long distance Reiki

For the past few days, I’ve experienced an intermittent burning sensation on the sole of my right foot.

#$%

I had the great displeasure of living with plantar fasciitis about 12 years ago and I’m not keen to revisit those days. I immediately took action with the intention of tending to body, mind, emotions, spirit, and energy system.

What does that look like? A holistic approach is about recognizing all aspects of ourselves and investigating what is out of balance. I want to address all factors that could be contributing to the imbalance, not just pushing away discomfort at any cost.

Therefore, I did not take Advil or any anti-inflammatory meds. I don’t want to suppress the pain; I want to treat it. At its source. Inflammation is a message of an underlying problem. Squashing it is like shooting the messenger.

Same for ice. I might consider it if the pain was intense, but I’m not there now.

I didn’t try to stretch it out. The connective tissue is irritated, it doesn’t need me trying to force it to lengthen. Not did I go at it with a tennis ball or other massage tool.

I noticed that a low-grade freak out kicked. That’s an uncomfortable state of being and such a contrast to the inner peace that I’ve cultivated that the shift was obvious immediately.

I checked in- what’s going on? Fear. Fear of pain, immobility, and my life being disrupted.

I let my emotions have some space rather than trying to shut them down. I imagined myself on a mountain top, surrounded by the infinite sky and let out the energetic equivalent of a banshee wail. I live in an apartment, so I turned the volume of my voice way down to not disturb the neighbors but turned intensity all the way up. Quiet anguish. Great for discharging energy without alarming others.

Then I got busy tending to my nervous system. This was pure fight or flight mode. My body was itching to DO something, to GO somewhere, to tackle this head on. While that’s perfectly understandable, we can’t access intuition or cognition in this state. Rather than just doing anything, going anywhere, tackling whatever, I figured it was better to have a plan.

Normally I use my rebounder and some vigorous movement to release this activation, but that wasn’t feasible given my desire to protect my foot. Instead, I did some vigorous breathing, extending my exhales while shaking my arms wildly.

When calm descended, I began to strategize.

I pulled up on my mental screen everything I know about inflammation. Stress and cortisol are great contributors, and I was already addressing this. Gut health factors in, so I considered how I could plan meals around healing foods like bone broth, sauerkraut, and ginger.

I applied a salve I’d made from essential oils, as well as arnica gel. (Best to buy these things at a health food store to assure quality and the absence of chemicals. I like to be able to pronounce all the ingredients of products I slather on my skin.) Aromatherapy oils help to stimulate the body’s healing abilities- which is very different from suppressing symptoms.

I reviewed what I know about the fascia system and how it connects from sole to calf to hamstring and spent some time using a foam roller on my calves, hoping to create some slack that would provide ease for my feet.

I’m not exactly an expert on fascia, despite having a good working knowledge. I turned to Foundation Training, an app I use to relieve pain, build strength and balance, and improve posture. There I found some basic exercises for the feet and integrating the rear fascial chain.

All the while I kept a compassionate eye on my emotions. They were very active. Thoughts like – I should know better. I should have been able to avoid this. How bad will it get? How long will it last? Will I become homeless, live under a bridge, and get eaten by cats? OK, that last one is an exaggeration, but you know how the catastrophising can go!

I welcomed all the thoughts and feelings (vs. suppressing which only pushes problems into the future) and paid attention with curiosity and compassion. I was also careful not to let it snowball into a pity party. Basically, I took the role as the wise, loving grandmother, listening to all the children’s worries and then taking charge of the situation.

I looked at several metaphysical connections to the feet- dragging the feet, standing on one’s own two feet, sure-footedness, slowing down, etc. to see if any resonated and if there was some work that needed to be done in the realm of limiting beliefs.

I viewed my feet through the chakra lens, as part of the root system and my connection to the earth. I made plans to get to the park soon to put my bare feet on the grass to help ground my energy.

I considered my shoes and whether or not I needed more support or more freedom for my toes.

Perhaps most importantly, I saturated both feet (they work together as a team, and whenever one is affected, it can easily spread to the other via compensation or defensive mechanisms) with Reiki.

In addition to infusing my soles with life-force energy, this began the healing of any energetic, emotional, psychological or even spiritual contributions. Plus it’s easy, so I can do it without much effort. It’s portable, so I can practice out in the world, with or without shoes, with or without touching my feet. If you ran into me in public, you wouldn’t even know I was engaged in a powerful healing modality while we chatted over tea.

Essentially, I’m looking for anything that could be contributing to the imbalance and everything I can do to promote healing. It might seem like a lot of effort, but knowing how miserable PF can be and how it usually takes months to abate, I think it’s worth the effort.

My friend and I had plans to go for a hike this morning. I debated canceling our outing, but my desire to be out in nature and spend time with someone important to me won out. I slowed down my pace and was more mindful of where/how I placed my feet. I’m delighted to report that I didn’t feel even a hint of that burning while we walked or in the several hours since then.

See how the leaves are in the process of changing color!

So, there you have it! Probably more than you ever wanted to know about addressing plantar fasciitis holistically. If you have any tips or tricks that helped you, I’d love to hear them. The conventional treatment is woefully inadequate and there’s no need for anyone to suffer needlessly if there are any natural remedies that can help.

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Plantar Fasciitis- a Holistic Approach

For the past few days, I’ve experienced an intermittent burning sensation on the sole of my…
I saw this question raised online last week. A woman was inquiring about the dreadful statistics of Americans given that everyone she asks claims to eat healthfully.

It really got me thinking about the state of the world in which people try their best to look after themselves and fail.

Unsurprisingly, I have a lot to say about this!

In fact, I could probably write a book about my thoughts on this subject. I don’t have the energy to do that as I spend some much time on cultivating my own health. But as I pondered, two key factors have floated up to the top of my list of key offenders.

One. Chronic stress. Stress is normalized, even celebrated in our culture. It’s normal for people to spend more than half of their waking hours in a toxic work environment. The more you work, the busier you are, the more stress you have, the better. That’s the upside-down message we receive in this crazy society.

This is not healthy! If this describes your everyday reality, know that you’re going to need to take action to mitigate the effects of chronic stress by learning to regulate your nervous system and/or metabolize the physiological impact of being chronically disregulated.

We now know the damaging effects of a constant cortisol drip, but for many of us, there doesn’t seem to be an alternative. The system is rigged against us. Dropouts, misfits, and revolutionaries are able to escape this insanity, but you need to be a risk-taker to go this route.

Two. We’ve lost touch with our inner wisdom and turn to external “experts” for strategies about health. With so many doctors being specialists in one narrow corner of medicine, few have the big picture of wellness in mind. If you’re lucky enough to be able to afford a functional medicine doctor or homeopath, you’re still having to battle uphill against societal norms.

So often I hear people talking about their “healthy choices” and feel surprised at what they consider to be healthy. Low fat? Low carb? There’s so much conflicting information out there. So many of our strategies are influenced by advertisements sneakily disguised and normalized by repetition.

Milk- it does a body good. Remember this campaign from the 80’s? It an advertisement paid for by the dairy council! Milk may or may not be good for your body- we’re all different. But that isn’t a catchy slogan that people will recall for decades.

Trident- it’s what 2 out of 3 dentists recommend for their patients who chew gum. Another ad from my childhood. It sounds like dentists are promoting sugar-free gum, right? But I don’t think any dentist suggests chewing gum. They are definitely opposed to sugar-laden gum like good-ole Hubba Bubba, but I can’t see that any are promoting gum itself.

And 2 out of 3? Not out of every dentist, just those surveyed. Do you think that Trident was careful in its selection of dentists to survey? Yeah.

I don’t remember much from my college days, but I took Statistics and the professor spelled out all the different ways you can lie with numbers by carefully crafting statements to reflect the preferred outcome.

We’ve been overtly and covertly influenced by information that is designed to mislead us, to make us feed bad about ourselves, to believe that if we just purchase this or that, all will be well. But capitalism is about selling stuff, not creating wellness, and there’s a heck of a lot more purchasing going on by people who want to be well than by people who are well.

Ok, one more reason I can’t ignore.

Three. Our food supply is full of crap. We tinker with the genetic material of plants in a lab. If that doesn’t freak you out, one of the reasons for this tinkering is to make plants strong enough to survive a chemical pesticide that is so deadly, it would kill the plant otherwise. Then those plants are manufactured into “food”, along with residue of that toxic chemical.

Yum.

Labels are deliberately misleading. Recipes are engineered to be super-addictive so people buy more and more and more.

The whole system is whacked.

If you’re struggling with health despite doing your best, it’s not your fault. Billions of dollars are invested to fool you.

Please don’t despair! That’s not good for your health either. The situation isn’t hopeless. I wouldn’t be writing this post just to leave you feeling depressed.

Reiki can help.

It can help relieve stress, detoxify your body, and amplify your connection to your inner wisdom, clarity, motivation and intuition. Every day it helps me figure out my priorities and move in the direction I want to go.

It’s not your fault that this world is so unhealthy. But if you want to have a different experience than the one you’ve been having, it is your responsibility to do something different. That could mean changing your job, shopping at a farmers market and preparing more of your meals at home, or working with a naturopath.

Or schedule a Reiki session for yourself once or twice each month to build up your life-force energy and manage your stress. You don’t even need to go anywhere- distance treatments can be received from wherever you are with very little effort. Just click a few buttons, share your goals, and sit back to soak it all up.

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Why are so many people unhealthy?

I saw this question raised online last week. A woman was inquiring about the dreadful statistics…
It’s no secret that health and happiness levels are influenced by self-care practices.

The often-overlooked element, however, is that self-care is an individual experience. Not a protocol that can be assigned by an outsider.

This is an inside process of learning to recognize what is needed in this moment, by this unique being. Which means it’s always in flux.

Sure, I have a foundation of self-care practices that are non-negotiable- rest, compassion, self-reflection, nourishment, movement, breath. But the strategies for addressing them is different all the time.

For me, there’s a lot of experimentation involved. I feel a need to strengthen my body, but how? There’s tons of advice online, but non of these people know my specific needs.

It’s been ages since I went to a gym, so I gave that a try. I don’t much care for the atmosphere (so many TV screens! WHY?) but it’s an affordable, easy way to access tons of fitness equipment.

After giving it a solid try for a month, I realize my original assessment was correct: not for me. But I didn’t really know until I tried.

Now I’m revisiting Foundation Training. I appreciate that it has a strong focus on anatomy, physiology and alignment. At one time it was very helpful to me but when a knee injury reappeared, I wasn’t able to do most of the exercises. That’s no longer an issue, so I’m giving it a go.

But here’s the takeaway: I’m not saying you should quit the gym and get an FT membership. I’m just sharing a real life example to make the point that we all need to get in touch with our own bodies and listen.

Look to the interweb for ideas, but do your own research.

Get the help you need if you’re suffering with a malady. AND then take that doctor/coach/therapist/counselor’s advise with a grain of salt and go with what feels right to you.

So many times I’ve worked with clients who followed the physical therapist’s or MD’s orders that caused more pain or delayed healing.

If you know something isn’t working, contemplate what you could do instead with this new data.

Be your own expert. Learn how to inhabit your body and hear your own truth. Take charge of your health and happiness and become a full participant in living your life fully.

Be willing to make mistakes and try things that dead end. Be willing to pivot when that happens and try something new.

Healing is not a linear path. Your zigs and zags, tangents and reroutes will be uniquely yours. Just pick one small thing and give it a try.

If you’re at a loss for where to begin, consider Reiki. This ancient healing modality can do no harm, can be received from anywhere in the world and feels incredibly relaxing.

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Unique-ify Your Self-Care

It’s no secret that health and happiness levels are influenced by self-care practices. The often-overlooked element,…
Clients often ask me if I felt any bad energy during their session. As if there was something inherently wrong with the energy in their system.

I don’t see it that way.

I often sense energy that is diminished from over-giving/under-receiving or coping mechanisms that have a draining effect. Sometimes it feels sluggish from sedentary lifestyles or blocked from suppressed emotions or unprocessed trauma.

Occasionally it’s clogged in one area, causing a build up upstream and depletion downstream.

Mostly I sense an imbalance in the flow or a general lack of energy. I don’t ever feel energy that is “bad”. I’m not sure there is such a thing.

There are definitely emotions that are uncomfortable; those that we dislike and would prefer not to experience. Our efforts at avoiding them disrupt the flow of energy, but still, I wouldn’t call any emotion “bad”. Unwanted, perhaps, but to label it as bad makes it wrong somehow, and I don’t think that’s helpful.

Many of us have beliefs we absorbed as children about which emotions are acceptable. However, those beliefs are not based on Universal Truths- just some authority figure attempting to make us easier to manage. Just because your third-grade teacher was not equipped to witness grief or anger doesn’t make those feelings bad. Yet we often integrated those messages and began judging our very natural responses to difficult situations as problematic.

I have yet to meet someone with bad energy. I’ve met lots of people who weren’t skilled at expressing themselves or their feelings and were maybe carrying around a lot of unpleasant baggage. I’ve met folks whose energy was not compatible with my preferences and those who didn’t know how to regulate themselves. People with erratic energy, big energy, chaotic energy, or overwhelming energy.

But not bad energy. If you’ve been wanting to get some Reiki healing sessions but worry about the practitioner picking up some bad energy, you needn’t. Reiki transforms and heals whatever isn’t in balance. It doesn’t push it out into the room. That’s something that only happens in sci-if movies.

Let’s stop thinking about our emotions, our experiences, our wounds or our energy as bad. They just are. That makes it a whole lot easier to welcome them, which is the first step in the healing process.

Bad Energy?

Clients often ask me if I felt any bad energy during their session. As if there…
I’m getting older and let me tell you, it’s pretty amazing! Today is my birthday and rather than lamenting the fact that I’m aging, I’m celebrating. I’m not supposed to tell you that I’m 53, but I’m delighted to do so! I’m not ashamed to be in my 50’s. Quite the opposite. I find it quite empowering.

I know who I am and what I want in ways that I never did when I was younger. It’s very refreshing! No more am I trying to fit myself into someone else’s expectations and the sense of freedom is invigorating.

We’ve been sold a narrative that once you reach a certain age, health begins to fail. Well, that’s just bullshit! It’s perpetuated by the marketing industry trying to sell us stuff that treats the surface symptoms, but never the root cause. If it treated the cause, we wouldn’t need to buy it anymore.

The vast majority of symptoms that I see are simply a result of chronic stress, energetic overspending and under-receiving, suppressed emotions causing a continuous cortisol drip, exposure to toxic chemicals, and neglect/misuse/abuse of the body.

We have control over much of this!

This is the work I do. Relieving stress and pain, integrating emotions, supporting the body’s needs so it can detox and repair, and filling up the energetic tank. I see it working day after day in my clients and students and I am a living, breathing, joyful example that making healthful choices consistently has a tremendous impact on well-being.

What is one thing you can do today to nourish yourself?

What is one thing you can do today to support your body, mind, heart and spirit?

What is one thing you can do today that reduces your exposure to chemicals- be it in food, water, personal care products or your environment?

What is one thing you can do today to protect your energy? It might entails saying NO, better yet, HELL NO! to something you don’t want to do.

What is one thing you can do today to move your body in a way that feels pleasurable?

Just one thing! Do that one simple thing for a week or two and then add another thing.

I bet you already have a thing in mind. Something that you’ve been thinking about for a while and just lacking the motivation to take the plunge.

Today is the perfect day to get started on the next level of your healing journey. Any empowered action in the direction you want to go will ripple outwards and affect others as well.

If you want, you can get started right now by placing a hand on your heart and making a commitment to yourself.

Perhaps you’d like to repeat these words from the mindful self-compassion tradition:

May I be safe.

May I be healthy.

May I be at peace.

May I be kind to myself.

May I make choices to support my overall wellness.

If you’d like some support, that’s what I’m here for! I do Reiki healing sessions for people around the globe and soothing, nurturing bodywork here in Philadelphia. It’s my mission to spread this message of self-care and empowerment. I’d be delighted to work with you if that sounds appealing.

But not today. Today, I’m going on a hike, eating fabulous food, reading a fun book and connecting with my friends. I’ll be back in the office tomorrow and ready to give from my overflowing tank.

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I wrote an article over on Substack about my process of reviewing the year through a holistic health and spiritual journey lens. Check out Annual Review if you’d like to learn more about this radical way of thinking.

Radiant Aging and Birthday Bliss

I’m getting older and let me tell you, it’s pretty amazing! Today is my birthday and…
12 Reasons to Learn Reiki

Reiki for All
I like to compare health to a bank account. Many of my students and clients find this analogy to be useful for understanding the benefits of Reiki. In the same way that we grow financial wealth by making more deposits that withdrawals, we can cultivate wellness wealth by accumulating life-force energy. Reiki is a safe and reliable method for amassing health credits.

Instead of relying solely on medical professionals to detect problems during annual checkups, there’s much we can do every day to boost the immune system and overall wellness. The body already knows how to be as healthy as it is able, and we can support its endeavors by giving it the energy necessary to do so. Reiki is a powerful, yet simple and safe way to help all the body’s systems function more effectively.

Life-force energy (called ki, qi, chi, and prana in other cultures) can be cultivated by lifestyle habits such as eating natural foods, spending time in nature, getting enough sleep, and expressing creativity. I view each of these activities as a deposit into a wellness account.

Conversely, chronic worry and stress, consistent consumption of processed foods, and being excessively sedentary can be viewed as ki withdrawals. Sadly, western culture generally steers us towards a deficit by overvaluing productivity and busyness and undervaluing rest and relaxation. In order to optimize wellness, we can take steps to offset the trend towards wellness debt.

Granted, there are factors beyond our control such as genetics, accidents, injuries, illnesses, and pollution. While we may not be able to change these circumstances, we can do everything within our power to give ourselves the best possible chance to enjoy the optimal levels of health and wellness available to us.

Given that I am not perfect in my pursuit of a healthy lifestyle and have some chronic health issues that require extra attention, I turn to Reiki to fill in the gaps. Reiki is an ancient healing method, commonly defined as spiritually guided life-force energy. It is gentle, powerful, completely safe, and complements all other treatments. I know of no other modality that is pleasurable to receive, universally beneficial, and has no negative side-effects.

Reiki is not limited by time or space and therefore can be received in-person or remotely from the comfort of your home. Some people enjoy the contact of human touch, some enjoy the connection of a video meeting, and others prefer to take a break from both. There are many ways to experience a treatment. Additionally, anyone can train to become a practitioner in a short period of time. During initiation, energy channels are opened, allowing access to this universal energy. Making daily health deposits is as simple as inviting the Reiki to flow.

Consider investing in your wellness account consistently. Rather than waiting for an unwanted diagnosis, you can actively pursue the best version of health possible for you. Filling up you ki tank, either as a client or practitioner, is one way to do so with minimal effort and expense. It’s never too late to take steps toward vitality and health. Why not begin today?

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Cultivating Wellness with Reiki

I like to compare health to a bank account. Many of my students and clients find…
This gets right to the heart of the matter for most prospective clients. They want to know if Reiki, and the magical results they’ve heard about on podcasts and from cousins, friends and strangers on IG will also affect them in such amazing ways.

The short answer: it largely depends on you.

Reiki can help re-establish body-mind-spirit balance. This holistic approach is the foundation for lasting healing as it addresses the root cause of imbalance.

It’s helpful to use analogies, so let’s consider a bucket as the container of your ki, or life-force energy. Reiki can fill up your bucket, 100%, no questions asked.

It can even repair holes in your bucket that may have come from unresolved trauma, chronic stress, outdated defense mechanisms, coping patterns, denial, avoidance, addiction, suppressed emotions, and tendencies to turn away from yourself when things get uncomfortable emotionally.

Depending on how empty or leaky your bucket may be, this might take time and consistent application, but is totally doable.

But if you continue to poke holes in your bucket, the results will be temporary. Reiki cannot heal you if you continue to engage in unhealthy behavior. It can help resolve the impetus for such behavior, but you will need to willingly participate.

If you’re allergic to strawberries and eat them every day, there’s only so much Reiki can do for you. Not because you’re bad or strawberries or bad, but because your body is sending a clear message that it doesn’t want any more… strawberries!

The idea of outsourcing wellness without taking any responsibility for changing the contributions to lack-of-wellness is completely at odds with holistic healing.

There are no magic pills. There are no miraculous treatments that will allow you to be well while still engaging in destructive patterns.

This does not necessarily mean that you’ll need to quit your soul-sucking job or leave a dysfunctional relationship, but it might. It’s possible to take actions to counterbalance such situations and resolve the stress, integrate the emotions, get your needs met in other ways, process the anger/grief/resentment/disappointment and refill the bucket.

This requires your active participation.

So, yes, if you’re willing to help by protecting the container of your ki bucket and preserve the wellness within, Reiki can indeed benefit you greatly. If you’re not, it can help you feel better in the moment, but will wear off as you return to any unhealthy patterns.

There is no issue that is too big, too deep, too ingrained, too attached to that Reiki cannot help to resolve. You don’t need to know what needs to be done to benefit from treatment. You do, however, need to be willing to receive the healing and notice the guidance that follows, the discord or lack of integrity that is exposed, and take the necessary steps to correct these hole-punchers.

Reiki will shine the light on the trail of breadcrumbs leading you to wellness. It’s then your job to follow the path, stay true to your mission and be kind to yourself on the way.

It’s much more complex than allopathic medicine, which, let’s face it, isn’t working for you or you wouldn’t be reading this.

So, yes, Reiki can help you. But the outcome is really up to you.

If you’re interested in adding Reiki to your wellness journey, I’d be delighted to work with you.

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Will Reiki Work for You?

This gets right to the heart of the matter for most prospective clients. They want to…
Whoosh. There’s nothing like Reiki to get me out of my crazy busy head and into my body. It’s amazing how quickly it happens each and every time.

I find that thoughts just dissolve when the energy is flowing. We don’t need to think or reflect or plan while healing is happening. In fact, our minds can often be obstacles to healing, harboring the ego’s tricks of delay and distraction.

Last night in Reiki 2 class, we started with a self-treatment. I found myself amusingly unable to find words for the simplest things. I couldn’t remember the names of the “tubes” in our throat for breathing and swallowing.

(I meant esophagus and trachea, but just couldn’t grab hold of those terms!)

What’s especially cool is that this would have embarrassed me in the past. I would have allowed the stunted vocabulary to mean something about my abilities as a teacher or value as a person.

But because of my daily Reiki practice, which has been filling in the gaps of self-worth that did not come organically during my childhood, I saw it as a funny thing that happened to me rather than making it mean that I’m a failure.

I don’t usually use Reiki on myself when I’m teaching because accessing my communication skills is obviously important. But this was a great learning experience for me and we all had a good chuckle about the tubes.

Not only did the usual monkey mind of swirling thoughts dissipate, but the inner judge was nowhere to be found. Hallelujah!

There’s a Reiki 1 class coming up soon. That’s the starting point for folks interested in learning how to use healing energy for themselves and their pets, friends, and family. If you want to stay in the loop and receive notifications about upcoming classes, please join my mailing list.

You can also read about Reiki classes in general or book a Reiki session and I’ll do all the work while you lie back and receive.

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Getting Out of My Head

Whoosh. There’s nothing like Reiki to get me out of my crazy busy head and into…