Constance Messmer might be the only spiritual healer whose work is influenced by investigative journalism. The year-round Vineyard resident is a graduate of the University of Iowa’s journalism program, with a degree in mass communication. She went in a different professional direction — becoming a Reiki master — but she found that “while doing hands-on healing work, I looked deeper, went deeper, like a journalist, and there was usually a story to investigate that explained people’s symptoms. And as I worked with them, I realized their challenge could be from a situation in their life, or sometimes in their childhood, and then sometimes even a past-life experience. So the handy part about having studied journalism is that it helps you consider the source, and it really refined my approach.”
This approach — call it investigative self-awareness — strongly informs her recent book, “Soul Yoga.” We’ll get to the book in a moment.
But first: How did Messmer’s focus shift from journalism to spiritualism? Actually, spiritual awareness has always been a part of her life. Her first memory is of “talking to the dog and hearing the dog talk,” she says. “I would see people in the house we lived in — not living people. It was an old house, so they probably belonged with the house. When we had family get-togethers, I was the quiet kid who would just listen, and I would hear things not said.”
With these formative experiences, perhaps it’s understandable that rather than going into journalism, she decided in her mid-20s to study the Japanese alternative healing tradition of Reiki. The word reiki, coined in 1920, means “miraculous life-force,” and consists in part of clearing energy blocks along the chakras by a laying-on of hands. Chakra roughly translates to “wheel” in Sanskrit, and refers to energy centers at certain spots along the spine. Reiki hadn’t hit the Vineyard yet. “I was the first one,” she recalls. “In 1997, I brought it to the Vineyard as a teacher, and taught many here.”
She continued, “I realized in doing the energy work that while it was important for me to help balance energy fields, it was far more impactful when I gave [my clients] insight as to what their energy blocks were about. So I started doing Reiki with insight — and more people wanted the insight than the bodywork. I kept the bodywork because it’s such a beautiful adjunct. But every time I would give people information on their chakras, they would say, ‘Please write about this.’
Messmer, who is married to MV Times owner Steve Bernier, began a podcast in 2023, teaching about chakras, and having amassed 158,000 YouTube subscribers, she says, “God was calling me to teach. I realized there was a lot out there already, but I wanted to bring my own force.” To focus on teaching, she gradually phased out her hands-on healing that year.
The actual writing of “Soul Yoga” “was definitely a labor of love,” Messmer explains. “It started like a 20-page eighth-grade report, and I thought, ‘This will be really easy, maybe a couple of days,’ but it took a couple of years.”
She created her own publishing company, c.a.m.p.s. Shorts press. “I am a channel, so it comes really fast, and as much as I wanted to get it into mainstream publishing, the turnaround is too slow,” she explains. “So that’s a bummer, but I have this series of lessons I want to teach.” “Soul Yoga,” the first of those lessons, came out earlier this year.
Hinduism and Buddhism say that there are seven chakras, or energy centers, along the spine, corresponding to the colors of the rainbow. While working on her clients, Messmer noticed that there were energy centers both below their feet and even more so above their heads. She’s found 12 chakras, and her book is “more of a reference book,” she says, both for people who are practitioners, and also for those who are actively engaged in an inward journey.
“Soul Yoga” is structured as a user-friendly how-to manual, leading the reader through an exploration of clearing and balancing each of the 12 chakras. There’s a chapter for each chakra, and they are organized consistently: First is a comprehensive description and list of what the chakra is associated with, including physical and mental imbalances; then Messmer shares what colors, musical notes, healing stones, mudras (sacred hand gestures) and yoga poses are associated with it. After a more in-depth overview of how the chakra works energetically,comes the “chakra contemplation”: Seated comfortably, the practitioner is encouraged to work through a series of self-reflections, questions, visualizations, and affirmations. There are blank pages for writing whatever thoughts or impressions arise during this segment (there is a companion journal with more blank pages).
“Like regular yoga class, don’t do it all in one fell swoop,” Messmer advises. “Take it in chunks. But it is a practice. People want a magic wand with their intuition. I took years sitting with my intuition to get there; I was a Reiki master for 30 years before I could write it. Mostly, it’s a journey. I don’t make it up, it comes to me. The book is not a one and done, it’s a resource, it’s a practice, it’s a journey.”
“Soul Yoga” is available at books.org, Amazon, Bunch of Grapes, and as of late July, Edgartown Books.