How I Learned to Stop Worrying

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Here are two simple and practical techniques that helped me stop worrying. 

Maybe they'll help you too. 

Give a try and let me know! I welcome your thoughts!

Love,
Alice

How Being Spiritual Puts the Soul in Sex

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Getting in touch with your spiritual side can enhance your sexual experiences too. Here's why.

First, let's talk about the spiritual connection. Practicing any sort of spiritual practice - such as meditation, Reiki, energy healing practices of other kinds, etc. makes you aware of something outside yourself that is also connected to yourself. 

More than that, this spiritual energy that you're connected with is ALSO you. That's the Duality of Being. (And also the Unity.) What I mean here is that we are all one, conscious energy that is having an individual experience. Every life form on the planet, every plant, animal and person, is having a conscious, individual experience, and is connected to each other at the very same time. 

If you're still with me, you may be wondering why a singular conscious energy would want a zillion or so different individual experiences. That's where it gets interesting. The illusion of an individual experience is for experiencing and learning. 

If the One energy source was only that, it would not be able to learn or experience anything. In order to experience anything, that experience is a reaction to something outside ourselves. If it's outside ourselves, it is not perceived as us. Even if we experience pain in our stomachs, that pain feels like something "other" than our "normal" selves. Experience is a reaction. 

Now, becoming aware of being both an individual experience and something much, much bigger is a powerfully spiritual experience. It allows us to step outside ourselves to see our individual emotions from a more objective perspective. We can analyze our experiences without them defining us. 

By now, you're probably wondering what the heck this has to do with sex. I will get there. Hang with me for another moment.

When we are able to step outside of ourselves and observe the ways in which we interact in this illusionary reality, we are living as our true aspect - that of Spirit. We are not caught up in the storm of emotions or the trappings of ego. What is Spirit really? Love. Pure love. That's what the One energy source that is our true essence is made of.

So, in a nutshell, we are Love experiencing and learning by completely empathizing with each individual consciousness. We are capable of shifting our perspective through meditation, for example, to be that One consciousness, and send love to our little individual selves as we live, learn, and try to make sense of everything we are experiencing. 

We can also have compassion for other people, and empathize with them. That is a beautiful quality, a spiritual one. It makes the world better. 

And here, finally, is the connection to sex. Good job making it this far. 

The more we are aware of this spiritual connection throughout the day, the more we connect with the essences of it - gratitude, love, compassion - in short, the more we elevate our existence in this way, then the more our lovemaking naturally becomes influenced by this idea. Because, the natural compassion we are used to having extends to the lover during that time.

If we focus on our partner during sex, paying close attention to how the partner is responding to touch of every kind, and adjusting our touch to what is obviously pleasurable to the partner, we are empathizing with that person as that person is experiencing it. We, ourselves, can share their pleasure while participating in creating it. In doing so, we are experiencing being spiritually one with that person - creating a much higher level of lovemaking.

The soul of sensuality is very spiritual.

And that's the message I got today.

46- My Birthday Tattoo

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It's my birthday!

Today also marks 8 years of blogging. 

Every year, I blog on my birthday. It helps me look back over the past birthday posts to see where I was, and realize what an amazing year it's been - and then I think about how I'll look back next year and be even more amazed.

In year 45, these things happened:

• I published 5 books.
• I started and completed the first part (Bachelor's degree) of a Metaphysical Ph. D program with the University of Sedona.
• I started an author website for myself (AliceLangholt.com).
• I became certified to officiate weddings (I'm booked for two weddings in 2016!)
• I created a new idea to make 2016 more meaningful for everyone.
• One daughter became a Bat Mitzvah (I threw the party - that was a lot of planning!)
• Another daughter spent a month at Brandeis University over the summer.
• I made it through a season as a Marching Band Mom.
• My son started going to a magnet middle school for the highly gifted student.
• I went to Iowa on a Transcendental Meditation Retreat.
• I was in a musical with all four kids and my husband.
• And lots, lots more. What an amazing year!!

I also started realizing some deep, spiritual things about life. That's the biggest part for me. My studies, and introspection, have led me to understand that there is a true essence of who we are. This true essence is not our thoughts, not our feelings, not our bodies. It's not our experiences, or even our gifts and talents. All of those are like clouds- they pass along. What stays? What is underneath all of that? The part that's left is the part that I am when I'm offering Reiki to another person - because that's the part that connects us all to each other. It's not a part, really, it's the real me. Bigger than any perception of individuality.

And so, I ask myself, what IS this real me made of? What characteristics does it have? It is not emotions, thoughts, or matter. What IS it? 

Love. It's love. 

I know this because from a deep, spiritual place of knowing, comes the understanding that Love is what heals. Love is what soothes. Love is what we are when we're doing and being our very best selves. 

A few months ago, I woke in the morning with the words, "Live Love" in my mind. I turned those words over and over. The real me is Love, so that's who should live AS me. This Love, it's infinite. 

I started to think of a design. An infinity sign, with the words Live Love entwined at the "v". I sketched it out, and sent it to a graphic artist.

And... 

Yesterday, I got my first (and probably my only) tattoo. I did this because I want to wear my biggest, strongest insight and value. I want it to remind me daily, in its beauty and message, of who I am, so I can always come back to BEing Love.

Here it is (this is a real picture of my arm, with fresh tattoo):

My first tattoo.

It stung a bit, but didn't hurt as much as I was afraid it might. I have also been applying Reiki liberally to help it heal, along with the other care instructions my artist gave me.

Something even nicer is that my husband, Evan, got his first tattoo too. He got an OM symbol, chosen for the same basic reason - because he meditates, and the word OM represents the sound that is all things - the infinite. This is his own way of expressing it. We both got tattoos placed a couple inches below the wrist. And we did it together. So we're sharing another bonding experience - and I love that.

Immediately after getting the tattoo, I met a new Reiki client at my office for a session. It was wonderful for us both. Last night, I took my daughters out to dinner (the guys were volunteering for the Salvation Army Angels and then at the basketball game at Verizon Center). Right before I paid the tab, an amount just more than my tab arrived in my paypal account. I was blessed, at the perfect time, with the opportunity to send a distance healing. 

So far, 46 is turning out to be an epic year. 

We are all God

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I made this video to express how I feel about spirituality - the Big Picture, so to speak, and all of the thoughts that I have about how things fit together - life, its meaning, our connection to each other, God, and the Universe, time, and otherworldly beings. It's pretty packed. 

I think that I could probably make more videos that expand on ideas presented here, but I wanted to ask your opinion about this, and how this video strikes you.

Thank you, Namaste.
Peace. Love.

Being a Jewish Reiki Master

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Today, I decided to vlog, as a response to being asked to speak on Judaism and Reiki for Doves4Peace.com. So I recorded myself talking about it, and it will be posted on their channel. Meanwhile, you can get a sense of how it all fits together by viewing my video right here.

What do you think?

How does your spiritual practice mesh with your religion? (Or does it?)
How do you reconcile your beliefs with your experiences?

With love and intentions for peace,
Alice

Tiny and Huge

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I've been thinking lately about the paradox of being. Doesn't that sound philosophical?

What I mean is that on the one hand, I've learned a lot about Reiki in the past five years or so. I've taught lots of people around the world, and aim to teach many, many more how to access this powerful, yet simple connection to healing, growth, and balance. I've written two books, and published a set of cards (and an app!). I started a school. 

Yet, every day, I am acutely aware of how much more there is that I don't know yet. There are levels of intuitive sensitivity that I have not reached. There is a vast sea of knowledge that I have barely absorbed a drop of in all this time. 

I feel as if I've followed a spark, and it led me into a sky full of stars. Yet this one spark has given me so much that it can't be measured and I haven't reached the fullness of it yet. It's overwhelming to consider sometimes. 

Here's what I mean...

• I'm a "big voice" for Reiki. Yet what I know is so very tiny compared to what there is to learn. 
• Here we are on this planet, each of us unique, and yet even our planet (which seems huge to our perspective), is a tiny droplet in a sea of universal vastness. 
• Our bodies are complex, powerful interactive machines, yet inside us, between the tiny bits of atomic matter, is mostly space. 

Big, and yet so very small. I know lots of people have pondered this. I'm not presenting a new idea here. 

Lately, I've felt the need to grow more, and I've decided that 2013 is a year for self-development and growth. Opportunities are presenting themselves to me, and I'm saying yes. It's pretty cool.

I have no idea what will come next in my growth, but I'm trying to prepare myself to house new knowledge and intuitive abilities. I want to make my energy a "fertile" place. 

So I've been meditating more. That's new, as my readers know, and also challenging for me. To assist me in finding the "most effective" meditation technique for me, I have some cool tools. Among them is a Neurosky Mindwave Mobile headset, which can measure and track my different brainwaves, and an app called Transcend that keeps track of how often I manage to access those theta and delta (meditation level) brainwaves, and how long I sustain them in my meditation period. Having these tools gives me the chance to try different things and learn about myself. For instance, I am testing whether staring at a candle is better than closing my eyes. And whether listening to music is better than silence, humming OM, or listening to a binaural mp3. I'm using this to test whether visualizing myself floating, counting breaths, or keeping my mind as quiet as possible helps to create the most effective meditation method for me. It's a learning process. 

I've noticed that since I started meditating more often, I'm more frequently calm in the face of drama. My kids, for instance, get angry or upset about something, and instead of getting swept away in it myself, I'm staying calmer without effort. I also noticed that my energy work feels stronger to me - meaning that the tingles in my hand feel stronger. I know that's a signal of intuitive growth, and I'm telling the Universe to keep it coming. 

Drop by drop, the new knowledge will come. And I'll share it with my students (and blog about it here of course too) as it does. 

And drop by drop, I may grow a little bit. But I still know how small I am at the same time. 

Being as small as we all are, though, the coolest thing is this - we are all connected to the absolute HUGENESS of EVERYTHING. Oops, I think I shouted that.  All of our knowledge, experiences, thoughts, emotions, and molecules of our body, are part of the giant, flowing, interacting and changing sea of all that is. The energy that I share, and help others share, can bring that light into this vastness, and make a difference. Thinking about this is reassuring, and also helps me feel that I can be significant for all of my tininess. We all can.

Ready? Let's make some waves.

Mazel Tov...and now what do I say?

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This weekend is my 13 year old daughter, Rayna's Bat Mitzvah.

 (For any readers not sure what that is, it's a Jewish Rite of Passage for kids turning 13 in which they lead prayers, and read a passage from the Torah - that's the "Old Testament" - a scroll written entirely in Hebrew. It takes months of preparation to learn. The student also prepares a speech about what all of this means to him or her. It signifies being old enough to take on a more responsible role - in fact, those who have had a Bar or Bat Mitzvah are counted as Jewish "adults" for the purposes of ritual and responsibility.)

As the mom of the Bat Mitzvah, I'm supposed to say a few words to my daughter in front of the congregation during the ceremony. I'm struggling to decide what to say. I mean, of course, "I'm so proud of you, you're such a beautiful young woman inside and out, and you've grown so much" come to mind. But beyond that...I'm feeling stumped.

Those of you who have been blog readers here will probably know that I struggle personally with formal religion. This is especially so because Reiki gave me my spiritual connection, not praying in temple. I'm really saying it lightly here, because I actually harbor a lot of resentment toward formal prayer. It really does nothing for me spiritually except frustrate me. I think Reiki has changed me into a Spiritualist. But I'm still a Spiritualist in a Jewish life, with a Jewish family and kids that go to Jewish Day School. So I keep my inner conflicts hidden for the most part (except here in my blog where I can let it fly!) 

This ceremony is special and important for my daughter, certainly. She's done a very dedicated job preparing and I know she'll lead her parts with grace and competence. But to me, really, this ceremony is more about a coming of age than a spiritually uplifting event. 

Family and friends are coming in from out of town and locally to attend. They'll all be so proud of Rayna, congratulate her on her accomplishment. Look at what she did: she learned a lot of prayers in Hebrew. And she can lead them confidently in front of friends and family. She learned her Torah part and wrote a nicely educational speech with a dash of humor. Well done. 

I acknowledge with some relief that other people will find this more spiritually meaningful than I do. 

Rayna and her siblings are being brought up a little differently from other Jewish kids at their school. In addition to learning and practicing Judiasm, my kids do Reiki. At home, they also talk about angels, crystals, and know how to use pendulums and Tarot cards. I think they already are far more spiritually advanced at their age than I was with a Master's Degree in Jewish Studies at age 37. So what can I say in front of this congregation, that will be sincere, and also inspiring in some way to my daughter?

I guess I could focus on what I want for her. I hope that she will always be proud of who she is. I hope that she will continue to grow and listen to her heart. I hope that she will always know that she has permission to question and wrestle with everything she is taught...even by me. 

I hope that will be enough. 

Best...job...ever!

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Today I had a very wonderful and amazing experience. While it's something I've done before, stepping back and looking at the gestalt of it, I'm blown away with amazement and gratitude that I am offered the opportunity to be a part of this work - it's nothing short of incredible.


Today, I gave a Team Distance Healing to a woman in Congo, Africa, with my Healing Team friends, Tom and Cher. 


Last night, my internet connection went out. I was on the phone with AT&T Uverse Tech Support from midnight until 1 am, trying to get it fixed. It didn't get fixed, and a tech was dispatched to arrive late this afternoon. I knew we had this appointment for the healing session, so I took my computer to a nearby coffee shop to use the wifi. 


Then I thought about what was happening.


Tom is in Texas. Cher is in California. Our client is in Congo, Africa. I was in a coffee shop in Ohio. We met up on Gchat, via Gmail. Together, we connected with our client's energy, scanned and talked about what we felt and sensed in her energy. We found things, we sent healing to clear them, we used the techniques that we were trained in. We felt the difference happening. Cher told us what she saw, Tom responded and I did too, and we felt the changes. Cher channeled a beautiful, applicable and inspiring message from our client's Guides. We all could sense when the session was complete. We felt like we had really accomplished a lot. 


So there I was, just outside the coffee shop, at a little table. People were walking by. But I was involved in this incredible experience and the outside world just kept moving along. 


I typed up the report of our session, plus the guidance received, and emailed it to the client. Within 30 minutes, we received an email from the client verifying that what we had done had been powerful for her, and that she felt lighter, loved, supported, guided, and ...better. "Like dancing" she said. 


I am filled with joy and gratitude to be part of this experience. 


I feel like a super hero. 


What is more magical than this experience?? I can't think of anything. Real magic, this work. 


I have the best job ever. 


And I had to share the experience with you just because ...well, there's nothing like it.


We are capable of so much beauty, healing, magic, connection, intuition, and joy. And most of us, most of the day, walk around oblivious. It takes moments like the hour I spent this morning to be a powerful reminder of this truth. And I love being a part of it.


I told my dad on Friday night at dinner, we are connected to everything. We have access to all of the information in the universe. We only need to learn the methods necessary to train ourselves to receive the information we seek. 


Two weekends ago I was in Delaware for training in Controlled Remote Viewing and its applications for healing. I realized, it's all about accessing information. All of it. Just the act of connecting to another's energy and observing will activate a healing process. And intention amplifies that process. It was fascinating and just served to validate what I already have experienced. I also was taught that the more people who are "psychically" accessing a target, the stronger the signal will be. That also validates that healing with a team is more powerful than alone. But I already knew that too. Today is another perfect example of that insight.


So I need to blog because I'm just overwhelmed with gratitude for the privilege of doing this work. For all of you who also give Reiki, you know how I feel. For those of you who haven't yet learned it, I would be honored to teach you, advise you, and help you discover that anyone can learn this too. I'm not special, I tell people. I just learned to do something extraordinary. You can too. 


If you are interested, contact me. I'm here to help. 


Love.

Communicating with Angels with Your Feet on the Ground

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I have just spent an afternoon absorbed, fully enrapt, in a book. This is rare for me because I have very limited chunks of time. But I couldn't, wouldn't drag myself away. It was just this good. I have to tell you about it, and also tell you why it is incorporated into the way I'm thinking these days.

First though, a little background.

Last summer, I went to a free talk. One of those Feel Your Power, Own Your Life (not the real name) kind of things. One of my friends was involved in putting the presentation together, and mostly I went because I wanted to support her. It was well done and I liked it. I signed up for the mailing list, and told my husband about it too. He also signed up for the mailing list. We started getting daily "inspirational" emails. They were just little messages about incorporating love and spirituality into your life daily. To tell you the truth, I unsubscribed after about a week because I really can't deal with daily email newsletters. I just get too many to read them all and I feel overwhelmed. I prefer a slower paced newsletter subscription. My husband, though, stayed on the list, saying he liked the little daily messages. Cool.

So some of the little daily inspirations were worded kind of whimsically. This week, my husband shared with me one of them, laughing. The message at the end of a post about looking within was "Go Deeper." He said that he couldn't help but shoot off a teasing quote from one of our favorite TV shows as a reply. He sent "That's what she said." I guessed it before he told me. We laughed and I told him he had chutzpa (brazen nerve) to reply that way.

The author of the daily emails didn't like it. She sent out an email to everyone on her list chastising them for "going there" and guilting them into failing to receive the message as a higher-consciousness one. Evan (my husband) actually sent out a reply to her again, this time saying that it was a joke, and that sometimes, when sending out a message as strong in entendre as that one, such replies are inevitable.

She didn't like that either, and wrote back a personal response to him, accusing him of being creepy and she even quoted laws of sexual harassment in her email. He apologized for offending her, said he felt she was out of line in taking it so seriously, said that a life in balance seems to be important, even for someone "enlightened" and "spiritual," and then he unsubscribed from her list. He wrote eloquently and I was proud of him.

He got me thinking.

Balance. It is very important. I am a person who has a day to day live here now kind of life. I also have a seeking that spiritual connection, higher vibrations, help the world kind of life. Both are important and essential for me. I think that people who live entirely in one world or the other are missing something essential for fully experiencing this life we are given. For example, people who just do the day to day 5-senses only experience are missing the beautiful experience of feeling the Divine is a part of them. And people who only talk and walk in etheric energy, looking down from their holy perch to chastise those who are making bawdy jokes or having a beer, are not grounded in the real world, and as such, are not fully LIVING in this gift of a body we are given. I think we need both.

I am a mom of four kids. I take care of them, clean up after them, shop and cook for them, help them with their homework, and even yell at them when they aren't listening to me tell them in my soft way the first or second time. I enjoy a little obnoxious humor from time to time, I may occasionally drop an f-bomb (not to my kids), and I like a beer now and then. I do other work - I write content for board games and do social media networking for a few businesses.

I also spend a lot of time teaching and sharing healing energy with my family, students, clients, patients at The Cleveland Clinic, and others in need. I meditate, read on spirituality, talk to my angels and guides. I have regular sessions and receive instruction from a psychic. I think about spirituality every day for hours, mixed in with my daily life.

I think I'm in pretty good balance with my woo-woo and my chop wood, fetch water sides. I may veer one way or the other at times, but I tend to move back to center pretty quickly afterward.

I am writing this post because I think it's important for us to fully experience this gift of a life we have from all sides. We need to live in the here and now present, and also take time to experience the spiritual. We can alternate between them quickly, and integrate them as well. Finding the balance, the rich sweetness of life with both the grounded and the spiritual, can help in so many ways.

Which brings be back to my reading experience today. I read Sea of Miracles by Amy Oscar. What a gorgeous, inspiring, elevating book. Amy acknowledges the connection to angels from a place of grounded reality. She talks from the perspective of one who has had her life infused with Grace as she became aware of the signs and assistance she was being given by the angels in her life. She teaches how to integrate the spiritual with the grounded in an approachable and relateable way. I came away from reading her book knowing that I am, as is anyone else who reads it, fully capable of having the same experience - of elevating my life through embracing this connection that's just waiting for me to see and feel it. The bare truth in her words touched my heart and brought tears to my eyes. I felt little touches of truth on my face as I read - this is how I experience the angels when I'm giving Reiki - as feather-light touches on my face and forehead.

Amy doesn't know I'm writing this. She didn't ask me to review her book. But it had such a profound impact on my heart, my day, and my spirituality, that I had to share it.

And also, it reinforced my feeling of needing to talk about living a balanced existence - with head in the clouds and feet on the ground, placing attention on each in a gentle, ebbing flow, sometimes consciously immersed in both at the same time.

Live. Feel. Love. Reach out. Listen. Reflect. Acknowledge. Share. Repeat.
All of it.

Thank you for this message, Amy.

Everyone, get this book. Click on the picture below to go to Amy's website.

Spiritual Ties

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I've been thinking lately about energy and the spiritual connection. I have some ideas I'd like to share and I hope they can come out in a coherent way. These things are hard to explain, and they are very subjective in nature. Plus, terms like "vibration," "frequency" and "energy" also have scientific definitions that don't exactly apply in the way I'm going to use them. There is a similarity in meaning, but they are not scientifically measurable so a scientist would say I'm using them wrong. So be it. This isn't a science related post. This is my attempt to explain my thoughts on spirituality, energy, and the way I am seeing life lately. Good luck to me. Ha.

Life force energy. This is the basis of Reiki. It is also the energy that animates all living things, plants, animals, and people. There is also energy in the earth, and around us. This energy connects us all, like a web or a grid. Someone who is dead does not have this life force energy running through his body anymore. That's the energy I mean.

Science doesn't have an explanation for how life begins. Sure, sperm meets egg. That part we know. Been there, done that. Four times. But what about the soul (life force energy) entering the union of those microscopic parts? That's beyond science. Life is a combination of the physical and the spiritual. We, as living beings, are both matter and energy, physical and spiritual in one package. Our energetic selves extend beyond our physical boundaries. Science gets much about the matter part, but still has trouble explaining the spiritual aspects. And yet we are combinations of the physical and spiritual, with systems that affect each other, intertwined. An example of this is how emotions have a physical affect on our health. Think of ulcers that develop from stress. That's just one example. I'm not saying anything new here, I know.

Now Reiki. Practicing Reiki is a way of putting one's awareness on the energy aspect in order to intend for that life force energy inside us to connect to the grid of the energy around us, and flow more of it to another living being, ourselves, a goal, or the earth itself. We are always connected to this energy, but the act of intending to connect, "turning on" the Reiki energy, raises our awareness of this connection so we can ask for this energy to flow in a certain way. When I do this, I have a physical response in the form of tingles in my hands, and a light pressure around my head and face. Every time. This physical-spiritual connection is consistently validated when I'm working with Reiki energy. I know I am connected by the sensations I experience. I am also able to sense imbalances in another person's energy field by intending to receive information as I'm giving a Reiki healing to that person. This also validates the idea that we are all connected. The recipient feels the energy and experiences receiving it. Stress, pain, emotional blockages are released, and balance is gently encouraged. The recipient is an active participant in his or her healing, as I'm not a "healer," but a facilitator of another person's ability to heal via this energetic connection.

So what does this have to do with spirituality? I'm getting to that. Thanks for bearing with me here.

Okay.

I think that this energy that's inside us, our soul, our life force energy, is all part of Spirit. You know, God, Source, whatever term works for you. We feel separate, and yet we are not. When we do things that raise our vibration to a frequency that allows us to consciously connect with the greater source of this energy (scientific language borrowed here), meaning things like meditation, yoga, energy healing practices, and even gratitude and heartfelt prayer, we become consciously more aware of this connection to the greater Source, and receive its benefits. We can also intend through this connection to share the energy with others. Doing so is really only helping the other person to connect in the same way, so he or she can benefit from receiving an extra measure of life force energy where it's needed. In addition, we can learn to become intuitively aware of the energetic state of other people. It's a process which develops through practice. The more we place our awareness on our intuitive senses, the more that awareness develops.

Many of us feel separate, our energy gets depleted, we get sick or emotionally blocked, because we consciously stay at our "lower vibration," disconnected to the source of the energy that can help us balance, cope and heal. We get caught up in our daily lives and forget to care for ourselves energetically, which is also physically since we are intertwined physical/spiritual beings. Reiki self-healing, and other practices I mentioned, help correct this imbalance, and help us be more whole.

So what I'm suggesting here is that we are always One with the Source, via our energy beings, and when we consciously connect with this Source (via Reiki or other practices I mentioned), we feel connected with the life force energy that's synonymous with God. God is not separate, God is the spiritual aspect of ourselves, and all life, and the earth too. We are all part of God.

I sound so religious right now. Or maybe anti-religious since this is rather different from the way many religious teach about God. Talking about God in a religious sense isn't in my comfort level. But I think a new understanding of spirituality is developing for me, and I want to try it out. My friend Jonathan calls this gnosis - a spiritual knowing that comes from experience rather than intellectual cognition.

There are people who have psychic gifts of clairvoyance, or they see angels, see or hear guidance, etc. They all know how to access this higher "vibration" of energy that allows them to be intuitively aware of these spiritual-based energies. It's all energy, but different from the life force energy shared by living beings. Angels can do healing work on our energy if we ask for their assistance. They live in this "energy realm" and vibrate at a slightly higher frequency than we as physical beings can consciously learn to access.

So there it is. My idea of spirituality, Reiki, life, and all that.

I know what I'm saying is not new, and countless great thinkers have put this idea out there in more eloquent terms in long chapter books already. You'll find shelves of them in the local bookstore and pages upon pages on Amazon. But it's new for me, and it's been pulling at me hard enough to feel I need to share it with you, for your consideration.

Any comments? (I ask nervously....)

Religion, Spirituality and Reiki

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This week, I've been thinking about the ideas of faith, belief and spirituality. These thoughts usually come up for me when I'm at services. Rarely do formal worship services resonate with me, although I sometimes have to go and participate with the family. Friday night was one of those times. As I do when I'm at a service in the congregation, I found myself pondering religious ritual, formal worship, and means of making the connection to a Higher Source.

I'm Jewish. I should probably mention that I'm comfortable being Jewish. More than a religious practice, Judaism is a culture. This means it involves family, history, food, music, art, books, holidays, language, Bible, religious writings, education, and ties to a land (Israel). It's essentially a way of life. I also have a Master's Degree in Jewish Studies, and have worked as a Jewish educator either part time or full time for the last 13 years. Despite my education and teaching experience, the formal worship aspect has never made me feel spiritually connected.

Judaism is founded on monotheism, and many of our prayers are of the "God is One" variety, which works for me. But as I sat in services on Friday night, I realized an aspect of what's wrong with it for me. What's not working for me is that in the prayers, God is addressed as You. You this, You that, thank You, You are this, You are that... separate from "us."

This feels wrong to me because the way I've come to feel about spirituality is that WE are God - we all are, via our souls, essences, life force - and we are connected to each other through this same energy. Our energy - our soul essence -connects all life, and that is Spirit energy. We are all capable of learning to give more of this essence energy (Life Force Energy, Ki, Chi, whatever you might call it) to each other as needed, for healing, balance, etc. in whatever way we learn how (Reiki, Quantum Touch, and many other energy healing modalities), and there are many ways.

But it doesn't matter how we do this - just that we do. I think it could be one of the main reasons for existence, to feel this connectedness, elevate our vibrations, learn to help each other and the world (for all nature is connected by this energy - plants, animals, the Earth). Once you know how to do this, you see the world and life itself so differently. I don't need formal worship to feel connected because I feel connected through energy work.

The people who devalue life, who hate others and think they are better than others, who let the
ego interfere with the basic principle of connectedness are missing this essential point. That's why it usually seems that organized religion separates people into little groups of people who miss the point. Once a religion asserts that it is the "True" path to spirituality, it is missing the point of the connectedness, the Oneness of everyone and everything.

So why am I writing this? I often think about the ideas of faith, belief and spirituality. I don't reject religion in general or my religion. In fact, I feel connected to the belonging-ness and the aspects of Judaism that stress the importance of helping, caring for the planet, respecting others, and being a good person. Holiday themes of family and togetherness, the importance of everyone, and seeking a connection with God are parts that I especially like.

Reiki is not a religion. It is a spiritual practice however. That is its essence because it involves connecting with this spiritual energy. It is not a religion because it requires no beliefs, does not single out one group over another, and it does not require a formalized ritual of worship. There are no Reiki holidays. There is not Reiki food. No language needs to be learned. Symbols are optional but have no religious significance. There are precepts, ideas of how Reiki can benefit your life, but it's not considered Law or required faith, or something to accept or suffer any consequences if you don't.

So this week's blog entry is intended to share my thoughts on religion, spirituality, faith and Reiki with you. Please comment if you feel moved to do so.

Thank you. Peace.