Reiki Virginia Beach

10/14/2026

Years ago, when I left a toxic situation, I found that I could not leave the memories behind.

Each memory carried the same message: I am not good enough. I did something wrong.

This lie had been instilled to keep me under control.

I began identifying what had happened: gaslighting, triangulation, and blame-shifting. Each term brought greater clarity.

I made space for the anger and anxiety, and turned my attention to my own needs.

Most importantly, I stopped blaming myself. For me, this meant noticing how my body had been carrying the lie. Was my breathing shallow? Was my chest tight? Were my shoulders rounding forward, as though to make me smaller? Gradually, I began to release the patterns my body had developed to hold it.

I am now a somatic coach in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I help people recover from narcissistic abuse and toxic relationships and reconnect with themselves.

Somatic coaching does not replace therapy. If you are seeking a therapist, Erin Freeman, LPC, is a somatic therapist and the owner of But First Heal Thyself. She sees clients at Healing Arts Center.

10/11/2026

Life pushes every one of us into walls. Some of them are out in the world, and some of them are inside us where nobody else can see.

After we hit one, the fear starts. We wonder whether we are good enough, and then the fight in our head begins as we examine all the ways we are not.

Fear like this makes us guard ourselves. We get angry and tense, we blame, and we push away the people who are trying to reach us. It feels safer at the time. The trouble is that the same guard that keeps out hurt also keeps out love, including the love we could give ourselves.

Underneath the anger and sadness, a part of us wants someone to hold it, see it, and understand it. Most of us answer that part with shame and harsh words. It has been asking for kindness the whole time.

We can end the fight in our head. We can be kind to ourselves in the moments we would usually be mean. We can spend our time with people who care about us and step back from people who judge and criticize. We can accept love without rationing it or talking ourselves out of it.

I am Victoria Duarte, a somatic and mindfulness coach, and I teach clients how to offer this kindness to themselves.

Time is too brief to live in self-protection.

10/10/2026

Twice in my life, I have been told that I am "not spiritual enough." On both occasions, I had spoken up on behalf of someone who was being abused.

Using spirituality to shame someone into silence is a form of control.

I am Victoria Duarte, a mindfulness and somatic coach at Healing Arts Center in Virginia Beach. I am trained in narcissistic abuse recovery and work with women and men who have experienced this type of abuse.

If someone has used spirituality to silence you, you may book a session with me at vagaro.com/healingartscenter.

This does not replace therapy, but it can complement it.

10/08/2026

Anger is widely misunderstood, and our culture often shames people for feeling it. I am grateful that I don't shame mine.

Anger showed me that my boundaries were being violated and that I felt unsafe in a certain environment. It told me I was being dismissed and that my needs were being deliberately ignored.

Beneath anger there is often a softer emotion, such as hurt or fear. Beneath the softer emotion there is often an unmet need, such as the need to be safe, heard, seen, or respected.

My anger was pointing to all of it.

Anger is welcome in the work I do with clients. Together we learn how to be with it, so you can listen to what it is telling you and find the need underneath.

If this is the kind of work you have been looking for, you can book a session with me at vagaro.com/healingartscenter.

10/07/2026

10/06/2026

In 2022, I got a pull, a calling, an urge to stop digging my heels in. Listening to and trusting that pull was the best decision.

Maybe you are feeling a pull toward something you are afraid of. You play the what-if game over and over again. What if the outcome is joy, peace, connection, and purpose? What if it brings you closer to trusting yourself?

Fear will tell you to dig your heels in. Self-compassion is what lets you choose yourself.

If you are feeling that pull and don't know what to do with it, I would love to help. You can book a session with me at vagaro.com/healingartscenter.

10/05/2026

When you are triggered, it can be hard to get out of the story of what happened. i’m Victoria a somatic and mindfulness coach. Often, we ignore or dismiss the sensations in our bodies and don't acknowledge how we are feeling.

i’m Victoria a somatic and mindfulness coach. I help clients learn how to safely tune into their bodies.

10/04/2026

Telling a survivor to forgive moves the blame from the person who caused the harm onto the survivor.

Some spiritual communities and wellness practitioners offer forgiveness to clients as a path to healing. A client who has not forgiven is treated as someone who has failed to heal.

Some practitioners know the client may never reach forgiveness and make it the goal anyway. A goal that cannot be reached keeps the client hurting, returning, and relying on the practitioner for help.

Anger after harm is an honest response. Choosing not to forgive can be an act of self-respect, a way of saying the harm was wrong.

Forgiveness belongs to the person who was harmed, and so does the timing.

Educating people about spiritual bypassing is important to me. If you have experienced it, know that your feelings made sense, and the choice to forgive or not to forgive was always yours.

10/03/2026

Imagine walking into a spiritual or wellness community and being told, "It's just your karma."

Imagine being told it was meant to happen for your growth, or that your soul chose it.

Survivors of sexual assault are hearing these words from teachers, practitioners, and communities they went to for support.

This is spiritual bypassing, and it is abuse. It uses a spiritual idea to explain away the harm, and it puts the responsibility for the assault on the person who survived it.

Sexual assault is caused by the person who commits it.

A survivor who hears any of these statements has every right to walk out and find a practitioner who believes them.