Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon
E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org
Surnames: Egland, Cook
----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI) 3/13/2019
‘New Beginnings’ For Neillsville Business this Sat. (Holistic Healings – 2019)
Nicole Egland is owner of New Beginnings Holistic healing in Neillsville. Egland is a Reiki practitioner, and she also sells natural beauty and cleaning products. Valerie Brecht/Clark County Press
By Valerie Brecht
Even as her business is beginning, Nicole Egland is hoping to inspire new beginnings in other people’s lives.
New Beginnings Holistic Healing is at 538 Hewett Street, Neillsville. The grand opening and ribbon cutting will be this Saturday, March 16 at 9:30 a.m.
New Beginnings offers Reiki, yoga, meditation, home blessings, wedding ceremonies and other services. Egland also sells natural beauty and cleaning products as part of her business.
New Beginnings opened at the current location in February 2018.
“It was a very slow, very soft open,” said Egland.
At first she just offered Reiki services to family and friends. She also had a free Reiki day for the community one Sunday a month. In the fall, she started to advertise more for her business. This year, she expanded into offering products.
“Last year was all about promotion; 2019 has been all about the full-fledged business,” she said.
Egland said a good part of last year was spent educating people on what Reiki is. Reiki is an ancient Japanese technique for stress reduction that is administered by the laying of hands. Egland said that Reiki is a healing art and is about re-balancing the energy found in the body’s seven energy centers, known as chakras.
“Throughout the course of our lives, our chakras can become unbalanced, and when you do a Reiki session, it re-balances out those energy centers and basically relieves you of your emotional buildup.
“Most commonly, my clients, when they leave, say they feel like a blank slate – like a positive blank slate. Reiki releases all of that stress that you carry, and you just feel completely relieved of everything,” Egland said.
Reiki is often put under the category of massage therapy, although that’s not what it is, said Egland. It does cause people to enter a theta state, which is a deep meditative state like a person would experience right before going to sleep.
Egland said Reiki is an experience that is hard to describe unless a person experiences it.
“It’s a spiritual experience – it’s not tied to a certain religion,” said Egland. “With Reiki, you don’t have to be a special person, so to speak.”
Egland heard about Reiki through her friend Dawnette Cook of the Valhalla, Haven of Healing LLC in Osseo. She completed the three Reiki “attunements” necessary to becoming a Reiki master in 2017. The practice of Reiki is passed down from master to student.
Along with Reiki, New Beginnings also offers guided meditation and Biomat sessions, among other services. The Biomat is a pad that lies on top of a massage table and contains amethyst and tourmaline crystals. It converts electricity into far infrared rays and negative ions and the crystals serve as the conductor to the body.
“Unlike a heating pad where that heats you from the outside in, the Biomat heats you from the inside out, and that has a lot of health benefits – it reduces inflammation, it can help release the buildup of toxins within your body [and] people have reduction of pain,” Egland said.
The Biomat raises the body temperature of the user. By raising the body temperature at least 1.2 degrees, there are benefits to one’s immune system.
“Many others and I describe it as a nice warm hug on the inside,” she said.
Along with the services Egland provides, she also offers a variety of natural products. She said the store part of her business developed after she started being more conscientious of the products she was buying for her and her family in the last two-and-a-half years.
“I was quite appalled by the cancer-causing ingredients that are found in your shampoos, your makeup, everything that you’re using in your life,” she said. “The negative impact that they’re having on people’s lives – if you think about the amount of illness that’s out there compared to years ago it just was amazing. … I wanted to be able to offer healthier products to our community and it really fit in with what my mission was down here which was helping people and helping them live their best lives and finding themselves.”
Her store offers chemical-free makeup, baby products, a men’s care line, deodorants, body wash, shampoos, hair products, bug spray, sunscreens and other personal care products. She also sells jewelry, crystals, essential oils and natural cleaning products.
Egland says she tries every product herself to ensure it’s something she wants on her shelves.
She currently has limited hours on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays but is planning on expanding store hours. People may also order items online through the store’s website and pick them up in-store. Egland also delivers orders in Neillsville.
Egland is happy to not only offer products that people can use, but also, through her business, to create a comfortable space for people to escape the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
“It’s just a wonderful, relaxing space. People always comment on how relaxing it is. It’s just its own little world in here. It’s my own peaceful, no-judgment zone. It’s awesome,” she said.
For more information on Reiki or on ‘New Beginnings’ products, call or text Egland at 715.937.3708 or visit the business website or Facebook page.
Egland was born and raised in Neillsville. After living in Nekoosa and Wisconsin Rapids, she returned to Neillsville in 2015. Her husband is Josh and she has two children, Traeden, 9 and Gabriel, 7.
