Reiki to clear the smoke and haze

Every client without exception I have been seeing this week has had some respiratory effect from the smoke in the air from the wildfires.  Most have developed a cough, runny nose/eyes and fatigue.

One client who had still been recovering from a month-long hospital stay for complications with congestive heart failure came in for her counseling session with me, but could barely talk because of being so incapacitated by the smoke. We did Reiki instead and within the hour, the congestion in her lungs had cleared enough that she could talk again and was able to have more depth of breath.

I’ve seen Reiki clear congestion, aches and pains before, but never like this, so very dramatic and effective.

I am curious to see what effects the Reiki will have on recipients at our Reiki circle later this evening.

Like many in the Northwest during this week, I’ve been staying indoors, air purifiers on and windows closed.  I have minor symptoms, but am in good health and I count my blessings for that.

Climate change is being effected.  I think of the all the individuals to the north of me in British in much closer proximity to all the wildfires.  On the other side of the sea, the residents and visitors on Hawaii, dealing with the onslaught of a category 5 hurricane.  We will include them in our circle tonight and offer Reiki for the highest and best good.

Image credit

Copyright 2018 Eileen Dey Wurst

Freedom to Speak

In the news and online lately, much is being discussed about freedom of speech. I am grateful as a writer I can speak my mind and instantly communicate via this blog or other social media posts. It’s truly self-expression revolution.

Sharing thoughts, feelings and impressions through public media has become the way in which the world communicates.

I had a reader really enjoy my post from yesterday.

But, for that same post, I also had a reader tell me that others ‘may not care’ what I have to say when I write about my own personal process.

My first thought was: ‘Wow, if you aren’t interested in what I have to say, read something else.’

But then I reflected and thought more about that comment.

Because of who I am and what I do in the world, I have to convey my feelings and often share my process.

This is how I contribute light to the world: By being transparent.

In a word where so many things are secret, hidden, unspoken, condemned, and judged, this way of sharing brings in light. It lets others know they are not alone.

I am transparent in my writing, my work and my art, all of which I feel are blessed and supported by a large community who care about what I have to say and do.

It’s important to include all voices, that is what freedom of speech is about. Some people care about what I do and say, others don’t. Such is life.

Learning to trust my voice, I offer it for those who want to hear. That’s what freedom of speech us and I am grateful to be a woman living in a country that has this right.

Copyright 2018 Eileen Dey Wurst

Draining the Memory Swamp

This past week I’ve been ruminating on the challenges and difficulties of past relationships.  There hasn’t been any particular reason why I’ve been reflecting on these memories (like when you hear a song and it reminds you about a certain time in your life).  They have just come up, emerging like gas bubbles released from deep underwater chasms.

However, now that I have indulged several days of inner exploration, I am experiencing the consequences of too much reflection.  It feels as if my psyche is getting too murky sloshing about in that swamp of memories.  In psychotherapy we call this experience ‘emotional flooding‘.

Those suffering from PTSD or other traumas, those in early recovery, or those who have suffered with anxiety can all have periods of emotional flooding.

The ‘cure’ is to literally ‘dry out’.  Thinking about other things is one technique, which requires mindfulness, conscious awareness of one’s thoughts.

Balancing and calming the nervous system is also helpful, whether that is through meditation, Reiki or soothing teas.  Also engaging in activities that are more rewarding than stressful, whether that is exercise or creative pursuits.

So, I turn to those skills to help ‘dry out’ the emotionally waterlogged body and mind.

I’ve only just begun, so it will take time, the article I linked to states it takes 20 minutes per flooding cycle.  Mine has been going on for several cycles, so until it resets, probably several hours I will be painting, a way to be active and creative to move through this emotional state.

Copyright 2018 Eileen Dey Wurst

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Reiki 1: Healing Yourself

Check out this Meetup with Reiki Fellowship Circle http://meetu.ps/e/FlBl9/1qwh4/d

My 2 weeks as a telephone psychic

I was recounting to my friends on my recent trip back to Philly that when I lived there in 1997, I answered an ad to be a telephone psychic working for the Psychic Readers Network with Miss Cleo.  They encouraged me to write this blog about the adventure.

When I first moved to Philadelphia, I intended to start my healing career as a counselor and budding Reiki teacher/practitioner.  Of course, it was supposed to happen RIGHT AWAY!

As those of you who have trained with me through the Reiki Training Program, all of those transitions take time, and often, they occur on Divine time, meaning, you may have to get creative with how you earn a living before your vision ‘takes off’.

So, since I had been reading Tarot cards for friends and fun since I was a teenager, I thought, why not ‘audition’ for Ms. Cleo.

The auditions/interviews were held at an old brick house about an hour’s ride outside of the city.  The ‘waiting room’ was the living room which had curtains of purple fabric draped all around, like a genie tent on the inside.  There must have been 15 or so women sitting in the living room with me, many chatting to each other.  I was quiet, taking in the whole scene.

In many ways, this was another part of my process in ‘coming out’ or being validated as a healer.

Ms. Cleo called my name and I went into the dining room with her next door.  She handed me a deck of Tarot cards and asked me to read for her.  I don’t remember the details of the reading, but I do remember her being very sweet and encouraging and impressed by my ability to ‘tune in’.  After the reading I was ‘hired’ and given the employment paperwork and info to set up my home phone.

Over the next week, I probably had about 10 calls, but no readings! The Psychic Network had an incentive that callers could get the first 3 minutes free.  So, many of my callers at 2:45 minutes into the call would hang up.  Blah!  So much for earning a living!

The second week, there was one caller, however, who did stay on the phone with me for about half an hour.  She had problems in her relationship and in her housing circumstance.  She didn’t need a psychic to tell her what was going to happen to her, she needed resources.   I went straight into social worker mode and gave her community resources and contacts to help her out.  It cost the caller $100 or so for that call.  I made less than half of that amount.  And I was left with the feeling that it would be a better path for me to pursue being of service as a counselor and social worker than as a psychic, because I could give people the tools and resources to help them change their life rather than just dictating their fate.

After only two weeks as a telephone psychic, I went back to Ms. Cleo and thanked her for her time and for the experience.

Since then, I still read cards on occasion, and have done some parties and events where I’ve gotten paid for my ‘skills’.  But the Cleo experience reminded me of what my passion is, empowerment.  And Reiki, counseling, art, writing, and all the other areas of my life I bring to my work reflect that vision and have been helping many people ever since.

Copyright 2018 Eileen Dey Wurst

 

 

Georgetown Reiki Circle

heck out this Meetup with Reiki Fellowship Circle 5/16 7-9pm http://meetu.ps/e/FgMCr/1qwh4/d

Keeping memories

After an intense and activity filled weekend cruising through Philadelphia and Bucks County, I am happy to return to the Pacific Northwest.

I have lived on the West coast almost as long as the East coast. They are both such a part of who I am and contributed to the work I do.

I can only keep going forward. The memories of each place I get to keep and share with those that want to know.

Until my schedule permits more writing time…..

Eileen

‘Coming Out’ in Reiki

My development as a Reiki teacher and community leader was birthed in gritty and vibrant Philly.

I ‘came out’ as a Reiki teacher here. No way else to really describe it. New Jersey is where I learned Reiki but it was this city where I first publically taught from 1997-9 before moving to Seattle.

I was encouraged by my Reiki teachers to hold a Reiki circle and see who would come. Basically step into my very new leadership moccasins.

This was 1997, before any social media existed, so I left flyers in various stores and put one community event posting in the newspaper. A chiropractor I had met let me use her office for the first circle.

15 people I never met showed up to that very first Philly Reiki circle!! It was held several blocks southeast of where I worked in Rittenhouse square. (Photo of my fancy office below ).

Half of those people at circle became my very first Reiki class and the underpinning of the vibrant spiritual community that developed.

More circles came after that and eventually we had to find a larger space. The William Way LGBT community center http://www.waygay.org became our next home.

Because I had sold my car moving to this city with phenomenal public transportation I got around by bicycle as many still do. I lived north of Center City by the Art Museum and Fairmount Park.

I would ride my bike miles each way through the city streets to the William Way center and often bungee cord my Reiki sheets and cassette radio to the back of it!

I started to find my ‘wings’ to soar with practicing and teaching Reiki, flying through those streets with my portable ‘Reiki gear’.

My leadership moccasins became hard soles. I was finding my way and succeeding as a confidant and competent Reiki leader.

(Continued in next blog, stay tuned!)

Copyright 2018 Eileen Dey Wurst

Finding My Way in Philly

After completing both my masters in Reiki and in counseling, I moved to the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia. This was the fall of 1997. I was 27.

I found employment as a counselor with organizations that shaped how I have helped clients and students grow throughout the years.

I worked in a domestic violence shelter, assisting women and children to begin new lives and learn how to break limiting patterns.

I remember watching the transformation of many women work on themselves, for the first time in their lives. I taught some stress management techniques in breathwork and meditation. I learned there to honor the amazing and simple power that self care can bring. As the women learned to nurture themselves, rather than their abusers, they were able to radically shift their and their children’s futures.

Another job I had helped developmentally disabled adults in finding mainstream employment in big chain stores and government work. I was especially proud of helping a young man in his twenties get sustainable work at the IRS. I will never forget how grateful his mother, his primary caregiver was that I cared enough to make that happen for him. She confided that since he was a teenager, teachers had told her her son would always need to be taken care of and unable to financially support himself. His mother had accepted that fate. I had advocated for her son to get the government job. Now he was on his path of becoming financially sustained.

That vision of the disabled having mainstream employment is now an everyday reality, but 20 years ago it was the beginning of a movement. I saw how powerful holding a vision could manifest social change.

The last year before I left Philly, I took on the role as a career counselor at a large non profit located in a high rise office building downtown on Rittenhouse square.

I felt like a hippie in disguise in that role, the address and attitudes of some staff where I worked was pretentious.

But what kept me there was the ability to effect change through helping adults find meaningful work and meaning in their lives. I also taught a lot of workshops. They were career focused (resume building, interviewing, networking, etc) but they honed my skills in facilitation.

I also got to pitch the importance of stress management in dealing with the job search to my boss and ended up leading a series of classes on guided meditation, breathwork, and yes, Reiki!

Philly was the first place where I saw the importance of bringing Reiki into the mainstream.

My Philly Reiki journey was running parallel to my counseling employment journey.

The Reiki Training I did there continues in the next blog.

Copyright 2018 Eileen Dey Wurst

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Diving into Reiki: A blast to the past

In doing some spring cleaning of old files I came across this keynote speech I did for the One Gathering back in 2007.  And yet, the sentiment is timeless.  Enjoy!

We are connected to everything.  I know that sounds cliché, but its so true.  I’ve been practicing and working with the Universal Energy of Reiki for over 10 years and I’ve come to understand this connection.  But recently, I completed my scuba diving certification and through this process I came to tangibly experience what I’ve come to embody as a Reiki practitioner and teacher.

Floating through the infinite expanse of the ocean, one begins to imagine what it is they want to create.  Think of  starfish, a starfish appears.  Watching your bubbles cascade upwards, one sees physics in action.  Sinking to the bottom of the sea floor, one is reminded of gravity effecting all the earth, everything.  Seeing a starfish engulfing a clam, the process of living and dying is present in from of ones eyes.

Reiki is like this circle of life, it is ever present, ever existed.  It permeates all of the world, we need to create the space and place to dive in and experience this phenomena.  This gathering, all of the OOL and volunteers have been aware of this process of working with energy.  Coming together, we all create a field of potential, channeling this energy into a space of intention.  The intention is to lift the vibration of all who are present.  To raise consciousness.  To allow for a transcendence of physical and mental limitations.

Like the scuba diver, one is able to become neutrally buoyant in a sea of healing energy.  What does not serve you can leave, falling away effortlessly.  What is true to your essence remains.  That is the heart of Reiki.  It leads you to the place you were meant to be.  What do you want to manifest?  Like the popular book and film, ‘The Secret’, working with the energy of Reiki allows one to attract and be attracted to that which is of the highest good.

But it is not a manipulative energy.  Like the ocean, it just is.  You can’t force the ocean!  There are no boundaries, there is just infinite, infinite potential.  Like outer space.  On my CD, Permission to Receive, I guide listeners on a cosmic journey to their inner and outer space.  This vast expanse is our true realm.  This physical, 3D realm in which we spend the majority of our lives only represents one view.  Dive deep into the oceans, cast out into the stars….these places are not just physical manifestations, they exist within the soul of each and every one of us.  When we take this journey, we transcend our boundaries.  We become aware of what this gathering is all about…that we are ONE…we are not our ego identities….we are not are personalities…these are colors of the rainbow each and everyone of us represents at any given point in time.

Give yourself permission to receive the experience of universal healing energy.  This is your birthright.  When one takes a Reiki class, one is opening their mind, body and spirit to the force that is all around us.  As one progresses along the Reiki path, the power of attention and intention become ever more a working reality.

I wish I could take you all to the bottom of the Puget Sound, where I was just a few days ago, in a warm, insulated, wetsuit, of course!  Somehow, being in the substance of water makes the concept of ‘ki’ and what it is that much more visible.  The dive team, a collection of random individuals, came together and became a connected unit, much like we are today.  We are in a sea of ‘ki’, we just can’t ‘see’ it, like we could if we were all in the water.  We could see particles of plant life floating about, random fish darting here and there, bubbles of oxygen rising from our tanks, floating to the surface and releasing out and merging with the air.  ITS SOOO VISUAL.  Can you see what I am describing?

What prevents us from seeing this and feeling this phenomena is our hard and fast attachment to the ego.  This is a part of our personality that thinks ‘its in charge’.  Its only one facet, like one side of diamond.  Its not the whole jewel.  I’ve often heard EGO stands for ‘Edging God Out’.  God being a force greater than our Selves.

You can use the wetsuit as the analogy of our ego.  It allows one to travel, function and survive through the matrix of the water environment.  It’s a covering, a protection, and a container.  It keeps one’s physical body intact.  Yet, the wetsuit only works when you let some water (ki) into it.  As that water coats your body, the insulating layer of the suit allows the water to heat to your body temperature.  But when it comes down to it, the wetsuit ego, is only one layer on top of the layer of water on top of our physical body, which is basically a bag of water contained by a layer of skin.

When we remove all those layers, those preconceptions, we are exposed and engulfed by the sea of ki, of Reiki, of the Universe.

But unlike being in water, where if we were to remove the wetsuit we would be in peril, when we move the go aside in the air, on the land, we merge with the air molecules…with the oxygen bubbles we can’t see, emitting from each and every one of us, from all the plants, the grass, the trees, the flowers, the water around us.

Let yourself go, feel the force of the energy present in this place, the nature, the people, the intention.  Reiki is about getting out of the way and making space for healing to occur.  Healing means becoming whole.  We come into ‘attunement’, at oneness with our true essence when we do this.

Reiki practitioners and masters (teachers) serve as guides on this path back to source.  We are your scuba instructors.  Take the dive, journey and return transformed.

Copyright 2018 Eileen Dey Wurst