long distance Reiki

  • We have so much information at our fingertips today that it can be overwhelming. If you’ve ever attended Google University seeking a self-diagnosis and treatment, you’ve likely come up with tons of contradictory information.

    How I Healed XYZ in 5 Days

    7 Easy Steps to Cure XYZ

    The One Thing That Fixed Everything

    Headlines like these abound. They often lead to confusion, frustration, and sadly even a worsening of the situation.

    Why? Because they are addressing symptoms, not the root cause.

    Let’s use insomnia as an example.

    There are a gazillion reasons people don’t sleep well. It could be churning thoughts, physical discomfort, a lumpy mattress, a snoring spouse, or excess caffeine.

    (Not an Ambien deficiency. You might find relief through a prescription, but the side effects often outweigh the benefits. Please consider exploring the underlying condition while you’re taking the pills so maybe you won’t need them someday in the future.)

    Each of these causes will obviously have a different plan of treatment.

    So when I read about someone who quit drinking coffee, improved their sleep patterns, and touts this as the number one cure, I’m a bit tetchy. I don’t even drink coffee, so who’s that going to help me?

    Whether you’re dealing with insomnia or back pain (two conditions I’m intimately familiar with on a personal and professional level), psoriasis, headaches, or fatigue, there are a few things I can suggest that will always be beneficial as they help uncover the root cause.

    1. Stress management. There are countless practices that help the body digest the physiological consequences of chronic stress. They will calm the mind, reduce tension, and support all the body’s systems.
    2. Curiosity. Be your own detective and explore what’s going on in your life, in your psyche, in your body. If you’re trying to quit a problematic habit, get curious about what’s underneath and why you reach for the behavior or substance and how you might circumvent that pattern.
    3. Compassion. Be kind to yourself! Especially if you’re struggling and suffering. Your inner dialog has a direct impact on your physiology. Berating yourself or stewing in resentment will increase your stress response, cortisol levels, tension, and inflammation.
    4. Reduce exposure to toxins. Including emotional toxins in the form of unhealthy relationships, doomscrolling, and the compare and despair dynamic so prevalent on Instagram.
    5. Presence. Learn to be with yourself, especially during difficult times. Develop a daily practice of turning inwards, with compassion and curiosity, and check in rather than checking out. This can be uncomfortable, so start small. Three minutes can go a long way.
    6. Breathe. Obviously you are breathing or you wouldn’t be reading this. But what is the quality of your breath? Shallow and rapid? Can you drop into presence and cultivate a calming, nourishing pattern? Some people swear by “box” breath; I’m partial to extending the exhales so they’re slightly longer than the inhales.
    7. Boost your life-force. This is big. And overlooked completely in our medical system. If you are chronically depleted, running on empty, burning the candle at both ends, taking care of everybody but yourself, your body will try to communicate its distress with you. I recommend listening before the consequences amplify!

    Insight Timer is a free app and a wonderful resource for simple, guided practices that will help you do many of these things. I found the yoga nidra (a sort of meditation where you systematically bring attention to areas of the body) to be invaluable.

    My all-time favorite and go-to remedy is Reiki. Reiki treatments offer an infusion of spiritually-guided life-force energy that relieves stress, tension, anxiety, and pain and promotes the body’s innate healing abilities.

    It won’t, however, address your spouse’s snoring-like-a-chainsaw issue. For that you’re going to need some hefty earplugs or a separate bedroom. I’ve heard about successful elimination of snoring by diffusing sweet marjoram essential oil, or changing pillows or sleeping position.

    While Reiki is amazing and can help with a lot of problems, it really depends on the root cause. It won’t make you sleep soundly after a late-night triple espresso, but it can help you build better sleep habits.

    There is no such thing as a miracle cure. But there are numerous ways to address the root problem. All of them will require your participation and willingness to make changes.

    If you’d like some support in this arena, you can use this button to book a session.

    Getting to the Root

    We have so much information at our fingertips today that it can be overwhelming. If you’ve…

  • So many people suffer from itchy eyes and nonstop sneezing this time of year. Sadly, there’s not much allopathic medicine can do for them other than allergy pills that are woefully inadequate, temporary, and laden with side effects.

    I have a different perspective. What if pollen is not your enemy?

    Huh?!

    Humor me for a moment.

    What if pollen is like the straw that broke the camel’s back?

    What if lowering the overall burden placed on the body and its detoxification system would lessen the impact of the triggers of seasonal allergies?

    The way I see it, we can do our best to reduce the toxins we’re exposed to daily. I’m talking about toxins in body care and cleaning products as well as food and water. (Body sprays, air fresheners, anything with “fragrance” on the label would be my #1 suggestion for the elimination pile.)

    We can support our body’s capacity to function optimally by metabolizing stress and saturating ourselves with life-force energy.

    I’ve just recently learned that some foods have been reported to have higher levels of histamine and some have been reported to release histamine.

    Adjusting one’s menu, reducing toxic exposure, stockpiling life-force, and managing stress are things that can be done with a little effort and don’t require a big financial investment. The side effects are all positive and the results could last indefinitely instead of 12 hours.

    I’ll add that there are herbs and homeopathic remedies that work for some as well. Although that’s beyond the scope of this post, you can easily find this info online.

    If you’re tired of suffering and unsatisfied with the current regime, why not give something new a try?

    Reiki supports stress relief and the body’s innate detox process and is a safe, yet powerful, source of healing energy. If that’s something that interests you, go ahead and book a treatment and we can get started on clearing off the proverbial camel’s back so that a few specks of pollen won’t cause so much harm.

    Seasonal Allergies: A Holistic Approach

    So many people suffer from itchy eyes and nonstop sneezing this time of year. Sadly, there’s…

  • If you’ve ever followed someone’s advice for healing an ailment and found yourself disappointed in the results, you aren’t alone.

    Lots of people share with me the tricks they use for xyz and often they are things I’ve already tried to no avail.

    It’s frustrating.

    The thing is, the root of the problem is often hidden. Two people might have frequent headaches, but the same treatment might not be effective for both of them since the causes are different.

    If you’re dehydrated and have a headache, a big glass of water can work wonders. You can go on to write a book about water being the miracle healer, yet it will be 100% ineffective for someone with a mold allergy or a tension headache.

    No worries, though. Your body knows. There is an innate wisdom within and you can learn to access it. I’m not saying it’s easy, at least not in the beginning, but like any skill, you can hone it with practice.

    My suggestion is to be like a cat. They move in ways that feel GOOD! Now, don’t go researching “how to move like a cat”. That’s something I would have done in the past. 🙄

    Instead, feel into what movements your body would enjoy. Let pleasure be your guide.

    It all starts with an intention to tap in and honor the messages that come from your body. Next, you’ll need to create time and space to listen. Many of us are just running around all day, every day, so that we can’t receive the messages that come through.

    Remember the olden days when phones were atttached to the walls of homes? And you had to be at there when the call came through? And then you had to pick it up, at that moment, and listen to the voice on the other side?

    It’s a lot like that.

    Your body will tell you how it wants to move and rest, what it wants to eat and when, and all sorts of other information- if you pay attention.

    But you have to be available to pick up the phone.

    Yes, this means forgetting about tons of external rules about how many steps you should take or what your target heart rate is. It might mean shaking things up in your family, workplace, or circle of friends.

    But, let’s face it. If you keep on doing what you’re doing, you’ll continue to get what you’ve already got. I’m guessing that if you’re reading this, you’d prefer a different outcome.

    Why not go directly to the source of wisdom?

    I find Reiki incredibly helpful for increasing my clarity, motivation, and capacity to receive messages from my body. If you want to do the work, it could help you too. Or if you prefer to receive support and let me do the work, that can also help. It’s not the only way by any means. As far as I can tell, it’s the simplest, easiest, and most accessible though.

    One of the things I really love about Reiki is that the healing energy sinks beneath the symptoms and addresses the initial imbalance. It might be in the mental, emotional, spiritual, energetic, or circumstantial realm which would have been overlooked by modern medical treatment.

    What would your body appreciate today? If it’s Reiki or some gentle bodywork, why not schedule a treatment? Or perhaps you’d like a walk, a bath, some time on your yoga mat, or a nap. Only you know for sure.

    Healing Isn’t One Size Fits All

    If you’ve ever followed someone’s advice for healing an ailment and found yourself disappointed in the…

  • I had a breakthrough last week in a chronic pain pattern. Woohoo! I discovered tension in an adjacent area that was torquing my pelvis and causing discomfort in my lower back, hip, and leg. This awareness is huge as it points my efforts towards the cause of the imbalance rather than chasing the symptoms.

    Chasing symptoms never provides lasting results because the source of the problem remains unresolved. A particular symptom might diminish, only to have another appear in its place.

    Nearly all of the problems that people bring to my office are symptoms. Despite near- heroic efforts, clients have not been able to resolve issues because they were looking at the superficial problem and not what was underneath.

    I don’t say this with any judgment or blame. We don’t know what we don’t know, and we can only do the best with the information that we have at the time. I’m offering some new information that will hopefully be helpful moving forward.

    I have long hair. It often gets caught in my coat zipper in the winter. It’s obvious that the problem is coming from the zipper, but I feel it in my scalp. There’s no amount of intervention at the level of my scalp that is going to yield relief.

    The same is often true for that crick in the neck, the burning in the shoulder blade, the ache in the elbow.

    My massage teacher used an analogy of a schoolyard. He said that the complaining muscle was like the nerd, but if you looked closely, you could find the bully lurking nearby. The bully is the source of the pain, the nerd is the one that suffers. (I pretty nerdy myself, so please don’t let this word cause offense. It’s just an illustration.)

    OK, so now what?

    It’s possible to work with a pain pattern on your own if you have the capacity to bring compassionate awareness to what you’re feeling and remain present through the discomfort.

    Sadly, few of us have any training in how to do that. These are skills that can be learned and I’d fully encourage you to begin today. Can you be with yourself for two full minutes, or 15 deep breaths, with 100% of your attention turned inward? Start there and build up your tolerance over time.

    See if you can separate out the emotions that may be stored in this area clamoring for your care. Or the stories about previous experiences and concerns about the future. If you have been raised in the western world, you mostly likely have been conditioned by society, Saturday morning cartoons, magazine ads, pop culture, and Instagram to have certain beliefs about your body and how it is “supposed” to look and function.

    Then there’s the way you use your body, such as repetitive movement patterns, your posture, and the way your body has adapted to your environment. Perhaps the most disruptive, hidden influence is how the nervous system responds to anything unfamiliar as if it were a threat and causes muscles to tense. When this happens over and over again, the muscles sometimes get locked in their contracted positions, perpetually ready for a threat that never comes.

    We could also look at causes for systemic inflammation such as allergens in our foods, toxins we’re exposed to daily, latent viruses, chronic stress, inadequate sleep, and mold spores in the walls.

    Let’s not forget about the energy body. When life-force is depleted, our systems don’t have the juice they need to function optimally. When energy flow is blocked, chakras are underutilized. When the flow is clogged, often the backlog feels painful and we unknowingly look for ways to discharge this pent up energy that can have detrimental effects.

    To be thorough, I’ll add that the soul also plays a role. Not that it needs healing, as it’s eternal and whole by nature, but because we can become separate from it through trauma and programming. When we’re aligned with our essence and purpose, the other elements of healing are more easily accessible.

    In short, our body, mind, emotions, instincts, and soul are all intricately woven together and need to be addressed fully to heal. If you’ve been working with an issue to no avail, try switching your focus to one of the other realms.

    Or try Reiki. It works wonders as it addresses all the parts, striving to bring them all into harmony. You can learn to give yourself daily doses of healing energy or book yourself a session. You don’t even need to leave home.

    Chasing Symptoms

    I had a breakthrough last week in a chronic pain pattern. Woohoo! I discovered tension in…

  • Good question! It’s one I get a lot.

    It’s a Reiki treatment for someone who’s in a different location than the practitioner. It’s something taught to students in a level 2 Reiki class.

    I sometimes call it “remote” Reiki, but in the last few years, “remote” has come to mean “virtual” or a video meeting, and this is not at all what I mean.

    The practice of Reiki is over a hundred years old; it does not rely on modern technology. There is no video chat. No Google Meet invitation. No Zoom link.

    It is Zoomless. 🤪

    Sure, some practitioners offer sessions by video. Not because they need the internet to do a Reiki session, though. I imagine they do it because they think people want to see them. Idk why, though, cuz I’m just sitting there with my eyes closed, keeping my focus on the energy and the client. There’s nothing to see, and I find the screen to be distracting.

    So how does it work then, if the healing energy isn’t magically traveling over the internet?

    Good question!

    I don’t exactly know how it works. It’s quantum physics, folks, and I’m not going to try to bluff my way through this.

    Something about collapsing all time and space to here and now on the energetic level. It makes my head hurt to try and grok that.

    I have learned sacred symbols that allow me to connect this universal energy to anyone, anywhere. Don’t ask me how the symbols work! I don’t know. I don’t need to know. It’s above my pay grade.

    I don’t know how my car works, how my furnace works, how my laptop works. But I know how to use them. Turn the key, set the thermostat, power up.

    My Reiki teacher taught me a technique that she learned from her Reiki teacher who learned it from his Reiki teacher… all the way back to the founder of this amazing system, Usui Sensei. He knew how it worked! He also knew that since Reiki is innately intelligent and always working in the highest good and establishing energetic balance that we don’t need to understand it intellectually.

    Trust me, if I had to learn the science, my prices would be much, much higher to compensate me for that suffering!

    You don’t need to understand to get the full benefits. Really, it’s true. I have done this countless times with tremendous effectiveness.

    Distance Reiki, or remote Reiki, Zoomless Reiki, is the perfect remedy if you’re in an isolated location, too ill to travel, snowed in, or just don’t want to put pants on.

    I love doing distance sessions because it feels like I plug right into the energetic blueprint of the client and observe the healing happen at the root cause.

    It’s pretty darn amazing. It makes treatment convenient for folks who couldn’t otherwise get to a session for any number of reasons.

    If you’ve been thinking of distance Reiki as a sad, sorry second place alternative for the “real” thing, I assure you, it is not. The energy transferred is just as real as in an in-person session. And you needn’t to get dressed or slog through traffic afterwards.

    Ready to sign up?

    Want to learn how to practice Reiki so you can offer distance treatments? Reiki 1 is the starting point and prerequisite for Reiki 2, where you’ll learn how to use the sacred symbols for remote work.

    Want to stay in touch and learn more about holistic health and energy healing? Subscribe below. I have lots to say on these topics!

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    What the Heck is Distance Reiki, Anyway?

    Good question! It’s one I get a lot. It’s a Reiki treatment for someone who’s in…

  • A new client just left my office. After the session was over, she proclaimed, “That was crazy!”

    I’m always delighted to hear what people have to say about their time on the table. Everyone uses unique words to describe their healing experiences.

    “I was floating on waves of peace.” Mmhmm, that sounds nice!

    A lot of people drop into a deep place, not quite awake, not quite asleep. I suspect they are going into delta or theta brainwave grooves, but have no way of measuring. I just know that it’s an altered state that opens the gate for profound healing to happen.

    I remember a time when I received a treatment from a friend. I’d been in her space dozens of times before, but on this particular day when the session ended and she left the room, I thought to myself, how did the door get over there?! I’d been so deeply immersed in the spiritual realm that the 3D space seemed off.

    Some people see colors or hear music. Everybody is different. Most people just feel a warmth or a sense of calm and relaxation that eclipses their ordinary reality.

    I wonder if this is how we’d feel most of the time if we lived lives more closely connected to our natural rhythms.

    I guess I’ll never know, but it’s my goal to help people go there, into their deepest selves, as best I can. It’s like having a two week tropical vacation condensed into an hour- with no sunburn or hangover!

    Want to surf the waves of peace? Get yourself some Reiki! And if you’re in the Philly area, go for the combo and try my Reiki-massage combo.

    Waves of Peace

    A new client just left my office. After the session was over, she proclaimed, “That was…

  • 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.

    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.

    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.

    Unique-ify Your Self-Care

    It’s no secret that health and happiness levels are influenced by self-care practices. The often-overlooked element,…