Bennington local Abby Skidmore is a certified reiki ‘level 3’ practitioner, massage therapist, and yoga teacher. Abby began pursuing her education while working locally in childcare. She then received her certifications through Pyramid Holistic Wellness Center out of Rutland, Vermont in 2012 and has been practicing massage therapy and reiki treatments for the past 6 years. Abby started working with massage therapy and then became attuned to reiki while in school. She received her yoga certification from Heart of the Village in Manchester, Vermont. After receiving her certifications, she began working at Green Mountain Oasis (located on main street in Bennington).

Reiki is a complementary healing modality to add to anyone’s life and can be beneficial for many things; particularly illness, emotional distress, imbalance and insomnia. Abby uses an analogy to describe reiki, “when you’re little and you fall and scrape your knee, the first reaction someone has is to put their hands over their injury to give it love and healing- that’s the idea behind reiki practice”. 

She has since become the Bennington regional coordinator for the Vermont Reiki Association. As Vermont has the only reiki association in the country, one of Abby’s goals is to educate and make

 reiki treatments more mainstream, particularly focusing within her local community. Within the past year Abby decided to open and start her own business, Studio Gratitude, and continues to work out of Oasis (where she also teaches gentle beginner yoga). While working within her own business, Abby is also open to traveling as to better service different varieties of clients.

Like many people, I struggle at times to set aside time for self care with my busy schedule; however, I was thoroughly satisfied and happy that I set aside the time to receive a reiki treatment from Abby. As someone who has had a prior reiki treatment, I forgot how relaxing and stress relieving reiki treatments can be; I left my appointment with Abby holding much less tension in my body and mind. Abby is friendly, and very mindful to keep her clients comfortable; she very noticeably radiates warmth and passion in all aspects her practice. I would highly recommend her to everyone!