When Science Meets Spirit

How I stopped chasing credibility and started pursuing wholeness

The Belief I Was Taught

I never believed in Reiki or crystal healing. I was Western raised and Western trained. I attended schools known for their gold-standard, evidence-based research. My mentors were brilliant clinicians who built their reputations on objectivity, data, and results, and I wanted to be just like them.

So I listened. I absorbed their beliefs. I mimicked their ways because I wanted to be “good” too. I had big dreams, and I believed that to become successful, I had to follow the same path.

But somewhere along that path, I lost myself.

The Breaking Point

I became the clinician everyone expected me to be, but not the person I needed to be.
People-pleasing became my purpose. My self-worth depended on external validation. And somewhere between the long hours, the pressure, and the perfectionism, I stopped feeling alive in my own body.

My mind and body began to unravel. I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. My neck and back were in constant tension. My knees ached like I was decades older. I would lay in bed for ten hours and get no rest at all. My body was speaking, but I wasn’t listening.

Traditional therapy helped, but something deeper was still calling.

Finding Reiki

Then one day, by chance, I came across Reiki. I didn’t know what it was, but after my first session, I knew something inside me had shifted.

Soon after, I moved to Japan, the birthplace of Reiki, and found a Reiki master to study under. She was French, with a master’s degree in kinesiology, trained in the same Western model I had known my whole life. Yet she worked differently. Her care was structured, but intuitive. Evidence-informed, but human. She held space with presence, not pressure.

I began training with her on weekends while continuing my clinical work during the week. Slowly, I started blending what I learned: integrating intuition with anatomy, stillness with science, and energy with evidence.

Reclaiming Curiosity

My curiosity returned.
I began to understand my patients’ bodies, and my own, in a new way. I learned to feel energy patterns beneath physical tension, to notice how breath revealed emotional strain, and to see that every symptom carried a story.

My treatments became more effective, not because I abandoned science, but because I finally let humanity back into it. For the first time in a long time, my work felt meaningful again.

The Birth of Yamamoto Wellness

When the time came to leave Asia, I knew my path had changed. I returned to Las Vegas and created Yamamoto Wellness: a space where both science and spirit could coexist.

Here, evidence-based care lives alongside intuition, manual therapy blends with energy work, and every person is treated as a whole system. Because healing is not about choosing sides, it’s about integration.

Closing Reflection

Reiki did not make me less of a clinician. It made me a more complete one.
It reminded me that being evidence based means staying open to evidence as it emerges, even when it challenges what we think we know.

Healing lives in that space between structure and surrender. Between data and intuition. Between doing and being.

And so does entrepreneurship.
Being in business for yourself is not always glamorous. It requires sitting with uncertainty, trusting instinct, and moving forward even when the path feels unclear. Daily Reiki practice helps me do that. It grounds me, quiets the noise, and brings me back to the present moment.

That is what I carry into every session, every decision, and every chapter that follows.