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.
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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 #157 Amanda McCordic Healing Beyond Cancer: A Reiki Master's Journey
What happens when a successful attorney and workaholic receives a terminal cancer diagnosis? For Amanda McCorrick, it became the catalyst for profound transformation and spiritual awakening through Reiki.
Amanda's journey began in 2020 when, after discovering a tumor, she reluctantly attended her first Reiki session—scheduled just hours after finding the lump. From that moment, Reiki became her constant companion through multiple cancer battles, including a devastating relapse in 2022 when her "skeleton lit up like a Christmas tree" with cancer. Throughout this ordeal, Amanda discovered that healing encompasses far more than physical recovery.
The conversation reveals how Amanda's perspective shifted dramatically as she learned to value herself beyond productivity and achievement. "I was kinder to strangers at Walmart than I was to myself," she shares, describing how cancer created space to examine deeply-held beliefs about her worth and purpose. Her transformation was so complete that when asked whether she'd prefer five years in her new life or fifty in her old one, Amanda answered without hesitation: "I'd rather have six months in my new life versus 50 in my old."
Amanda's approach combines conventional medicine with complementary therapies—what she calls assembling a "team" for healing. She emphasizes that while doctors offer valuable expertise, they can't predict exactly when someone will take their last breath or what treatments might emerge. "Your mind, your thought process, is the leader of every cell in your body," she explains, advocating for the power of hope even when skeptics call it "false hope."
This philosophy inspired Amanda to create Dragonfly Reiki Marketplace, an online community making Reiki accessible across time zones and financial circumstances. The platform includes a scholarship program providing free Reiki training through the master level, with recipients committing to offer the same opportunity to others—creating a ripple effect of healing throughout communities that might otherwise lack access.
Whether you're facing a health challenge, curious about Reiki, or seeking ways to make healing more accessible, Amanda's story offers powerful inspiration about finding purpose in life's greatest challenges and transforming personal struggles into service to others.
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Amanda's Story
How Reiki Transformed my Life
Reiki gave me the strength to heal, empowering me to release past traumas and overcome negative patterns. It allowed me to find gratitude in my journey and learn valuable lessons on the path to inner peace. This is my story.
https://dragonflyreiki.me/about-reiki/amandas-story/?v=34f67f9dfb46
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 Pretty Set Reiki. A podcast about Reiki, the universal energy life force, from the curious beginner to the seasoned master teacher, welcoming all systems, all litigations 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. So I'm Tracy Seawright and this is Ready Set Reiki.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone, welcome Ready Set Reiki here, tracy C Wright. Well, sometimes it happens on the journey of life when you connect to someone who is so amazing and so wonderful and they go out into the world and they're doing incredible things that you get to reconnect with them on the journey, and this is what's happening today. Amanda McCorrick I met her, I was connected to her, to one of my favorite Reiki teachers. She had reached out to me and said hey, you got to have this woman on your show. She's doing incredible things. We connected and since then she has been having extraordinary things happen to her life. So let me tell you a little bit about her Now. Amanda is a mother, wife, lawyer, entrepreneur and a terminal cancer survivor and a holy fire Corona Reiki master. Amanda, welcome to Ready Set Reiki.
Speaker 3:Thank you, and thank you for having me again. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. So you were on the show last time, had amazing things that you shared with the listeners. So here you are, giving us a little bit of an update. So tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I've been living with a terminal cancer diagnosis since April of 2020.
Speaker 3:Up until last summer this time last summer it was going very, very well. My scans were clear. We couldn't see anything. I was living a totally normal life, completely off medication. But, as is often the case when lessons are not completely learned, they will reappear in your life, and the reality is is I fell into a lot of bad patterns, including being a workaholic, and so I went back to working too much and I went back to drinking Diet Coke, which is my number one kind of, I would say, bad habit. And in about this time last year actually, the cancer returned and I wound up in the ER with a massive blood clot of blood clot and, yeah, I thought I was dying and I lost I had lost the ability to walk without pain. I couldn't stand. I had to have help getting in and out of bed. I had to go up and down the stairs on my bum and when they got me back in the CT scan, my or sorry, the bone scan I lit up. My whole skeleton system lit up like a Christmas tree. So there was more spots than they could count head to toe, and it took me till about November to regain the ability to walk, go back to living a normal life.
Speaker 3:You know, and there was, there was definitely some times during the summer last year where I thought like, ok, you know, like you have had this amazing, you know, four, four and a half years, but you know, the cancer got you. And so, you know, I decided that, you know, I had to do what had worked before. So I returned to a lot of the healing practices. I quit drinking Diet Coke, I started daily fasting. I, you know, reintroduced all the supplements and added some that I had taken before. I leaned into the energy and I thought, okay, what is the universe? You know, I learned so much the first time around. Part of me was like, okay, like what am I going to learn this time? And and it has been a blessing, so yeah, like many hard things, if you take a step back and look around, you know good things come from it.
Speaker 3:And I always kind of say like I'm not here for this body, I'm here for my soul, I'm here for my soul to learn, and so I accept that, that I don't know what that's going to look like, but yeah, so I had absolutely returned to working too much. I, you know, originally, when I went back to being a lawyer, I was only going to work part time. It's not really realistic, as it turns out. So, you know, I was working full time in that I was running a three other business for other businesses beside that and I was trying to develop Dragonfly and my body pushed it to the limit and I found out. So, yeah, so I've been back on my healing journey since about this time last year and it's been wonderful.
Speaker 3:So cancer has the ability to focus the mind on what's important in a way that very other few other tools do.
Speaker 3:But yeah, and I actually, you know, you know dragonfly is my kind of life purpose now, and you know I really did last summer think, okay, like maybe this is the end of dragonfly, maybe maybe I need to just go sit in my backyard, enjoy what time I have with my kids and be done. Sure, and thankfully my husband, brad, ever the optimist, you know, he said you know, I know you're really sick right now, but we're not planning for you to stay sick, you're going to heal and when you heal you're going to need something to work on, because if we don't have you working on dragonfly, you'll end up back in the courtroom and I'd much rather see you working with dragonfly. And so cancer really has once again, I feel, kind of guided me back onto the path that I need it to be. So I'm, you know, I'm no longer actively working as a lawyer, and I probably never will, and I feeling pretty happy about that. So yeah, so I've kind of returned to my healing journey and it's, it's been a real blessing. Beautiful.
Speaker 2:So you have an interesting story. The first time you've had your experience with cancer, you kind of had this divine intervention. And this is where we lead to the question with Reiki. When did Reiki come into your life? Did you find Reiki or did it find you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it definitely found me and it drug me kicking and screaming, if I'm honest. So it found me. I had an assistant at the time who didn't have a very caring husband and it was her birthday and I wanted to surprise her with something that really, you know, mattered, because she didn't, she wasn't used to getting a lot of love on those days and she had always wanted to go to a psychic. So I booked the psychic and, wouldn't you know it, that psychic cancelled and so this other psychic was coming through town and she was way more money than I typically would have spent. But because, you know, my assistant had been so excited because of the letdown, I said, you know what, I'm just going to do it. And so what I thought was going to be a kind of a fun, silly thing, um, was not at all. So she, she told me that my husband was going to die and then I could slow it down. But I couldn't stop it and if I slowed it down too far he would take me over the edge with him. So you know that I needed to work on my acceptance of his free choice. She described me to a T as far as she said you know, I know, I know you don't do self care. I know you put everybody first. I know she, she, it's like she had a mirror into my soul. She was so good and as I left, you know, we had about five minutes left in the session and she said, oh, let me just check in on your, your health, what your health is going to look like. And she did that. And then she got quiet and she goes yeah, we're not really going to talk about that today. So I took in my mind like, yeah, I'm everything's great.
Speaker 3:And then she ended up a session by saying, like, looking deep in my eyes and saying, if you would ignore everything else that I have said to you today, you need to go find this Reiki master named Pam Allen LeBlanc. She, she doesn't live that far from you and you need to take her first available session, not her second, not her third. I don't care what. You have to move, you have to take her first available session and you have to do it. You cannot cancel.
Speaker 3:And she, she had been so knowledgeable about describing. You know she was a medium. So who was there? Like my grandfather and his mother, you know I couldn't ignore it, and so I, you know she was a medium, so who was there? Like my grandfather and his mother, you know I couldn't ignore it, and so I you know which was I listened to what she said, which wasn't entirely consistent with my personality at the time. So I booked the first available session, which was three weeks out, and, as it turned out, I found my tumor on a Monday night at Toys R Us, and it was about 7.30 Tuesday night and I had my first session with her. Sorry, monday night, and my first session of Reiki was Tuesday at about 9 am. So for me, my cancer journey and my Reiki journey has really been hand in hand, and I'm not being overdramatic when I say I really don't believe that I would be here If it wasn't for Reiki.
Speaker 2:Right, so you have helped so many people on their journey. You know, as an attorney, people are coming to you desperate, stressed out, right. They need someone to help them and hold space for them and to protect them, to be their advocate. And you know you're helping them with their struggles and then progressing into Reiki where here you are once again being that caretaker, that helper, right, helping people with their struggles and challenges. But when you stand where you are now and you look back, what has been the biggest challenge or struggle that you have faced in this healing journey of yours?
Speaker 3:Well, I think I think it's, you know, human nature to return to old ruts when life gets hard right. And so I had a lot of. You know, I was definitely a martyr and I've healed a lot of that, but I definitely still working on this idea that I'm tougher and stronger than everybody else. So I should just absorb their problems and figure them out for them. You know, five years ago, before this journey started, I honest to goodness believe that if everybody just listened to me, their lives would be better. And you know, I really had to learn that everybody has the right to their own journey.
Speaker 3:I cannot buffer even the people I love most. I cannot buffer them in their journey because when I buffer them I am denying them the growth opportunities they need to advance in their own spiritual journey and I'm also stepping off my own path. So I, you know nobody wins when I get inside and buffer, and that that's been hard for me to learn because I I have so much love for so many people and I've lived enough kind of life experiences that you know maybe I can see or I have a better idea of what's around the corner with their choices. But it doesn't matter, it's their path, and Reiki has been just wonderful at helping me process that understanding. Yeah, beautiful.
Speaker 2:So, as you're here right now, through everything that you have been through, what advice could you give someone who maybe just received that news right, had that bad scan, had that diagnosis from the doctor, whether it's just beginning their journey or they're in the middle or towards the end, what pearls of wisdom can you give them?
Speaker 3:So much. So that's the newly terminal are some of my favorite people to work with. There's so much, I guess, versus nobody knows. Nobody knows when you'll take your last breath, nobody knows what new medications are going to come out in the horizon, nobody knows how you and your nervous system and your cells are going to show up for this journey. And so it's not that I'm saying don't listen to medical advice. I do everything mainstream Like, so I do the whole mainstream stuff and I do everything else and I think of it as like assembling a team, right? So maybe none of the things I do on their own would make a big difference, but when added, as you know, in collaboration, um, it makes a difference, and I'm proof of that. I'm five years out.
Speaker 3:They originally thought that I, I would would go very quickly. Uh, breast cancer, uh, for the age of 40, tends to be very aggressive. I was was 36 when I was diagnosed terminal Um, so they don't know, and it's, it can be a gift and I say that it can be a gift if you, if you, choose for it to be a gift, having had days where I can't get out of bed, having weeks where I couldn't move um, because you know, especially when I had the blood clot, I physically couldn't move. If I tried to move more, my whole body went into convulsions. So it's not that I haven't had the hard days with this journey, I have. But you are the, your mind, your thought process, that is the leader of every cell in your body. Your, your thought process, that is the leader of every cell in your body, and it will believe you. If you tell it good things, if you tell it to heal, if you tell it that you believe that that healing is possible, it will try to heal. If you tell it okay, well, I guess we're done.
Speaker 3:The oncologist knows better than me. You know there's nothing left. You know I just got pain and suffering ahead of me. They'll absolutely listen.
Speaker 3:And then for me, I guess you know, I, I have this wonderful oncologist, but you know she's pretty pessimistic soul and you know, I kind of said to her at one point, because she said you know, amanda, I think you're and I'm paraphrasing here you know I think you got your head in the sand and you don't accept the realities of your diagnosis and your prognosis. And what I said to her was okay, let's say you're right, let's say I die exactly when you think I am going to die quickly. Okay, but I've lived every day with hope. So because she said, you know, I think you have some false hope that's the word she used, false hope and I kind of said like, okay, so worst case scenario, I live every day with false hope and then I die. I would rather live every day with false hope than no hope. And so find the hope and find like there's silver linings.
Speaker 3:You know, we call it the cancer card in my house and in my office, and I used it as a tool because there were all kinds of patterns and beliefs that I held that were limiting, and cancer really gave me the space to say what do I believe?
Speaker 3:Why do I believe that, you know? Why do I believe that it's my job to help everybody, to fix everybody's problems around me, at my own sacrifice? Why do I feel like I can't rest? Why do I tie my value to how much I can produce or who I can save, or how much money I have? Why do I care what my front yard looks like? You know all these things that you know, and cancer creates this beautiful space if you let it, to examine what, what you hold true and whether or not it's true. Um, you know, my mom, me, my mom had a really hard time with my diagnosis and prognosis, obviously, and she said to me would you rather five years in your new life or 50 in your old? And I said, I'd rather six months in my new life versus 50 in my old. Wow.
Speaker 3:And I mean that I could not go back to that life now that I, now that I have learned to love myself. You know, five years ago I didn't love myself. I had all the hallmarks of success, you know. I had a successful firm, I had a, I have a big house, I drive a nice car, I've got a boy and a girl. You know, like we have, you know we have everything.
Speaker 3:And I could not stand to look at myself in the mirror. I was disgusted with who I was. I never felt good enough. I walked on eggshells and I just kept thinking like there's got to be more than this. And it for me because I was really committed to some of those unhealthy habits, my martyr syndrome. It took terminal cancer to take me out of that and to put me on the path. It was a redirection, a dramatic redirection, but I'm thankful for it every day, even the days that I could not move, I would not go back to my old life. Cancer can be this amazing, transformative experience if you have the right tools and Reiki. I'm not saying Reiki is the only tool, but it is for me, it has been, hands down, the most important tool that I have used over the last five years.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. I've had the honor of interviewing a few guests that are survivors, and they were had that stage for that terminal diagnosis, and I have found that the connection to all of them is their some other type of modality to walk alongside your primary caregiver, your, your team, so to speak, whether it's meditation, whether it's yoga, qigong, something tapping there's so many things out there something else that can work with that. Like, as you said, it's a beautiful collaboration. You know you have this big team that you know you're pulling from, and whether you're taking walks, a bath, give yourself time, give yourself grace, and it's just that attitude that's so important, even on those dark days. And it's not to say that we're not human We'll have those days and have those sad days, but you know, my mom would always say you have to pull yourself up by the bootstraps. Yeah, keep moving forward.
Speaker 3:Well, and in those days I think of it. As you know, I've gotten better. In the early days of my journey I felt like I had to be positive all the time because, partly because I didn't want anyone worrying, especially my mom and my partner and my kids. You know, I didn't and that is a bit of a trap too. So now, when I have those days, I show myself grace and I'm like okay, you're having a human day, you are here to experience what being a human is like, and right now, this is a part of the experience.
Speaker 3:So, and I hear the energy sometimes, and I always know it's the energy because, you know, when it's my voice, I, by nature, I'm trying to be persuasive. It's the lawyer training. So when I hear my inner voice, it's trying to persuade me of something. When I hear the universe, there is no, not a note of persuasion, because the universe, it's truth, it's whether I want to believe it or not, it's just. And so I have these moments where I'm, you know, I've sat in self pity and I hear the universe being like yeah, you can sit in this as long as you want, it doesn't change the outcome. If you want to feel sorry for yourself. That's fine, but this is a part of something and you know that and it just like okay, fine, it is um, but you know, showing yourself grace. That's of all the lessons I've learned in the last five years. It's showing myself grace, the same grace and love I would show to anyone that I care about. And really the reality is is I was kinder to the stranger I met at Walmart than I was to myself. Yeah, by like a mile, and so now you know showing ourselves grace and love. And and the other thing I was to myself yeah, by like a mile, and so now you know showing ourselves grace and love.
Speaker 3:And the other thing I want to say is one of the things I love most about Reiki is that is collaborative in nature. So it's not. You know, I was raised in the Baptist Church, which is there's one true faith and if you believe some variation, you're going to hell. There's one true faith and if you believe some variation, you're going to hell. You know there's this very narrow little path to heaven and you know most people don't make it. I reject all of that, you know. And Reiki you know Reiki works with Reiki pairs with everything. So, talking about my law office. Everybody in my office is a Reiki master, from the receptionist to the lawyers to the paralegals. We Reiki the building. We Reiki the files is a Reiki master, from the receptionist to the lawyers to the paralegals. We Reiki the building, we Reiki the files. We Reiki the clients if they want us to. You know Reiki pairs with everything. You know. I'm working through my Kashuk records right now. We're pairing that with Reiki for a deeper experience. Just, it's just amazing, right.
Speaker 2:Wonderful and I love that Cause. When we spoke last time, you know, I thought it was so extraordinary that you had your firm and everyone in your office had Reiki and was doing Reiki, so how wonderful to have that as a person who's coming, because we talked about how you know, as a lawyer, you know someone's coming to you desperate, right and worst days of their life, the worst days of their life their limit, their worst days, right, and here's something beautiful that you can offer to them.
Speaker 2:So is there something that like a studied routine that you did with your Reiki? Did your family also do Reiki with you, like what was part of your process with how you brought Reiki in? Would it just be, as you're going through your day, you felt overwhelming, you would start the Reiki on yourself. Would you reach out and say, like Pam, to help you? So how? How did you navigate through this and blend Reiki into your lifestyle?
Speaker 3:We blend Reiki, I invite Reiki into almost into every aspect of my life. So there's ebbs and flows because I am busy. So, you know, I'd love to say that I spend two hours a day, you know, quietly meditating in the energy. I don't I would, it's something I aspire to, but it depends. So I absolutely, when I feel fear, feel fear creeping in, I stop, I ground myself, ask for alignment and I do Reiki.
Speaker 3:Let me understand what am I? You know, what is this emotion? Where is it coming from? You know, I tell people, like part of this healing journey is because I'm. I guess I should stop by, or start by saying I'm committed to healing, and I don't just mean this body, I mean this soul, I mean my ancestral lines, I mean everything that makes me me. That's where I want my healing. And so when I feel those emotions come up, those heavier emotions, it's really the question I stop to ask myself is like why? Like what is the universe trying to tell me? What is what is trying to be communicated to me right now? What is the basis of my fear? Is the fear based on something, some on you know, some belief that is kind of limiting and maybe not true, and I sit with my emotions and I invite Reiki in to help me sit with those emotions and provide clarity. And I tell people. Somebody actually a girl I went to high school with reached out and said you know, this is a silly question, but how do I sit with my feelings? And I said it's not silly at all.
Speaker 3:And how I sit with my feelings is I talk to myself like I would my daughter when she was about six, and I do it with love and open ended questioning. So why do you feel that way? What makes you feel that way? What? And I listen without judgment. And then I go from there. I do do regular sessions still. You know that ebbs and flows depending on me and Pam's schedule. I actually just had a session yesterday with Pam, which was great. So, yeah, I still use Pam.
Speaker 3:I also do group sessions. So in there was the 8-8 portal. Last August it was right after I had kind of gotten confirmation that it was just everywhere. One of my I had done a Karuna Reiki class with William Rand in person and one of the ladies from the class actually asked if she could initiate a healing uh session for me, and so all the people in the class actually did a distance sessions on me during the 8-8 portal and you know they really they had always said that if the cancer came back it would just explode through me and that would be kind of it and that's really what everybody expected last summer and I really do credit the power of that 8-8 portal and that group healing session Because it was on fire through me and it stabilized.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I Reiki everything. I have crystals that I Reiki. Uh, I listen to meditations. Um, part of what we're building at dragonfly is a large reiki meditation library so I I I get access to those early so I use those. Um, but I Reiki everything. I. You know it's. There's nothing that Reiki does not improve.
Speaker 2:Right. One of the misconceptions about Reiki is that you have to sit in it for hours and hours and hours to make that connection, and just how you would simply get up in the morning and take your vitamin or pill. That's about what you can do for it. I mean, you get up, you know, just for today, I will not worry right, and just put your hands there and you can ask the Reiki. I need you to flow for an hour. Can you flow the rest of the day and it can just simply be that touch.
Speaker 2:I remember I worked with someone and had hands on her and then it just I heard it's time to stop and I had backed off and at the end of the session she also does Reiki as well and she made a comment like, oh, when I do and this was a free share thing she goes wow, I do mine a little bit longer. And I said, well, jesus just laid hands on people and that was it. So it's not necessarily the time. We can't judge it with that. And I said I just heard this, that I was supposed to stop. But I said I also asked the Reiki to continue for as long as you need it and it'll continue to flow so it doesn't have to be so complicated, right? You know that. Keep it simple.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, and I, so I have something. I call it. This is my own little thing, my daily 10. And it's when I get into bed at night I think, okay, did I do 10 things today for my body to heal? And so you know, and that includes Reiki.
Speaker 3:And if at that point I haven't done some form of Reiki again, whether it like, for instance, one of the things I don't have a lot of patience for wasted time, so I flipped the script on that a little bit it's like, for instance, one of the things I don't have a lot of patience for wasted time, so I flipped the script on that a little bit.
Speaker 3:It's like, okay, well, when I'm waiting in traffic, I'm just going to give myself Reiki, I'm using that, you know, it doesn't have to be complicated, and and a little bit of Reiki is always better than none. So if all I get is three minutes while I'm sitting in traffic, great. But then at the end of the night, when I, when I'm, you know, getting ready for sleep and I, you know, I do my mental checklist. Okay, like you took your pills, you took your, you know, your supplements, you did your red light therapy, you, you know that, did that If Reiki, if I haven't had Reiki, then I end with a Reiki meditation and I fall asleep to it. And you know it doesn't have to be complicated. Fit it in the best you can fit it in, just show up and it will work.
Speaker 2:Sure, and for those that are listening and they're not sure, there's many different systems of Reiki. So, as you are, corona, we have our holy fire, we have Sui, we have crystal. It goes on and on. I mean, there's rainbow, there's kid, there's animal. So know that if, hey, this isn't, I need something a little bit more. Keep exploring. It's okay. And even if you begin Reiki and you're still, it can lead to another modality, maybe tapping, maybe light language, and you may find that, yes, this works for me, but it's the idea that it is not a destination, it is simply a journey and you just find and explore, like you would go in on a hike oh, I'm gonna look at that beautiful flower, look at that beautiful tree, wow, there's a beautiful bird and just be in awe of all of it and have an open mind and an open heart.
Speaker 3:I tell people all the time be curious, right, just be curious. And I love that Reiki does you know the energy has, you know, evolved in so many different ways and for so many different people and I really, really believe that the idea of, like, there should be no competition in Reiki, there should be. You know what? What is a path? The right path for me may not be the right path for you. That doesn't mean that both paths aren't equally valid, and I love that about Reiki. You know it's. It's for each individual person to find their, find their path.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. So if someone's listening and they are a Reiki practitioner, reiki master teacher and they have this diagnosis, would you recommend their whole family learn Reiki as well?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so actually one of the things, so what you know, we'll talk about our my passion project, dragonfly, in a little bit, but one of the things that we're actually working on with one of the practitioners is a family Reiki program, and so what that is is it's Reiki sessions for the whole family and working through the emotional cords, ancestral, the physical space, the finances of the family. You know all of that. So, yeah, I mean, if your whole family is prepared to do it, great. But I would also say, don't wait. Don't wait to get your family on board.
Speaker 3:So one of the favorite, my favorite stories for Reiki is when I first started Reiki my daughter would have been nine and I explained to her I was quite. I was so excited actually, when it first started because it was just such relief Like I didn't. I still didn't understand what it was, but I was shocked at the relief it instantly brought to my life and I felt like I had found this rare and special gem and, of course, I was excited to share it with my mini me. And she looked at me with this total look of contempt and said Reiki sounds like a good way to separate a fool from their money. And then she walked away and so you know, and I. So don't wait for your family, because healing is contagious.
Speaker 3:And so I focused on my own healing and through that, my daughter, you know, now 14. You know, does Reiki mean what it means to me? To her, no, but does she seek it out? Does she welcome it? Does she see the value of it in my life? Yes, so I would say don't wait for your family, show them. Actually, I firmly believe the only way that we can help the people we love is by focusing on our own healing and modeling what that healing process looks like, what it looks like to live authentically and with boundaries and with self-love. You can spend all of your energy lecturing them and trying to meddle in their life, and it's really just a waste of your time and theirs. So, yeah, if your family's on board, the more people in your life that have Reiki, the better. But don't wait. Start your journey, don't wait for anybody, they'll catch up.
Speaker 2:And find a really good teacher also. And if money is an issue, there are teachers out there that will work with you, especially if you are ill and you have that cancer diagnosis there. That will work with you, especially if you are ill and you have that cancer diagnosis. I've been in situations as a teacher myself where someone's on hospice and will do the placement or attunement without doing the training and help and guide the family, and oftentimes there may not even be a charge for that because of what things are going on. So look for that particular teacher, that strong teacher. There's a lot of great resources online, but find that physical person that'll connect with you on Zoom or show up in person to help guide you. So don't let money be a factor. Many people see like, oh my goodness, I have to take this eight hour training that I can't sit through or I have to spend X amount of dollars. There's other ways that you can get through. You know. Obtain this to get that for that. You know there's lots on YouTube.
Speaker 3:You know these meditations that you know, just start. It doesn't have to be. You know it's great if you can go out and do all the classes and have the one-on-one sessions. That's wonderful. But don't let not being able to do that be a barrier to make it. You know, accessing Reiki yeah.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. Where can we find you if we want to connect with you, get in touch with you? Do you offer Reiki sessions right now or trainings? Yeah.
Speaker 3:So if you, my pet project, my baby, my little, my reason to be, I guess now is dragonflyreikime, and it is an online community that we're creating where you can book sessions, one-on-one sessions with vetted and verified Reiki masters across all different lineages. You do have to be a Reiki master, but there's no one lineage, so I offer sessions through there that you can book. And then also I have we have this new thing we're just launching right now that I'm really excited about. It's called the community calendar, so you can find my events in the community calendar, including I have July 10th and 11th. I have a two day course that will be over zoom for the ICRT level one and two Reiki, and then we also have a lot of just a little plug for the community board. There is a lot of events on there, not just for me, but from Reiki masters from across the world. There's more being added all the time, both paid events and free events, and they're all at all different price ranges. So one of the things that we've been working really hard at Dragonfly is to make it more financially accessible to people. So we are also working on a membership program that will launch later this summer. We're just working out the kinks on the back end. But in that those different membership levels and the monthly buy in is $30 for the first level, that includes seats in Reiki support groups that are led by various Reiki masters who have had, you know, different experiences, for instance, ptsd, loss of children. I'm doing one on blended families because we're a super blended family here in my house, so you get entry into those, which include, you know, group Reiki meditation offerings and just a supportive community. We are also creating the Dragonfly Reiki Meditation Library, which will have, you know, commercial free meditations that people can use over and over and over again on a huge variety of topics, including some for animals. I'm working on bedtime stories right now for children so they can fall asleep with Reiki and good dreams. So, yeah, we have, we have a lot going on there, and so I encourage people just to go explore the website and everything that we have to offer. It's wwwdragonflyme.
Speaker 3:And if you're a Reiki master who feels called to, you know, share your light. But you have, you know, you don't know how to start and you, you know, you have a full-time job and you have kids and you think I don't have the energy to start. You know a whole business. That's what Dragonfly is for. You don't need a website. There's no cost to join, there's no cost to be hosted.
Speaker 3:We uh, we collect the payments, so you don't have to chase people for money. You don't ask people for money. You set your prices, you set your schedule, you set what services you want to offer. If you want to offer two sessions a month, great. You want to offer a hundred, great you want to offer. You don't want to offer any sessions? You just want to run workshops on the weekend, great. You know, we're here to whatever you feel called as a Reiki master to do. We're here to support that. And then it's consistent with our baseline mission of getting Reiki wherever it's needed to whoever wants it.
Speaker 3:We're also really excited to offer the two seat program, which is a scholarship. So in the scholarship, every class that I teach and we have a few other practitioners who have started signing up for the initiative as well is we'll give two free seats as scholarships to people who apply, and these are people who otherwise wouldn't be able to get the training because of financial realities, because we don't want cost to be a barrier and anyway. So you can find the details on Facebook or you can reach out to me and ask for more information. But essentially how it works is we give two free seats. If you're into the scholarship program, we commit to get you through to the Reiki master level without any cost for the tuition or anything like that, and then you promise, or anything like that, and then you promise when you teach a class that you'll also have two free seats, and so that it becomes kind of a wave of change working through those communities where I really feel Reiki is needed most.
Speaker 2:Well, that ends the first part of our journey and I'm going to continue on to the second part, which are the three questions here. So you just touched on a little bit about most of them, but you know why? Dragonfly, when were you inspired to name this Dragonfly marketplace?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so there was a lot of there was a lot of debate about what it would be called and my first husband, matt. He actually committed suicide almost a year to the date of my terminal diagnosis and he was an exceptional person in a million wonderful ways, but he had serious addiction issues. He had a lot of mental health issues that weren't properly diagnosed and it was a really bumpy ride mental health issues that weren't properly diagnosed and it was a really bumpy ride. But we had this camp land that we bought in the last year of his life and we actually rushed to build a camp there because we thought I was dying and we wanted our kids to have memories of me in this magical place that we all loved. As it turned out, I'm still here, but my kids had magical memories of him there and I'm so thankful In and of itself.
Speaker 3:You know, the last year of his life we, though challenging both for his health and my health. We made so many amazing memories, because we thought I was dying, that we wouldn't have had, and there's this one picture of him just on the shoreline and he's got his finger out and a dragonfly landed on it and behind him is his best friend. I can see this picture when I close my eyes. He's happy and he's calm and he has his dragonfly on his finger and his best friend is standing beside him with a peaceful, happy look. And it was just this really special moment.
Speaker 3:And you know, the dragonfly has all kinds of symbolism and you know, I just thought that dragonfly was it landed on us and brought us a kind of a message of peace and hope and calmness and joy in the middle of this, you know, massive emotional shift and journey we were going on and it just felt right, you know, because that's what Reiki is. It kind of, I think of it as sometimes like a parachuter dropping into a war zone and just being like, okay, everybody breathe, calm that nervous system down, war zone and just being like, okay, everybody breathe, calm that nervous system down, yeah, so that's, you know, it's one of my favorite pictures of him and, yeah, the dragonfly landed on his finger. I love it.
Speaker 2:I love it. Well, I'm also too on dragonfly, because the first time I interviewed you I went on and checked it out. So it's a great place for no matter where you are in your Reiki journey, whether you're a brand you know that practitioner and, of course, master teacher. The second question here you touched a little bit about this. You talked about the community board, that you're building a thriving Reiki community with lots to do at any given time. Is there anything else that you want to mention about that that you did in a little bit, yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm so excited, the community board, because one of the things you know it started off with just a. The dream was for me to. You know like I thought back to my hardest days and I would have absolutely done more Reiki if I could have. You know, my Reiki master, pam Allen LeBlanc. She books about three weeks out. You know, that's just the reality. She's a busy lady. She is busy, which is great, but I knew there was a lot of nights where I spiraled in darkness and sadness that that time would have been better spent working with a Reiki master and at the same time as meeting all these wonderful Reiki masters in various classes and events who had this beautiful light to share but felt logistically that it just wasn't possible and they weren't sure, and you know. So we worked.
Speaker 3:You know it started with this dream of removing barriers so that Reiki masters could easily take their service to market, but it's grown so beyond that. You know. One of the things that's become very clear to me is, yes, the one-on-one sessions are important, but really what we're missing in modern day society is community. And so even you know I would go into these Reiki classes and I'd spend two or three days in the energy with like minded people and it was like the oasis in the desert. But then the class is over and I've got to go back to the desert and I've got to go back to being surrounded by people who love me but don't really understand the spiritual journey I'm on some of, who really think I've just lost my damn mind, right? Uh, you know I've.
Speaker 3:I've lost friends over this um you know who, just who just don't understand me. Some think I'm in a cult. Oh yeah, which is funny, I think. You know I kind of said like it's not organized enough to be a cult, there's way too much free will for it to be a cult. But so the community became really important to me, that we not just this isn and frequently and continue our own spiritual journey. You know, we can only help people to the level that we ourselves are healed, and so Dragonfly is. It's all about creating opportunities for community of like-mindedness, of support that spiritual growth and not just Reiki. This connections of you know I'm doing the Akashic records right now because of a, a lady I met through Dragonfly, who's also does Reiki. You know, these connections um to to different paths, it's just amazing.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, we have free offerings. Um, we just had a last weekend. We just had an introduction to distance Reiki workshop. That was free. We have community Reiki sessions that are starting. I think it's next Wednesday. Michelle Henry out of Ontario is offering those. She's amazing, you know.
Speaker 3:So there's all kinds of free and low cost activities. So the support groups you can get as part of the membership, but you can also just pay to attend. So those are $20. So for $20, you can go and join a specialized support group in an area of your.
Speaker 3:You know, whatever your struggle is, and you can have that community. You can have time and energy in the energy, and it's $20, you know, very cost effective. And if you're a Reiki master who feels called to lead a support group, we are so happy to help you do that. So what that looks like is you make contact with me, you fill out a form that tells us all the information and and it's really like what's the title, when do you want to host it, how often do you want to host it? You know it's all about what the Reiki master feels called to offer, and then we create the graphics, we set it up in the system, we market it through the community calendar and through different social media avenues and we help build that community. So we really were here for, you know, whatever interesting idea you have, yeah.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. I mean, when I started my journey, you know all I had was, you know, googling Reiki right and then attending the class. And one of the things I like about William Rand's offerings you know, with his ICRT teachers is that you encourage to get a Reiki buddy, because you really need to have that support system, because you do lose friends and family members that don't talk to you because they're like what are you doing? They don't understand it. But it's nice to have these areas where you don't have to start from scratch. You don't have to feel like you're on an island right now. You have a marketplace that you can pick and choose to be a part of.
Speaker 2:Reikiorg is great also because you're able to look and find teachers that are trustworthy, that are educated, so you're not finding someone online where maybe could take advantage of you. Maybe it's an online demand, but again, you really need a good teacher. There's a lot of great resources online, but when you're starting to have that real teacher whether it's online or in person but it's nice to have this with all this offering so people have that sense of community and to be able to take that opportunity to share what they've learned as well. So thank you for putting all that together through all of your challenges.
Speaker 3:It's been great. But yeah, and I do want to say, I do think it's important that you, you know the vetting is. The vetting is very important. So we do allow, we do allow people to be trained virtually. That's fine, I was trained virtually but it does have to be in real time with a real person. So we do not accept, like Udemy certificates, but if you have, but having said that, we will work with you. So if you have a Udemy certificate and you want to be a Reiki master, we actually offer. Or if you're a level two Reiki master and you want to become a master in order to join the marketplace, we'll actually give you, I actually give 50% off my masterclass to help, to help facilitate that Cause. Again, the focus is spreading Reiki as many places as we can.
Speaker 2:Exactly, Exactly, and that because, again, the focus is spreading Reiki as many places as we can. Exactly exactly. And but it's just so interesting, because you'll talk to people and I've never found this anywhere else and other than Reiki is that they almost try to haggle the price with you. Well, I can get this online for $9.99 or $14.99. I'm like you know's, there's a huge difference when it's in live and those are great resources to have, you know. You know, once you become that master, once you've been educated, you can get those resources and valuable materials there. But it is so important to have that one-on-one and if it's virtually great, you know cause that's why I connected to Pam. And if it's virtually great, you know, because that's why I connected to Pam. I don't live by her, but I did my animal Reiki with her Right and she's one of the authors of the manual. Who could you know?
Speaker 3:Yeah, listen, being able to do virtually I mean, that's one of the strengths of Dragonfly, quite frankly is it opens up that you can get Reiki around your schedule, because we literally have practitioners in every continent in the world now, which is just amazing. So you know if the only time you can do Reiki because you know you're a single parent is at 10 o'clock at night, because you know your kids are in bed and you want to do it from home, so you don't need a babysitter, no problem, because of the time zones, we have lots of choices. You know, if you're a nurse and you get home at six in the morning and you want to do before you go to bed, so you need a 7am session, no problem, because of the time zones, we get lots of options.
Speaker 2:So you know Reiki has never been more available Beautiful, and your membership program makes that affordable as well. Yeah, our last question is touching back onto that scholarship program where you have two free seats initiative.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I, you know the house that I was born into, or the first house me and my mom had on our own. It didn't even have like an indoor plumbing, right. So I don't come from money. I've been very fortunate for the opportunities that I've been able to get a good education and build a prosperous life, but I don't forget where I came from. I've always had a heart for for people who have financial struggle. I work as a legal aid lawyer for many years, and one of the things that I did struggle with when I first started Reiki is that it did feel a little bit exclusive to people who could afford it, and so part of my mission is to get Reiki into places where it wouldn't be because of financial lack, and I can do that by offering two free seats in every class that I teach. And then, you know, so I made that offering and lovely, you know. Thankfully, other practitioners in the community have stepped up and said yeah, you know, I'm prepared to do that too.
Speaker 3:And so there's three questions that you send in is basically you know what has prevented you from taking Reiki? Why do you feel called for Reiki and what would you? You know? How could Reiki impact your lives and the lives of people around you. And three very basic questions. You send that in and we are going to pick. We're going pick and thankfully, you know, I do have hope that the bulk of the applicants will be chosen. Maybe not the first time, maybe not the second time, but we'll work through everybody, and so I do encourage people to to apply and yeah, and so how it works is you make an agreement because energy exchange is important. You know we talk about the 999, you know you get. You get out of life what you put into it, and Reiki is no different.
Speaker 3:And so, but we're really focused not on the money, energy exchange, we're focused on the greater goal purpose of Dragonfly, which is to spread Reiki. So if you are accepted into the program, you make the commitment that you're going to do. You know so many hours of Reiki a month, I think it's three, it's not overly. You know demanding, and that can be on yourself, that can be on your pets, that can be on world events, your children, your lines, whatever. But we want you in the energy three hours a month. We commit to getting you through to your master's class. So a scholarship includes level one, two and the master teacher level, which is under the ICRT.
Speaker 3:I'm a professional member of the ICRT and then when you, if you go through a scholarship program, once you offer the Reiki master program class yourself or the level one and two, that you always offer two seats as well so that it really can be a wave of changing and hope through those communities and we're really excited about it because it is. It's about putting Reiki. You know the stories we're getting in where you know a lady who lost a, lost a daughter, somebody else who's you know dealing with terminal cancer diagnosis is them and their husband. You know these places where, historically, reiki has. You know there's. They've been able to access meditations and stuff, but the training itself has has been financially a difficult.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, we want to make it accessible Reiki where, where, when you need it, no matter the circumstances, and we are committed to working with people, right?
Speaker 2:And remember once upon a time, you know, in the in the 70s, madame Takata was charging $10,000 for a master level class and at that time you could buy a house in Hawaii at that time. So it really was, in a way, for the elites. And so now, after her death and two teachers breaking off, and then the connection of William Rand, and now through all his lineage, you know, it's becoming a little bit more accessible, and so this is a way to work with if it's something that you want to do and you're putting in your time, you know, and it's a pretty good trade there, I think.
Speaker 3:Wonderful.
Speaker 2:So, amanda, that was our last question. Is there anything else that you'd like to share, something you might have forgotten about while we've been talking?
Speaker 3:Just to go ahead and check us out on, we have a dragonfly Reiki community group. It's a place where you can post, where you can ask questions, where we post our events and where you can ask for Reiki if you're struggling. You know it's a community made up of Reiki practitioners and you know Reiki clients. But you know, by all means find us on Facebook, you know, check out what we're doing and be curious. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And Amanda has kindly offered a code for Ready Set Reiki listeners to try the Dragonfly Reiki Marketplace today with a 20% off coupon. The code will be up on wwwreadysetreikicom and in the show notes as well, so take advantage of that. What a blessing, an offering that she's providing to Ready Set Reiki listeners. So thank you, amanda, for once again taking a wonderful journey with me. I appreciate you. Thank you for being so open and transparent. What a blessing you are. Thank you for the work that you're doing and continue working, and you know I'm glad you're here. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:All right, my wonderful listeners, if you would like your question featured on.
Speaker 1:Ready Set Reiki reach out wwwreadysetreikicom. I'm Tracy Seawright and this has been Ready Set Reiki. Copyright © 2020 Mooji Media Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
