Insights from a Psychiatrist: Transforming Healthcare with Reiki | with Jeff Black, MD

We caution you, though, this podcast may also dramatically improve your life, and we are so happy that you're here.

Kathleen and I are starting a three week business course, which if you have a reiki business and you're looking to amp it up, or if you are just getting started and you're wondering what direction to go, We're basically taking the marketing chapter of the Reiki business book and we're taking it to the next level. So do join us for that. You'll find details on our website and I'll put a link in the podcast notes. We'd also love to have you join us in Campobello this summer.

I'm teaching all my classes this summer. In Campobello so that we can get out with the whales. We've got level one and two and master in July and we will be doing a whale watching tour with that one. We also have animal Reiki level one and two and master in the beginning of August and doing the master class over four evenings. And these are all both online and in person, although sadly online, you won't be able to come out with the whales with us.

And again in September, I am having a Animal Reiki 1 and 2, followed by Animal Reiki Master. September, the humpbacks are there. Also in August, they should be. So that's why we've got the Animal Reiki staggered a little bit later. And back here at the farm in October, we've got a full lineup of classes. So we'd love to have you join us. They're all both online and in person.

And before we get too far in, I'm just going to invite everybody to bring your hands into gas show and just go ahead and activate your Reiki energy. Bringing in your symbols, just noticing the guides, the brothers and sisters of the light, the angels, the archangels. the enlightened beings, the divine animal kingdom that are standing at the corners of the land and on every side of us, just supporting us and supporting our work.

And as we talked to Jeff today about an integrative approach to health care, maybe this is something that you need. In your career, or that's interesting for you going forward as a Reiki practitioner, but maybe it's also something you need in your personal life, whatever that may be, we invite the Reiki energy to surround you in a soft hug and just allow you to hear parts of our discussion in a way that Most benefits you. Thank you for being here today.

And thank you for the light that you are in the world. Ahoma Taakwe Owasin. Namaste and amen. Thank you. I always need that as much as everybody else to get started. I get so excited about every new guest. Welcome Jeff. You know what, can you tell me a little bit about yourself? Sure. How you came to bring energy into psychiatry?

The physician and the patient and not so much pushing medications, but the reality of so many of so much of the Western medicine allopathic tradition has been driven not to be a conspiracy theorist, but it's just been driven by. Both pharmacology and the need you'll hear people say evidence based medicine all the time. The need to be able to experience things with your five senses.

And even though that's definitely important and the scientific method has brought about a lot of wonderful change, it wasn't until I studied Ayurvedic medicine that I realized that the difference between Eastern and Western traditions were that Western traditions were very much that health was the absence of disease. Plenty of people around you who will say, That I'm healthy. My doctor deemed I was healthy because nothing has manifested itself yet.

But their energy is low and their vitality is low. Whereas in Eastern tradition, they say that disease is the absence of vibrant health. So it turns the table in terms of looking at what is health? What is vibrant life? What is the energy that we feel? Not only that we experience with our body, but we experience around us in our relationships. With our food with our movement of our body, with our stillness what is the energy of that?

So I started practicing, mostly seeing children, adolescents, and have the opportunity to go into self reflection where I realized that Most of what I felt like I was doing was prescribing medications. I was doing some therapy and working with things, but felt that I needed something more. So my wife, as a gift gifted me the chance to do a meditation retreat with Deepak Chopra. And so I spent a week with Deepak Chopra and 150 other people.

It wasn't like just the two of us, but although I did have an hour long conversation with Deepak while I was walking on a treadmill, because I heard this voice next to me, very distinguished voice asking me about the conference. And he supposedly was there a little bit more than he normally is. And so we talked about family and so I did several. Several trainings and experiences through the Chopra Center.

And then I had a wonderful friend of mine who told me about Alberto Ovilodo and the Four Winds Society. It was very much of a shamanic tradition. I decided that I would explore that. keeping an open mind and and not completely rolling my eyes every time somebody said something that felt real woo, and had some experiences that went beyond. They were suprasensory. They weren't just suprasensory. They wasn't like the enhancement of my five senses. It was beyond that. It was beyond explanation.

It was the energy of it. It was the life force, the chi, the prana. It was the holy fire.

Energy, didn't know that yet, didn't have the Holy Fire energy thing going yet, but and so I completed my training with Four Winds and and then felt this desire, I'd always been interested in Ayurvedic medicine, felt this desire that I wanted to go further with an integration of learning more about lifestyle herbs as well as about a diet and even though Ayurveda is much more complex than that, it took me four years, but I finished a degree in Ayurvedic Medicine.

And so I had friends of mine who were like why are you doing this? And I basically said, why not? And and I felt like there was had to be more to just the null hypothesis, the scientific method as it's proclaimed by the West and not being willing to look at other other opportunities. And so I spent some time in Peru had other experiences that sort of broad my. And in the meantime, out of necessity to further my training, I just, I kept using some of my skills in my private practice.

And then when I shifted from private, left my private practice and we moved and I shifted to working for the Defense Health Agency, I started using some of those experiences in the Defense Health Agency working mostly with Navy and Marines and there were some beautiful traditions and the whole idea And it's why Reiki made so much sense to me.

The whole idea was, just like in Ayurveda, they have the things called the Koshas, so they have the body layer, they have the emotional mental layer, they have the etheric layer, the soul piece, they have the energy layer the bliss layer. In shamanic traditions, they have the energy piece, the etheric or soul piece, not religious soul, but soul piece, the deep part of ourselves, the emotional, mental body, and then the physical body.

And the idea is that the shamans that I learned from basically would heal things from an energetic level because it took very little. Took little to no effort because it wasn't their energy to shift things at an energetic level. And once you shifted something at an energetic level, it trickled down into the mental and the physical level. And the more I started thinking about it I had always been curious about Reiki. And so went through the process. And that's been the most recent thing.

And again, friends were like, Why? But it just was a logical progression for me of finding other healing modalities that you can offer. And so fast forward, I'm in another position now as a psychiatrist training other psychiatrists. And what I found is that. I can use techniques. I have to be very careful because it, there's certain rules, there's certain laws, there's certain ways within the medical boards and medical licensing boards and I'm not being dishonest. I just use different language.

Using different language and having people and talking to people about shifting things energetically. One of my jobs right now is to teach how to or have it help. Residents have experiences with psychotherapy, and if you think about therapy and what therapy is doing, therapy is not just about insight and understanding, because if it was just about insight and understanding, nobody would need a therapist, and we would change immediately. It's about shifting.

And so there's all this literature about change literature and change your life and doing all these things that you can do. And what are they asking you to do? They're asking you to shift Your energy shift, your perspective, that shifting, your energy shifting, how you think about something requires shifting your energy with it.

If you're going to shift something in your body, if you were diagnosed with say a hypertensive hypertension, high blood pressure, and you were having horrible headaches and you were looking at it from Western model, part of what the family practice doctor would want you to do is shift your perspective, look at your stress level, look at your diet, what could be increasing the agitation in your body. In Ayurveda, they would be saying, what's driving the heat?

What's driving the heat and the stress and the movement? And so you'd be using different things to calm the heat, calm the movement. And it's always tickled me that over the last 15 years now or so that now there's all this literature written about mindfulness and all this literature written about meditation, whereas when I first started practicing medicine back in the mid 90s. That was woo and pooh poohed by everybody because it was just, that's just something you do.

Other people do, I don't do it. And now famous doctors do that even, and people and some people don't don't know. I, Deepak Chopra is just a wonderful human. And some people are put off by his, the perception that he's all. About the, rich and famous, but he's about the most down to earth human I've ever met. And he, I think has done an immense amount of work to help bring. Meditation and mindfulness to the forefront.

And then I think the openness of meditation my kids had experiences at their school where they talked about meditation, but they didn't call it that. They just call it time for breathing. And And I taught a meditation class to a bunch of Marines. I just, I called it meditation, but they all wanted to know if they had to sit on the floor and cross their legs. And I was like, sure you want, but you're not going to stay that long because you have on boots. But and so we did those experiences.

And so having having this transformation within myself. And looking for not looking for other ways to answer a simple question, I'm not in terms of seeking to find an answer. It's just a natural progression and allowing it to be open. And I think energy medicine in and of itself is coming into its own.

Only because the West thinks it's coming into its own, but it's been around forever, and it's been used forever, and it will be used forever, regardless of whether it gets sanctioned by the powers that be. And one of my interests lately has been about grief and loss, which sounds...

Interesting for some people but even about end of life discussions, a lot of palliative care people that I know are really good at that, but more where the intersection of understanding in order to be able to live a wonderful life, you need to learn how to die without fear and in order to learn how to die without fear, you have to learn how to live your life.

So the whole yin yang and the light and the dark, but the energy that goes on and not to go off too much, but just the I was able to be present when my father died in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic and and just being there in that sense of presence and being able to offer a sense of energy and help energy release was a wonderful experience for me and my siblings.

And and so my interest in Reiki grew out of not only the healing modality, but the, just the gentle love, and sometimes pretty ferocious, because the first time I had an ignition or because I did one and two, and then I did one and two over again. And then I did the master class. I, Gabrielle would laugh. My teacher would laugh because I would literally have to change my shirt. I would be sweating so much. And so I'm like.

Okay, this doing something and then I have also had people who want me to try to explain it. And I learned a long time ago that if someone is asking you questions out of a sincere appreciation for and a sincere curiosity to find out what exactly you're doing, they can hear and may ask some good intelligent questions. If somebody's Asking you questions in order to discredit what it is that you're doing. It's just not worth your time. Oh, and so I really

If I do any, if I do Reiki now, it's usually with them sitting up. I don't have them lying down just because that's, that, that is a step too far. I'd have to have special permission where I am now.

Of allowing things that had been kept in to be released. And then the same thing happened as going forward. And, I check things out in the military, you have to check things out with whoever's right above you. And I checked things out and I basically said, I do guided meditation with props. And sometimes I play really wonderful, relaxing music. So you may hear that I turn the lights off. Sometimes they lie on a yoga mat.

Sometimes I have a drum, so I'll just warn you if I'm in a drum, so it doesn't freak you out and and they were like, okay, the

Are not, they're just used different language that people are used to hearing sometimes within a Western tradition is not necessarily used but if you talk about the energy of something or the felt sense is a huge therapeutic term, the felt sense of something, what is the felt sense that even as a whole Gestalt therapy around the felt sense, that sense of, What it is and where you feel it in your body and then teaching taught a class called healing your life, which is very Ayurvedic and

mindfulness and then did a meditation class every every Wednesday was more just a sort of a group meditation that was open to whomever wanted to come and some days we'd have two or three and some days we'd have a lot more. It was, and then there was a a sanctioned class by, that was developed by a psychiatrist out in San Diego called the Mind Body Medicine class that the Navy developed that was used. And then the Navy uses quite a bit of mindfulness and mind body medicine.

And teaches it, especially in situations such as those that work on submarines and ships and things where they're going to be very contained and need to be able to contain their stuff without losing it when they're underneath the water. It's all around and it's it's very much a part of things. And I haven't had conversation, I'm just brand new at this job. This left the military and came to this job. So I'm pretty new at this and I'm meeting different people.

And so I'm using I'm using a lot of caution, not out of a sense of fear, but just out of a sense of. Recognizing that the energy of all of this the, in spirit of all of this, the source of all things, bring people around to, not bring people around to thinking like I think, but people will come into my life to either probably challenge me sometimes, but also that will be interested in having this conversation. I found that true for the LA over the last 20 years.

You start at, you say something or something you read and people are like, oh, I've read that. And did you do this? Yes. And Oh, have you thought about, yeah, I've done that. And have you ever heard of a, one of the techniques was a soul retrieval. And I'm like, yeah. And do you know how to do soul retrievals? Yeah, and go from there. I think it's using caution doing within the confines of where you are. I don't advertise that. I don't do it outside the realm of what my license is.

If I do any I have done some when I lived in the low country of South Carolina I did some Ayurveda Reiki and Ayurveda type work, but outside. When it was just purely that, if it was all a bunch of and do the same thing here, I haven't had the opportunity yet just because I haven't met the community here, but there was a huge community of Reiki people in Beaufort area and the Lowcountry area in South Carolina, which was really cool.

It was like every other car was, it wasn't that the cars all became red, it was just your awareness. And so I think once your awareness opens up energetically, your awareness opens up to the possibilities of what Reiki can do then you see things differently.

And people around you, all of a sudden the energy shifts and you've sensed the energy and you start talking to people and There's a wonderful book, and I've just blanked on his name, but it's called Why Woo Works and it's worth reading I just read that about two or three months ago, so I can't remember his name right now, but and I'm unapologetic, but I would never put anybody at risk or do anything that would Cause harm. So

If I went around saying, Hey, I'm going to do a bunch of soul retrievals today, then people would be like, what is that? And versus there's guided imagery with props. There's a, and then there's wonderful books like a guy named Edward Tick wrote this. Two sets of books for military. One is called A Warrior's Return, and the other one is War in the War in the Soul. And he talks about post traumatic soul loss.

And so he talks about people describing this piece of me that gets Not dissociating, but this piece of media gets pulled away, and I don't feel whole, and I need help to feel whole again, and if you think about the best best experience with, and the best example of healing through a therapeutic modality is bringing wholeness back to a person's life, bringing vitality, and whether it's an illness that you don't necessarily cure the illness, but the healing comes in that you bring a sense of

wholeness back to the person and move forward from there. And I think doing that, people can't argue with that. They

Had taken his life, and he found him, and it was just a horrific scene, and I saw him as out of a sense of acute grief and trauma, and it brought up a lot of past traumatic experiences for him as well, and we started the process of really decreasing the energetic overload by using, you can't really get somebody who's in that, you State of mind to just be still, but to release some of the energy, not necessarily in a cathartic way where they're crying or wailing, whatever they did enough of that

to start with this telling story. And so they were remembering and they have this story and they have this story held tightly. Out of an intrusive sense of not necessity on their part, but they couldn't do anything other than let it go. Yeah. And so working with them and really helping decrease the the amount of energetic overload by releasing some of the energy and then being able to work with them.

To then take the energy of that story and learn how to hold it differently and the process of process of remembering and just how we even put our hands, it's very much of some of the Reiki positions, people will hold themselves, people will hold themselves people will put their hands on their head, people will put their hands on the back of their head, people will rock and move And then being able to help him really release a lot of energy. And being able to shift that into a restorative.

Stance of being able to restore and tell, not tell a new story. You can't let go of this old trauma, but the story was held very differently. And then eventually moving to being able to talk about the person without having the strong the strong release. And instead of that taking 10, 11, 12 sessions, that was done over the course of three. And and one of the more poignant lines that he used was when talking about it.

And then I checked in with him about, I saw him probably about six times and then checked in with him again about two or three months later. And he said, it he'd done well, slept, sleep was better. He had made peace with this experience.

It could have become complicated grief in a sense, and he said, being able to have the experience of releasing energy and being held, I felt like I was being held, not so literally by myself, I wasn't holding it, but being held by this energy, being held by this sweetness. This heat, he described it as heat being able to be held by this holy fire. I didn't use that language, but that's what I thought it was. Being able to be held by that helped him stay calm. And helped him be able to do that.

And I did some he would let me know that he's having a bad day. I would do some distance energy work would tell him that I was going to do that. And he would be like, okay and, but he said it was very helpful. And then he told me, I said, tell me how are you doing? And he said, When it first happened, it felt like it was happening again and again, every single minute, and then over the two or three sessions that the three sessions, we did some energy work.

It really felt like there was some distance. From it because I was able to release some of that energy and he said, now in the poignant line was he said, now it no longer feels like yesterday. Oh, thank God. So it was a beautiful thing. I think using Reiki I've used Reiki with I haven't done animal Reiki yet, but I've used it just having the energy. And I love it. Energy some of the energy especially this is a very very different story than what I just told.

But my daughter's dog will just come running up and she will just plaster herself to me. And I can just put my hands on her and she just makes this noise and she's 80 pounds and then she'll just slowly roll down on the floor and then let me just put my hands on her and then if I stop she'll nuzzle me to keep going and I'm not really even scratching so it's a pretty cool I go into a Reiki coma

There could be confounding variables and you've got people who do that for a living to try to poke holes and things to just make sure that if they come to a conclusion, you can actually be on statistical was statistically significant determined that there was causation and not just a correlation between it. I think a lot of things, a lot of good things and a lot of good ways of looking at healing modalities are very much correlated anyway.

I think it's very difficult to find causation and it doesn't necessarily mean that they should be completely Not used. I think more and more people are looking towards integrative, there's integrative fellowships, there's functional medicine, there's there's the all kinds of opportunities within the West to learn integrative medicine.

Techniques both with Chinese medicine and herbal herbalism and looking at ayurvedic techniques and and even reiki a lot of the integrative programs Integrative fellowship you can get a fellowship in integrative medicine will actually Look at energy medicine, and there's even a newer group called Integrative Psychiatry that's mostly looking right now at lifestyle and diet and herbs, and a lot of people who are with it talk about it like it's a new idea and it really isn't. And but that's cool.

If you think if you just want to think it's a new idea, and that just gives you joy, then you just let it be a new idea.

And I think that the more and more, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I think there is an evolution towards understanding with a healthy sense of Western skepticism within the medical profession that certain things Certain things are very useful and I have found that the experiences, supr sensory experiences within the realm of a tradition where you do what you did in the very beginning. There's an invocation or an opening of sacred space.

There's an action or a communal experience or an energetic experience with the person. There's a shift in the energy, there's a sense of healing and release. People have talked a lot about Spirit guides and animal guides and totems and things that have been around for thousands and thousands of years. And now it's become very vogue to, in vogue to to have one. And I think but at the same time, cool.

There's an experience of something other than, that's not necessarily has to be within the realm of an institutional religious understanding, but it's also wonderful, I found with Reiki that it's. It's like the experiences with the shamans that taught me this is not religion. This is and you can, and you're almost making it too, you're confining it too much. If you say it's this form of spirituality, it's life. Energy. It's how it's creation. It's vibration.

It's the it's the core of the beginning, and so if we're all in every tradition, if we're all created within the image or we have the light within, we have the in the data is we have this thought stream. We, the all of that helps us understand where we're going. So I think with that short answer would have been, I think it's evolving. But the long answer was what I just did, but but I think it's education as well.

It's being willing to For example, when I interviewed for this job, they asked me to come do a grand rounds, which is where you present a paper or you present research, you present experiences. I had written a chapter in a book, but it was, I didn't think they were ready for it because it was called a shamanic experience of restoration journeying ceremony and ritual. So I knew that I'm going to fly.

So I did, I didn't think, but I put it on my resume and so they knew I'd written that what the title was, but I did a thing called death is a rite of passage and looking at literal, emotional, mythic and energetic, which I got was part of the living, dying consciously project that I'm a part of and Kitty Edwards really thinking through that and the idea of the.

The literal, the energetic, emotional, and mythic, and so doing that and presenting that as a part of looking at death and dying and I find I'm so intrigued by end of life, not because I have some end of life issue going on personally right now, although, we could be real nihilistic and say we're all dying at some point, but the beauty of how it Pulls away and does exactly what Reiki can do does exactly what the energy work can do Where you have an experience where you start thinking of your own

mortality or you're forced into it if you're forced into it by a diagnosis or an experience or a loss and You're able to work with it and move to the other side and the energy shifts to where you can hold the story differently than the beauty of that is that life changes and life expands and life becomes more.

And I think that's what I felt like I got out of being taught Reiki and being able to use Reiki and using other energy modalities and even looking at using aggravated medicine is it's about expanding it's that return to wholeness. It's about expansion and with that it's about the individual and it's about individual responsibility and it's about not being an external force exerting on someone, it's just activating what's already within. And that's just always fascinated me.

I think that's where I think death, dying, grief, and loss comes in.

Yeah. And you can go on WebMD now, look up herbs and herbal different herbs and different interactions and cautions. They're not real positive about most of them, but you can go on National Institute of Health, go on PubMed, find articles about some of the more common herbs. Watch television. They talk about ashwagandha all the time. You would have thought that's just the best thing since sliced bread. It's a wonderful herb, but it's very much a part of mainstream.

And so I think where it's going is whether physicians and residency programs and medical schools want to accept it or not. And the more progressive, older more expansive medical schools and programs are pulling this stuff in.

They're getting really people, good people coming in and talking about it and whether or not someone is not there to proselytize or try to convince somebody that this is good or not, but don't knock it so that even if you're like, there's no way I will ever do that or allow that. If one of your patient comes in and says, I want my Reiki practitioner in with me in the OR, they're going to have to figure out how to make that work. And so I think more and more, that's what's going to happen.

And people are demanding that physicians be at least conversing with their Ayurvedic practitioner signing a release so that the Ayurvedic practitioner can talk to them and people in Ayurveda circles and Reiki circles, other people who are not licensed to practice medicine don't diagnose. They're not making diagnoses. They're not saying, And in the context of Ayurveda, I don't use the diagnosis because that's antithetical to what the Ayurveda even talks about. It's about the energy source.

It's about where things are off balance. It's about bringing balance back into life. Now, what better way of doing that, not only just diet and lifestyle, which is very much the physical body, and that takes a lot of effort and is pretty dramatic.

In terms of using, there's a technique called Panchakarma, which is about five actions where you do this healing cleanse, and that's pretty dramatic within your body, but it's the energetic part, it's the energetic piece, it's the subtle shifting, it's the stillness, that's sitting within that, that being able to grow that Expansive energy within us.

And and I like the idea that, sometimes it could be as simple as just being able to to really get to the point where you can not be fearful of life. Learn how to love people a little better and not be fearful of debt. For some people that would be a, that's a beautiful thing. And I think those modalities the modalities of Reiki, the modalities of other energy, and I'm not equating them. They're very different, but they're very similar.

All of that's about vitality and how could anybody who has any sense of curiosity and an expansive mind look at it and just, deny it. People do that every day. Just deny it or wipe it away or say, I'm not going to have that. Okay, it doesn't mean necessarily that everybody's going to open their doors and say, let's all hire people and have them on staff. But more and more people are doing integrative functional medicine. They're talking about lifestyle and diet and nutrition.

And I would much rather a physician or a nurse practitioner or even a PA or even a nurse go back to school and get an integrative approach looking at different medical techniques than just having some influencer who read some books on YouTube. Be the one who's deciding do this and buy my products and therefore things will be better. We get a lot of that as well. And I think that muddies the water, political, but that muddies the water. And so I see it marching forward.

Whether the institutions, much like everything in change it's going to march forward, whether the institutions want to go along with it or not. And sooner or later, the pressure will be there to where the institution has to go, okay. And that'll either happen by some people coming into the institution that are willing, whatever the institution might be, that are willing to be open minded and curious and look at results and the old guard has to go. That's how it's been since Descartes.

And some of them are able to do it in the background. But but then I've got other people who would like to be a little more. Up front and so on, but their licensing boards are not there yet. Or so what advice would you give to other medical professionals, Jeff who want to bring Reiki and other energetic practices into what they're doing?

But. Interesting enough our chair of our department is a doctor of osteopathic medicine, and there's a big push to start teaching allopathic physicians. osteopathic manipulative treatments so that they are integrating those within their psychiatric practice.

So where I'm working, they're integrating osteopathic manipulative treatments in for mental health into psychiatric experiences, whether it be a simple manipulation or a cranial sacral or I don't know, she's, she, they're doing a big seminar at the end of this month, so I'm planning on going and there's grant money and all this stuff. So it's a legit thing. And so I'm not Moving any, anything in terms of a level, but I would pay attention.

I would also there's this tension I think that comes with when you experience something wonderful. When you experience something wonderful, you want to share. You just want everybody to know it. Yeah. And I always think of the image of sometimes when you do something new. If you have a, if you have a washing machine in the back of a pickup and you're going 90 miles an hour down the highway and you take an abrupt turn, it is not going to end well.

So sometimes you just got to slow everything down and pay attention to what's around you. and recognize to have some sense of finding other Reiki practitioners, finding other people in the community. I think one of the beautiful things that would happen in Beaufort is they would have a Reiki share once a month where all the Reiki practitioners that wanted to participate would come and the whole community was invited to come have a free 15 minute Reiki session.

And the first time I did that, there were eight Reiki practitioners working on me. So that was a lot of Reiki prep, but it was wonderful. And and it, having experiences like that, I think help fairs doing other things where people can be educated on it, but if you're in a position where you have a sense of fear about doing it, you need to pay attention to that because I think that personally, I feel like that says two things.

First thing is you're not sure enough within yourself to know that this is something you need to be doing. And you've got to let go of your inner 14 year old, which is basically trying to say, I'm going to do this by God, whether you want me to or not. And pay attention, pay attention to what it is that's going on around you. If you're in a very highly conservative by the book, Institution ain't happening anytime soon.

And so then you have to start thinking about whether or not your mission and your goal of doing this is to try to move an institution like that. Or you might have to find someplace else to go. But I think the biggest thing is recognizing where you are personally with it. Number two finding out what's okay, what's not okay. Number three, finding other people around and finding other places to be able to practice and to and to do it as a service.

And then if eventually you want to do it as a part of a profession, then. Go for it, but that may make some that you may have to make some changes and you may have to step out of where you are in order to be able to do it. And and, slow the truck down, make the turn a little bit slower so that not everything falls out and the truck spins. It just give yourself the opportunity to really enjoy this experienced You definitely want to share it.

It was enough for me to come back and start talking to my parents about the things I'm experiencing. And my dad, one time I don't know, he was like smelling me. I'm like, what are you doing? His name was, he's I don't know. I just want to make sure you're not on drugs. And I said, yeah, it's weird to me too, but here's my experiences. And they were very curious and very supportive. I had people on the local church that we were part of praying for my soul a lot, but that's okay.

If that's what you're looking for, to give somebody, have somebody give you permission to move on, oh, I'll have at it, but if you're looking for a way to be able to use the life skills that you already have, knowing that this is just an expansion, This is a skill that expands what you already have learned, what you've already been taught. People are hungry for that, nurses especially. I think nurses are in a wonderful position of being able to use Reiki.

You don't have to hum, you don't have to have a table, you don't have to have incense or music. It's just healing touch, and then also I think sometimes people get the idea, People, I don't know a lot of people like this, but people get the idea that the Reiki session has to last a certain amount of time and you have to do all these things. Sometimes it can just be a short glimpse of, the the energy I send energy to my kids all the time. Oh, yeah. And And they're dogs.

So I'll put my arm around my wife and she's are you doing the right key?

Or unless I'm talking to a spiritual audience, I'll use scientific language and talk about experiments and results and things along those lines. And I, and you can bring in the terms of mindfulness. That seems to be something that is accepted. So you've really given us a lot to think about today. Thank you. Is there anything we missed talking about, Jeff? Or any advice that you'd like to give people going forward?

I had no problem with people doing Reiki or having Reiki or I just had no interest. And then all of a sudden it was like, you have to do this. You have to do this. This makes sense. You have to do this. And so that's what I did. So I think it's just. paying attention and recognize that's, as they say, where your attention goes, your energy flows. So paying attention and going with it and trusting and taking the risk, take the risk.

You don't have to bet the farm, but you can take a simple risk of saying, I want to do something different. I want to do something that expands me even just a slight bit. And, just a little bit here can make a huge difference 5, 10, 15 years down the road, generationally can make a huge difference.

I, the advice I have is just, I love Joseph Campbell's Follow Your Bliss that's just on everything, coffee mugs and t shirts, but it's really about staying curious and allowing yourself to. To go with it, just take a deep breath and go. Yeah.

We usually end our podcast with an experience, Jeff, and I forgot to ask you if there was anything you wanted to share, but I also normally just go into something, but if you had something in mind,

You feel the heat of the sun on your skin. Coolness of the earth on your feet. You feel the wind caressing your face. You hear the birds. You hear the rustle of the grass. And just take a breath. Take that all in. And then you look in front of you and see a path leading to the edge of a forest. You begin making your way down the hillside, and as you get closer to the edge of the forest, you catch the scent of the woods, the damp earth, the pine.

You feel the coolness of the air coming through the woods, and you slowly step in, and you begin following a path, noticing the vegetation, listening for the rustle of animals, seeing the sunlight stream through the tree canopy, hear the language of trees. As they play in the wind. As you walk on this path, feeling the earth beneath your feet, you come to a large stone. You stop, you ask permission to experience the energy of the stone.

You place your hands, maybe even your chest and your face against the stone that's been warmed by the sun. You feel the places in shadow that are cooler. You feel the firmness, the stone, the groundedness of the stone, and you step back and bow, thank the stone and continue on your path. And as you round a corner on your left, it's a large tree. Large enough for five or six people to reach around. Have a sense of the energy of the tree. You feel the bark, the roughness, crevices.

You feel the life force, the energy moving from the earth. Up through the tree, to the canopy above, and you step back from the tree, and you bow, thanking the tree. And you continue on the path, and you start to hear the rustle of water. Water against stone, water rushing downhill, water moving. And as you get closer to the edge of the wood, you see a stream. or a river, and step out on the beach, and move across the pebbles to the edge of the water.

And you choose to experience the river, the stream, the flow of the water, smell the life force. You see the blue sky up above, the trees surrounding you, the stones that make up the river's edge. See the calm pool where the river slows its movement, and you feel the space, the energy of the space. As if life can only expand, feel the energy of this beautiful ache, and breathe in the life force, feeling the air moving around you, experiencing the water, the earth, and the heat of the sun.

And you thank the river, and you fill your body with this energy, and you make your way back to the path. And as you step back into the forest and walk back the path which you came, you notice the lightness in your step, the expansion of the deepest part of yourself, the colors are brighter, the sounds. More acute. The smells, the life force, the energy moving and pulsing all around. You walk past the tree and give a gentle nod or a bow. You walk past the stone and thank the stone.

You walk to the edge of the wood and feel the temperature rising ever so slightly. And the light of the sun growing brighter and brighter. And you take a deep breath and allow yourself to be enveloped by the warmth of the sun as you step along the path. And make your journey back up the small hill. Hear the whistling wind through the trees, the birds, the rustle of the animals, the wind through the grasses and flowers. Smell the damp earth and feel the damp earth beneath your feet.

And once again, you feel that expansiveness, you experience the space that is growing within, that envelops who you are, and allows you to feel the oneness with all things. And if you would, take a couple of breaths, a little slower. A little deeper than usual, and allow yourself to come back to your space, to your body. Before you open your eyes, giving thanks to yourself, to all those who participate with you, the gifts that you've received and created. I hope you can open your eyes.