For the sake of clarity, this discussion of healing crisis will contrast conventional, science-based medicine with natural, tradition-based medicine. Please keep in mind that these two approaches are not mutually exclusive, and that the patient receiving both conventional care and traditional care is likely receiving the best possible health care.

The series on healing crisis (you’ll find links to earlier articles below) started because a physician who is also a Reiki practitioner (not trained by me) asked for advice on “how to deal with the emotional and physical healing crisis/cleansing effect.” He wrote that a healing crisis “can be very severe and even potentially dangerous in some vulnerable individuals.”

The conventional doctor’s confusion is understandable. He knows very well that the body has the capacity to heal itself. Physicians I work with often tell me most of the ailments they see at their offices would resolve without intervention, especially if patients would give the body what it needs to recover (rest and appropriate nourishment).

Healing crisis or adverse reaction?

But doctors are trained to think in terms of adverse reactions and unwanted side effects. When doctors see a patient feeling worse, they tend to see a patient getting worse. They don’t see a healing crisis.

Physicians are taught to intervene in order to manage adverse reactions and reduce the likelihood of a negative outcome. And they are taught to intervene earlier rather than later, hoping to minimize harm to the patient and prevent the situation going from bad to worse. (We won’t get into the unwanted side effects of aggressive treatment.)

A healing crisis, however, is not an adverse reaction in the medical sense. Rather, a healing crisis is an organic development of stimulating the body’s self-healing mechanisms.

Healing crisis and cure…and prevention

Healing crisis doesn’t occur in conventional medical treatment because conventional medicine attacks the disease directly. Rather than engaging the body, conventional interventions take over the fight.

Also, conventional medicine’s definition of cure is very specific. Once the relevant tests are clear, the patient is deemed cured. No attention is paid to healing the underlying causes of disease and degenerative conditions, as they are largely not detectable by conventional scientific tests (this is slowly beginning to change).

Traditional healing systems, however, have a comprehensive vision of cure and don’t treat the disease separately from the person. The goal of natural medicine is to restore the entire human system to balance; acute and chronic conditions are addressed within that context.

Healing crisis demystified

A healing crisis can seem magical, but it is decidedly not magical. It has a cause and it has an effect.

If a healing crisis happens, it happens as a natural consequence of strengthening the body’s own self-healing mechanisms. When the body’s self-healing mechanisms function more effectively, the body’s detox system is also functioning more effectively. If the system is detoxing faster than it is releasing, there may be a temporary exacerbation of symptoms. This malaise abates as soon as the system catches up to itself, at which point the person feels much better.

Healing crisis doesn’t happen in conventional medicine because conventional medicine treats the specific markers of a specific disease, rather than stimulating the human system to rebalance itself.

Beyond healing crisis: Hering’s Law

Nineteenth century physician and homeopath Constantine Hering observed the consistency of the body’s natural healing process and identified three elements in what is now called Hering’s Law:

• the healing process moves from the deepest, most subtle part of the system (emotions, mind, vital organs)
• symptoms reappear and disappear in the reverse timeline in which they originally occurred
• as healing progresses, symptoms move to the surface and extremities (skin, hands, feet)

If a person is consistently using natural medicine over a period of time, the specifics of the healing process described in Hering’s Law may be observed, especially if there is a continuing relationship with a traditional healing practitioner who is tracking the process.

If you have questions about healing crisis, please leave them in the comment section below. If you are reading this as an email, click the title to be taken to the website, where you can leave your question. Thank you for participating in this discussion.

Other articles in the healing crisis series:
Healing Crisis: Part One
Healing Crisis: What Is It?
Conventional Medicine and Traditional Medicine

Would you like to learn First degree Reiki in San Juan? We’re having a one-time only class February 21-23.

Click here to learn more about the upcoming Medical Reiki seminars in Barbados, Atlanta, and New York City.

Did you enjoy REIKI: A Comprehensive Guide? If so, please click here to nominate it as About.com’s Best Reiki Book.

The vintage doctor bag pictured above is available from Etsy’s junquegypsy.

The symptoms suffered in a healing crisis are the same symptoms suffered in disease. Disease states can be dangerous. What’s a practitioner to do?

Healing crisis is a fixture of traditional, natural medicine. In order to understand healing crisis in the context of today’s health care, let’s compare the paradigm of science-based conventional medicine with that of pre-scientific traditional medicine (sometimes referred to as alternative medicine).

Conventional medicine: it’s all about pathology

For all the talk of prevention, conventional medicine remains overwhelmingly reactive rather than preventive; far more healthcare resources and effort are used to address disease and trauma than to support health and well-being. That is not going to change any time soon.

Why not?

Conventional medicine has no model for health and well-being. All it has is the oft-quoted statement by the World Health Organization (WHO) that health is more than the absence of disease.

The scientific paradigm is based on the ability to measure objectively and replicate results. But how can conventional medicine measure “more than the absence of disease?”

Conventional medicine has few mechanisms to address the subtle components of health and well-being. It cannot notice something is going awry until the measurements are skewed to the threshold of pathology, at which point conventional medicine shifts abruptly into reactive mode.

By the time conventional medicine identifies an approaching train wreck in the human body, it’s rarely possible to prevent the wreck. Instead, the focus is on minimizing damage and prolonging life.

Traditional medicine: it’s all about function

Traditional, indigenous medical systems such as Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, Tibetan medicine, Native American medicine, and African medicine were used centuries before modern science was a twinkle in Descartes’s eye. Each system developed its own methodology and made use of what was locally available.

The primary goal of traditional medicine is to support balanced function throughout the human system so that the system’s self-healing mechanisms can maintain health. Disease treatment is secondary. Traditional practitioners gather information about their patients subjectively, without using technology.

Whereas conventional medicine gathers objective data and matches it to an appropriate standardized treatment, traditional medicine looks at each individual as a unique situation, customizing treatment accordingly.

Many traditional medical observations are obvious even to an untrained eye, such as the coloration of the tongue. Others — pulse-taking, for example — take a bit of training.

Putting together the various observations is what takes skill and experience. Nonetheless, observing skilled traditional practitioners over many decades, I have seen various practitioners relying on very subjective means make the same observations and similar assessments. As in conventional medicine, traditional practitioners may look at the same information and outline different treatment plans.

Traditional medical practitioners are taught to respect the body and observe with an attitude of watchful waiting, there to assist the body rather than override it. (In conventional health care, the training of midwives come closest to this perspective.) Traditional practitioners are taught to identify what the body is trying to do, and to work with that process as much as possible, gently redirecting rather than overriding the body.

Conventional vs. traditional cure

Conventional medicine is focused on measurable pathology. Traditional medicine is focused on balanced functioning. This difference in focus brings them to different perspectives on cure.

Conventional cure is tied to a specific diagnosis which is tied to specific pathology; the absence of that pathology is seen as cure. The larger picture is largely ignored. A patient can be cured of a disease and still be very sick. In the worst case scenario, the patient dies from attempts to effect cure.

The traditional understanding of cure is more comprehensive. Traditional medicine has models and mechanisms to address those aspects of health that WHO refers to as “more than the absence of disease.”

Traditional medicine detects subtle imbalances in function that are the precursors of physical pathology. Variations in function are tracked not only as the body moves toward disease, but also as it moves away from disease and toward stable health.

Now we have some context in which to understand healing crisis, and we will continue to discuss what healing crisis means in the next article in this series.

Integrative medicine

Meanwhile, there is increasing collaboration among conventional and traditional health care professionals. Sometimes this collaboration happens in integrative medicine clinics, other times the patient chooses to see practitioners from both camps, without the practitioners communicating with one another. Patients often don’t inform their doctors of what else they are doing.

If you have collaborated in an integrative health care situation as a professional, or have chosen to address your health using both conventional and traditional approaches, please click here to share you story, especially what worked well, what didn’t, and how you would do it differently next time.

If you are interested in collaborating with conventional health care providers either in hospitals or through referrals from physicians, the Introduction to Medical Reiki recorded webinar will give you context and detailed strategy, and which you can access whenever you want, as often as you want. Please click here for more information.

Other articles in the healing crisis series:
Healing Crisis: Part One
Healing Crisis: What Is It?
Healing Crisis and Cure

The Antique Chloroform Esmarch’s Dropper Print shown above is from Forgotten Pages.

I have a special invitation, just for you: Please join me in giving Reiki to the world.

Let’s do it now.

I’m not envisioning an elaborate network of distant treatment, nor suggesting we take to the streets and get our Reiki hands on a record number of people (although that’s not a bad idea).

Reiki now

My invitation is simple: whatever you’ve been plotting Reiki-wise, whether it’s starting daily self-practice or approaching a host partner to sponsor a public Reiki event in your community, take the first step now.

Right now, take a simple action to start the Reiki ball rolling out of your dreams onto a field where others can play too.

Do it right now to make sure it gets done. Don’t wait until it’s perfect enough or convenient enough. With whatever means you have at this moment, take action.

Your Reiki action

Your action might be writing the first draft of your event plan or writing the email asking for a meeting. It might be adding your daily Reiki self-treatment to your calendar, or contacting a Reiki buddy to meet regularly to exchange treatments.

Take an action that brings you closer to giving Reiki healing a larger presence in your life, and thus in the lives of others. One leads naturally to the other.

And if Reiki’s presence in your life is already overflowing the brim, take an action that will make Reiki practice available to others. Chances are that many people would appreciate the benefits you are experiencing, or other benefits you haven’t dreamed of, that would bring greater balance to their lives.

Think what your Reiki practice has brought to you, and how it has changed your life. Don’t you want others to have that opportunity? Take action.

Reiki audience participation time

Can’t think of an action to take right now? Ok, I’ll make it easy. Please share your Reiki story to delight and inspire us.

How did you come to practice Reiki? What has your practice given you? Scroll down to the comment section, or f you’ve received this as an email, click here to tell your Reiki story.

Next week we’ll return to our discussion of healing crises.

And please have a blessed, peaceful New Year.

Are you a doubting Thomas? Would you like to be?

Did I hear you say, “I doubt it?”

Perhaps you’ve never thought of doubt as something positive, but it can be, if you use it deliberately to develop your understanding.

Let’s call this practice Productive Doubting.

Even the minds of Easy Believers have currents of skepticism. The mind naturally questions, and when we don’t engage in conscious questioning, unrecognized doubt undermines our happiness in ways we could have prevented.

Doubt is not black-and-white and it doesn’t announce its presence, but careful questioning uncovers pockets of doubt in even the most strongly entrenched belief system.

Transforming doubt

Conviction is arguably the greatest gift of transformational practices such as Reiki and meditation.

Conviction is not belief, but rather a profound inner knowing that supports us through times of challenge, a compassionate knowing that is steady and deep without being rigid or positional.

The process of developing conviction is gradual and developmental. It happens invisibly as we practice consistently over time, and we cannot fast track it.

But we can organically accelerate the process somewhat by identifying where we lack conviction and acknowledging the presence of doubt.

Uncovering doubt

What do you doubt? (This is a time for deep self-honesty.)

Do you doubt you can have happier holidays this year?

Do you doubt your healing practice is a benefit to your clients?

Do you doubt you can sustain meaningful, enduring relationships?

Do you doubt you have a purpose in life?

Here’s another approach to Productive Doubting:
what have you assumed to be true, and never questioned? (Sometimes these beliefs hide in sentences that include the word “never.”)

Productive Doubting reveals how our continuing practice is transforming our awareness in ways we might have otherwise missed. This in turn gives us patience with the process, and conviction in the effectiveness of practice.

What understanding or opportunity has opened up for you because you chose to doubt what you were told, by someone else or by your own mind? Please share in a comment below.

Ever notice that when we feel bad, no matter how sure we are that we want to feel better, what we really want to do in that moment are things that would most assuredly make us feel worse, if not immediately, then not too soon after?

It’s the Snowball Effect. The mind has momentum to keep making choices in the direction in which we are already headed.

Enter Chinese wisdom. A Chinese folk saying reminds us that if we don’t change course, we will end up where we are heading.

Changing direction

It’s clear that when we feel badly in ourselves, if we want to heal, we need to choose a different direction.

Pivot in place. About face. Resist the instinct-of-the-moment. Do precisely what you do not in that moment want to do: Practice.

Practice whatever practice you practice. Watch your breath. Place your Reiki hands. Repeat your mantra. Roll out the yoga mat (and use it). Take an action that brings you back to yourself.

A Taoist proverb advises: When you have a disease, do not try to cure. Find your center and you will be healed.

First practice

Practice. Then be bad if you want to.

But of course then you won’t want to be bad. Once you feel good, momentum starts working for you. You want to do good things to protect that good feeling, that I’m-having-a-good-time-being-myself-just-the-way-I-am feeling.

Even when when no one else is looking.

And even when they are.

Please tell us about a time when inserting even a brief practice — meditation, Reiki, yoga, mindfulness, your choice — turned your state around and headed you back in the direction of health and happiness. It could be something as simple as placing a Reiki hand on your heart before you eat, or before you hit “send.”

“There are dreamers and there are realists in this world.

“You’d think the dreamers would find the dreamers and the realists would find the realists, but more often than not, the opposite is true.

“You see, the dreamers need the realists to keep them from soaring too close to the sun.

“And the realists? Well, without the dreamers, they might not ever get off the ground.”

This bit of wisdom from the popular television comedy Modern Family set me thinking. I got the drift, and agree completely, but the language seemed a bit polarizing.

In that scenario, the realists are the debunkers, the naysayers. But what makes their rebuttal more real than what the dreamers see? It didn’t seem fair, or accurate, to put reality solely in their domain.

Visionaries and Builders

What if the dreamers were “visionaries,” and the realists were “builders?” While we each have some of both (switching sides as we please), these two functional categories of people truly need one another. Reality — making the dream happen — requires input from both sides. The vision needs a form where the world can participate.

Visionaries see the long term while builders focus on a more immediate future. Builders gather the temporal power needed to make something happen; visionaries see a subtle, transcendent power at play.

Visionaries warn builders of the unwanted side effects of what they are building; builders fashion visionaries’ dreams into a shared  reality.

What ultimately comes into form is a co-creation of visionaries and builders, and it needs constant tweaking.

What’s Your Vision?

As more people hold a vision, the likelihood of the vision being built increases.

Spiritual practice of any form –  meditation, Reiki, yoga, etc. — makes us both visionary and builder. As we practice, we give form to our vision in the world, as ourselves.

Actually being our vision (with thankfulness, work diligently) makes it more likely that our vision will show up in the world around us.

What’s your vision, for yourself and for the world? Please click here to share it as a comment.

The illustration is William Blake’s Jacob’s Ladder.

Imagine if everyone you met today, including the person in the mirror, were grounded and safe — safe for themselves, and safe for others. That would improve your day, wouldn’t it?

Living in today’s world, surrounded by a plethora of distractions — plus all the things our minds throw at us — staying grounded and safe can seem like a full time job.

For those of us who are hyper-responsive to the needs of others, it’s even more challenging. We naturally go out to people far too easily, or let them in too deeply.

Not everything that comes naturally is a good thing.

When we go out to others too readily, we lose our balance, we lose our center, we lose our roots. We go out to others because we want to help them, but what good can we accomplish in this world without roots?

Grounding for happiness and service

That’s why I encourage you again and again — ok, I nag you — to learn habits of grounding. That’s why I chose to celebrate 25 years of Reiki practice by organizing the Thankfulness Interview series.

The more reliably you ground yourself in yourself, the happier and healthier you will feel, and the more effectively you will be able to help others.

And the easier it will become to meditate. Not what you expected?

Why meditate?

Meditation is the mother of all healing (including Reiki practice), and the key to developing wisdom. Through meditation, we extend beyond our limitations to find inspiration, inner knowing, and compassion.

Meditation drew me to India many years ago. It was a move that moved everything. It changed my understanding of the mind and enabled me to see in a more holistic way. It also freed my mind to be more logical. Go figure.

That’s what happens when you give yourself to spiritual practice, whether it’s meditation, Reiki, yoga, or in my case, all three. The effects show up where you least expect them. And they keep showing up for the rest of your life.

Meditation you can do

I realize not too many people can schedule two years to live in an ashram in India immersed in spiritual practices.

That’s why I asked Sharon Salzberg and Sally Kempton, two of today’s most respected, effective meditation teachers, to bring meditation to you.

Sharon Salzberg teaches lovingkindness meditation. Lovingkindness is an accessible, deceptively simple (sounds a lot like Reiki…) meditation practice that has special resonance for Reiki practitioners. Lovingkindness requires no greater effort than becoming more mindful of what you are doing already — wishing others well, wanting people to be happy and healthy.

Simple practices, while readily accesible, arguably take longer to truly master; the skill of not doing is more challenging than any technique, no matter how complex it might be.

Learning from experienced practitioners is a great advantage. An experienced teacher helps us reach not just the low-lying fruit, but also the ripest fruits buried in the thicket of the mind. Sharon Salzberg has been teaching lovingkindness meditation for 30 years. Sharon’s new book Real Happiness leads you through the process of starting your own meditation practice. Click here to read excerpts or purchase.

Sally Kempton’s book Meditation for the Love of It: Enjoying Your Own Deepest Experience delivers everything the title promises. Sally shares generously from her 40 years of meditation experience to help you connect with the most subtle essence of your own being, that inviolable core of beneficence that is the goal of all spiritual practice.

Reiki practice is balancing, and not itself dangerous in any way.

Reiki practitioners, however, are human. When humans don’t know how to hold our balance, we can be in danger anywhere. Even in the otherwise safe space of Reiki treatment or Reiki initiation.

After all, we don’t just bring our Reiki hands when we offer treatment or initiation, we bring the rest of us too. All too often, Reiki practitioners don’t know what to do with the rest of ourselves.

I was lucky.

When I learned to practice Reiki in 1986, I had been a student of meditation and yoga for nearly 25 years. Although it was apparent to me that Reiki is a unique practice, my prior spiritual practice gave me a strong foundation that has made an enormous difference in my Reiki practice.

For example, meditation taught me to observe without becoming involved in what I was observing. This enabled me to maintain steadiness and hold my personal boundaries while offering treatment to people in even the most extreme situations, and to those with whom my life is most intertwined.

The truly ancient practices of Ayurveda

Many (many) years ago, my love of meditation took me to India, where I spent two years living in an ashram, marinating in spiritual practices, and getting acquainted with Ayurveda, the traditional medical system of the subcontinent.

Although its roots lie in antiquity, Ayurvedic principles and practices offer much guidance for maintaining health and happiness in today’s world.

Ayurveda can protect our well-being and address imbalances that conventional medicine cannot. This is especially valuable to Reiki practitioners, who are often constitutionally inclined toward imbalances that are too subtle for conventional medicine to treat.

Nourishing the mind and subtle anatomy

Starting from the most subtle aspects of our being, the Ayurvedic model of health and well-being is sophisticated and complex. The first concern of Ayurveda is protecting one’s health; disease treatment is secondary. (This is generally true of indigenous medical systems, where there is not the assumption that a doctor can always put us back together.)

Ayurveda includes perspectives, practices, and knowledge that can help us keep our minds strong and steady as we go about our lives, as we offer Reiki treatment, and while giving Reiki initiation. But the same thing that makes it so valuable to us — the subtlety and highly individualized treatment — can also make Ayurveda hard to access and implement.

The wisdom of Ayurveda can easily get lost in translation, showing up in popular literature like a long list of don’ts that don’t make sense out of context.

I’ve long wondered how to get Ayurveda’s profound context and practical substance to the Reiki community. And then I connected with Prashanti De Jager.

I was impressed by Prashanti’s knowledge, his perspective of service, and his commitment to personal and business sustainability. I knew I wanted him to be part of my Reiki Silver Jubilee celebration.

Prashanti has decades of Ayurvedic training and Crazy Wisdom spiritual practice. He has the knowledge and wisdom that we need, and he understands how to share it and make it actionable for us.

I honestly don’t know where else you can access this important information. I do know that it can make a valuable difference in your daily well-being and in your Reiki practice. I am thrilled that Prashanti agreed to be part of my Thankfulness Interview series.

This interview will include a special offer for those who are on the free live webinar on Monday, November 21 at 3 PM Eastern US time (noon Pacific, 8PM in the UK). Click here to register.

Can’t make the live webinar? No worries, I plan to record it. But only those who register will be sent the recording link.

Life has been simpler in other times.

In those not-long-ago simpler times, the importance of balance was apparent. Today, the simple recognition of our need for balance has been eclipsed by the speed of life and the technology which supposedly makes our lives easier (and definitely makes a blog possible), but is increasingly cumbersome to stay on top of.

In the midst of the complexity and busyness of contemporary life, we are fortunate indeed to have our simple healing practice.

Keep it simple. Get your hands on yourself. Now’s a good time.

Practice. Observe. Contemplate. Repeat.

Returning to basics

In simpler, pre-industrial times, daily life included simple measures to restore balance.

Many of these remedies came from plants. David Crow is my third guest in the free Thankfulness interview series I’ve organized to share with you simple, effective traditional healing practices.

In Search of the Medicine Buddha is one of those books that I wanted to devour and savor. I relished every detail David shared of his experience with remarkable practitioners of Tibetan medicine and Ayurveda. I was taken with his deep knowledge and understanding, and his respect for traditional healing.

I brazenly invited David to my home to introduce my students to essential oils. He accepted (this was many years ago), and we enjoyed an informative and deeply healing evening.

And then there was the after-party. David treated a small group of lingerers unwilling to let the evening end to yet another round of delight, including a whiff of (not-for-sale) 75-year-old sandalwood that evocatively haunts my limbic system to this day.

David will focus on eight oils when he speaks to us on Thursday, November 17, 8 PM Eastern US time, and Floracopeia, his company, will make a special offer on these oils to those who are with us live on the call.

Floracopeia is my preferred source of essential oils both for the quality of the oils (of course) but also because their business practices reflect traditional spiritual values such as respect for the plants, for the environment, the growers, and the culture. Click here to register now, and if you cannot be with us live, you will be sent the link to the recording.

Reiki healing, chakras, and you

No, I am not reversing my often made statement about Reiki practice and chakras. Reiki is a Japanese healing practice; it was Americans who (much later) threw in the chakras (as if).

But I would never say chakras don’t exist.

Swami Saradananda has agreed to speak to you about yours, and what a knowledgeable, compassionate, experienced guide she is! A native New Yorker who opened the legendary herb shop Aphrodisia, Swamiji came upon Sivananda yoga in 1967 and met renowned yoga master Swami Vishnudevananda 2 years later (his Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga was among my first yoga books and has a place of honor on my bookshelf).

Saradananda sold Aphrodisia in 1974, and became a full time yogi and close student of Vishnudevananda. Now she offers advance training to yoga instructors and leads annual pilgrimages to India for those who want to explore the spiritual aspects of yoga practice.

Yoga bodyworker extraordinaire Leslie Kaminoff introduced me to Saradananda, and we spent time together in London, where she is now based. Her clarity, knowledge and compassion were apparent. I knew I’d found someone who could give you practical and authentic guidance in the care and feeding of your chakras. And she accepted.

Click here to register for my interview with Swami Saradananda at 4 PM Eastern US time on Saturday, November 19, and do invite your friends, yogis and non-yogis alike. As will all the Thankfulness interviews, if you preregister, you will receive a link to the recording of the event in case you are not able to be live.

Click here to see the entire 7-session lineup. Registration for each one closes with the live event.

All my Reiki initiations happened in November (not the same November), making it truly a month of thankfulness and thanks-giving for me.

November 2011 marks my 25th year of Reiki practice — my Reiki Silver Jubilee — and gratitude has put me in an almost giddy, and very giving frame of mind.

So I found some accomplices. Lots of them.

Thanks-gifting especially for Reiki practitioners

I asked seven of my esteemed colleagues, each one an internationally known expert, author, and teacher in his/her spiritual healing practice, to share practical tidbits from the enormous well of knowledge and wisdom they have lovingly gleaned through decades of practice.

Yes, decades. Even the “baby” of the group has been practicing for 20 years.

In this Thankfulness interview series, you will hear from experts in feng shui, intuition, botanicals (both essential oils and herbs), and meditation, each offering you practical tips and timeless wisdom to regain and maintain your inner spaciousness when you need it most, in the midst of your life just as it is, and while caring for those you care for, at home or professionally. (If you think you cannot meditate, just try practicing lovingkindness with Sharon Salzberg — oops, I’m getting ahead of myself!)

What’s unique about this gift is that each speaker will address your specific needs as a Reiki practitioner, both in your personal life and also as a professional giving treatment and initiation. (Many of your concerns are common to other practitioners and healers, so do invite your friends to join us.)

The Thankfulness interview series will give you practical, powerful, accessible tools for your self care, so you can stay vibrant, grounded, poised, and safe no matter what life throws at you. The focus is on you, strengthening your well-being and empowering you to make smart lifestyle choices moment by moment.

Reiki healing only? Yes, and no

The Thankfulness events are not about mixing other practices into your Reiki practice. Of course, you can do that if you want to, but my intention is to give you more healing options to strengthen and maintain your own well-being.

After all, we make a lot of choices between our Reiki practice sessions. And I’ll bet a few of those choices could be more self-sustaining.

When I learned to practice Reiki in 1986, I was already a professional healer, sharing with my clients what I had learned through years of study and personal use of a wide range of traditional healing practices.

I began incorporating Reiki treatment into my client sessions. Over time, it  became clear that Reiki healing on its own was sufficiently thorough, and I eventually dropped all the other techniques. (Please understand, I’m not saying you can’t mix it up if you want to; that’s totally your call.)

At the same time, I began practicing daily self-treatment (and still do). But I continued using my knowledge of traditional healing practices from around the world to support my health, and my family’s.

And that’s what we’ll share with you, traditional knowledge to inform your daily choices, accessible opportunities to step up your self care.

Did I mention every event is free? And that some will include special offers on quality products of interest?

Let’s make November a month of thanks-giving and self-care. Let’s bring greater ease, awareness and love into your life, and the lives of those you touch.

Each Thankfulness talk will be live, and I’ve scheduled them for various times of the day. We are scattered around the globe and there is no one-time-fits-all, so everyone who registers will receive a link to the recording. But you can only access the recordings if you register for the live talk, so be sure to register for every event that interests you, whether or not you can attend live.

I don’t want to overwhelm you with all the Thankfulness that’s coming your way, so I’ll start with the first two interviews, and unfold the schedule gradually in the blog and facebook.

Feng Shui Tips to Support You and Grow Your Business

You know how much easier it is to see when someone else is out of sync than to see what’s out of sync in ourselves? Feng shui, the Chinese art of placement, capitalizes on the very human tendency to look outside to make changes, and guides us to the changes we can make around us that will best support the changes we want to make in our lives.

Karen Rauch Carter wrote my favorite book on feng shui, and she will speak with us about easy adjustments to make our space support us personally and align with our professional goals.

We’ll discuss what common arrangements in your home can weaken you, and how to fix it. We’ll also talk about your work space — where to place your table and yourself in your office and when you are working in someone else’s space — and what placement tweaks support your growing business.

I want you to be successful. How else will we fulfill Hawayo Takata’s dream that Reiki practice be as common as aspirin?

Karen will speak with us on Tuesday, November 8, at 3 PM Eastern US time. Click here to register for Karen’s interview.

Secrets of Practical Intuition for Reiki Practitioners

When I first came upon Sonia Choquette many years ago, I was struck by how balanced she is. This was particularly surprising because Sonia is an intuitive (as were her mother and grandmother). Although Sonia started working with clients as a teenager, she continued working seriously with her teachers, and went on to earn a Ph.D. in metaphysics.

Sonia can help you open your awareness and your heart as you go through your day, and while keeping your feet firmly on the ground. True intuition is grounded and clear, not impulsive. Learning to access your intuition moment to moment means keeping in touch with your state–discovering how you feel about things as you go, when you are still making choices, instead of looking back with regretful if-onlys.

Learning to live as what Sonia calls a sixth-sensory — tuned in to our intuition — saves us time, money, and pain. Sonia has been teaching people how to do this for many decades, and she’ll share some valuable tips with us. Click here to register for Sonia’s interview.

Please use the social sharing buttons to invite your friends and your friends’ friends to join us for any or all of the Thankfulness interviews. We can make a difference, we can gracefully create the changes we want, by gratefully taking good care of ourselves.

If you have used feng shui or your intuition to good result, please share your story in the comment section.