There’s nothing quite like a global pandemic to test our capacity to remain present, centered, and grounded! It’s the perfect recipe for triggering the fight/flight/freeze mechanism. Yet in this case, there is nowhere to run and nothing tangible to fight. The weapons we’ve been given (soap, masks and isolation) are completely inadequate to satisfy our biological urges to attack, run, or hide.
The trouble is that the fear of this virus triggers a physiological response that is identical to facing a bear in the woods or a mugger in an alley. So what to do when the adrenaline is pumping and we can’t leave the house? Reiki can take the edge of this feeling of overwhelm or constriction and help reset the system to a place where digestion and assimilation, detoxification and cell repair, productive thought and well-being may flourish.
More importantly, it can help prevent us from tipping over the edge into the danger zone. Reiki treatments, received either from yourself or a professional, activate the relaxation response in the body. The more time we spend in this state of ease and peace, the more it becomes our home base and the easier it is to notice when we are slipping into hazardous territory.
This state of hyper-vigilance that is being promoted by current events has the potential to be incredibly damaging to our health, especially given its duration. Our systems are not built to withstand chronic exposure to the fight/flight/freeze response. It is simultaneously draining our energy and emotional resources and overwhelming to the endocrine, muscular, cardiovascular, and nervous systems. The results can be a paradoxical mixture of feeling wound-up and exhausted, yet unable to rest or focus. UGH!
Reiki has helped me keep an even keel throughout these past three months of quarantine. Only twice have I tipped over the edge; both times related to extreme external conditions on top of the ongoing crisis. While I don’t have a perfect record at keeping calm, I am delighted to say that my recovery was speedy as I was able to recognize exactly what was happening and to saturate myself in healing, harmonizing life-force energy immediately.
The uncertainty of how this pandemic is going to influence our future has me yearning to share the gift of Reiki with others. While I’ve been eagerly awaiting the green light to return to my office and begin teaching as I used to, it’s unclear when I’ll be able to do that. So, I’m adapting and choosing to offer Reiki 1 online in July. If you’d like some help protecting your health and sanity, do consider joining us!
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There’s nothing like a global pandemic to test our capacity to remain
present, centered, and grounded! It’s the perfect recipe for triggering the
fight/flight/freeze mechanism. Yet in this case, there is nowhere to run and
nothing really to fight. The weapons we’ve been given are soap and masks and
isolation. They are completely inadequate to satisfy our biological urges.
The trouble is that the fear of this virus triggers a physiological response
that is identical to meeting a bear in the woods or a mugger in an alley. So
what to do when the adrenaline is pumping and we can’t leave the house? Reiki
can take the edge of this feeling of overwhelm or constriction and help reset
the system to a place where digestion and assimilation, detoxification and cell
repair, productive thought and well-being may flourish.
More importantly, it can help prevent us from tipping over the edge into the
danger zone. Reiki treatments, received either from yourself or a professional,
activate the relaxation response in the body. The more time we spend in this
state of ease, the more it becomes our home base and the easier it is to notice
when we are slipping into the hazardous territory.
This state of hyper-vigilance that is being promoted by current events has
the potential to be incredibly damaging to our health, especially given its
duration. Our systems are not built to withstand chronic exposure to the fight/flight/freeze
response. It is simultaneously draining our energy and emotional resources and
overwhelming to the endocrine, muscular, cardiovascular, and nervous systems. The
results can be a paradoxical mixture of feeling wound-up and exhausted, yet
unable to rest or focus.
Reiki has helped me keep an even keel throughout these past three months of quarantine.
Only twice have I tipped over the edge; both times related to extreme external
conditions on top of the ongoing crisis. While I don’t have a perfect record at
keeping calm, I am delighted to say that my recovery was speedy as I was able
to recognize exactly what was happening and to saturate myself in healing,
harmonizing life-force energy immediately.
The uncertainty of how this pandemic is going to influence our future has me
yearning to share the gift of Reiki with others. While I’ve been eagerly awaiting
the green light to return to my office and begin teaching as I used to, it’s unclear
when I’ll be able to do that. So, I’m adapting and choosing to offer Reiki 1
online in July. If you’d like some help protecting your health and sanity, do
consider joining us!
nervous system
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Regulating the Nervous System with Reiki
There’s nothing quite like a global pandemic to test our capacity to remain present, centered, and…
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“Less is More.” This is a seemingly- heretical philosophy I learned while studying the gentle, energetic bodywork called Ortho-Bionomy. Over the course of giving more than 6,000 massages in the last ten years, I realize that this quite frequently applies to sessions I have given and received. I could expand this theory into many aspects of my life as well, but that is too big a task for this post. How I can most efficiently interpret the phrase “less is more” as it relates to massage in my humble opinion, is to say that bodies very often are more responsive to a gentle touch than to extreme pressure. When I say very often, I mean in 99% of the time, in my experience. Very often.
Yet, popular culture would have us believe that more is always better, or worse yet, “no pain, no gain”. This is essentially the antithesis of my work. Which is not to say that I never go deep, or that every moment of a therapeutic session is luxuriously pleasant. It’s sometimes uncomfortable to restore deep, postural muscles to their original, lengthened state. However, my approach is a slow, gentle one that works with the client’s ability to let go and breathe deeply. I call it a sneak attack and when performed well, the muscles don’t react because they never even knew I was coming. Once the nervous system perceives pain, or even anticipates pain, the fight or flight reflex kicks in and muscles tense, adrenaline is released, and the mind becomes super- alert. This is the exact opposite of the relaxation response in which stress and tension are released and the muscles soften.
It is a huge goal of mine to re-educate the public about the myth of more pressure being the antidote to soreness or pain. The object of healing or releasing tension is not how much “you can take” but rather how much you can release. Bracing yourself to experience deep work in the name of relief is as effective as drinking a triple shot of espresso and riding a roller coaster to help you sleep. People in our society are already super-stressed. Aggressive bodywork is perceived by the nervous system as more stress and most certainly does not create relaxation. It might create an absence of busy thoughts because the mind is focused on sensations, just as being in an emergency situation would focus the mind. This is not the same as relaxation, letting go, feeling safe, or being at peace; and these are the conditions necessary for healing to take place.
Somewhere humans have gotten off track and started believing that having more stuff is the key to happiness, that doing more is the key to freedom, that punishing our bodies will make us healthy. It is beyond time that we re-evaluate our beliefs according to our current values and the reality that we seem to be less happy, less free, less healthy than ever. I encourage everyone to take time out of their busy schedules to experience true relaxation in the form of a flowing, soothing Swedish massage and to feel the true benefits of escaping the adrenaline loop and enjoying the peacefulness that is our natural state. And begin to think about how doing less, spending less, feeling less pain can actually be more. More healthy. And more you.
Less is More
“Less is More.” This is a seemingly- heretical philosophy I learned while studying the gentle, energetic…
Luminous Heart Reiki & Massage 