a man who’d quit his accounting practice to become a Reiki healer. The story went on to say that this man ended up having a Reiki practice that was even more lucrative than his accounting practice and filled him with joy as well. That was the first time that Reiki entered my life. I’d heard of it before in passing, but this time I had an inkling that this was a path I was supposed to follow.
Several days later, I researched Reiki classes in my area. The first teacher I stumbled upon was a woman with the same name as me. When I went to her website, I was hit with another synchronicity – she was giving a healing to a cat and I adore cats. Still, I didn’t book the class. I took some more time to think about it and researched a few other teachers. One morning a week or so later, I was waiting to be seated at a diner for breakfast. While waiting, I was perusing some free publications on a table outside the restaurant. I picked up a magazine and opened it to the back where the ads were. Lo and behold, there was an ad for the same Reiki teacher with her cat. This was the sign I needed that got me to finally book the class.
The Monday after I took the Reiki class, I felt an immense sense of calm, even amidst the chaos of litigation. I remember standing in the hallway of my office while everyone around me was in a panic, yet I was in a totally different headspace where I knew everything would be fine and work out for the best. After that, Reiki slowly worked its magic into my life in subtle ways. Nothing changed overnight, yet within six months time, I felt my intuition and connection to Spirit were supercharged. I started seeing signs around me – repeating numbers, bird feathers, messages in song lyrics and more. Around this time, a coworker commented that I seemed to notice animals in strange places. She told me this as we were out for a walk. I happened to look up and saw a cat sitting in a second-story window. “How did you know it was there?” she asked. I didn’t know the answer. In fact, this happened to me so often that I thought it was normal. It was only after another friend was shocked by another animal spotting of mine that I began to think I had tapped into a special skill.
Following this discovery, I signed up for an animal communication class. During the class, it became apparent that humans innately have the gift of telepathy. Every person there, including myself, demonstrated picking up extrasensory communications from animals yet I doubted my own skills. A few days after the class, my friend called frantically because her dog escaped during a rain storm and was lost. She asked me to try and use what I learned in the class to find her dog. I was skeptical I could find him that way but tried anyway. When I connected to her dog Vinnie, he told us that a woman found him and he was safe in her house in the same neighborhood where my friend lives. When I told my friend he was still in the neighborhood, she thought to open the Nextdoor app and immediately saw a message from someone saying he knew the woman who had him. The next day she was able to pick up him up and we confirmed everything he told us about where he was and what happened to him along the way. I was stunned to be able to receive such accurate information.
I continued on with work at the law firm, but in my spare time, I practiced giving Reiki healings to everyone around me (including pets) and practiced speaking to the pets of friends. My two newfound skills made a synergetic connection when my cat fell into congestive heart failure after receiving a steroid injection from the vet. Because I’d been practicing animal communication and body scanning, I was able to see that her heart was swollen and her lungs were filled with fluid before the doctor could confirm it with an x-ray. Not knowing what else to do, I spent the next three days giving her Reiki healings. By the third day of me giving her this healing energy, we went to the cardiologist who took a second x-ray. The second x-ray showed that her heart was almost back to its normal size and her lungs were 50% clearer. Even the doctor was shocked. I told the doctor that I’d been giving her energy healing. Luckily, she didn’t roll her eyes at me. Instead, she said “Well, whatever it is that you’re doing – it’s working.” After these two incidents, I knew I wanted to offer other pet owners these services in the hopes that I could help them when other mainstream solutions might have failed them.
I launched by business in late 2019, just before Covid hit. I had been gaining some traction – taking on a few clients in evenings and on weekends until March 2020 when everything grinded to a halt. I was still working at the law firm, but now in the comfort of my own home. Before Covid, I was feeling very overwhelmed with work. I felt like I had too much work and not enough help. I was exhausted – mentally, emotionally and physically but didn’t know what to do about it. The lockdown for me was a Godsend. I was able to slow down with work and take a little break while work at the law firm was light. As of August 2020, the courts started to pick up again and work ramped up. At the same time, I was getting more and more clients for my own business. Around the same time, I’d just completed my Reiki mastership training and decided I wanted to start teaching my own classes – to help people learn how to heal themselves and their pets.
I began teaching classes and held remote sessions for clients on the weekends and evenings. This gave me a sense of purpose I’d never felt before. I loved making my own schedule, being my own boss, all while helping people and animals. But when Monday would roll around again, I was despondent. I was working from home and felt chained to my computer for at least 8 hours a day. Often, I would get emails, phone calls and Skype calls all at the same time from different attorneys about multiple projects – all of which were deemed urgent. I felt like I was drowning and didn’t know how I could keep it up. Right around Thanksgiving 2020, my body gave out. I felt exhaustion like I never had before. I found it difficult to get up and cook myself a meal. All I wanted to do was lie on the couch, which was quite unusual. I felt like I’d been hit with a truck and couldn’t figure out why. I called a good friend of mine, who let me know that what I was experiencing was called “burn out.” Of course, I’d heard of this but didn’t realize how “real” it was. I tried telling myself to toughen up. I tried telling myself that I was being a baby.
After the holiday weekend, I signed back into work with an attitude of perseverance but it was all in vain. By Tuesday, I found I could no longer live my life like this – doing something that I had no passion for. I called the office manager and told her I was taking a break. A month and a half later, I resigned. Today, I’m continuing with my business as a Reiki healer, an animal communicator and now as an herbalist as well.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
During the transition from a corporate job to my business, I struggled with explaining to people what my business is about. I feared being ridiculed or called crazy for doing something so outside of the “mainstream.”
I also struggled with the slower pace of a spiritual-based business. I had to divorce myself from the belief that I must be working around the clock in order to be what we deem as “successful” and in doing so, found a new definition of success.
Sometimes I’m still haunted with the feeling that I’m not helping people enough or don’t have the skills necessary to do this work, despite evidence to the contrary.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a Reiki practitioner who focuses on animals and their people via in-person and remote sessions. I combine my Reiki practice with animal communication to help heal trauma, separation anxiety, behavioral issues, illnesses, for help during transitions and for help finding lost pets.
For those who aren’t familiar with it, Reiki is a spiritual healing art with its roots in Japan. Reiki is a meditative medium where the practitioner goes into a deeper state of being via which they can communicate with the animal on an energetic realm, feeling out what areas of the body (including chakras) are out of balance.
This works by connecting to the subtle energies that are present in our bodies, minds and hearts. Reiki healers can feel physical energy both intuitively as well as with their hands, both in-person and from a distance. This can be explained as feeling energetic or mild electrical vibrations emanating from the body. Reiki can help by relaxing and calming the nervous system, balancing the chakras, and getting the energy (or ki) moving in areas where it has been stuck.
Sometimes we just want to know how are animals are feeling, whether they’re happy or not. But other times, a healing or animal communication session with our pet can turn into somewhat of a therapy session. That’s because animals are our mirrors and vice versa. When we recognize why our animals are behaving in certain ways, we learn that there are patterns within ourselves that need healing. That gives us an opportunity for growth. When we heal ourselves, we heal our pets.
I also teach Reiki and animal communication so others can heal themselves and re-learn the innate psychic gifts we all have. I want people to feel empowered and learn that they’re much more powerful than they realize.
Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
Reach out to people you want to work with even if you’re shy. Normally, I’m a shy person who prefers solitude and to work alone, but when I found a teacher I wanted to work with, I reached out to her and joined her community. I learned that I enjoyed being part of a group of like-minded people and this group became integral to me learning more about Reiki and gave me a sense of community during quarantine.
Pricing:
- $199 for a 60-minute remote session
- $122 for a 30-minute remote session
- $233 for an in-person 60-minute session
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.pawsonreiki.com/
- Instagram: @pawsonreiki
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/paws-on-reiki-beverly-hills
- Other: https://g.co/kgs/u8fzA5
