Ready Set Reiki
Welcome to ReadySetReiki®
A podcast about Reiki and Energy work. From the curious beginning to the seasoned Master Teacher. Welcoming all those who work with energy.
Join Reiki Master Tracy Searight as she guides you on a journey through this landscape of energy work. Each guest offers an in-depth unique perspective sharing their journey, which had 'a profound effect on their healing and development as a person. Come along on this journey and explore all the possibilities of working with energy.
www.readysetreiki.com
www.feathersister.com
Tracy Searight is an Educator, Yoga Teacher, Reiki Master, Grandmaster, Sound Practitioner, Author, and Podcaster.
Find her on Feather Sister with Wellness living
offering training in 10 different systems of Reiki
Training in Chair Yoga, Yin Yoga, and Restorative
Ready Set Reiki
Episode #139 Exploring Sound and Energy: A Journey with Paula Scatoloni
Discover the transformative power of Reiki as we welcome Paula Scatoloni, a sound healer and seasoned practitioner, onto the Ready Set Reiki podcast. This episode explores how Reiki complements sound therapies to create powerful healing experiences. With over three decades of expertise, Paula delves into her journey, sharing valuable insights that illuminate common misconceptions surrounding Reiki and the interplay between body awareness and energy healing.
Listeners gain access to enlightening discussions about personal healing journeys, the integration of various modalities, and the challenges faced along the path of spiritual work. Paula's approach to sound healing serves as a vital addition to traditional wellness methods, emphasizing its role in self-exploration and emotional resonance.
Through engaging anecdotes and practical advice, this episode inspires both beginners and seasoned practitioners alike to embrace the expansive journey of Reiki and sound therapy. Join us to discover how these modalities can guide you towards authenticity and harmony, unlocking new dimensions of your healing process.
Ready to explore your energy journey? Subscribe for more insights, stories, and tips on living a vibrant, healing life!
With over three decades of experience in modern psychology, neuroscience, somatics, and various healing and contemplative practices, Paula offers a unique blend of knowledge and intuitive wisdom. Her commitment to healing the mind, body, and heart is rooted in a deep understanding of the complexities and beauty of the human experience.
“I have come to understand that our body holds our deepest knowing of who we are and our authentic expression of ourselves. Our body holds our learned patterns from our experiences and is the bridge to understanding how consciousness affects healing.”
- Paula Marie Scatoloni
Below you'll learn how Paula Marie bridges disciplines as a practitioner, guide, intuitive sound healer, somatic coach, writer, mentor, and speaker.
https://paulascatoloni.com/about/meet-paula/
Ready Set Reiki is a journey
From the curious beginner to the Season Master Teacher
All Energy workers of all systems and all levels.
This is Ready Set Reiki, a podcast about Reiki, the universal energy life force, from the curious beginner to the seasoned master teacher, welcoming all systems, all lineages and all levels. Reiki is a journey and not a destination, and on this Ready Set Reiki journey, I refer to myself as a guide rather than a host, as I too am traveling, supporting others and learning on this Reiki journey as well. And, with that said, I am your guide, tracy C Wright, and joining me today is Paula Scatoloni, and she is a teacher and guide for clients and professionals who are interested in using sound vibration psychology for personal growth and spiritual awakening. Now she has over 30 years of experience in mind-body practices. She is a somatically-based psychotherapist, contemporary sound healer and an Azui Holy Fire 3 Reiki master, trained in trauma and attachment therapies, biofield tuning, somatic healing approaches that support psychological, emotional, physical and spiritual transformation. She is trained in embodied movement practices such as Shake your Soul and Journey Dance.
Speaker 2:She holds a master's in clinical social work and is a clinical mentor for the Safe and Sound program, now with expertise in attachment and inner child healing. She has developed programs, taught courses and offered clinical consultations to organizations working towards individual, ancestral and collective change. Her sound-based programs blend neuroscience, psychology, traditional wisdom, teachings to promote a reconciliation with ourselves, each other and planet Earth. Now she is committed to helping individuals and professionals heal and transform their inner and outer lives towards authenticity, harmony and collaborative living. Paula, welcome to Ready Set Reiki.
Speaker 3:Hi Tracy, Thank you so much for having me and creating this podcast and space. I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 2:Wonderful, so bringing in 30 years of knowledge here into this bio here. So let's begin our journey together. So tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 3:Sure, I am like many. I think there's a lot of us right now who are therapists and we're ready to get out of the box that we had been put in. Some of that might have to do with COVID and the spaciousness that was created at that time, but also a growing awareness that the tools that we had, even though many of us are trauma trained, were still not enough. Even though many of us are trauma trained, we're still not enough. And I had come across a Reiki master on a podcast and she talked about Reiki and you know, my box has just continued to get bigger and bigger since then. So I'm an I would say I'm, I'm fairly integrated and bring in quite a few different modalities and and find the way to sort of blend the ancient and the modern.
Speaker 2:Beautiful, beautiful. So we're on our journey discussing Reiki. You've been doing this for some time now, as you're out working with others, helping level up those that you are interacting with. What are the common misconceptions that you find that people have about Reiki?
Speaker 3:Well, I find, at least in my community, which is psychotherapists that are somatically based, body-based, there's often a feeling that Reiki is a practice that might take you out of the body, and they are trained in understanding that trauma lives in the body. So there's a bit of a gap there in in reference to Reiki supporting going into the body. We can start to change some of those misconceptions.
Speaker 2:Beautiful, beautiful social work, you help inner child healing, all these wonderful modalities that you use to help the person with the physical and the emotional and mental. But what has been the biggest challenge or struggle you have faced in your very own healing journey?
Speaker 3:My own healing journey.
Speaker 3:It's probably been because I was very deeply embedded in a particular category of healing.
Speaker 3:I was known as a trainer. I treated eating disorders, I trained people in eating disorders, and so it was a fairly fast moving bus that I was on, and so putting the brakes on and creating the space to go travel down this, as you know, fairly expansive journey into the subtle energy system was almost like getting a whole nother degree and trying to do that and balance family and do my own inner healing and um, I think that healing comes in cycles for us, right, and so each time we revisit something, you know it requires, um, a deeper process, internal process and a letting go, and so just navigating the ups and downs of that, with starting a whole new business and then saying, wait a minute, I think this is supposed to integrate into my old business, it's not supposed to be a separate business. And how do I integrate and who's out there integrating and can we integrate? So? So it's been a bit of a puzzle, but I feel like I'm on the other end of it now, started in 2018, late 2018, 2019. So it's been quite a journey.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right, and many don't realize. You know, when you have the calling to start up a business, right, you come up with that idea, you come up with the name, you come up with the logo and as you're doing the spiritual work, as you're growing and you're evolving, your business shifts and changes as well. Because you know, with Feather Sister it started out oh, I'm just going to have Feather Sister yoga and it shifted in the last four years now to wellness and it was like, oh my goodness, and you have to stop and redirect with it because it's becoming something uniquely different. And it also takes into consideration you know, like, where you're located and what the needs of the community are. So you know this whole area of growth still happens as well. As a business owner, I agree.
Speaker 2:Thank you for your compassionate explanation yeah, that's what people don't see. I mean, it's one thing if, like, I decide to have like a hoagie business, right, well, you know you're making hoagies, so. But with energy work, this shifts and changes, right. And then, yeah, because it was all right, I'm going to do yoga, and then I found out laughter yoga, I want to do that. And then the Reiki, and then the sound energy, and then it goes on and on and the intuitive work, and it's like, wow, like even in a four year growth period, how much it shifted and changed. But that was also needed, not only for myself, but for the collective. I agree.
Speaker 3:I agree, it's a moving target.
Speaker 2:It really is. It really is. So, with that, what do you wish your younger self knew about Reiki?
Speaker 3:Oh boy, I love that question. I think the first thing I wish my younger self knew was that it existed, because I was certainly someone who could have used it. And I was also you probably hear this a lot the type of person who shut down my intuitive abilities at a very young age and then it got covered up with trauma, and so it put me at a loss for all these gifts and self-healing tools that I could have used had I known and had some guidance in that.
Speaker 2:Beautiful and you have the and I don't want to say one particular system of Reiki is perfect. There's a wonderful variety out there and you find what works well for you, but definitely that Azui Holy Fire Reiki, would you know, really helps with that culturally created self, helping to do that deep rooted healing. What appealed for me with it was the religious trauma with that, so that was like, ooh, I think I resonate with this, so wonderful.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:So, all the amazing work that you do, all these fantastic modalities that you bring forward to clients when it's time for you to get an energetic tune up, what are some qualities that you look for in a Reiki practitioner?
Speaker 3:Well, I am somewhat biased because of my trauma background that I probably tend to go to people who have some understanding. Particularly, I have a lot of birth trauma in my body and so people that can navigate and understand the frequency of what that that's a high voltage can be. And I've done a lot of somatic work, um, and a lot of work different types to to mitigate that that voltage, which I think of like kind of like if you put your finger in a socket, that vibrational quality, um, when you've got in utero trauma. And so I tend to pick people that have some understanding of that and can navigate the subtle energy system and the physiology and the nervous system at the same time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting that you say that Before I was introduced to Reiki, I worked at a Christian school and the principal was a preacher and he had said very early on like he had gone to somebody for chiropractor and I guess he just felt the energy was off and he always warned be careful who lays hands on you. So it really is. When people ask, can you describe Reiki to me, it's just one of those things where you have to experience it yourself. I can try to color it the best way I can, but you need to experience it for yourself and see what works for you with that. So, yeah, very good. So what advice would you give someone who's just entering spiritual work? You've got 30 years under your belt, so what wisdom do you have to drop on us today?
Speaker 3:Well, I would share one of the things that I'm still circling back to and learning, and it's the paradox of all healing right that we are already whole and that we're driven to expand into the best versions of ourselves at the same time. And so how to hold that paradox in a way that allows you to still feel like enough and to continue to grow, and so finding practices, teachers, books that afford you that opportunity, that teach about self-compassion and slowness and titration, and that it's not a race right to get to the end.
Speaker 2:And the journey itself becomes your parable, becomes what you teach, it becomes the gift right, right yeah, and there's just so many factors, even just as women, you know, through our lives and things that are put on us. It made me think of the speech the other night that Demi Moore spoke about that 45 years in this industry and it was the first award that she had ever received as an actor. And through her speech I mean how she was told that she was just a popcorn actress and all these things. And certainly when I've watched her I thought, wow, this, really, this is the only award you've gotten. I just can't believe it. And yeah, so it is. It is a journey we, we, no matter whether you're in Reiki or you're an actress or you're a physician, as a female it's, it's you run into these challenges and it's just constant growth and evolving.
Speaker 3:Yes, and our ability to um, to really feel our, our own innate sense of self worth and value and divine sacredness is um, it's a process of, of cultivating it over and over, and over again. Right. And, um, I do think we're in the middle of a great shift around that, but, um, each of us has our own story, of course.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and, as you said, you know it, it started for you at birth.
Speaker 2:With that said, you know it started for you at birth. With that, you know trauma and I do yoga and adding how important somatics is, tapping things like that and I follow a particular gentleman on Instagram named Gary as a human garage and just even like being born by a C-section my children are C-section babies and the trauma that I didn't realize I had from giving birth to that but then them being born that way can affect them as well. And it's like, oh, my goodness, like just these amazing things that are coming and knowledge that can shift and change, that we can do something about it, that my kids can do this in their 20s and they don't have to wait till their 50s and 60s to do this. And you know, part of the great thing is social media, like TikTok's out there and it's normalizing the Reiki and it's getting it out there, so it's not so taboo as to when, years ago, when you you would say you had to keep it a secret that you were a card reader or you know, an oracle yes, yes.
Speaker 3:Well, I had the advantage of living in hawaii for 13 years, or reiki was respected, of course they are right, of course, being one of the places of origin of course, madam takata.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, very good, yeah, so, um, so I didn't have as much of the places of origin.
Speaker 3:Of course, madam Takata. Yeah, yes, very good. So I didn't have as much of the stigma as I had now that I'm living in Durham, north Carolina, and in a place where you know it's all about research and university, but we do have a center for integrative medicine around the corner and we do have studies that are happening around holistic methods and psychedelics is also emerging so so it leaves me some room here to take the sound programs that I use and start to move.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. Yeah, my daughter just got accepted for a job at Duke university. She starts in July, so she will be moving, so she'll have to check't have to be specifically, um, you know, boxed into Reiki. Anything that's helped you on your journey.
Speaker 3:On my journey. Well, the first book which was one of the catalysts if there are any um therapists listening was Susan Peace Bannett's book on what's called the trauma healing toolkit, which talks about Reiki specifically so, and alternative methods in general for trauma healing and the benefits. So I want to make sure I talk about that one. Um, I also have, uh, a mentor who has helped me understand a little bit more about the inner child and the soul and how we can more easily invite ourselves and the soul into the body, and that's Gary Springfield. He has a book called Source Dialogues.
Speaker 3:If one hasn't read that, it's the type of book you read over and over a few times and then in my journey because I'm sound healer and I work with shamanic principles any of Hank Wesselman's books and CDs which teach you how to journey, and that's essentially what I do with sound. I don't use singing bowls, I use modern acoustics for shamanic journeying into the body and so. But that is a, it's a brain process, moving into the right brain and then into the subconscious brain and then into the subconscious, either upper worlds or the lower, and so I think that those are helpful tools for those that are engaging in their own self-healing and want to add either a a more complex conceptualization, which Gary's book is, or some practical methods that they can use. Wonderful.
Speaker 2:Because it's not uncommon now for those who feel the calling to have many modalities. I mean it's very rare. I mean just to have I'm doing Reiki or I'm just doing light language. It just seems as we're progressing. So this is where you feel that things are really going to shift and change in the world, that we are leveling up and the calling's like okay, why do I feel called to this? But maybe it's something you'll use later to help someone. So it seems like we're preparing our energetic toolbox.
Speaker 2:I agree, yes, wonderful to have these books that we can arm ourselves with knowledge, right, so thank you for that Wonderful. So what other services modalities do you offer? Classes, events, trainings.
Speaker 3:Well, as I mentioned, one of the things I'm known for is this unusual use of sound.
Speaker 3:I would say so, rather than singing bowls or a drum which a shamanic practitioner would have a drum I use modern acoustic frequencies that have been tuned to invite you out of fight and flight and into safety, or that use the sound healing concept of entrainment, similar to cranial sacral therapy, to entrain you into different states, and so these are programs that have been constructed by scientists and people in the left brain mode, but I'm able to use them because I understand the principles of healing and create something that's even more powerful in their usage, because sound works with our vibration, and so when we understand that, then we can direct the sound beyond what a tool might have been designed to do in the first place.
Speaker 3:So I have groups and I run these sound journey, groups with people, and I think the more common thing that occurs within the class is this awakening and rebalancing of the right and left side of the body, of the masculine and the feminine, and there's a aspect of the healing. I think that, for me, as a psychologist, I'm really tapping into these archetypes that we hold within us, and we hold them somatically, so I'm working with how you hold these archetypes within your belief system, within your behaviors, within constructs of how you move around the world. So that's what I'm primarily known for, the world. So that's what I'm primarily known for. And then I also I'm trained in biofield tuning, which is Eileen McKusick's work with tuning forks, and so those are kind of sprinkled in here and there to complement the other sound and vibration work that I offer.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. Did you ever imagine, when you got that master's degree in your hand for your clinical social work, that you'd ever be working with such amazing modalities?
Speaker 3:I knew I was always outside of the box and experiential, so I had an inkling that I couldn't, you know, fit in to the prescriptions that are available for therapists. But I am so excited potential modality and to have it be supported with books and the training and people enthusiastic about coming in and integrating it. No, I did not expect, and I did not expect to be a teacher, who is part of that.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, that's all part of the journey. So wonderful. So where can we find you? Are you online in person? If someone wants to book a session with you, connect with you.
Speaker 3:Great. Yes, I am primarily remote. I have clients all over the world, and so you can find me and learn more about me and my groups on my website, which is wwwpaulaskatalonicom. I also host, or co-host, a podcast with Leslie Rine called Embodied Step Into you, and we talk about everything from neuroscience to spirituality, to inner child, to the masculine and the feminine reconstruction that's occurring right now, and then sometimes I go to workshops and conferences, and I have some coming up in May. That's local, if you're from North Carolina, where I'll be live and offering some sound journey.
Speaker 2:Wonderful, wonderful, and I'm sure I will probably definitely see you because I will be visiting my daughter who will be moving there, so she's been trying to manifest me moving there.
Speaker 2:So we'll see. We'll see Very good, very good. Well, this ends the first part of our journey together and I'm going to continue to be your guide through the second part, which are questions that are gathered by listeners and Reiki students. So here we go. Number one of all your modalities of over 30 years of experience, what is the one consistent technique or modality that you find yourself frequently using on either yourself or your clients?
Speaker 3:find yourself frequently using on either yourself or your clients. Well, top of the list is somatic experiencing, or the concept of somatics, the coming back to the body and to our understanding of ourselves as primarily the nervous system and the information from the body that tells us about everything what we're emotionally holding, how we're vibrating, if we're in defense or if we're open and available for connection. So the body as the main source of wisdom, and so whether that is my tracking wisdom, and so whether that is my tracking through somatically because that's how I track, as one of my skill sets um, I use my own body but also, I think, an understanding of our story, of where we hold places of freeze and disconnection and dissociation from ourselves, even for myself, I mean, I've done so much work and then I'll put on sound system and I'll say, wow, there's some freeze in my pathway, that's my meridian, that's going up the right leg, and I didn't know there was more freeze in my body. I thought you know. So it's just continues on and on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's no, there, no-transcript, the tapping things like that to give them the tools when they can't get to class here. This is what you can do if you're in a stressful situation or you're feeling overwhelmed, or it's a Tuesday and you just got up and you don't know why you're sad, right. So you know it's good to have those tools here. Number two with your extensive background in mind-body practices, neuroscience and psychology, how do you describe Reiki to those who are new to it and who are unsure if Reiki is the right fit for them?
Speaker 3:Sure, I think of modalities as portals of entry, right? So somatics might be a portal of entry. As we said, sound is a portal of entry and Reiki is a portal of entry into deeper connection with self, and so, depending on the style of Reiki and how it's used, there's an invitation to connect more deeply, not only to yourself through this embodied practice of Reiki, but also to your inner wisdom or your guides or your spirit team, or however you want to phrase that. So it's a very empowering tool to bring in and can become integrated into your lifestyle, rather than something that is. I think it can get couched into a spiritual practice, which can be certainly part of your approach to spirituality, but I think of it as your lifestyle of understanding your subtle energy system, and Reiki gives you another language to be able to navigate that Right.
Speaker 2:Wonderful, what a beautiful explanation. It's so interesting and it helps those who have that background, you know, in science and neuroscience, to explain it. It seems that there's more credibility that comes from it. You know so. It's always nice. I always like to ask those who are doctors, nurses, in the medical field, in the science field, give me your interpretation of it. You know so, I mean, I, my background is a preschool teacher and kindergarten teacher, so I'm like, well, let's, let's do a puppet show. Yeah, yeah, there's many ways to get there, but it comes down to perhaps just experiencing it. Right, you try to tell them stress, reducing modality I've heard people say like a touchless massage, all different ways. So, and there's many, you know, as we talked about in the beginning, misconceptions, you know you mentioned and touching on religion and you know it being a certain way, but there's no dogma attached to it and it does no harm. So, number three, can you tell me about the safe and sound program?
Speaker 3:Sure, the first thing I will say it is called protocol, but I use program because I've changed the name to suit, to suit how I use it, because I do not use it as a protocol. These are acoustic programs designed by Dr Stephen Porges, who's known for his work in interpersonal neuroscience and the vagus nerve and the physiology of stress. It was originally designed for children with autism, to help them come out of states of defense into social engagement, but I am one of the very few in the trauma community who got ahold of it in 2017 and subsequently wrote a manual about how to use it with somatic experiencing for trauma healing, and so I use it as a trauma healing tool. But it's essentially a program where you listen to music, specifically filtered music that feeds you the frequency of safety for five hours.
Speaker 3:Now, this is titrated and pendulated into small increments, because even a good thing can be too much.
Speaker 3:But if we think of it in similar framework to Reiki that we're taking in resonance right, similar framework to Reiki that we're taking in resonance right, something that's high resonance, it's going to because we are vibrational beings then create some expansion in the body and some contraction, and so then, if the provider knows how to help support that process as it expands and contracts, then we usually can create the conditions for memory processing to occur, and so whatever needs to be healed, we trust the organicity of the body comes into consciousness and you can either watch it like a movie or work with it, and your channels of experience are very similar to Reiki.
Speaker 3:You may see things, you may hear things, you may sense things, you may have emotions. So it affords for that body-oriented type of processing. And then, because I will bring in Reiki and other forms of energy healing during it, if there is activation or things that are um stressing or D, if there's distress, um, the Reiki and the other type of healing that's part of it mitigates what's coming up so that it's all getting processed and integrated.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. That's a wonderful modality to bring in Wonderful. Well, that is our third question. As we've been talking, is there something that you may have forgotten or something you feel called to share with the listeners? The floor is yours. Thank you.
Speaker 3:I do think I would like to invite people to consider sound in all different ways as a method of self-healing. Sound is free to start. I mean, we can't pay for these programs, but whether it's the sound of birds and nature around you, whether it's the sound of your own voice and learning about tuning and toning, whether it's putting on music that speaks to you and your soul, or whether it's using the singing bowls or the sound program or the sound program, this modality, we're just at the beginning of the emerging science of sound and it's a very exciting time. So I invite the listeners to start to get creative with it and to consider it as one of the allies that we have on this human journey at this time. That we have on this human journey at this time, right.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. I mean. Sound is so important. It's that universal language, I mean. It really helps raise your vibration and you know, you think about it like you hear a song and it takes you back to whether you're you know, and maybe you were at a high school dance, or it reminds you a certain person. So it has such meaning to this. So I incorporate music in everything. It's just such a love and I think that's where we can all come in agreement on with music. Right, we may not like the same genre, but you can't deny that there's a song or an instrumental on this planet that you resonate with. It speaks with you.
Speaker 3:Yes, it speaks to it Absolutely. Wonderful In the work that I do. One of the ways that I support individuals is we tune into within their biofield and their body and their story, biofield and their body and their story, the songs that hold the emotions that they may need to be revisiting, and so we'll use those songs, just as you said, from their childhood as those are offered from the inner guidance.
Speaker 2:Right, right, like, even like the group the Beatles has been like a soundtrack through my whole life. My mother loved the Beatles and she passed it on to me and there was an assignment I needed to do and I just I put on rubber sole, you know, and that got me pumped up and motivated with it and it took me back to when I would listen because she had all the vinyls. So they were on the vinyls. But now you know, I play, I play it online, but but that just changes my whole attitude. Like how can I be sad listening to this song that Paul McCartney is singing? Right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, they come in a lot for me and I thought I think a lot of their songs are about love.
Speaker 2:I think so too. I mean, really, it's the background soundtrack to my life. It really is, and just some of the songs I listened to, I'm like you could have released that today. I mean, my goodness, I was like wow. I mean just yeah, amazing, great, wonderful, well, thank you so much. Amazing, great, wonderful Well, thank you so much, paula. This comes to the end of our journey. I really appreciate you taking time out of your very busy schedule to join me on this Ready Set Reiki journey.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much, Tracy. It was lovely getting to meet you. I hope I get to meet you in person if you come to North Carolina.
Speaker 2:I know it's in there. It's this my daughter's been manifesting this for years. She's a master manifester and she went to Emerald Island a few years ago and she's like I'm going to live here. And I mean, right on point, she graduates in May and she's already you know she'll work in pediatrics there. So it's all good.
Speaker 2:So yeah so I'm sure I will be there. So thank you everyone, my wonderful listeners. If you would like your question featured on Ready Set Reiki, reach out at wwwreadysetreikicom and check us out on social media. So I'm Tracy Seawright and this has been Ready Set Reiki. You.
