Reiki in times of fear

I wanted to talk about the covid-19 and the fear that is going on now. I know that there is a lot of fear over this and that is ok. As this hit the world rather fast and the media did not help keeping the general public calm. In this time isolation and social distance, we find ourselves facing our inner worlds, our own fears and thoughts. I know that we, tend to keep busy to avoid facing our own inner “demons” thoughts, fears and even our own limiting beliefs. This can be terrifying, but for us to grow we need to face those things in us and let go of what no longer serves our highest good and the highest good for all. I see that people are showing kindness even though we are keeping our distance, we are learning and experiencing a whole new way of living. That is truly a beautiful thing to see and gives hope that humanity can change for the better and heal.

I have been sending reiki distantly to the world and to everyone who needs it and I know other reiki people have done so as well. We know that reiki helps clear the fear and that is what was needed to allow for the world to move from fear to kindness and love. There is still a lot of fear but not as much as when this first hit the world. So, I will continue to clear that fear and help heal humanity and the Earth using Reiki and all the different healing modalities that I have. If you have any reiki or other healing modalities like crystal healings, herbal healing, healing touch, pray or song, I ask you to send it out into the world and to those that need it most like our medical professionals and the elderly. If you already are doing so, I thank you and keep it up. I know I am and will continue to do so.

Healing with Wolves

Over the past few months I have been off in my own energies and dealing with seasonal depression. Yes, I still do reiki on myself and I still teach Reiki and offer reiki to clients. I know how to keep doing what I do regardless of what I am going through and not let it affect the people receiving reiki. I need something to pull myself out of my own head. So, on 02/08/2020 I went to Wolf Creek Habitat in Indiana.  It was a bit of a long drive but worth it. I decided to go into the enclosures with the wolves. The Habitat allows you to go in with 3 packs for a donation of $50.00 that goes to helping to feed the 40 wolves that make up the 13 packs that are on site. All the wolves there are either born at the habit or rescued but everyone was handled by humans and cannot be released back into the wild. At first, I was a little nervous as most people are, I’m sure, but I went up to the platform that the wolves of the 1st pack was on and just started scratching the chest of the first one that came up to the edge. It was pure magic. I cannot tell you how wonderful it was to be loving on the wolf. This wolf turned on my reiki full force and sought comfort from me! When I was looking for healing myself this noble creature asked for comfort and healing from me! The pack was extra nervous due to there being a loud bang of something hitting metal somewhere close by when we just walked into the enclosure. We spent some time with that pack made of 4 wolves that were all born at the habitat and then moved onto the 2nd pack.

The 2nd pack was made of 3 wolves 2 males and 1 female. Both males were very sweet one kept pawing me to come closer and moved my hand to his under belly. (See picture) He also kept my reiki flowing and even was looking like he was falling asleep standing there as I scratched him. The other male gave me licks and was also enjoying my reiki. I had my friend taking photos for me as I took them for her too. The female didn’t really want much attention at first then she came and sat with me and allowed me to give her loving. To be honest this pack was my favorite pack to be in with out of the 3 packs, but I enjoyed all 3 packs, each one adding to the experience.

The 3rd pack was a little more active and very vocal. There was a white wolf that kept trying to get to the other pack and I do believe the alpha kept bopping him and that got some growling and snarls form him. It was a little unnerving. I did end up petting/scratching 3 out of the 4 wolves that made up this last pack. I went to give the 4th some loving, and the alpha female chased her away and made her submit belly up. She than, didn’t come near any of us that were in the group that went in with me. I didn’t feel this pack pull on my reiki as much as the other 2 packs but still it was very cool experience.

I got the healing I needed and surprised to me ended up giving reiki to the wolves of Wolf Creek Habitat. If you ever get the chance to go, I highly recommend going to visit the wolves at Wolf Creek Habitat.

Grounding Expanded...

I know I talked about grounding and centering before and I wanted to expand on it some more. We often go about our lives with a feeling of being disconnected form ourselves, each other and to our Earth. This often can lead to sickness and other health issues. It is why I talk about grounding with my clients.

I know I have mentioned some of these before, but they are worth mentioning again. There are so many different techniques to grounding like: meditation, petting a furry pet, hugging a tree, putting hands in a pot of dirt, eating grains, drinking water, washing hands in running water, soaking your feet in salted water, deep breathing, holding black stones like: tourmaline, hematite, onyx, jet or obsidian. Holding petrified wood is one of my favorite grounding stones. You can even do reiki to help you ground, as there are a few reiki systems that are very grounding that I offer, like Celtic Reiki and Celtic Wisdom Reiki. Walking barefoot is a great way to ground but if it is winter like it is now that problem not the best idea. You can also do hand Mudras and Mantras to help one ground. See the image for some ideas. I teach grounding and centering with a shielding technique using a tree meditation with the visualization of creating a ball of protection that surrounds you after the tree meditation.

Click on the title of this post and leave a comment or share your own experiences with grounding and or your own techniques!

Stress, what it does to you and how reiki can help reduce stress

I want to talk about what stress and anxiety does to the body. Stress can be caused by many different factors, but it is how we cope with different situations and environments. Each of us deals with these things that affect our life differently. When we have stress, we sometimes become sick or ill, we can feel anxiety and fear. When we feel stressed and anxiety our body goes into the fight or flight mode, it is how we protect ourselves. This is from the time when we, as humans relied on that, fight or flight mode in order to survive. So, when the body is in protection mode it shuts down your growth center that is where your digestive and repertory systems are, in your torso. So, fear and anxiety can, if it is unchecked or prolonged, shut down your growth, your immune systems, reproduction, tissue repair and your inflammatory systems. So, having prolonged stress and anxiety can cause us to become chronically ill.

There are 4 basic sources that we experience stress. 1. Your thoughts, how you persevere your environment can affect your stress level. 2. Your body changes i.e. menopause, adolescence, poor nutrition, inadequate sleep, and your physiological reactions to your environment. 3. Your environment, pollen, weather, noise and air pollution all can be overwhelming. 4. Lastly your social demands for your time and energy and attention.

So, what should you look for when you are looking at how your body responds to stress? You can experience any of the following and more due to each person is different and experiences stress different. Heart-rate increases, breathing rate increases, muscle tension, blood pressure increases, and metabolism increases. You can feel your hands and feet become cold as blood moves to lager muscles that can help fight or flight. Your eyes can dilate, and your sight and hearing sharpen.

How can Reiki help with stress? Well as I have said before in previous posts Reiki helps you to relax! Reiki gently calms all of those over reactive sensations down. It brings balance back to the body and give a feeling of being safe so that the body can get out of the fight or flight mode that stress puts us in. Reiki allows one to return to the growth mode of being. When I have a reiki client that is over stressed, I ask them to tell me where they feel that stress and tension in their body. This then gives me a starting point for their reiki session. I also offer my stress management packet. I won’t make my stress management packet available on line through my website just yet, but if you would like it you can request it through my email/contact page.

Waterfall Reiki Technique

The waterfall reiki technique is a technique that helps my students and other reiki practitioners channel reiki in their self-reiki or when they are with a client. It teaches you to fill yourself up with reiki before you give to anyone else. I am not sure where I learned this technique or if I just took a meditation that I did and applied it to my reiki practice. I have been doing this for the whole time that I have been doing reiki myself. I teach it by giving a visualization of holding a cup under a waterfall. Filling the cup up and then allowing it to over flow that cup. I see the waterfall as the reiki energies and the cup as myself. If you are a more physical learner, you can even do the visualization with a normal cup and your kitchen sink. Just turn the water on full power and then hold a cup under the water and fill it up than let it over flow. Same thing you are the cup and your reiki is the water.

Why do I teach this technique to not only my own reiki students but to any reiki practitioner? Think about this: if you are channeling energy through your upper body without filling yourself up first, you create an imbalance in your own energies. When you do this your own energetic bodies will do whatever it needs to, to bring itself into balance. So then your lower body is out of balance with what you are doing by channeling the reiki through your upper body. It then needs to balance you so it starts to pull energies from anywhere it can. Most of the time, it is pulling all the “ick” (negative energy) off the client or in the surrounding area that you as the reiki practitioner is helping the client with. So that imbalance leaves you open to pull/attract negative energies into yourself that you than have to remove or heal yourself when those negative energies show up as dis-ease.

So I believe everyone that is a reiki practitioner no matter the level or how long you have been doing reiki can benefit from learning the waterfall reiki technique.

What is Grounding and Centering?

What is Grounding? Grounding or earthing is the act of connecting or reconnecting to the Earth. It is being fully aware of everything around you, yet at the same time being calm. There are many ways to ground, you can meditate, walk bare foot, pet furry animals, sit under a tree, you can even hug a tree. My favorite is the tree meditation that connects you to the center of the Earth and then has you go in four directions to find water. The visualization is you become the tree, then brings you back to your being. There are all kinds of grounding meditations on youtube.com. Drinking water and eat grains are another way to ground yourself.

What is Centering? Centering is bringing all those scattered thoughts, those to do list, those bits and pieces of ourselves that we send out back to our self, or back to home base. It is bringing awareness back to home base or to the here and now. It is being fully mindful of here and now and present. One thing that I have found is this happens when you ground. You can also focus on breathing and consciously calling all your wayward thoughts and energies back to home base. This in turn grounds you at the same time. Both centering and grounding happens simultaneously and instantly, when you do one the other just happens. It can be a pure magical experience.

I would love to hear about your favorite ways to ground and center yourself.

Crystals and Reiki

I have been using crystals for healing on myself and on others for most of my life. Just alone each crystal, stone and rock has it’s own unique energy that can be used for healing. Even your common river rock has healing potential and is beneficial. Crystals healing alone can aid one in bringing clarity and abundance, boost your energy levels. Aids in “letting go” of things or beliefs that no longer serve our highest good. Can help with a positive mindset. It can connect the body, mind and soul. Crystal healing can help strengthen the immune system and the energetic bodies, as well as boost confidence, promote self-love, and it can even calm someone with high anxiety down. It can reduce stress and bring balance to the chakras and there is so much more that just crystals can do.  There are no limits to what crystals can do.

Add Reiki to that mix and holy cow it speeds up and enhances everything that both do by individually. When you combined the two it creates this beautiful synergy of energy that is truly amazing. In my experience when I do both crystal and reiki together in a session, I find they work in harmony that is extremely effective in enhancing the healing possibilities. Through my past blog posting we already know that Reiki is very beneficial for everyone and anyone as it works on the whole of your being. There are endless benefits to having just Reiki or Crystal and even more so when they are combined.

Even though I have been doing Crystal Reiki intuitively since I began my journey into reiki, I have just recently received my formal training and certification in Crystal Reiki Master Teacher. I will be offering this though my website within the next few months.

Anxiety and Reiki

I find that a lot of my reiki clients come to me with anxiety, seeking a way to cope without medication. I must say this; I will never tell you to not take something your doctor prescribes to you or to stop consulting your professional medical doctors. I am not a Doctor nor will I claim to be one and if you go to any reiki practitioner that claims such you should ask lots of questions and want to see proof of their doctorate. So with that said I want to start by talking about what anxiety is so that you have a better understanding of it.

What is anxiety? According to medical definitions it is a mental dis-order that lead to excessive nervousness, fear, apprehension, and worry. What my interpenetration is that you are worrying about what is to come or the future. It is: the what could be’s, the what if’s, and worrying about the things that are out of your control.  I know that even talking about all this can cause one to have anxiety so let me remind you that you are safe and you are OK and focus on the here and now. Having anxiety is normal human emotion. Having constant anxiety is where it affects your health. It triggers your fight of flight response. When you are in that fight or flight mood your body sends all of its energy to your limbs and shuts down your digestive system and torso area. So staying in that mood for prolonged time, you then start to see other issues like ulcers.

So, how can reiki help with anxiety? Well first reiki is an energy that helps one to relax. It helps you be in the here and now. I have been told that reiki feels like a weight is being lifted off their chest. I have seen someone with severe anxiety come to me, looking like they are deflated. Almost like they have collapsed in on themselves, they were so hunched over that it was painful to see. After one reiki session my client could stand/sit up straighter than they have in years. She also told me that she could actually take a full deep breath and that she felt lighter in heart. She came back for weekly sessions for 6 months. To date she has reported that she has had only a few moments of where she felt her anxiety surface but she was able to manage it quickly. She comes to see me every so often just as something for her to do as part of her new self-care habits.

The energies of reiki are so gentle and loving that it encourages you to relax into it and just let it do what it needs to do. It is hard to resist that beautiful gift that you can’t help but to do as the energies ask of you and trust it and relax.

Benefits of Reiki

Reiki works on all levels of the mind, body, and spiritual. It works on the past, present, and future. It does not follow linear time, because it is energy and can go where it is needed. Reiki is universal life force energy, Chi, Prana, or Mana. It helps one to reach a relaxed state of being in order for you to begin to heal yourself.  There is a quote that I love, “The soul usually knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind.” –Caroline Myss- This is what reiki helps with.

I have had clients report the effects of reiki as reduction in trauma, anxiety, and stress. It can relieve depression, balances the energy systems, improve sleep, and even helps with pain management. Some have told me that they have more self-esteem, mental clarity and stronger intuition. Reiki can even helps with PTSD, chemotherapy and other medical drug treatment side effects. It promotes self-love, self-care, and healthy life choices. One client had childhood trauma that she needed to work through forgiving the one who caused the pain and herself for allowing it to happen. Reiki and a bit of talk therapy helped her move to forgiveness of everyone including herself. She later told me that she has found an inner peace that she has never known in her whole life and tearfully thanked me for the reiki session that I had given her.

Another client who was a vet with PTSD came to me seeking help. He use to drink to drowned and forget everything he had seen in his time in service. He was angry most of the time and was going through a divorce and some legal problems.  Due to all of that he could no longer drown his problems. He asked me to work with him to find a different way to cope. I gave him one reiki treatment and he was hooked. He wanted to learn how I do what I do. So he became one of my students. He has learned about how having a reiki self-practice can help with even more then he originally had wanted to treat.

So whether you have some health issue or are just in need of some relaxation, the benefits of reiki are endless.