Reiki for a Vibrant Life

What in the world is Reiki? Reiki (pronounced "ray-key") is spiritually guided "universal life force" energy that promotes stress reduction and relaxation and contributes to healing. Reiki works on physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels, restoring balance to body, mind, and spirit. Reiki also helps to remove barriers and challenges, while empowering goals.

People often think of "hands on" healing. It's different than massage, because it's not invasive. Light touch, or even just hands over the body, are all that's needed. It's super easy and fun to learn. Once we learn Reiki, we can offer it to ourselves and to others. I know first hand, the results are amazing. In addition to the huge benefit of healing from chronic illness, here are some of the benefits that I've experienced and shared with others since I integrated Reiki into my life:

• Minimizing negative or self-defeating thought patterns
• Feeling more bliss, joy and gratitude
• Attracting more abundance, beneficial experiences and joyful people
• Feeling more love and compassion for myself and others
• Enhancing intuitive abilities
• Relieving stress during times of external pressures and transitions
• Accessing quick relief when feeling fearful, hurt or angry
• Feeling love energy more deeply in day to day life, using that to guide choices
• Feeling more connected to my life purpose
• Accessing spiritual guidance more readily
• Healing archetypal patterns (such as saboteur and victim energies)
• Balancing heart and mind energies
• Relieving acute and chronic pain
• Clearing rooms and other spaces of negative energies
• Helping others to heal
• Helping others to transition from this life

Reiki has been nothing short of a transformational force in my life. In truth, part of me didn't fully believe in it when I first learned Reiki. Once I had nowhere else to turn, Reiki really pulled me along on my healing journey. For those who already enjoy vibrant health, what a gift to have the added preventative healing energy of Reiki in stressful times like these. How wonderful to offer healing, loving energy to our aging loved ones just by touching them.

How would you benefit from Reiki's healing energy?

With whom would you like to share the gift of Reiki?

For information about my special Valentine's Reiki workshop, please contact me at denisesheehan@yahoo.com or 775.970.5476.

Living with Incongruence Part III

To change, a person must face the

dragon of his appetites with

another dragon, the life energy of the soul.

Mevlana Rumi

In "Living with Incongruence Part II," we explored the different ways that incongruence shows up in our lives. Whether doing or not doing what we know we need to stop or start doing, or whether buying into limiting beliefs that hold us back, we may experience excessive mind chatter, energy drains, diminishment of our personal power related to not exercising our will power, and even disease. In this part of the series, we'll explore the role our heart's desires and thinking play in awakening our willpower. Aligning our hearts, minds, and willpower are essential to effecting positive change in our lives.

Here are some ways that incongruence between mind and heart shows up. We may find that our heart isn't into something even when our logical mind knows exactly what must be done. For example, we know we have to earn a living, but we might hate the time we spend at our current job. We may find that our mind is only interested in playing it safe without considering the whole of our lives. For example, we may stay in a destructive relationship because we're afraid to hurt the other person, live on our own, or begin life anew. We may find our mind vacillating wildly from one way of thinking to another. For example, when receiving a pep talk from a friend, we may feel wildly courageous, but then we go home or to work and feel much more humbled, even fearful of change. Believe me, living with incongruence can make us feel a bit crazy, especially as we face a major life transition when we must dig deep within, over-riding our mind chatter, in order to find our authentic way in this world.

Caroline Myss, in "Energy Anatomy," (http://myss.com/) suggests that when our hearts and minds are not aligned, like in the examples above, addictions will rule our willpower. Addictions, as Myss defines them, are not necessarily related to alcohol, tobacco, drugs, sex, or gambling. They are connected to anything we believe we need for tranquility, perhaps a person, a job, or a system of beliefs. In order to transcend our addictions, we may consider strategies to realign our heart's desires with our thinking in order to awaken our willpower. The path for all of us will be different, based on our own needs and desires. I will offer a few things that have worked for me, in hopes they are of use to you too. When practiced together, the strategies below created a synergistic transformative energy that wouldn't have occurred using each in isolation.

The most important strategy for me is to be on fire with my life purpose. However, when I feel my purpose is too big, or when I become lost in the details of making it manifest, I sometimes become overwhelmed. I may distract myself or self-sabotage my efforts with procrastination, indulgences, etc. in order to slow down the pace of my life, as well as to my destiny, making the journey more comfortable. Paradoxically, it doesn't work! It just creates mind chatter, guilt, shame, and even disgust. It's a bad trip! I find that it's healthier for me to remind myself of my life purpose each day, to say it aloud, and to feel the joyful vibration it brings to me. It fuels my sense of purpose for the entire day, empowering both heart and mind, while leaving less space for my addictive, self-sabotaging behaviors.

I also like to keep my busy mind collecting data from a place of curiosity. As a personal example, I mentioned before that my healing process has been connected with diet, so I open myself to whatever and however information appears related to my energy. I notice how I feel when I eat a salad versus a garden burger versus cheesecake. I notice how high and empowered I feel when I make a commitment that honors my higher self versus how guilty I feel when I break my commitment to myself.

Then I work to change my programming to match the data I've received. Affirmations, especially when stated aloud, can be really powerful in reinforcing new neural pathways that align with what I'm creating. When I create succinct, present-tense, powerful beliefs - Everything I eat nurtures my vibrant health! - that replace my former thoughts that keep me stuck - No matter what I eat, I never seem to heal - I find that my heart and mind align in ways that support positive changes and growth.

Affirmations help to build my internal strength for positive change. Another way is to live in a space of gratitude. I've found it helpful to journal ten things for which I am grateful each night as I process my day. It's also essential to surround myself with others who accept and invite my most authentic self to emerge, those who are not afraid of life changes I make, and who agree to support my journey.

For challenging and changing my thinking, especially with over-riding old programming that doesn't serve, I find Byron Katie's web site, http://www.thework.com/ or her book, Loving What Is: Four Questions that can Change your Life very useful. Our thoughts are much too powerful in creating our reality to allow them to run wild, especially when they work against us.

If you seek change and liberation from your mind chatter and self-sabotaging behaviors, and if you struggle with creating the changes you desire, you may want to work with a life coach to create a life purpose statement that lights you up and helps you stay focused. Life coaches support your path in an on-going way to creatively address the mind chatter and to minimize other internal and external challenges. They help you to uncover the secrets within you that will help you create the most fulfilling life you can imagine. Reiki, a form of energetic clearing and balancing that promotes healing, is another wildly valuable resource for aligning heart and mind. Treating yourself to Reiki sessions can support your positive growth and help you to release addictions and attachments.

Life is so complex, it's no wonder we humans come with so much incongruence. By exploring our own patterns consciously, we may learn to embrace our quirks and creativity and to see all the possibilities that exist in our lives, all while accepting our humanness. It helps to know that wherever we are is exactly the right place for us to learn and to grow more deeply into who we are becoming. We may release judgment or our tendency to make ourselves wrong, which only fuels what we wish to diminish. By being open to what is in this moment, and by loving ourselves just as we are, we open the doors to infinite growth, transcending our old programs, addictions, and paradigms, and embracing the world of possibilities.

What would your heart and mind like to tell each other?

Where do you find your distractions and addictions?

What strategies help to align your heart and mind?

What is one way you would like to honor your inner knowing?

What commitment would you like to make to yourself from this space of knowing?

If you would like to learn more about life coaching and/or Reiki, please contact me at denisesheehan@yahoo.com or 775.970.5476.

Living with Incongruence Part II

When I initially wrote what became my former blog post, "Living with Incongruence, Part I," I felt certain that this would be a creative, whimsical topic and nothing more. Then, shortly afterward on a road trip, my Sweetie and I re-listened to "Energy Anatomy" by Caroline Myss (http://myss.com/), and I couldn't ignore the synchronicity when Myss began talking about incongruities. I realized there would be something more to explore around creating congruence by aligning our thoughts with our actions, and so this discussion follows. What I offer below and in my next post is but a taste of a much larger, remarkable work by Myss, with some of my experiences peppered in as they relate to what she shares. I offer this because I'm seeing how this shows up in the lives of so many of us.

Myss explores incongruities in our lives, how they drain our energy, how they relate to willpower, and how they point the way to growth potential. Incongruities show up in different ways, and their effects in our lives can be quite dramatic.

First, Myss suggests that incongruities can show up as things we want or need to do, things that continuously nag at us, but that we never seem to get to. Similarly, there are some things we are doing that may be better left undone. We know better, but that doesn't seem to stop us. I see these struggles come up often with regard to exercising, changing diet, and other health-related choices that are easy to put off for another day, month, or year. When we focus our energy on what we should or should not do, but neglect to empower our will to make the changes we know are in our best interest, we lose energy. Energetically, we relinquish our power and authority over our lives to our "shoulds."

Yet the path to claiming our power and authority over our lives is not always easy or clearly laid out for us. Here's an example from my own life. During a particularly intense meditation, I had the insight that I would have to radically alter some of my habits in order to further my spiritual development, and that the process would involve something around the healer archetype. In that moment, I had a delicious sense of possibilities in stepping into my destiny, but I knew it wouldn't be easy for me to override my epicurean and workaholic tendencies, and that I would need assistance to alter my life patterns. In that moment of bliss and bravery, I embraced the transition and requested help, however it might show up. I leapt into the unknown in total trust and abandon. Turns out, I almost immediately developed a physical condition that was strongly related to diet, environmental energy (good vibe vs. bad vibe) effects, the quality of my thoughts, and my habits around workaholism. I would have to choose between either my attachments to certain foods, environments and habits or my vibrant health. Putting off the changes that I needed created lots of suffering and energy loss. Eventually, I just had to do the work, release a lot of attachments, and create life changes in order to heal. Truth be known, I still struggle at times, especially when I lose site of the grander vision of what I wish to create in my life. Also, it wasn't always easy to accept ill health as the blessing it proved to me. Yes, there were intense moments of self-pity, which were not at all useful in reclaiming my personal power. I'm so over that now...

Another way that incongruities show up, according to Myss, is through limiting beliefs that we know aren't good for us, but that we picked up during childhood or that were transmitted through our culture. Common ones that I've encountered include: I don't know enough to take the next step; If I make this choice, the people in my life that I love won't understand me and I'll be separated from them; I will have to do this all alone; If I follow my bliss, I'll never make enough money to survive. Here's a clue: These thoughts are not yours! They are old programs from years of social conditioning. Here's a new one to try on: When I break away from old beliefs that hold me back, I find amazing new freedoms!

Here are some examples of limiting beliefs that have created and perpetuated fear and victim consciousness in my life: No one can succeed starting a business in an economy like this one; I'm not good enough, ambitious enough, or smart enough. And then there's the big one, a ghost from my way-back past: Who do you think you are? Oh, ouch. Now, I don't walk around like Eeyore all the time. Most of my moments feel like wild clarity, optimism, and appreciation for the yumminess of life. Still, in recent years I've grown very accustomed to noticing the background presence of these fleeting thoughts. I've witnessed the destructiveness that they can create in our life patterns and even our health as they keep us stuck in avoidance of anything that feels like a risk. The messages grow in intensity with the degree of change we contemplate. I've learned that as quickly as the thoughts come, I must release them without judgment. To make myself wrong only feeds them, and dis-empowers me, further.

Until I release Part III of "Living with Incongruence," you may want to just notice your thinking patterns that show up for you.

What does your mental chatter should like?

What is the impact on your life?

What have you been putting off far too long?

What are the consequences of putting off your decisions to change?

If you made a choice you're not honoring, what are the consequences?

Living with Incongruence Part I

I came upon this topic first by imagining a photo shoot that would result in the photo above. This image struck me first thing one morning, even before tea, petting the pups, or kissing Dana. Perhaps it was a lingering stream in my consciousness from a dream that came before. I rushed to my journal, started the kettle, and began to write about the incongruence, or sense of disharmony created, by including such mix-matched images in one moment of time. Business suit with tractor? Drinking from an elegant champagne flute too? I couldn't help but muse over the "Green Acres" sense of things. As I pondered why such an outrageous idea formed in my head, I began to wonder:

How does our inner incongruence demonstrate our quirks and creativity, our way of showing up in the world?

What does it tell us about what we like to create in our lives?

How does it help us to connect more fully with our own authenticity and with others we care about?

The suit with tractor symbolizes how I've always been able to live in multiple worlds, dress up, dress down, and get dirty. I can be articulate, profound, and professional, or my mind can become so wild I barely make sense. Although I'm not the most mechanical person in the world, I can operate small or large equipment on a good day. I can dig into the earth, paint a wall red, or clean pond scum, even on a cold day. I connect with the earth in multiple, magical ways. The crystal champagne flute, an heirloom from Auntie Gitta, symbolizes my love of life, my longing to express gratitude for all the joy in my life, and my honoring of family. Gitta always reminded us, "enjoy, enjoy." What a powerful, wise woman. And there's something else. Though I value family and tradition, I also like to consider options outside the lines defined by my culture, even if it means I don't fit in sometimes.

What I find in these musings is an unveiling of some of my values. By being conscious of my values, I empower myself to align my choices accordingly so that I feel less conflict and tension in my life. Similarly, I find myself journeying towards more and more fulfillment as I align my choices with my values.

If you were to pose in a way that makes transparent your incongruence, how would that look?

What do you learn about yourself and your values from this place?

In what way would you like to align your values and choices?

In addition to feeling my rich calling toward my values, this whimsical photo and my thoughts around it help me to remember to play when I become too serious, or my drive to work and produce results dominates my life, or I over-commit out of habit, or I lose track of the present moment and forget to be joy-filled. So I offer the above as my playful, creative, whimsical learning around incongruence. And, there's something more to explore here, around creating congruence by aligning our thoughts with our actions, which will come in my next post, "Living with Incongruence, Part II."

How can you bring more playfulness into your life?

What of your incongruence would you like to share with others?

What Happens to Intuitive Hits, Creative Downloads, and Darn Good Ideas?

During my last blog, I talked about my struggle to discern intuition from fear-based thinking. I've since heard from clients and friends that you've faced the same struggle. You've inspired me to share a story and resource with you that I hope you'll find useful.

About eight months before my university position would end, my partner, Dana, and I found the home of our dreams: small home, lots of property and privacy, and enormous potential. It also came with a price tag somewhat higher than what felt like a play-it-safe deal. About the same time, I began reading The Energy of Money: A Spiritual Guide to Financial and Personal Fulfillment by Maria Nemeth, Ph.D., found of Academy for Coaching Excellence (http://www.academyforcoachingexcellence.com/).

Dr. Nemeth offers a model of the process great ideas must go through before they become outcomes in our lives. First, she explores physical reality that we know so well. This is the place of cause and effect. Much of what we wish to accomplish in this realm involves taking simple steps. In order to balance our checkbook, we have to actually sit down and crunch the numbers. Holding the intention to balance isn't quite enough to get the job done.

But there's also the metaphysical reality where energy is "free-flowing and unbounded" (p. 21). This is the place where we receive ideas, visions, and dreams, which are weightless and inspiring because we haven't yet weighted them down with promises and commitments.

In the space between physical and metaphysical realities, we hold our life's intentions, which may include to be a writer, to be a healer, to be a leader, to be a visionary. They connect us to concrete goals, to write a novel, to take a Reiki class, to run for political office, to publish a theory. To accomplish our dreams we need the inspiration of metaphysical reality, but it's equally important to find the drive and courage to take needed steps in our physical reality.

However, right there between the metaphysical and physical we find "Trouble at the Border." When our weightless ideas encounter the density of physical reality, we may meet, "doubts and fears so strong that they seem to stop us in our tracks almost before our journey begins" (p. 26). We may hold subconscious beliefs that limit our potential, such as life is hard or no pain, no gain. This phase is inevitable in the process of overcoming our own inertia.

I've found that it's easy to discount these fears and doubts as intuitive. Rather, they are of "monkey mind," a term borrowed from Buddhism to describe, "a self-criticizing aspect of our mind that swings us from doubt, to worry, and back to doubt" (p. 27). In my coach training, I've also learned to identify this voice as the "saboteur" or "gremlin." By any name, it's a survival-related mechanism of our brain designed to prevent change or risk-taking. Whenever we try to reason with these doubts, they only become louder and more provocative.

To say the least, the Border is uncomfortable. We have a choice to use that as a teacher, an opportunity to express our courage as we step beyond our comfort zone and address any challenges we experience. Clearly examining our intentions and our choices helps us to create a realistic plan to get where we want to go. It helps us to identify where and how we will direct our energy and actions. Dr. Nemeth tells us, "life is hard when you don't do what you truly value because you are putting all your energy into trying to get rid of your fears rather than into materializing your dreams" (p. 31).

In the process of deciding whether or not to purchase our home, Dana and I encountered doubts, but we couldn't differentiate them from intuitive hits at first. We wondered: Could we afford this even as I ended my university career? Could we interpret the plumbing and mechanical problems on the house as signs that we were off track? Could we also afford a four-wheel-drive tractor for snow-removal and landscaping? Would we sell Dana's house quickly enough to avoid two mortgages over an extended time?

Well, we now have the home and tractor. All the plumbing and mechanical problems are resolved, with compensation from the former owners to cover the repairs. We received an acceptable offer on Dana's house the first full day it was listed. Yes! Even in this housing market! We are now living the life of our dreams! Now if I could only get Dana to come in off that tractor for dinner...

What does intuition feel like in your body?

What do fear-thoughts feel like in your body?

What do you notice about your thoughts in general?

How do you respond to your thoughts?

Which conscious and subconscious fears keep you from approaching your dreams?

Planning in a World of Transition

I've been discussing transition and transformation in my former two blogs. As many know, I'm the consummate planner. FranklinCovey trainings and products pushed me over the edge from planning-obsessive to planning-accomplished. But what of planning now in this age of transition? Everything we know changes so radically. What can we possibly know of what will be in one, five or ten years? We can plan, as one of my friends suggests, because that's a way to feel empowered and prepared. Another friend suggests that long-term plans are useless right now, and we must spontaneously respond to each moment. Everyone seems to be finding their own truths around creating balance between planning, being, and doing.

Especially because of our economic recession, many of my plans, such as buying a house and launching a business, have seemed particularly risky. If only momentarily, I wondered: Will we keep our house? Will our lifestyle radically change? Will we be okay? Such worries fall on the other side of my leap of faith, in other words, my sense of trust and faith in myself and the world. Instead of dwelling on what-ifs, I've learned to follow my intuition, which has led me to create the home, relationships, profession, and life all designed to suit me perfectly. Learning to discern intuitive hits from fear-based thinking offered a critical step in the path.

But there's another component to this. Nearly everyone I know has been experiencing huge energy shifts, especially since the beginning of July. A few friends and clients are having the most remarkable experiences, coming together with loved ones in new and powerful ways. Some are having the most intriguing spiritual gifts come to them, such as extremely heightened intuition, powerful yet intimidating. Many just feel remarkably fatigued. How does one plan for such things?

Because of my own health issues and fatigue over the past few years, I never knew what my energy would be like from day to day. Planning and commitments were problematic and precursors to disappointment. I truly learned to dance in the moment while focusing on my two most important goals in this order: 1. restore vibrant health and 2. embrace my new vocational path and create its reality. I reduced planning down to these two goals, focusing all my strength, energy, and intention on these so that I would experience success. I think that there is learning in this for many of us. More than ever, it's time to focus on "what matters most," to borrow a phrase from FranklinCovey.

Really, how can we prepare for what is completely unknown? That will be a highly individualized process, reliant on the tools of intuition and profound curiosity about what our lives are meant to hold for us. The process will include an intensive view of our values and priorities.

Who and what do you deeply value?

Who do you love to be?

What brings you joy?

How can you honor and practice non-attachment to what you love?

What will you choose to do with your insights?

Transitions and Transformations, Part II

The World is Dead, completely gone;

Yet I will Live, serenely on.

I acknowledge that this doesn't really make any sense and that it ends with a preposition. It's a horrible poem! Yet, I received these words like a sudden cerebral or spiritual download when I was but seventeen years old. The circumstances? One of the most important people in the world to me was really disappointed in and angry with me, and rightly so, because I was being cruel with my words to someone who really needed and wanted my love and approval. In those shame-filled moments, hearing the testimony against me, I wished away my entitlement to emotions, caring, and vulnerability as if my life depended on their absence.

I tried for years to analyze this. What could it mean? My obsession with interpreting it faded as years passed, but my curiosity about it never did, as my mind would hit the playback button and bring the poem and the experience once more into vivid reality. Why on earth would these words be so important as to re-emerge over and over?

Nearly thirty years later, I've discovered my truth in them. They relate not only to my personal journey, but to our collective human journey as well. They portray a transformation in progress, bringing death, if you will, of personal and collective ego with the birth of spirit-identity.

I have had three really significant "noble friends" or "troublemakers" (terms borrowed from Carolyn Myss and Pema Chodron respectively) in my life. I have certainly served in this role for others as well, including these very same people. I'm referring to those who serve our spirit development, often in uncomfortable ways. They show us the aspects of ourselves that need work, or they challenge us to come into our power, or they offer other trials like that. Each of my noble friends has taught me about fierce love and then betrayal. With each, I had profound moments when I have fallen out of their favor, when I have sought their love and approval with all my heart. This approval seeking often came from an egoistic tendency more than from a longing for soul-deep connection. However, the fact that I'm a natural people-pleaser has made these experiences incredibly painful for me.

In each instance, I have experienced a bit of death, or transformation, from my people-pleasing, approval-seeking ego-self into what I call my spirit-self. My spirit-self strives for a unique voice and altruistic role in the world, for discovering and living the divine destiny that no one else can fill, whether or not others approve of what I'm doing. Fulfilling these needs and desires requires risk. As I enter my life purpose, some people resonate with me, my life, and my energy, and some really don't. I learn not to take it personally. I learn to live serenely on, increasingly detached from the collective world of ego that I've known, even as I become fabulously connected - richly and meaningfully - with more and more people in my life.

Speaking of the collective, this transformational "rebirth" happens on the global level as well. What's more egoistic that materialism, individual and corporate greed, corruption, and even throwing money at problems created by the ferocious avarice for money? As we witness the decomposition of egoistic aspects of life and the systems that support them, we have within grasp the opportunity to create ourselves anew, with spirit-driven ideals defined by our spirit-selves. We also have the opportunity to envision new systems and ways of constructing our cultures and societies. We have within us amazing capacity right now to serve as change agents. That change originates from within us, related to our own transformation. Yes, it's in the depths of our inner world, where first there is darkness, and later there is light - the Hero's Journey that awaits us all.

Although Ego and her best friend, Fear, still make routine appearances in my life, my own transformational journey promotes overall a sense of faith and trust in what is and what will be. This emerging faith in the face of my former fear-based thinking creates serenity and bliss, a profound sense of gratitude for all I experience in my life. This sense of well-being attracts even more of the same. I now feel fully prepared to step into an unknown future in perfect trust that all is as it must be.

Would you like to join me?

• What from your past haunts you, and what's the lesson here now?


• How can you release what doesn't belong to the present?


• What aspects of your life are you rebirthing?


• Who do you wish to be to promote your serenity?