Once more, with healing
InnerCompass brings Reiki and sound healing to Lincoln City
By Eliot Sekuler
For the TODAY
Stepping into the new InnerCompass Center in Lincoln City’s Taft neighborhood, visitors are welcomed by shelves of gleaming crystal bowls and soft, snow-white rugs that lend the space a serene, light-filled ambiance. Every detail has been thoughtfully chosen to promote healing, reduce stress and foster a sense of inner peace — goals that sit at the heart of the center’s mission.
Chellie and Mike Kammermeyer opened the center in May with a vision of creating a place where people could explore a variety of complementary healing practices. The center offers crystal bowl sound baths, Holotope meditation sessions and, at its core, the Japanese healing practice known as Reiki.
Reiki originated in Japan in the early 20th Century, based on the idea that a universal life force flows through all living things. Practitioners believe that balancing this energy can support physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. The word itself combines the Japanese terms rei, meaning universal, and ki, meaning life energy.
Chellie prefers a simpler description.
“I describe it as a Japanese stress-reduction technique,” she said. “Stress is usually at the basis of whatever kind of illness or emotional situation somebody has.”
A Reiki session begins with a form of prayer or intention-setting, inviting the Reiki energy to flow. Specific hand placements are then used throughout the session to release stagnant energy and encourage relaxation.
The results, Chellie said, are often immediate.
The Kammermeyers trained through the International Center for Reiki Training and are certified mentor teachers in the Holy Fire/Usui lineage, one of the most widely practiced forms of Reiki. They usually work with clients individually, though occasionally conduct couples’ sessions together.
Chellie and Mike had a profound initial experience with Reiki. They share this in every class, but the short version is that when Chellie learned Reiki, she was able to perform it on Mike. He was able to delay a major back surgery. When Mike called the doctor, the surgeon’s response was blunt.
“Oh, that’s just the placebo effect,” he said. “When it comes back, call us and we’ll schedule the surgery.”
But the pain never returned.
More than 20 years later, Mike still has not needed the operation.
“I never saw that doctor again,” he said.
The experience fundamentally changed their perspective.
“That was the thing that made me a believer,” Mike said. “If you experience it you have to believe it.”
Alongside Reiki, InnerCompass offers crystal bowl sound baths, another practice aimed at promoting relaxation and reducing stress. Crystal singing bowls produce long, resonant tones that practitioners associate with the body’s energy centers, or chakras.
During a sound bath, participants lie comfortably on the floor while the couple plays crystal bowls at opposite ends of the room. The resulting tones fill the space, creating an immersive surround-sound experience.
The principle behind the practice is known as entrainment — the tendency of one rhythm to synchronize with another. Just as musicians naturally lock into a drummer’s beat, practitioners believe the body’s internal rhythms can align with calming external sounds.
“The body’s own energetic rhythms attune to the higher vibration of the bowls,” Mike said. “It pulls people up into a higher vibration and prompts the body to do its own healing.”
InnerCompass sells Crystal Tones® bowls, the high-quality crystal singing bowls used in its sound healing sessions, because they have seen firsthand the difference the bowls can make. These unique instruments are one-of-a-kind and Chellie says they connect with "their person." Whether you are a sound healer, energy practitioner, musician or simply someone who loves sound and tranquility, these bowls create rich tones that can help quiet the mind and create a peaceful space. The center offers one-on-one appointments to help customers find the bowl made just for them.
Monthly, InnerCompass offers complimentary sound baths for people who are in a time of transition. They offer this as a gift to the community, because they know how helpful these types of modalities have been in their own lives. To be certain they have enough room for everyone, they request people register in advance on their website.
The center also offers guided meditations featuring the Holotope, a brightly colored geometric display with evolving light patterns and music designed to create an immersive meditation experience.
For the Kammermeyers, these modalities share a common purpose: helping people create conditions that support healing and well-being.
And though they believe strongly in the benefits of the practices offered at Inner Compass, they emphasize that these approaches are intended to complement, not replace, treatment from licensed healthcare providers.
“I am adamant that this is complementary,” Chellie said. “We work with people who have cancer or other illnesses, and it often helps mitigate side effects.”
Ultimately, she believes the body possesses a remarkable capacity to heal itself.
“The body does the healing,” she said. “We’re simply helping create the conditions for that to happen.”
InnerCompass Center is located at 4840 SE Hwy. 101 in Lincoln City. For appointments and more information, go to innercompassreiki.com or innercompasscenter.com or call 510-499-4332 or 541-418-8185.