Today we’d like to introduce you to Heidi Harris.
Hi Heidi, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, you could tell our readers some of your backstories.
Hello! I’m Heidi, and I’m so glad you’re here! We all have a story, and sharing our stories helps us relate to one another as beings of light having a human experience. We grow in listening to each other and sharing our stories and can find comfort in our commonalities while learning from our differences. I would love to hear more about your story through my contact page and how I might be of service to you! In the meantime, this is my story.
I’ve spent most of my life on stage as an orchestral concert violinist, having had the honor to perform with some of the finest orchestras, including the St. Louis Symphony, Boston Symphony, and Chicago Symphony, in some of the most beautiful concert halls in the world! As wonderful as certain aspects of this have been, performing never brought me a sense of well-being or fulfillment. In reality, I’ve experienced much anxiety in my career as a violinist. The stage never felt like home to me, and I learned to play a role while on stage that enabled me to get through the anxiety and panic attacks I experienced during many performances. It was by being in the role of a ‘performer’ that I could sustain a very long career that spanned my entire adult life. But this role took a toll, as I could not sustain living in ways inauthentic to my true self.
I knew early on that being a violinist wasn’t what I was here on earth to do. I eventually realized that I couldn’t sustain the busyness and anxiety that had become my life as a performer. To discover my purpose and what I was truly passionate about, I began taking classes I remembered being interested in as a young child. This was a new experience because I was never given choices about what I wanted to be or do when I was young.
I was raised by a parent who started me in music lessons at 3. This parent couldn’t see me for who I was and instead, unfortunately, placed the burden of their unrealized dreams onto me. A lot of shame and criticism were inflicted on me when I didn’t perform well, and I was conditioned to earn love through my success on the violin. By age 5, I knew that to receive ‘love,’ I must perform better than the other children around me. This motivated me in negative ways to be highly competitive and perform as perfectly as possible, hoping to receive the approval and love that every child needs. My academic schooling was compromised as I grew into adulthood because my violin lessons and performances were emphasized to such an extreme that the violin eventually became the only thing I could make a successful living at.
I started performing with the Boston Symphony as a senior at the New England Conservatory of Music. I won my first orchestra job with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra just before I graduated. Directly after graduation, I was thrown into an entirely blown career in music, making a great salary with full health benefits and touring Europe and Asia with the St. Louis Symphony. I was completely secure financially and well on my way to enjoying a lifetime in music with the security of a tenured position. But what looked like a beautiful life from the outside felt like a prison to me. I knew I couldn’t continue living with the pressure and anxiety I felt when I performed. I often had panic attacks on stage where I felt like I couldn’t breathe and the walls were caving in. Fast forward about ten years, and I was married with two children when I finally broke down.
I also struggled with guilt over being a working mother, and my performance schedule took me away from my children nearly every weekend. Deep down, I felt I had so much more to give to the world that went way beyond what I was doing, so I took a year away from the orchestra and began my search for myself.
In my quest to heal from the conditioning and restrictions of my upbringing and in search of living in authentic and natural ways, I found that I was drawn to the healing arts. And so I began what started as a year-long quest but ended up spanning the following twelve years. In those twelve years, I juggled being a wife and mother, working a full-time job in the St. Louis Symphony, playing extra concerts outside of the orchestra, which included occasionally traveling to serve as guest concertmaster of other orchestras, teaching private violin lessons from my home, and acting as an adjunct professor of violin at Webster University and playing in the university orchestra, while also delving into in-depth studies in Yoga, Meditation, Reiki Energy Healing, Divinatory Tarot Reading, Channeling, and Life Coaching. During this period, I began teaching yoga and meditation on top of everything else and taking on more work utilizing the new skills in the areas I was training in.
I loved writing as a young person, and it was a natural transition for me to begin writing about my newfound knowledge and life experiences. This segued into writing self-guided courses and books, leading workshops, and working one-on-one with clients. I’ve had many twists and turns in my life. Sadly, my marriage ended, and I am now retired from the St. Louis Symphony. I am also, unfortunately, estranged from the parent who raised me. These things were not as I would have wanted them to turn out, but I had to make painful choices to live authentically and feel alive. We cannot truly feel alive when we live according to other people’s ideas of who and what we should be, and so, I chose to feel alive and move through the heartbreak and grief of having to give up many things and people that were near and dear to me.
Some might say I’ve made many mistakes, but this is different from how I view it. I now see that everything in my life, good and bad, happens for a reason. I was meant to gain wisdom through the school of life itself as much as through my classes and studies, and in truth, this type of wisdom cannot be learned in a classroom.
This school of a life path is a much tougher, darker, and more difficult path. But the path helps a person gain the wisdom and empathy needed to help others from a place of experiential knowledge and empathy. Without experiencing our pain and growth, we cannot witness, support, and help others through their own painful experiences and growth. To be practical, I have named my new healing business Heidi’s House of Alchemy. I’m now living my dream of being a healing practitioner, and I even have my own space that I practice out of! I don’t think of this space as my place of ‘business’ because I never want to ‘work’ another day! Still, all I do at Heidi’s House of Alchemy is simply be myself, express my authenticity, and bring my passion projects to life to share with others.
This way of living is uplifting and brings me so much joy. I love to work with others and help them by utilizing the mediums I’ve trained in. It’s a dream, and I am deeply grateful for the many people who have supported and helped me along the way, without whom I couldn’t have survived the low points that challenged me. As they say, it takes a village, and my village got me to where I am today.
A deep bow of gratitude to my teachers and mentors, without whom I would not be here today:
-Emmet Schmelig
-Jen Jones
-Tias & Surya Little
-Zack Alexander
-Emily Wehrman
-Kari Buzewski
-Gretchen Hydo
-Abel Yares
-Ahram Arya
-The Unseen Helpers + Guides + Light Beings
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might need to become more familiar, what can you tell them about what you do?
You know how sometimes you don’t feel happy and don’t know why? You may know perfectly well why you’re unhappy, but you have no idea how to figure things out because the thoughts roaming around in your head are confusing and draining. You may also be tired and irritable and feel a general malaise over life. Well, there’s a reason people feel this way. It doesn’t just happen! But many people will live years like this and think this is normal. They forget what it feels like to be hopeful, free, and happy like they were as young children. I show people how to find joy again and connect with who they were before they were conditioned or hurt by people, situations, or society. I help people sort out where their problems began, and then we work together to untangle the things inside them that are all bottled up and blocking them from their happiness. In turn, this creates more spaciousness and peace inside them, so we talk about making choices regarding how they want their lives to be different.
Much of this is done through listening to someone and talking about things. But I also utilize other modalities and channel information from higher sources. This is what sets me apart from most other practitioners, the channeling aspect. When I’m with a client, it’s not just me in the room with my training and background experience that is talking with the client. I connect with higher sources, which you call Spirit, who speaks to me and give me messages for my clients. During any given session, whether I’m talking one on one with someone, doing Reiki, giving a Tarot or Pendulum reading, holding an Inner Child Healing Workshop, giving a Yoga Class, or writing a book, I’m referencing the knowledge I have from my training and life experiences. Still, also listen to the messages I’m receiving from Spirit. I then sort through all the information and filter it for the client in streamlined, grounded, and practical language that helps them navigate the problems they’re trying to sort through.
From the outside looking in, you wouldn’t know this is all happening! It’s fluid for me because I am used to the process. But I always connect with Spirit and am guided consistently by this higher source. There have been times when Spirit has asked me to share information with a client or shown me an image that I have no idea what it means but that I’m being asked to share with a client, and I question Spirit and tap in to make sure that I’m supposed to share the information or image. Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe, but I always trust Spirit and share the information, and it has always ended up being accurate and helpful for my clients when I’ve done this. This is what has helped me to trust this process and know that it is real and that it’s helpful for others.
Are any books, apps, podcasts, or blogs that help you do your best?
I am always reading books or online articles. There are too many to reference here! But I often feel guided to a particular source, and there’s a synchronicity to when this happens for me because inevitably when I follow my intuition and where it guides me, the source has the information I need. I don’t do apps or podcasts. I’m old school! I prefer books or articles. However, I reference a select few people on Instagram with whom I’m on a similar wavelength and energy frequency. I’m very choosy about whose energy I tap into, which we all should be! Some of the people on Instagram I follow who inspire me and whom I learn a great deal from our Zack Alexander @zackalexander__, Abel Yares @abel_yares, Ahram Arya @ahramarya, and Ashmi Pathela @ashmi.path.
Pricing:
- $110 for a 90 minute private session (discount packages are available)
- $45 for a30 minute tarot or pendulum reading
- $25-$45 for a variety of 90 minute workshops
- $300 for a 6-week intensive Inner Child Healing Workshop
- $10 for FYLO lip balm, $20 for hard copy of Grounded Manifestation book, and $12 for PDF download of Grounded Manifestation book
Contact Info:
- Website: www.heidishouseofalchemy.com
- Instagram: @heidishouseofalchemy
- Youtube: @houseofalchemytarot8977
Image Credits
Photo Credit for my images goes to my daughter, Eden Harris.
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