About Anna Sobel

Anna Sobel is attuned as a Reiki master in the Usui Ryoho Reiki lineage and has practiced yoga and meditation for over 20 years, including a 3 month retreat with Tibetan Buddhist lama Michael Gregory. Just as a waterfall was significant in Reiki founder Dr. Mikao Usui’s awakening, I credit an experience under a local waterfall with opening me up to Reiki energy, hence the name Falling Water Reiki. I’m a creative, intuitive person, and find expression through puppetry, theater, music, storytelling, and crafts. I live in Western Massachusetts with my husband, Brian Bender (photographs and web design) and two sons.
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My own healing story is perhaps my best credential for this work. When I was 23 years old, out of the blue, a routine blood test revealed that I had a low number of platelets. I was tested for AIDS, leukemia, and lupus. Finally, a bone marrow biopsy pinpointed my diagnosis as a rare blood disorder known as aplastic anemia, in which the bone marrow does not produce sufficient blood cells. My platelet count was rapidly plummeting, and I was admitted as an outpatient at the National Institute of Health(NIH) in Washington, D.C. I needed my blood tested every other day, and when my count went as low as 9 (normal range is 150-400), I was rushed to the hospital for an emergency transfusion.

A few days after the transfusion, my counts were considered stable enough, and I went off with some friends to a house in the woods for the weekend. I took a walk by myself in the forest. I had been given the following options for survival: a bone marrow transplant (but my brother wasn’t a match), or aggressive immunosuppressive therapy for six months in an isolated hospital room, neither of which was guaranteed to cure me.

There in the forest, I decided not to accept either of these options and to be healthy NOW. I set a strong intention that my platelet count would rise all on its own, and that from that moment, I was already free of aplastic anemia. I returned to my friends and shared my decision with them, and they cheered me on and celebrated me with music.

Monday morning, walking from my car to the hematologist’s office, I held in my mind the platelet count I wished for: 80. When the results printed out, that’s exactly the platelet count I had. The doctor was befuddled— how could my count have risen without a transfusion? I continued to hold the intention that I was already healed through the next several months as my counts continued to climb.

I never needed another transfusion and never had to undergo either of the proposed treatments. The specialists at NIH shrugged and told me to “keep doing whatever you’re doing.” I had plans to go in India and was allowed to go, as long as I continued to monitor my blood count. Two months into my trip, I called my parents with the news that my platelet count had reached normal range. I was eventually released as an outpatient from NIH and was declared a case of “spontaneous remission.” The aplastic anemia has not returned.