Trauma-Informed Breathwork & Reiki in Maryland
A soft place to set down what you've been carrying, and find your way back to your whole self.
Trish D. Brewer, trauma-informed Breathwork Coach and Usui Holy Fire® III Reiki Master Teacher. Serving Anne Arundel and Calvert County, in person and virtually.
Calm your nervous system in 60 seconds
Download a simple breathwork technique to bring yourself back to center
Maybe This Sounds Familiar
You've built a life that looks good from the outside. The career, the people who lean on you, a calendar that fills itself back in the moment you clear it. And still, something feels off. Some days you might reach for the words people actually use for this, the quiet ones: "stuck," "uninspired," a little lost.
Or maybe you already know your way around this work. You've read the books and sat in the circles, and the concepts make sense to you. What you haven't found yet is the practice that moves them out of your head and into your body, in a room with people who understand why that matters.
Life's demands are varied and relentless, and most of us were taught to put everyone else first.
If you've read this far, I don't think that's an accident.
Hi, I’m Trish
I didn't come to this work through a textbook. I came to it through my own body, after a medical emergency made it impossible to keep pushing my own healing to the bottom of the list.
Breathwork is what brought me back. Reiki is what taught me how to hold the quiet afterward. I'm a trauma-informed Breathwork Coach and a Usui Holy Fire® III Reiki Master Teacher, trained under Gwen Dittmar and David Elliott and certified through NARM and ICRT. I've co-authored a few books along the way, and at one point co-led a women’s group in Annapolis. The credentials matter to me less than what happens in the room.
Here's what I believe, and I know it from the inside. When you heal yourself, it doesn't stop with you. It ripples out to everyone you love.
How Breathwork and Reiki Work
So why breath and energy, of all things?
Start with the body. Yours has been quietly keeping records this whole time, past and present at once, holding onto what you've lived through whether or not you signed off on it. Stress, grief, the old patterns you can't think your way out of. The nervous system files all of it away and holds on, which is why "just calm down" has never once worked on a body that's stuck in high alert.
Breathwork is an active meditation. In a session, I guide you through a three-part breath pattern, usually thirty to forty minutes of it, long enough to move you out of your analytical brain and into something closer to release. The breathing shifts your nervous system out of fight-or-flight and toward the parasympathetic state, the one where repair actually happens. It sets off a flood of endorphins. Emotion that's been sitting in storage finally has somewhere to go. Most people don't talk their way to that place. They breathe their way there. Think of it the way you'd think about weeding a garden. You clear what's heavy so there's room for something else to grow.
Reiki comes at it from the other direction. Picture the body as a Matryoshka doll, and keep opening it, smaller and smaller, until you reach a layer that can't be reduced any further. That last layer is energy. Reiki is a Japanese practice that works with that universal life force, the current running through all of us, using either gentle hands-on placement or the hovering of hands to clear what's gone stagnant and bring the whole system back toward calm.
One releases. One restores. Together they cover more ground than either does alone, and I'll be honest, the combination is my favorite way to work.
There's more than one door in, depending on where you are and what you're ready for.
Ways to Work Together
A private, trauma-informed session where we set an intention, drop into your body with somatic processing work, and breathe through whatever's ready to move.
Breathwork, one-on-one
The same work, in community. Something happens when a room breathes together. Circles are a more accessible entry point, so they're a gentle place to begin.
Breathwork Circles
60 or 90 minutes of energy work to rebalance and quiet the whole system. Good on its own, and good when life has left you running on empty.
Reiki
My personal favorite. Ninety minutes that open with breath to move what's stuck, then close with Reiki to settle everything back down. For when you want to go deep in a single sitting.
Regenerative Breathwork & Reiki
Reiki Certification: Levels I, II, and Master Teacher
For those being called to carry this work forward. Usui Holy Fire® III training rooted in both lineage and lived experience.
Activation Breathwork Facilitator Certification
A full training course for people ready to hold space for others, based on the course developed by Gwen Dittmar. Somatic, trauma-informed, science-based, and as much a personal journey as a professional one.
Immersive gatherings that weave breath, energy, and rest into a few days set aside for coming home to yourself.
Women's Retreats
Corporate & Private Group Breath & Meditation Programs
Team sessions to reset a stressed nervous system, offered on-site across Anne Arundel County, Calvert County, and the DC metro area.
What to Expect (and How You’re Held)
If you've never done this before, here's what actually happens, because the not-knowing is usually the scariest part.
We start with your intention. We'll talk first, so I understand what you're bringing in and where you are with it. For breathwork, you'll lie down, and I'll guide the breath while music plays. The active breathing runs for about 30-40 minutes. Then we slow way down. The last ten or fifteen minutes are for lying still and letting it all integrate, and honestly, that closing stretch is where a lot of the real settling happens.
You might cry. You might not. Some people feel a wave of emotion, some feel tingling in their hands, and/or body, some mostly feel tired and a good deal lighter afterward. All of it is normal. None asks you to perform.
Trauma-informed means I build the session to expect the messy and the unexpected, and to move at the pace your system can actually handle rather than forcing anything open. You stay in control the whole way through.
Reiki sessions are similar in that we start with a conversation and your intention. You'll lie down, drop into a meditative state, while I place my hands lightly on or just above the body, depending on your preference. The energy sessions last 45-60 minutes depending on the package selected. Time is set aside at the end for integration, letting things settle and any questions that you may have.
Sessions happen in Lothian and around Anne Arundel and Calvert County, or virtually, which works better than most people expect.
In Their Words
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“Attending Trish's regenerative breathwork class was truly transformative. She created a safe, supportive space, and the combination of intentional breathing techniques and calming prompts helped me fully immerse myself in the practice. I left feeling lighter, more grounded, and with a clarity I didn't know I needed. Highly recommend for anyone looking to release stress and cultivate mindfulness."
— Starr Baker, Yogi
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"As an engineer, I approached Reiki with skepticism after my stage 4 cancer diagnosis. Weekly sessions with Trish became a cornerstone of my healing — reducing pain, easing stress, and helping me feel grounded through treatment. I've been in remission since September 2024, and we now focus our sessions on prevention."
— Dion R., Engineer
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"Trish’s breathwork and Reiki teachings have deepened how I guide people into the body — not to fix themselves, but to listen. To trust what's stored there. To soften enough to let something move. A recent moment in circle reminded me just how sacred and nuanced this work is. Thank you for what you taught, for how you modeled this work, and for holding space with such integrity and heart."
— Donna S. Conley, Author, Healer & Coach, Wild Moon Healers
Start With Your Breath
Not ready to book? Start with your breath.
Download a simple breathwork technique that calms your nervous system in about sixty seconds. It's free, it's yours to keep, and it's a fair sample of how quickly the body responds when you give it the right cue.
Questions People Ask
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Yes, and that's exactly what trauma-informed training is for. I pace the work to what your system can handle, and I won't push you past it. You set the intention, you stay in control, and we go only as far as feels right that day.
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A private session is one-on-one and shaped entirely around you. In a private session, we begin with somatic processing before we move into breathwork. A circle is a group breathing together, which carries its own kind of power and is more accessible for some. There is no one size fits all. Some beginners start in private work then move into a circle, while others start in a circle and move into private work; it’s a matter of what fits each individual, what they’re moving through, and when they're ready to go deeper.
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You stay fully clothed and lie down while I place my hands lightly on or just above the body, depending on your preference. Most people feel warmth, a little tingling, or simply a deep quiet. Sixty – ninety minutes, and most leave feeling like their whole system got reset.
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Both, and I don't think those have to compete. The breathing does measurable things to your nervous system, moving you toward the parasympathetic state and releasing endorphins. The spiritual side is real too. You don't have to believe anything in particular for your body to respond.
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None at all. Plenty of my clients arrive having never done breathwork or Reiki, a little skeptical, honestly. That's a perfectly good place to begin.
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Both. In-person sessions are in Lothian and around Anne Arundel County. Virtual sessions work better than most people expect, since your breath comes with you wherever you are.
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Then you get emotional, and that's welcome here. Tears, laughter, an old memory surfacing, it's all part of the work. The room is built to hold it, and you won't be doing it alone.
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Often the same session. Many people feel calmer and lighter by the time they leave the first one. The deeper patterns take a few sessions to shift, the way most things worth doing do.
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I do. I offer Usui Holy Fire® III Reiki certification through to the master teacher level, and an Activation Breathwork Facilitator Certification co-facilitated with Gwen Dittmar. Both are for people ready to do their own healing first, then guide others.
Whenever You're Ready
Turning your attention toward yourself can feel selfish at first, or just impossible, with everything else already asking for it. I'd gently push back on that. Healing yourself is one of the most generous things you can do, because it reaches everyone downstream of you.
Whenever you're ready, I'd love to meet you.