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

How Distant Healing Works

I wanted to talk a bit about what distance healing is and how it can be as effective as in-person Reiki sessions, the advantages and disadvantages to the technique.

In working with Reiki for over 20 years I have had the honor of helping thousands of clients heal and obtain relief from various aliments, illnesses, spiritual and emotional issues.

How energy healing ‘works’.  Healing energy is all around us, in the sky, in the earth, in the Universe.  It has been a part of this world as long as there have been humans inhabiting.  A practitioner of this energy funnels it through intention (not ego) and uses their body as a channel to direct this intention.  The client who is receiving this energy draws the energy to them.  They must give themselves permission to receive.  They don’t need to believe in the energy, or that it even works, but there must be consent.  This is the fundamental process of how Reiki healing works.

Most people are familiar with a practitioner using their hands to either lay upon or hover above a client’s body when doing Reiki.  The recipient often feels the pressure, heat, or movement of energy during such an in-person session.  A sense of calm, relaxation and peace often occurs and often there is significant pain reduction.

Some people find the in-person session most comfortable and soothing because it does involve a certain connection with the practitioner.

Distance healing involves the same mechanism described above in how energy healing ‘works’.  But because time and space are illusions as described in modern physics, the practitioner is able to ‘send’ energy through space and time to a recipient.  They need not be present to experience the benefits.

When I describe this to my clients they seem very amazed at such a phenomena, that it is considered ‘magic’ and yet, we don’t blink an eye at our cell phones working because of ‘invisible’ waves communicating our thoughts and ideas.  A Reiki practitioner is like a telecommunications satellite. We are able to transmit healing frequencies to the recipients who request them.

I have found that it is important for the recipient of a distance healing session to schedule the appointment as if they were going to have an in-person session.  In this way, they can prepare themselves in a more optimum way, shutting off any distractions and finding a quiet place to sit or lay down.  If they’d like to light a candle or play some ambient music in the background, that is up to them.

In this way, they have created a sacred space for themselves.  This is what the energy practitioner does when they perform an in-person session.

And yet, there have been many times where I have been called upon to send distant Reiki at a moments notice, the recipient was in crisis and so did not have the opportunity to set up a sacred space.  The Reiki energy still transmitted and was received.

How do I know it was received?  After each distant session, I either email or call my clients, depending on their preference, and check-in with how they are doing and relay any insights I received and that they experienced.

Without fail, throughout decades of practice, each recipient I have sent to has commented that the effects of the session were “profound, deep and cleansing” or “radiating energy pulsating throughout my body”.  One client told me, “I felt as if you went to the core of my problem and took it away”.

I have performed distant healing sessions for clients with cancer, diabetes, kidney failure, heart disease, pre and post-surgery, pregnancy, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, insomnia as well as for supporting good health in both body and mind.

If you would like to schedule a distant Reiki session, you can view my online schedule here.

If you have additional questions or information about the session, please feel free to email me at reikitrainingprogram@gmail.com.

I charge $75/hour through Paypal or by check if paid in advance.

Copyright Eileen Dey Wurst 2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Musings from the Spiritual Path

I remember in 1991 when I first visited Seattle on a family vacation how radiant and lush the landscape and views were.  I had travelled many parts of the globe by then, and yet touching down here at that time, I felt a deep sense of home.  The land whispered to me, “Come back”.

It took eight more years, a marriage, a divorce, a graduate degree and being introduced to Reiki before I was ‘ready’ to begin to grow roots here.  This internal preparation with external transition was the first manifestation of my spiritual journey.

The first decade in Seattle was about clarifying my vocational vision and stepping into the role of leader in establishing the Reiki Training Program.  Along that path I explored  much of the NW back country and became attuned to the seasons and weather here.  My artist self gained traction through various creative pursuits.  I travelled through Asia and South America with expanded awareness of other healing traditions.

Personal relationships ended, deepened or started anew.  My Reiki work and fellowship began to expand with the publication of my first book and guided meditation CDs.

Over this last almost-decade, a whole new spiritual path has begun.  It did require me to professionally ‘own’ both my counseling and Reiki paths with the state’s requirement of licensure.  That path has provided me with a whole other world of gratifying healing work and experience I never would have gotten from the Reiki path alone.

My home went through multiple transitions from becoming a public workshop and healing space for students and clients into a humble but creative ceramic arts studio.  Family health crises dominated these years, but developing sober strategies enabled an ability to drop further into witnessing.  Despite those tragedies, travel also occurred, to the Mediterranean and all throughout the Baltic.

Again, personal relationships ended, deepened or started anew.

I’m taking a moment today to just catch my breath, looking back with clarity and looking forward with fresh and curious eyes as to what lays in store.  I couldn’t possibly have predicted any of the profound experiences I am grateful to have had when I first walked this land.

I am prepared to be surprised at what comes next.  In gratitude for the journey…..

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Copyright 2017 Eileen Dey Wurst