Quite frequently people who come to receive a Reiki session report feeling stuck. They want to let go of an emotion, thought, or behavior that seems to be holding them down or holding them back, but don’t know how. I think most of us can relate to this- I sure can!
Reiki has helped me to let go of resentment, to forgive myself and those involved in numerous upsets, to release grief that had lingered way past its shelf life, and to transmute cravings for unhealthy foods, and escape a wide variety of coping mechanisms. I’ve witnessed it do all this and more for my clients.
Flooding the energy field with Reiki helps us to rise above the ego-mind and to align with the higher self, that part of us which is eternal and unchangeable.
From this perspective, we have a better view of unhelpful patterns and the thoughts and beliefs that hold us hostage.
Being immersed in the flow of spiritually-guided life-force energy helps us to feel safe, accepted, and more at ease.
This sets the stage for the type of deep inquiry that can lead to lasting change. From this sacred space of realized wholeness and empowerment, we are able to create shifts that support the changes we desire in our lives.
And yet, it is really up to each of us to make those changes if we expect to see lasting change.
Reiki is indeed a tremendous support in this process, but it is not the process itself. It is not a magic elixir that enables us to sit back and watch as our world morphs into something more desirable.
The thoughts we think contribute to our future and also affect our ki (life- force energy). If we wish to improve our lives, it is essential that we take responsibility for becoming aware of how we continue to contribute to our troubles, either consciously or unconsciously. Reiki can help us do that (indeed it is a huge help in that department!).
The work of partnering with clients who want to go to the next level and get off the merry-go-round entirely is my real passion. So much so that I developed a Reiki + Coaching combo for those who want to do the necessary inner work that leads to transformation.
Finding the places (often thought patterns, outdated coping mechanisms, old protective strategies, or inherited beliefs) where people get stuck and helping them get unstuck is a true joy. It involves a more active treatment where the client participates in a dialog exploring resistance to moving forward in addition to the usual passive practice of receiving the healing energy.
Now this process is not for everyone. Examining one’s shadow can be uncomfortable and requires a great deal of courage. If you’re seeking a path to healing old wounds in order to recreate a life based on peace, love, and joy then my Reiki + Coaching treatment just might be the technique to help you along the way.
I also offer a 3 session package at 10% off the individual rate, good for two months from the date of purchase and a 5 session package at 15% off, good for three months. Availability is limited. Packages are a great way to commit to doing the work. If you’re interested, please contact me to briefly share your goals and I’ll ask a few questions to see if we’re a good match.
Quite frequently people who come to receive a Reiki session report feeling stuck. They want to…
Common replies I hear when I tell a client that their Reiki or massage treatment is over:
“That went by so fast!”
“The shortest hour ever!”
“Already?”
And my all-time favorite?
“Nooooooo!”
It’s not that I’m cutting sessions short; truly an hour has passed, but it often doesn’t seem that way because in a relaxed state, time isn’t linear.
Many people experience altered consciousness during a session. Not quite asleep, not quite awake, someplace in between.
I suspect some enter a delta or theta brainwave state. This is the zone where deep healing happens.
In the in-between, minutes don’t matter, nor do they tick by in the way we usually experience them.
I’m usually in a flow state while providing sessions, so I have to keep an eye on the clock because time is different for me too.
Time might be relative in the treatment room, but that doesn’t make it any less valuable. Please believe me when I say that nobody is playing tricks with the clock!
You get the full benefits of a session, even if you’re asleep or in-between. Maybe even more as the healing can bypass any resistance from the conscious mind.
Time might be relative in the treatment room, but I can say with 100% certainty that when that happens, so does healing.
Common replies I hear when I tell a client that their Reiki or massage treatment is…
I’ve been collecting life-force energy for some time now. Having more deposits than withdrawals is part of my healthy aging plan. I think this is a brilliant strategy for wellness of all kinds, but is particularly important as we age.
What most people think of as “aging” is what I see as the compound interest of lifelong energetic debt. We can get away with neglecting of our bodies, even abusing them, for some time, but eventually the consequences catch up.
Every decision we make can include an awareness of this simple math. Will this action yield more or less healing energy in my system?
Don’t get me wrong- I’m no teetotaler. I don’t always opt for the supremely healthy choice, but when I don’t, I do the math first to decide if the results will be worth it.
Today, I went out for lunch. I usually prepare my own meals, but for the past 24 hours, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about bread. Very strange. I wondered if perhaps it was my body speaking to me? More likely a long-silenced part that never got onboard 25 years ago when I learned I had a wheat sensitivity. Whatever, the thoughts became a craving and I figured a sandwich would do the trick.
I knew that mediocre bread wouldn’t cut it. And gluten free bread isn’t usually great. It’s either crazy expensive, has questionable ingredients to make up for the gluey gluten goodness that traditionally holds bread together, or crumbles in your hands. I couldn’t think of any way to satisfy this desire at the grocery store and I had nothing at home that would suffice.
So off to the bakery I go. I chose what would be considered healthy fare by any American standards. Chicken salad on walnut raisin. Not a hoagie (hero, sub, grinder or bun the size of my head), just two slices of bread. It was most satisfying and quelled that incessant loop in my head.
As I stood up to bus my plate, I had to cough. This is highly unusual for me. Suddenly, there was a lot of phlegm in my throat. As I walked out the door, I noticed I was sniffly. Shortly thereafter, I was gassy. And then my ears started to itch.
No big deal, really. My body can manage all of this. But it’s using life-force to do so. I don’t need to feel guilty or worry or make amends. It’ll all even out if I offer an extra deposit- such as time in nature or meditating.
If this was my habit, though, it’s easy to see how I’d eventually end up in life-force deficiency. And I’d get chronically stuffy, which could create the perfect environment for a virus to move in. Or I could medicate the symptoms, ignoring the root cause and accrue even more problematic symptoms.
I thought of my friend Mika, who carries a digestive enzyme supplement with her for times like these. There are definitely ways to mitigate less than stellar decisions. But what I really want to point out is that I recognized these symptoms because they aren’t the norm for me. Many people wouldn’t identify phlegm-iness as a result of food choices.
The more active I am in building my life-force savings, the more obvious the costly fees are because the contrast is so great.
There is no one-sized fits all life-force savings plan. I’m not suggesting that you don’t eat out, or you don’t eat chicken salad sandwiches, or you go wheat- free. But I am suggesting you do some detective work, some experimenting, and begin an honest exploration into your expenditures and investments.
If you find yourself digging in your heels, unwilling to give up certain behaviors you know to be problematic, that’s ok too. To balance things out, you can put your focus on life-force deposits. So rather than taking something away, you can think of adding in a beneficial practice like yoga or tai chi. Or build a monthly session of massage and/or Reiki into your budget and calendar.
Find ways to make more deposits, even if your withdrawals remain the same, and you’ll accrue wellness credits over time. The benefit to quitting the habits that have less than desirable results, at least for a few weeks, is that your body can recalibrate and you’ll be better able to notice its reaction to something as simple as eating a sandwich for lunch.
I’ve been collecting life-force energy for some time now. Having more deposits than withdrawals is part…
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.
So many people suffer from itchy eyes and nonstop sneezing this time of year. Sadly, there’s…
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.
I had a breakthrough last week in a chronic pain pattern. Woohoo! I discovered tension in…
In this day and age, most of us live lifestyles that are deficient in life-force.
We spend most of our time indoors, in climate control and recycled air, under artificial lighting. So we’re not absorbing energy from nature much of the time.
We’re inundated with chemicals that our poor bodies must consistently detox. From the food we eat to personal care products to downright toxic cleaning supplies, air pollution, water pollution, electronic radiation, and crops that need to be genetically modified to withstand the pesticides that would otherwise kill them… Well, it’s a lot and our systems utilize a ton of energy processing this junk.
Chronic stress and busyness further depleted our coffers, draining our energy tanks, and leaving us floundering.
Repressed and suppressed emotions are stored in the body and disrupt the flow of life-force. Same goes for unprocessed trauma and wounds from childhood.
In short, we spend more vitality than we accumulate. We’re in life-force debt. Most of us, most of the time.
I make considerable effort to minimize wasted life-force, to generate internal life-force and maximize my exposure to Nature, and still I would be in the red if it weren’t for Reiki.
Reiki is a natural form of life-force energy and practitioners are able to tap into it and use it for healing and to support goals such as creativity, connection, freedom, joy, resilience, and peace.
I suspect that our ancestors lived in the flow of this energy.
And then we got civilized and industrialized. We disconnected from Nature and began to honor the intellect over the body and the emotions.
People began to live longer, but with poor quality of life because they didn’t have any vitality in reserve.
Reiki is the easiest way I know to fill up your batteries and give the body what it needs to do what it knows how to do.
Yes, absolutely, the body has innate healing abilities. It has tremendous wisdom and incredible power. But it can’t function optimally on an empty tank.
If you’re in need of a jumpstart, consider a Reiki treatment. It’s a safe, gentle, yet powerful technique for giving yourself the juice you need to carry on.
If you’re in need of consistent life-force deposits, consider learning how to give yourself Reiki. It’s easy and anyone can do it. The capacity to tap into this universal energy is transferred from teacher to student in a Reiki 1 training- it’s not a skill that needs to be learned or a gift that comes naturally.
Anyone can learn Reiki and can use this healing energy to bolster well-being, heal core wounds and trauma, to break free from ancestral cycles, to tend to the inner child, to support all the body’s systems, to regulate the nervous system, to cultivate peace and joy and freedom.
I’m offering an in-person class in Philly, beginning February 27. I’m also open to teaching online; if that’s what you need, let me know.
And if you don’t have the capacity to learn how to do this for yourself, know that you can schedule a remote Reiki session, and receive the myriad of benefits from your home, in your pajamas, without needing to lift a finger.
If you have zero interest in Reiki, get yourself outside and start absorbing some of the life-force that is freely offered from the earth, the stones, the rain and snow, the trees, the wind, and the sun.
In this day and age, most of us live lifestyles that are deficient in life-force. We…
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.
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.
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.
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.
Luminous Heart Reiki & Massage 