Reiki Master | Shamanic Practitioner | Grief Intuitive Coach
Numerologist | Tarot Intuitive Reader | Spiritual Warrior Advocate™
Through reiki, coaching, shamanic practices and other intuitive and spiritual tools, I am an advocate for your calm, peace and joy. I desire to help you feel lighter and brighter—and also help you realize and develop your own tools for maintaining your well-being, no matter what your external circumstances.
“Be kind. Be hopeful. Be you. Be here.”
Erika M. Schreck
For several years I have maintained spiritual practices and sought knowledge that support my path of an intuitive healer. When I was young, I experienced many life events that made me particularly empathetic and sensitive with others. Parents’ multiple divorces, nine home moves before age 18, deaths of loved ones, physical and emotional abuse, loved ones’ mental illness and addictions, depression, among other significant life experiences, have created unique understanding, wisdom, empathy, compassion, kindness, non-judgment and unconditional love deeply within me. As an adult, I finally found words and support for my abilities and desire to help others.
Starting “only” with two services when I began Turtle Healing Energy–reiki sessions and Totem Animal Readings, you’ll see from my website that I’ve added quite a few more services since then. Admittedly, most of the additional services and training grew out of client needs and interest, and my deep, intuitive knowing how my work needed to spread to serve more people in more ways. I find it important to note that my reiki and shamanic practices are truly integrated into my life–they’re not separate parts from me but deep parts of me.
“Jane-of-All-Trades” or Often Known as Wonder Woman or Renaissance Woman
Working since age 11, starting as a babysitter, I was a cashier, short-order cook, office assistant, seam welder for Milwaukee Electric Tool Corporation, Resident Assistant and newspaper columnist before my first college degree in English, with a minor in communications. I worked in communications and marketing for companies like American Express; taught reading, writing and math for the Huntington Learning Center; and started my own consulting business for teaching professional writing seminars, and coaching and assisting individual clients with job application documents. Then, I returned to graduate school for my master’s degree in English: Composition, Rhetoric and Professional Writing. For 13+ years, I taught college-level writing courses (project management, technical communication and design, business writing, first-year writing and rhetoric, creative nonfiction) at six different universities in Wisconsin and Colorado, including teaching my final seven years for the Program for Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Colorado Boulder.
The Turning Point and Turning-Toward a Healing Path
In my last few years of teaching, I was feeling miserable and overworked and knew I needed a major job change. After my second surgery for endometriosis, I was advised by my “very Western” surgeon to do a few things for follow-up, including getting a reiki session, so I could also address some of the emotional challenges and childhood abuse that likely helped manifest my condition–and almost led to losing my right ovary (which I later learned, during reiki, that the area of the right ovary holds trauma, abuse and grief). I was amazed, and reiki made such a difference for me. I was undeniably called to study holistic healing and become certified in reiki. During the interim between college-level teaching and my current two businesses, starting in 2011, I edited articles for university professors, nannied for two families, continued with Turtle Healing Energy and started Erika M. Schreck Communications and Marketing Support (2012).
Throughout all of these jobs and since I was very young, supporting others and being willing to go through the tougher parts of life with others (ex. grief, depression) have always been consistent, natural patterns for me. I eventually learned healthier boundaries, however, as I aged, so I would not “take on” so much of others’ difficult emotions and experiences to my detriment.
Reiki, Grief Coaching, Tarot Intuitive Readings and Other Healing Modalities
After expanding into numerous spiritual, healing modalities and divination tools such as tarot, especially since moving to Colorado in 2002, I became certified as a reiki practitioner for Levels I, II and III in the Usui style through Reiki Master Dana Sher. During one of my attunements, Dana received an important message for me: “Be at peace and pass peace onto others.” In 2011, I completed my five-month reiki master teaching program. Previously and simultaneously, I was studying other modalities, such as tarot and numerology, and proceeded to add to my skills and experiences in supporting others’ emotional, spiritual, mental and physical wellness. During 2012 and 2013, I completed different training and certification programs to earn my Grief Intuitive Coaching certification through Sue Frederick from Boulder, CO, and Mediumship Certification through Paul and Debs Rees from the UK. I am honored to follow the various forms of guidance I’ve received and share reiki, intuitive card readings and other forms of healing with you. I offer various types of sessions, and I teach reiki and tarot classes.
Shamanism
When I was a young child, I was content to be outside most of the day, writing and drawing, reading, talking to the trees and animals, and reveling in Nature. I started a recycling program at the local pharmacy-with-a-restaurant, where I started working at age 15 because I cared so deeply about our planet. Spirituality and Nature and respect for the earth and all creatures easily were (and are) a part of my life and life’s mission.
In 2009-2010, I began shamanic journeying and shamanic drumming and ceremonies with a local (Boulder, CO) Lakota woman, and I did not pursue shamanic practices regularly again until January 2016, when the death of my beloved dog ignited my participation in weekly journey circles, shamanic journeying and ceremonies, and research into combining shamanism with my reiki practice, other healing work and personal life.
Most recently, I’ve been working with and learning from teacher and shaman Renee Baribeau and the Wind Clan since 2017. I’ve been a Fire Tender during the Winter Solstice I AM Symposium and have taken advanced coursework. In December 2020, I was invited to be a presenter and created and offered Honoring and Healing Grief with the Solstice: Click here for 30-minute video of this live event. I was again invited to present for the I AM Winter Solstice Symposium in 2021 and offered Altar “Adventure” Ritual for Winter Solstice Season: Click here for video. In February 2021, I began advanced work with the 10-month Wind Work Mastery Apprenticeship.
Each month, I also offer New Moon ceremony and a related shamanic journey, now on Zoom; I created and began New Moon Spirit in January 2018. In 2022 and 2023, I’m integrating the wisdom of the 13 Clan Mothers, one each moon cycle… inspired by Jamie Sams and what she received from talking to tribe elders.
Furthermore, in 2016, I completed an advanced shamanic practitioner training program with well-known shaman and teacher Sandra Ingerman. As this course began, world tragedies prompted me to “do something” for more peace on the planet, and I developed my Shamanic Journey through the Chakras offering.
Shamanic ceremony and practices are essential in my life, and I love sharing ceremony with others and assisting healing and calm, and affirming life, in this way. I’ve been leading shamanic ceremonies for individuals and groups holding special intentions (ex. healing and ease for loved one with cancer), adding shamanic journeying to reiki sessions as another option for clients, and integrating shamanic practices and rituals into various Turtle Healing Energy services and my daily personal life.
“Crafter”
Creativity in the forms of writing, sewing, knitting, crocheting, drawing and handmade gifts, and creating with my hands and heart have long been important parts of me. I enjoy making things by hand and infusing healing, loving energy into my creations, which include eye pillows, and essential oil bath salts with and without a sizeable gemstone, and essential oil sprays. Formerly, I accepted custom orders for crocheted hats, scarves, mittens and so forth; currently, I offer select crocheted accessories seasonally and crochet dish cloths.
Please learn more about me with my blog: Click here.
Erika’s Turtle Tattoo and the Significance of Turtle
I have a sizeable turtle tattoo on the upper, middle area of my back. As a Native American totem animal, Turtle
represents groundedness, Mother Earth, strength, connection to nature, patience, wisdom, adaptability and
protection.
For me, these meanings of Turtle and more inspired my tattoo, and as a guide for my healing and energy work,
Turtle can help remind you and me to trust our intuition, trust the pace that is best for us and stay grounded–even
amid challenges. The qualities that turtle and other totem animals represent in Native American cultures are
viewed as medicine, which includes messages, actions and perspective that we need to balance our physical,
emotional and spiritual selves. I value Turtle Medicine in my life and healing energy.