49

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Here it is! Today is my 49th birthday. The first day of the last year of my 40s.

And, things are good! Here are some of the things I've been doing since my 48th birthday:

I'm working on completing my dissertation, with an eye on graduating in May.

I have my own office, which I love so much. It offers me a lovely spot to officiate quick weddings, give Reiki sessions, and teach small groups of students. I also give Angel Card Readings, and I have an Aura Camera, so I can give readings with that too.

Rayna is in her first year of college, and doing very well, and working on getting her driver's license. So far, I'm somehow surviving the anxiety I feel when she's behind the wheel. The struggle is real though!

I have learned a lot about energy healing by working on my dissertation. I think the meditation practice with HeartMath meditation has made my healing work stronger, too. Info about that is here:
The HeartMath Inner Balance Meditation™ App and Sensor

Still teaching online, and Reiki Awakening Academy has a new, better website. It took a long time to be ready, and still looks similar to the old one, but it is better mobile-friendly, and has a more modern look.

Gray is good!:D

I let my hair go gray. And it's long. It saves me trips to the hairdresser and I like it. Hello, end of my 40s!

I'm teaching at Montgomery College, and loving it! My students are wonderful people who are really interested in learning what I teach them.

I wrote 20 Skills for the Amazon Echo, and they're fun and positive.

I am grateful, very much so, for my life. I love being on my own schedule, managing my work, teaching, and being here in Maryland.

I'm ready for new and exciting opportunities! Okay, 49! Bring it!

Love,
Me

A Review and Giveaway!

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Recently, I was contacted by the gracious Mary Wallace of improvedhealing.com, offering to send me one of her absolutely gorgeous Energy Healing Blankets, and some healing jewelry they make to review and one for a giveaway (yes, you read that right!). I happily accepted.

I received a package a short while later. The Healing Blanket is absolutely beautiful. It's healing energy-charged, and also embroidered. It has a gorgeous angel image design. And, as you can see, my cat, Pippy, loves it! Before I even opened it from its package, he was laying on it in the box. 

A much better view is here: 

It has a very soft energy, and is also cozy, colorful, and extremely soothing. I'm so impressed with the quality and also the loving attention that went into making this beautiful blanket. I'm absolutely using this on the Reiki table for all of my Reiki sessions with clients from now on! (Yay that it's machine washable too - bonus!)

You can get one for yourself at the Improved Healing website here (and it has free shipping, too). 

I also received two pieces of healing jewelry. This Uplifting Gaia bracelet has map jasper (shaped like Mother Earth - gorgeous), and citrine beads. I love it. It makes a great gift, and I'm happy to enjoy the good energy from mine, with much gratitude. 

How's it look?

You can view all of the loveliest healing jewelry I've seen yet, crafted with love by Mary Wallis, here on their ImprovedHealing.com website. 

This bracelet is a new item, soon to be listed on their site. If you want to get one and be "twinsies" with me, check back. Mary told me that she's making up more, and there should be a listing for it by the middle of next week.

And now....yes! Mary and William Wallis gave me a fantastic, absolutely breathtaking necklace to GIVE AWAY to one of you wonderful readers! 

It's the Wise Longevity necklace, which features onyx and adventurine beads surrounding  orthoceras with a beautiful design in the center. 

Here's a picture of the one I'll send the lucky winner:

You can see it and read the description from their website here.

I'm sure by now you're wanting to know how to enter to win this gorgeous necklace. 

Here's what to do. You will get 1 entry for EACH of the following actions (Yes, that means you can get 5 entries if you do all of them!):

• 1) Visit the ImprovedHealing.com website, and leave a comment on this post about what products you like on their website.
• 2) Like Healing Energy Blanket on Facebook and leave a comment that Alice from Reiki Awakening sent you.
• 3) Visit ReikiAwakeningAcademy.com, browse classes and/or the Store, then like Reiki Awakening Academy on Facebook, and leave a comment about a class or product that interests you.
• 4) Sign up for the Reiki Awakening Academy Insights newsletter at the bottom of the page here. (We think you'll like it!)
• 5) Follow Reiki Awakening Academy on Pinterest, and leave this comment on any RAA pin: "I entered the Reiki Awakening contest to win a healing gemstone necklace!"

On July 4, 2014 at noon Eastern time, I will put in an entry for you for each of the items above that you completed, then randomly pick one lucky winner! I'll email the winner and post the winner's name here as an addendum to this post that day!

Happy entering! I'm sure you'll love all of the websites, Facebook and Pinterest pages I've sent you to, also!

Note: my reviews are my own views, and I disclose that I received these products as a gift from ImprovedHealing.com in exchange for my review and this giveaway. Regardless, I gave an honest review of these items.

Another note: If anyone else would like me to review their healing/holistic/metaphysically-inclined book or product, send me an email. I'm happy to consider it and get back to you promptly!

__________________________________________
ADDENDUM - WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT
July 4, 2014

Thank you to all who entered this contest/ giveaway! I'm glad you had a chance to view the heartfelt creations and beautiful energy of ImprovedHealing.com. 

The winner of the Wise Longevity Necklace is....
Ida Lopez
      Congratulations!! Ida, please send me your snail mail address so I can send you your beautiful prize!  

From time to time, I'll have another giveaway, so if you're not already, please subscribe to my blog (using the box at the top right of the page), so you don't miss a post!

Love and light and a Happy Independence Day to all!
Alice

New Beginnings

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We've now lived in Gaithersburg, MD for six weeks. Partly, I've been feeling like I'm on an extended vacation from my home in Ohio. Part of me has been wondering when we're going home. But not in a sad way. I love this house. There's plenty of room for our family. It's very nice to have enough bathrooms, too! I love the new neighborhood, all of the amazing variety of cultures here. I'm even starting to get around - a little - without the GPS app on my phone. People I've met have been nice and welcoming. The kids are all adjusting really well to their new schools, and made the Honor Roll their first quarter.

My husband has gotten off to a great start in his new position. It's clearly the right decision for him, and for our family, to be here.

Although our house in University Heights hasn't sold yet, it's certainly ready for a family to move in and make it their new home.

Good things are happening with me, too. I've made a wonderful connection with Beatrice Ollier of The Center for Qi Gong, Meditation, Healing and Beyond, which it turns out, is about a mile from my house in a very thriving shopping district called The Kentlands. Being as open minded as she is, Beatrice has allowed me to teach Practical Reiki at her lovely studio, and even brought me two students. We've got a great symbiotic relationship - I'm helping her with her social media presence and marketing. She's recommending  me and letting me teach there. I've already taught a class there, and will teach another in January. We like each other a lot, too. 



And the biggest news so far is that, finally, my new website has launched. ReikiAwakeningAcademy.com is completely redesigned from the bottom up, and looks totally new, modern, and different! We're having a free online launch party tomorrow (Thursday) night at 9 pm EST. It's a free class in Laughter Yoga, as well as festive giveaways and a party atmosphere. We figured, why not do something really fun, that includes learning, and celebrates the new site? I'd love to have a great big crowd, so please join us if you can make it! It's online, so wherever you are, you can be there from any computer or digital device that goes online. Please come!

I'm going to Ohio on Friday, to teach and share a booth with my expo buddy, Ernie Betz, at The Victory of Light Expo in Cincinnati. I'm looking forward to being back there (it's my seventh time). Though, in a way, it feels a little confusing to go from here (my home?) to there (my familiar Ohio territory), and then back here (home, Alice, home) again on Monday.

So, yeah, things are good, and I'm trying to get rooted in this new place, so that I can say or think "home" and my mind goes here, instead of Cleveland, Ohio. I know it takes time. But, I'm ready for that slightly confused part of me to officially move here too. 

Peace.

Driving with my head out the window

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Ace Ventura

These past few weeks have been weird. As I sat here composing my post, I thought of a few metaphors for how I've been feeling.

One is the moment when Alice steps into the looking glass, yet isn't quite across yet. She is simultaneously in both worlds - her familiar home, and Wonderland. (Which is more Weirdland than Wonderland, anyway, right? I mean, it's more disconcerting than wondrous most of the story, especially that nasty queen!)

Another is the image of sticking my head into another dimension, while my body is still here, in my original one. I'm seeing all sorts of weird things, but I'm not fully in there with them. 

I named this post "Driving with my head out the window" because I guess that captures it best. It's not about just standing there looking back and forth, but it's also representing the idea of the motion of things whizzing by outside, but inside they feel still, despite the actual movement of both.

In many areas of my life, I'm feeling like this. 

First, my business, Reiki Awakening Academy. Lots is in the works, in progress, right now. Among them, a new website is being developed. It's VASTLY different from the current one, and also a whole lot better. I'm waiting for the coding to be finished, and then I'll have loads of work to upload the real content instead of the placeholders that are there now. We are also planning a full school year of classes, trainings, and retreats. But the school year hasn't really started yet. So all of this momentum is happening behind the scenes (that's the outside the window part), while inside the car, everything seems like it's just sitting here waiting to get somewhere. 

Next, my home life. My husband, Evan, has spent most of the summer interviewing for a very big position 350 miles away. This organization recruited him, quite "out of the blue" but not really, as it happened just a few days after he tried a manifestation exercise that I taught him. More interestingly, it is the same position he interviewed for four years ago, and back then, he was suddenly passed over when they hired an internal candidate. This job was a fantastic fit for his education, experience and skill set, and the level of position and salary sounded perfect for us. It was surprising and a little jarring at the time that (seemingly at the last minute), he didn't get the offer. Turns out that if he had been offered the job then, it would have been absolutely wrong for our family. Shortly after he didn't get the position, his mom got sick. We were very much needed here, and if we had moved, it would have been impossible for us to stay. We spent the next eight months caring for her. And then she passed. And we had to settle her estate, sell her house, and readjust our lives. It took time. 

Back to this summer, when as I mentioned, Evan was suddenly contacted by that very same organization, saying that the same position is open again, asking if he would consider applying for it. Only this time, he went through the whole interview process, and was called and told that they are putting together an offer for him. They had said they were going to make the offer last week. But then they called and said their finance committee would be on a retreat for the week, so the offer won't happen until Aug. 21. We don't know what the offer will be, or if the (we assume) relocation package will be enough to make this possible for us. 

I get that same world-rushing-by-while-I-sit-and-wait feeling when I think of all the ways this could play out, along with figuring out what to do about our house, a new place to live, school systems for the kids, a new Reiki practice location for me, and the timing of it all. It's impossible to really plan until we know about the offer. So, until Wednesday, or possibly a few days later after negotiations, my head is out the window trying to catch a glimpse of the world of potential, while my body is here, getting the kids ready for the start of school next week in their current school. 

Finally, those I work with - my business partner, and my Naturopath, both incredibly intuitive people (to say the least). I went to see my Naturopath last week to get some advice and energy work for a small but irritating health issue. She helped me with it, and then we were chatting about computers. She told me about how she gets overwhelmed by electromagnetic energy, like being in the Verizon store. She could always see energy, and it certainly helps her in her work. I can't, and I could stand in the Verizon store all day without noticing the energetic difference. I listen to her and it's like sticking my head into the looking glass while the rest of my body stays put. I feel like I'm somehow missing something by not being as sensitive as she is to the energies all around me.

My business partner emailed me yesterday. She had a surreal (to me) experience of being in and out of her body most of yesterday, being visited by spirits, Guides, and getting "downloads" of new books to write. She grounded again last night and "returned" to a more earthly state of living in her body. But honestly, she's like the Mad Hatter (not crazy - no implication intended there!), and I'm in Wonderland when I read about her experiences. I am that Alice, looking around and feeling out of my element when faced with things like this. I can only look - these experiences are out of my realm. They are, though, common enough for her, as she has been astral traveling since being a child. 

So here I am in a sort of limbo. I do my thing - I am good at giving Reiki. I'm pretty awesome at teaching Reiki. I can give some insightful Angel Card readings. I have a sensible business savvy. Inside my calm little car, I am used to the way things are. 

But I'm feeling like intense things are whizzing all around just outside of me in my little world, and I can guess about them, hear about them, learn about them, but they aren't taking me with them to experience them personally. While it's just a matter of time - just a few more days - for Evan's situation to work out, and a matter of weeks for my website to be ready, new programs to be launching, and classes to begin again, my imagination and desire to be moving (rather than waiting) are far ahead, whizzing around in an unsettled pattern.

And when it comes to the people I'm working with, I don't know if I'll ever be able to really visit their worlds as they see them. It bothers me a little. I remind myself that they both have had a lifetime of that natural intuitive gift that I only started finding in myself and working towards five years ago. Logically, I know that perhaps, in time, with continued work on my own development, I could sense something of what they experience, when it's right for me. And, that is ok.

But for now, I'm feeling like I'm driving with my head out the window. Inside the car, I feel the sensation of barely moving. I'm enclosed in my little space. But my head, outside the window, is getting a bigger, wilder reminder that what I experience inside my space is only a fraction of what is really happening.

How do you ride through your life right now? Will we see each other on the road, our hair whipping about wildly in the wind?

Are you near the looking glass? Do you know it's there? Have you stepped inside?

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.

We Are Hiring!

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Recruiter Intern for Reiki Awakening Academy - job available

Are you a go-getter? Do you know how to excite people and motivate them to action? Do you know the meaning of these words: Reiki, intuition, holistic, and metaphysical?


This summer internship experience will give you the title of "Recruiter" for the Reiki Awakening Academy of Intuitive Development, a cutting edge online academy. Use all of your social media, personal and online marketing savvy to bring in students, and you'll get paid a percentage of each new student's first registration for a class. The more students you recruit, the more money you make. Students only need to register for one class, whether $40 or $400. Flexible hours, work from home.


This is an ideal position for a college student, but anyone qualified may apply.


To apply: First, visit and explore http://reikiawakeningacademy.com. Then, send an email to info@reikiawakeningacademy.com describing why you're the person we should select. Applications will be accepted until May 31, 2012. Position will begin mid-June through mid-August with possible continuation.

42 - The Meaning of Life

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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.

I've Been Promoted

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This has been a very eventful summer!





I wrote a book about Reiki. Over 100 copies have been sold in the first month.

Now I've launched the next step in my practice - a school of intuitive development, The Reiki Awakening Academy. It felt right - to make more classes available to more people, in an organized way. The pieces lined up - my teachers, colleagues, and students showed up ready to help others learn. I know it will grow - I look forward to selecting more teachers and offering more classes to those who are looking for learning and support.

I've been told that this is a time of great change - an awakening, not only for me (Reiki Awakening!), but around the planet, people are becoming aware of their intuition and powers for healing. They are seeking answers, methods, and information about how to harness, nurture, and use these abilities to help others and themselves. A consciousness is rising - I think I feel it too.

This journey I've been on since I started this blog seems to reflect this change. I hope that my school can become a resource for those seeking guidance, learning, and support. I'm offering what I have learned, and as I learn more, I will offer more. I'm also bringing on board those who have passion to do the same.

And now I've inherited a new title. I'm the founder, the leader, the head teacher, the big cheese of this school. I tried on all of those (well not the cheese - that's a joke), to see if they felt right. I guess, in order to express in business terms my role in the process, that I have become an Executive Director. Funny how businesslike and a little stuffy it sounds. Funny how I picture an Executive Director sitting in a suit behind a big desk in a large office with a door. And funny how that image doesn't really fit me here in my t-shirt and jeans shorts, typing on my laptop in its docking station in my basement.

But it's what I am I guess!

I am organizing and posting all classes, setting up the virtual classroom for my teachers, training the teachers on how to conduct their classes, taking registration, keeping track of students, rosters, enrollment, payroll, answering emails, teaching a large number of classes and programs myself (it's my passion and my true calling!), and recruiting students. So I guess that title fits.

But I still feel like the person who started this blog, amazed at the tingles in my hands, dying to find others to share this amazement with.

Well, the universe has promoted me. Thank you, Universe! I am so glad to be here. I look forward to the next steps.

Come on over and have a look. Try a class. Choose a program that will help you become who you are too. We're here to help.