Sunday, February 26, 2012

Standing on the Ground in Sandals

One of the books that I most recommend to my students is Clintin Ober's Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever? because, as Ober explains, 
"the surface of the Earth contains limitless healing energy. Science has discovered this energy as free-flowing electrons constantly replenished by solar radiation and lightning. Few people know it, but the ground provides a subtle electric signal that maintains health and governs the intricate mechanisms that make our bodies work-just like plugging a lamp into a power socket makes it light up."
Being aware of the difference between being "grounded" to the earth's energy and being "ungrounded" is important, especially to those who work with healing energy. See, we spend so much time connected to the higher vibration of healing energy, that after a while, we can feel a little "floaty." Some may start to feel forgetful (ever been an "air head"?), clumsy, or just really distracted. All of these feelings and results are because we need to get our energy fuuly back into our bodies. 


If this sounds strange, think of being on a boat for a long time, and then coming back onto land. It feels weird, right? That's because we got temporarily used to being gently rocked around on the water instead of firmly anchored to the ground as usual. Same would happen if we spent about 30 minutes walking around on a bouncy trampoline, and then got back onto the land. Temporary physical disorientation occurs. A similar thing can happen if we spend a lot of time working with higher chakra energies. This means meditation, Reiki, or other intuitive practices. 


Come to think of it, even "monkey mind" can take our awareness away from our bodies. (We all have times of the day with monkey mind - it means that our thoughts are chattering away constantly as we try to remember everything we need to do, what was said before, where we're going next, and how to handle various issues, on and on.) When we find ourselves dropping things, bumping into door jams, and stepping on objects on the floor, it's a signal that we need to stop and ground our energy, bringing our awareness back into our bodies. The best way to do this is by connecting, intentionally, with the energy of the earth.


If we could walk around barefoot all the time, we'd be more naturally connected with earth energy. It would help immensely with being more grounded and receiving the healing benefits of this energy. Interestingly, the Reiki method that I teach, Practical Reiki, is developed from Kundalini Reiki. Kundalini Reiki combines the earth energy with the Ki energy from above, and the healing properties are enhanced and strengthened by this combination. So the benefits of earth energy are found in the healing method I teach and practice. 


That's where these unique and brilliant sandals come in. Juil is a new company that understands the concept of grounding, and they've taken it to the feet. They realize that sometimes we need to wear shoes. But shoes have soles that are typically made of rubber or other insulating materials which separate us from the energy of the earth. The folks at Juil have developed sandals that have copper conductors beneath the toes and heels, connected inside the leather sole. The conductors sit on the outside of the bottom of the shoe, so every step brings the grounding effect to the wearer, allowing her to be grounded while wearing shoes.


I had the privilege of testing out a pair of Juil sandals. Many thanks to the folks at Juil for sending me a pair to test and review. Since I work at home much of the time, I wore them comfortably around the house. The best part is that we're having an unusually warm winter, so I even had the chance to walk around outside a little in them. I'm totally looking forward to the summer when I can just live in these sandals. 


First of all, they are really comfy. They fit nicely and the leather straps are smooth against my feet. I noticed the benefits the most when I was intentionally grounding my energy after Reiki healing sessions or meditation. I really did feel like it was easier to feel more present faster than when I'm sporting my Keds or Bearpaws. All I had to do was think of bringing my energy down into the earth and back up into my body and I had an instant sense of being HERE, now. I think, besides doing the grounding exercise barefoot, the Juil sandals were the next best thing.


So if you're interested in supporting a company that wants to support energy workers and those who are just becoming aware of the benefits of connecting to the earth, check out Juil.com. I also love that they've started a Soles for Souls program, where they donate a pair of shoes for every pair sold. Companies that do good like this are so awesome!


By the way, they're also coming out with sneakers soon. This Midwest girl will be ready to click and place my order when that happens!


Happy grounding.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

This Funny Role

I made this today...how do you view yourself?

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Everything is Here

Last month, I went to a training in Controlled Remote Viewing. CRV is a technique that was developed and used by the military to get information about classified things by using the intuition in a very controlled, structured way. It's also been known as "psychic spying." I was trained in CRV with a group that was interested in its applications for healing. 


I learned basic CRV, yes. But the real lesson that came from the training is much more meaningful to me. Here's what I have realized:


1) All of the information about everything -really EVERYTHING- that there is to know about everything is here, right around us. 
2) We can find out everything we want to know by learning to ask and learning to translate the information we receive.
3) Scanning someone's energy, psychic channeling, giving tarot or card readings, CRV, tuning in---these are all methods of asking for information and receiving that information.
4) Translating is how we bring the information we want to know into our conscious mind through our intuition. (From the right brain to the left).
5) There are many ways of learning to sense and translate this information into understandable answers. All we need to do is decide which method to learn and practice. 


When I work with Reiki, I use my hands. My intuition gives me messages through my tactile senses - called being clairsentient - which comes in the form of physical sensations of tingles, warmth, prickles, etc. Each sensation has a meaning, and through experience, I'm learning to understand what each one means. For example, one sort of tingle means a person is experiencing grief. One sort of prickle means there is pain in the area. Moving my hand over someone while Reiki is flowing allows me to receive these messages via my tingles - and I translate the messages into meaning that I can understand and discuss with my Reiki client. The tingles are the language of my intuition, and I'm learning it as a baby learns to talk -by being immersed in it and learning to discern the different nuances and attach meaning to them. 


When I'm scanning someone's energy, I'm asking for information about the state of the person's energy. Where is there pain, blockages, overactivity, etc.? This information comes to me, I translate it, and can dialogue with my client about what I sense. I feel the sensations change during the session and I know that the recipient has received what was needed for this session.


CRV is a process of asking for information too. There is a Target, which represents the information the viewer wants to receive details about. The viewer doesn't know much, if anything about the Target at the start, and so all information received via the intuition is written down, and through the process of relaxing, tuning in, and writing, lots of information comes forth about the target. It's a very structured way of doing the same thing - asking for information and bringing it onto the paper. It's not psychic training - it's learning a language. They call it a martial art. But it's still the same idea - the information is out there and we can retrieve it.


Try asking a question at the start of the day, and ask for the answer to become apparent to you by the end of the day. Don't ask the BIG question - don't ask for The Meaning of Life, for example - but something simple as "Should we have chicken or fish for dinner?" and don't forget to add that you'd like to have signs showing you the best answer by the late afternoon. Then just go about your day. At some point, you'll notice something. Either a chicken or a fish reference will pop into your mind or experience. For example, a chicken restaurant commercial will come on the radio as soon as you turn it on. Or someone with a fish symbol on his car will be driving directly in front of you. And you'll notice. That's the important part. This is just another way of asking for specific information and receiving it. (And it's fun!)


I teach my students to learn to identify and then tune in to their clairs - their own naturally strong way of receiving intuitive information. Because it's here. 


It's all here.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Best...job...ever!

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.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Lighten Up

My kids are regular kids. When your kids are energy-aware, though, play has an added dimension to it. There are more topics that end up incorporated into their role-play games. The perfect example is what we did yesterday. My kids have been developing a skit called Chakra Tony's Metaphysical Outlet. Yesterday we video recorded it and put it up on Youtube.


The reason this is significant is mostly the reminder that we should never take ourselves too seriously. Yes, I'm passionate about Reiki and deeply spiritually connected to this powerful work. But it's also important to remember to have a sense of humor. We can poke fun at ourselves and have fun and that's important too.


Things in my personal life are a little stressful, as things sometimes are. So being able to step back, laugh and have fun, helps me be in the flow instead of captured by stress and worry. Thanks to my kids, I get plenty of reminders of this important point.


Now I'm passing it on to you. Enjoy.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

42 - The Meaning of Life


In the first novel and radio series, a group of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings demand to learn the Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything from the supercomputer, Deep Thought, specially built for this purpose. It takes Deep Thought 7½ million years to compute and check the answer, which turns out to be 42. The Ultimate Question itself is unknown. ~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy


Today is my birthday. I'm 42. According to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, 42 is the answer to the question of the meaning of life. In the series, the reader finds out that once the answer was discovered, a supercomputer was then developed to find out what the question is. That supercomputer is called Earth, and humans are part of the program. I think that's a pretty spiritual concept, for all its sci-fi-ness. What's the meaning of life? We're here to discover it. Not alone, but collectively, through our interactions - a complex series of bopping in and out of each other's fields, lives, events and stuff.


Well, I guess this is my year.


It's also the fourth anniversary of the start of this blog. I'm so proud to have kept a record of my journey for this long, and pretty glad to be able to go back and remember what was going through my head at various times over the past four years. My Reiki journey began four years ago, and it continues today. Thank you all for being a part of it through reading, commenting, and sharing my posts.


When my birthday's coming, I tend to assess my life from as objective a viewpoint as I can. I think a lot of people do this around birthday time. It's a pretty weird experience. Objectively speaking, over the last four years, I've centered my career more and more around sharing and teaching Reiki.


So from an outside perspective, I:


  • claim and truly believe that an invisible energy flows through me upon request
  • feel warm, soothing tingles, relief from discomfort, and emotional calm when I direct this energy towards myself
  • claim and truly believe that I can offer this invisible energy to anyone, anywhere in the world
  • demonstrate, discuss, and teach others how to work with this invisible energy
  • volunteer and get paid for offering this energy to others, who report that it helps them
am completely and utterly a passionate weirdo. At least, I would have thought so if the person I was 5 years ago met the person I am today. 

It gives me pause.

But then I consider that I also:
  • have a great husband and four fascinating and adorable kids with lots of quality family time
  • work, shop, clean, do laundry, pick up from school, make dinner
  • run an academy, which I started, and manage the business side of things along with teaching
  • wrote a book and promote it
have a semblance of a grounded, regular life. And then I breathe again, returned to feeling like I'm still a "normal" human in some respects, still the me I've always been, with a few super powers thrown in here and there.

Are there things I'd like to improve? Of course, doesn't everyone have those? On my list this year, I would like:
  • to drop a few or ten pounds
  • to take more time for myself for meditation, exercise (see above), and relaxing
  • to dance more, sing more, play the piano more
  • to attract 1,000+ more students to my school
  • to have all the money my family needs to not worry about having the money we need (see above)
And of course, my blessings, for which I am very grateful:
  • Good health
  • Family nearby (my parents, my grandma, aunt and uncle who we have dinner with weekly)
  • My wonderful supportive husband and our kids who amaze us daily
  • My students who express gratitude, enthusiasm and love for their learning
  • My staff, colleagues and friends who make the Academy possible (Connie, Yancey, Amber especially)
  • My friends who help me keep things in perspective
  • The opportunity to follow this path, which as crazy as it feels sometimes when I try to see it from the outside, is exactly what I feel aligned with doing in every way possible.
And I'm also fascinated with the things I'm continuing to learn, which I'm sure will bring about more and more weird and wonderful moments this year and moving ahead:
  • noticing angels at work in my life
  • sensing and responding to guidance
  • learning new tools and techniques to strengthen my intuition
  • ways to build and grow a business that's successful and thriving
  • making the most of these gifts - the grounded and the superhero stuff - in gratitude and humility
So...I guess that's the 42 report - my 4th anniversary of writing this blog. 

Universe, my door is open. Welcome.

May this year move us all ever closer to finding the elusive question and enjoying the process of discovery.

A side note: in the Hitchhiker's Guide series, the question gets discovered and it turns out to be What is six times nine? Of course mathematically, that is incorrect. The explanation given for that is: "There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."

Indeed.



Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Giving is Receiving

One of the most meaningful activities I've been involved with in the past few years has been volunteering. I volunteer as a Group Leader with the Distance Healing Network (http://the-dhn.com), I give Reiki healings twice a month to people dealing with cancer at a local cancer support center The Gathering Place (http://touchedbycancer.org), and for a year I was with The Cleveland Clinic weekly, giving Reiki to patients, staff, and visitors.


The reasons I started volunteering were many. I wanted to get more experience with Reiki and help those who want it. I wanted to balance my professional Reiki practice with offering energy to those who couldn't pay. And I wanted to also just have more opportunities to use this powerful gift to make the world better.


Usually, volunteering is about giving. Giving to others, offering your time, etc. But I found out that it's also about receiving. Here are some of the gifts I received as a result of volunteering:

  • Watching people who were suffering from anxiety relax and smile
  • Hearing people tell me that their pain went from a "10" to a "1"
  • Hugs and thank you - more times than I could count
  • Inspiring many of my students to volunteer also
  • Setting an example for my children, who are proud of me
  • Knowing that I'm doing something worthwhile, meaningful and powerful with my life
  • Increased confidence that Reiki is there, every time
So, as it happens, the act of volunteering has given gifts to me also - equally if not even more than any effort on my part.

And so I am grateful for the gifts, and for the opportunity to share what I've learned with you also.

May we receive and acknowledge many gifts this season, and all year long.
Blessings.