Better Know a Freedster: Renata Maniaci
Renata Maniaci is an energy worker whose modalities include Healing Touch and Spiritual Response Therapy. We asked her to share her thoughts on all things energy work, from misconceptions to pet peeves, plus a few fun facts that might surprise you:
DMV tenure?
I’ve been in DC for three years consecutively and four years all together. I moved back here right after grad school.
How did you get into energy work?
During my last year at Columbia in public health school, energy work became more in the forefront of my mind. When I moved to DC to start working in the sexual health and education field, it was growing brighter and brighter in my mind’s eye. I signed up for a Reiki Level 1 class, and although it was a really good introduction to energy work, it couldn’t answer all my questions about the physics of how energy actually works, and I needed that at that moment in my life. I kept looking and I found a Healing Touch class, and it just blew my mind. It felt like I was remembering how to do it and not learning how to do it.
What’s the biggest misconception about energy work that you want to clear up?
It’s not "woo-woo" or pseudoscience. It’s all really solidly based in physics and the nature of how energy works in our physical and nonphysical worlds – the seen world and the unseen world. It’s still really magical because we don’t have the words or tools to articulate and show absolutely everything about it. But everything in our world was magical before we figured out the science that goes behind it! Coming from a science background, I’m very comfortable working in that lovely space of science and magic right next to each other.
What do you wish clients knew about your sessions?
I believe that all healing is self-healing, and I’m here as a facilitator for people’s self-healing. Humans have so much power to help themselves become whole and healthy. With my clients, I try to help them see that in a light and happy way and not a scary way. Energy work can be really fun and light. Many people can literally feel themselves becoming lighter and brighter. It seems like a lot of my new clients come in and leave feeling ways they never expected.
What’s the most inspiring part about being an energy worker?
Seeing the light in people’s eyes after they get off the table, and the relief and sometimes the wonder, and sometimes the incredulity. Most of all, seeing the sense of expansion and the sense of ease. It’s very humbling.
What’s your biggest energy work pet peeve?
My biggest pet peeve would probably be that energy healing is not more integrated into regular healthcare settings yet. For some of us, it’s annoying that we have to put the science behind it to make energy work more reputable because we know that it works. I am one of those people who, when I started this, needed the research and to understand it intellectually, so I get that too. The more I’m in it, though, the less I need to understand it.
What’s your favorite energy work technique?
There is a Healing Touch technique called etheric template clearing, and it’s just very gentle, using your hands to lift blockages out of your client’s field. It always feels nice and smooth to do that.
What would your last meal be?
It would probably be at Waffle House. Eggs and hash browns and biscuits with some kind of raspberry or strawberry jam. Maybe a chocolate chip waffle for dessert.
What was your first concert?
The Spice Girls in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
What book did you read most as a child?
The Chronicles of Narnia.
What’s your patronus?
Right now: a dragonfly. They show up when I’m really needing the universe to hear me.
What's your favorite quote?
One quote that I really love is in the seventh Harry Potter book. During the Kings Cross chapter, Harry says, “Is this real, or has it all been happening inside of my head?” And Dumbledore says, “Of course it’s happening inside of your head, Harry, but why on Earth does that mean it isn’t real?”
