Episode #159 Michaela Daystar Embracing Your Authentic Weirdness: A Reiki Journey

Michaela Daystar discovered Reiki at a pivotal crossroads in her life—when her marriage had ended and she found herself unsure of who she was outside of that relationship. In this candid conversation, Michaela shares how a chance encounter with the word "Reiki" created a moment of crystal-clear synchronicity that would transform her path forever.

After spending 15 years in social justice leadership development, Michaela founded Heartscapes at the intersection of self-reflection, spiritual practice, and social action. What makes her story so compelling is her journey toward authenticity—from desperately trying to hide her "weirdness" to embracing it as her greatest strength. "Now at almost 50," she reveals, "my job is about 40% just being weird in public and owning it."

We dive deep into the misconceptions surrounding Reiki, particularly the tendency to use it as a catch-all term for all energy work. Michaela eloquently explains why understanding the specific cultural and historical lineage of Reiki matters, both out of respect for its Japanese Shinto and Buddhist roots and for our own effectiveness as practitioners. Her transition from Western Reiki to studying its Japanese origins reveals how much more becomes available when we honor these traditions.

Perhaps most powerful is Michaela's honesty about her greatest healing challenge: the fear of being seen and known. She describes how this manifested as resistance to taking responsibility for her own healing, and how Codependents Anonymous became the foundation that allowed other spiritual practices to take root. This vulnerability extends to her business approach, where she learned that "running a business and being an excellent Reiki practitioner are different skill sets," and that clarity about who you are and who you serve is essential.

Through Soul Collage and Reiki, Michaela now guides others to remember the wholeness of their true selves—particularly those burning themselves out trying to change the world. Her story beautifully illustrates how bringing seemingly disparate parts of ourselves together creates not just healing, but a life that fits us well, even if it looks nothing like what we expected.

Ready to explore your own path to authenticity and healing? Connect with Michaela at heartscapesinsight.com and discover how embracing your unique qualities might be exactly what the world needs.

Transcript

Speaker 2 0:21

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 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.

Meeting Michaela Daystar's Journey

Speaker 3 0:42

Hello everyone, welcome to another beautiful episode here of Ready Set Reiki. Now today, amazing, we have Michaela Daystar. Now she founded Heartscapes at the intersection of self-reflection, spiritual practice and social action. Now, after a 15-year career yes, I said 15-year career in social justice leadership, development in universities and organizations, wishing to support her clients and students to make their precious contribution to the world from the inside out, she teaches the systems of Reiki and soul collage as pathways to self-development, emotional resilience and remembering our true self. Now, among all these wonderful things here, you know, she also teaches trauma-informed principles to increase safety, trust, choice and consent in our healing communities. Now she continues her studies in Reiki and the Japanese Buddhist roots of the system and holds a master's degree in social justice leadership. So welcome, michaela, to Ready Set.

Speaker 4 1:47

Reiki. Thanks so much, Tracy. It's really fun to be here.

Speaker 3 1:51

Wonderful, so let's begin our journey together. So I told our listeners just a little bit about yourself. So tell us, in your beautiful eloquent words, a little bit about yourself.

Speaker 4 2:03

Yeah, it's always such a wide, open question, right, like what piece do you pick and what kind of rose to the surface, as I was thinking about our time together, is the fact that I've always been a very weird person. I've been. I was a very weird child, I was a weird teenager, I was a weird young adult, and so much of my life was spent trying to hide that fact, trying to subvert that fact, trying to fit in, trying to be normal. And I I find now that, at almost 50 years old, I've spent the last 10 years really learning to step into the ways I'm weird that are actually part of what I have to contribute to the world. And so I say right now, my job is, you know, almost 40% just being weird in public and just kind of owning it. And so some of the ways that that shows up, you know, not only in my job, which we'll, you know, talk more about, but in my day to day, is that I live on an urban homestead. I live communally with five other people, a mix of friends and family.

Speaker 4 3:10

I'm a very introverted person.

Speaker 4 3:11

I grew up in a very one-on-one household me and my mom, very quiet household. So it's astonishing to me that I live in this way, with gardens and people and animals. Both me and my good friend, who's my roommate, run our businesses out of this space. We've got clients and community members coming through, so it's a very vibrant place and in this place I can really be myself in all of the ways, which includes being an avid gardener, being a teacher of many things from herbalism to reiki. I can be a very quiet person and I can also spend time with my animals and with my two kids, who are almost 15 and just turned 27. So it's a very it's a very lively life and I really value the journey that got me to the point of choosing to kind of shape my life in a way that doesn't look like I thought it would or like a normal life might look, but it fits me well. And so you know again, at almost 50, I can tell that little child from back then it's okay to be weird.

Speaker 3 4:18

Just be yourself. It's the dream for everybody, right? That sounds like that's when you talk to practitioners. They would love to have that sense of community and beautiful. I love that for you. Well, let's figure out in this journey Reiki. So that's why we're here and we're connecting here on this journey. So did Reiki find you or did you find Reiki?

Speaker 4 4:43

I love the way you phrased that question.

Speaker 4 4:45

Reiki definitely found me.

Speaker 4 4:48

I, you know and this is probably going to be familiar to many of your audience those moments in our life where things have fallen apart and things have been really hard for a long time and you've hit a breaking point.

Speaker 4 5:01

For me it was the ending of my marriage after a really long, difficult period of time, and coming through that experience, feeling like I didn't really understand myself, I didn't really know who I was outside of this relationship and outside of the difficulty, the really hard times that had been about six years at that point, and you know, when you kind of hit that rock bottom point where you're like I don't know what else to do, I don't know where to go, I don't know how to reclaim my life, there's an opening that can occur and it's an opportunity for intuition to show us things that we might not have sought ourselves consciously, or we might have ignored or not have even considered moving towards, and so in that time a lot of things flooded in and some of those things were really just for a period of time.

Speaker 4 5:47

You know, they were there to support me for one time, or for six months or a year and other things became my life, and the things that became my life were Soul Collage and Reiki, and you know, ultimately became my business and Reiki literally found me in a moment in a church office.

Speaker 4 6:05

I was doing some consulting work with one of my local churches and a friend of mine worked in their office part-time and I heard her in the back of the office say oh, I'm getting ready to teach my Reiki class this weekend and I had vaguely heard the term Reiki before A friend of mine who would eventually become a Reiki teacher teaching partner. We taught together for many years, you know. He had told me about it but it wasn't something I was particularly focused on. I heard her say it and it was one of those moments where you just kind of like everything gets a little bit more clear, your senses kind of sharpen up a bit. You know, there's this kind of weird sense of like hyper reality that happens and what I now know is that's like synchronicity happening and just without even thinking about it at all, I said what did you just say? And can I do it? What is that and can I do? It was basically the energy. What is that and can I do?

Speaker 4 7:03

it was basically the energy. I ended up studying with that teacher for three years in you know what I would understand to be kind of traditional Western Reiki, also in Karuna Reiki, and then at that point I kind of hit a wall with my studies and I realized that that structure wasn't working for me anymore for a lot of reasons and I started studying the Japanese origins of Reiki and that really changed my life and that's now Beautiful.

Speaker 3 7:32

And I love how you know. As you went through, you paused and then you redirected to continue to find what works for you on that path. It's beautiful. Now you had said when you heard that word, reiki, that it was vaguely familiar and that seems to be a lot for people, even though you know this word has been used for how many years. Right, and as you go out, as you're navigating into this field here, between Reiki and even your business soul collage, what are you finding are the misconceptions that people bring up about Reiki.

Speaker 4 8:10

That's a big question and there's quite a few, and it depends a little on which perspective you're talking about. So I think I'll choose to answer this from the perspective of other Reiki practitioners and of myself in those first three years as I was practicing, and I would say that there's kind of an umbrella misconception that then holds many misconceptions that come as a result, and that umbrella misconception the way I would describe it is that Reiki is a general term to describe all energy work. I hear the word Reiki and I hear people talking about Reiki as if it is a catch-all phrase that contains any type of energy work, and it's not. Reiki is a word that comes from a specific culture, a specific time and place, from a specific lineage that's thousands of years old. It describes a phenomenon in the world that, of course, has been observed by many peoples across time and space up until now. And yet if we choose to use that word, Reiki, that is a specific word describing the phenomenon of spiritual energy through a particular cultural lens, and then if we extend that to talk about the system of Reiki, so distinguishing Reiki, spiritual energy, describing a phenomenon in the world, and then the system of Reiki, a system of practice that humans have developed to attempt to interface with that phenomenon, to intentionalize our relationship with that phenomenon, which all of us have at all times.

Speaker 4 9:48

So if we look at the system of practice again, we see many layers of specificity. It was a system of practice developed in a particular time and place from a particular lineage that was deeply embedded in the Shinto and Buddhist roots in Japan and that reflect that in the five elements of the system and the many practices. And so if we misconceive the word Reiki to mean general term that encompasses all energy work, then we can very easily disregard that very specific cultural, historical lineage that is, you know, disrespectful and appropriative in that kind of I lost the word disregarding of that tradition. But it also limits our effectiveness to work with the elements that actually exist inside the system.

Speaker 4 10:42

When we bring in elements from many other systems, as if they're synonymous with the system of Reiki, without understanding that they're different and why they do or do not work together.

Speaker 4 10:55

If we don't know, for example, why those four symbols are what they are, where they came from in Japanese history and spiritual lineage, why they're in the system of Reiki at all those symbols versus any number of others that could be there, what they mean in context, just to take that one element of symbols If we don't know those things, then we can't be in deep relationship with them, we can't be deeply effective with them and our relationship with them, we can't be deeply effective with them and our system of practice will have a disjointed nature, even if it feels effective and even if it is good, because my Reiki practice for those first three years was good and it served very well and it was incredibly important in my personal development and history, and there was so much more available that I wasn't even aware of when I didn't understand that history. So I think I'll pause there, because I could go on and on and on about those sub misconceptions, but I think I'll just umbrella.

Speaker 3 11:55

I mean, even the word Reiki triggers people at times and they either say like it's this and it's that, and it's like, take a moment to go a little deeper with it and understand that it can be a whole lot more with it. And you interesting that you mentioned the symbols. You know, I went to take a Tai Chi class and the particular instructor of this Tai Chi class he was talking and he was bringing in the symbols and I'm like, oh, do you do Reiki? He said no, this is what I learned in my Tai Chi. And I'm like, but wait, these are Azui symbols. And it was blowing my mind because he learned it in a different way, to mix with his martial arts, to mix with the Tai Chi, and it showed there's a different way to do this. Like wow, but he was doing energy work, he was moving the energy, but it wasn't colored as Reiki for him. He's like, well, I don't know who that person is, but this is what I learned.

Speaker 4 12:54

It's complex. I have a lot of compassion for all of us, particularly in the West. There's a responsibility that we have and then there's also the reality that we grew up in a culture that has a cultural ethos that says you can pick and choose elements from different cultures, mix them together and have very little responsibility for that. And that is a flaw of our culture. It is a violence that our culture perpetrates, to be perfectly honest, appropriating these things from other countries, most of which are, you know, places that we've conquested in one way or another, and then kind of mixing them up as if they it doesn't matter where they came from. And that's a lot to inherit as a person in the West, as an American, and it's not our fault that that's how our culture is. But once we kind of have an awareness of it, we do have a responsibility to kind of untangle it a bit, and it's not our fault that that's how our culture is. But once we kind of have an awareness of it, we do have a responsibility to kind of untangle it a bit. And there's nothing inherently wrong with bringing elements from other cultures together, but we need to understand them. We need to understand who they are and what they are in context. We need to have a relationship with them and then understand why they might have a relationship with each other.

Speaker 4 14:03

You know why the Reiki symbols which came through Shinto and Buddhist practice in Japan might absolutely have something to do with you know, chinese martial arts, like Tai Chi? Of course there's a relationship there. You know, of course there's a relationship between the chakra system from India and the three diamonds energy map from Japan, but they're not the same. And Japan has its own energy map from Japan, but they're not the same and Japan has its own energy map. Right and so. And yet the Chakto system is the one that we most associate with Reiki. They're not the same.

Speaker 3 14:32

So there's great value in being in deeper relationship with the origins of these things so that we can be more fluent and respectful with how they come together in our practice, right, and that's why it's important you know to have that strong teacher to help guide you you had mentioned you were with your teacher for three years, right, and just learning and growing. And having that secrecy once you get the symbols, really adds that little extra layer of protection that you're learning how to use it. You're learning about the history, you're learning what its purpose is, instead of watching a video on YouTube and saying, okay, I'm ready, world right, or I'm just going to add this onto my other modality that I'm doing, but taking the time to learn the history. What's the why in this? Why was this brought in? What is its purpose? You know how are we using this energy for the highest good, best for ourselves and best for that student or client with the world?

Speaker 4 15:32

So it's very important to really learn that history instead of saying, oh yeah, I like that like a smorgasbord and we're so encouraged to look at it that way, you know, and it can be very delightful, right, it can be very abundant to see how much is out there, and I think it can be really helpful for us to think about it in terms of relationship. You know, anything that we're drawn to, that we're like, oh, that seems really cool or that really worked, long as it's available to you in ways that are in integrity. But think about it as a relationship. You know, how would you want to approach a dear friend, right?

Speaker 3 16:10

How much would you want to know about them in order to say this is my good friend you know, yeah, yeah, I always say to cultivate a relationship with the energy, take time to know it so that you can kind of learn the language that it's speaking to you and helping guide you. I mean, it's such a personal relationship, why would you not want to cultivate that with it? So you are out there helping many people. You have a beautiful community business that you have built. You have the background in social justice. As you're out helping individuals through their challenges, through their struggles, what has been the biggest struggle or challenge that you have faced in your own healing journey?

Speaker 4 16:56

Yeah, it's like, wow, how do you pick, spin the wheel right, spin the wheel Right, right, right, right. I think, uh, yeah, this is another one of those. It's like you could, you could pick any number, um, and call it the biggest. But I think what's what's really feeling present right now is, um, my own fear of being seen and known, and that was a major challenge, both personally and in stepping into this work.

Speaker 4 17:27

You know you can't weak or you know, whatever the fear is, then you're not going to be willing to actually show what's happening to others, certainly, but maybe not even to yourself. And so I experienced various layers of that. I mean, as I said, I spent about six years in an incredibly miserable state, and part of that misery, you know, yes, for the most part, I was focused on the conditions of my life that were a struggle, but when I took that moment, to be honest, you know, a significant part of that challenge was my unwillingness to actually be honest about what was happening and therefore my inability to even make change at all. And so I would say, you know, the biggest challenge of the healing journey just starting it at all, because I was so resistant to taking responsibility for my own part of my misery.

Speaker 4 18:38

And it actually, it didn't start with Reiki. It didn't start with soul collage. It didn't start with spirituality. It started with codependence, anonymous. It started with okay, press pause on externalizing my problems. This is all because of you. This is all because of you. This is because of my circumstances. What is actually in my control that I am not tending to or taking responsibility for?

Speaker 4 19:09

And that year in Codependence Anonymous absolutely changed my life and it was after that getting that year chip and making significant changes in my relationship to my life through Codependence Anonymous that then these other things started synchronizing and he's like okay you're willing to take responsibility, you're willing to do the work, then I'm going to give you the work.

Speaker 4 19:33

Here's the work it's meditation, it's dealing with trauma, it's all of these other things. But I had to be get to the point, spend a year becoming willing to do the healing journey before it could even start.

Speaker 3 19:47

Beautiful. Well, thank you for doing the work and taking that first step. You know many people when they show up I also teach yoga and Reiki and you know they come to that first class and they've made every possible excuse and they're like Well, I'm not sure I could do this asana, I can't move my body here, I'm like, but you know what you've done, the biggest thing, you've shown up, you're here. You know you've taken that first step. So I mean, are you taking that accountability, taking that one step that led you to here, to there, and now here you are helping so many people, right? And so you'll find on the journey that people either it's two choices, one you choose to, you know, say I'm done, or something happens where it's the catalyst of change and people tend to forget that they kind of label us as healers, thinking where are these enlightened ones?

Speaker 3 20:41

But we had a whole lot of mess. We had that, okay, brought down to your knees, I get it, and that resistance where we're dragging. You know, I'm from, originally from Pittsburgh, pennsylvania, and circumstances happened in my life where I needed to come to El Paso, texas, and I just was so resistant and everyone around me, my teachers, were like you have work to do out there. I'm like I don't want to go.

Finding the Right Reiki Teacher

Speaker 3 21:11

No, no, I was kicking, screaming, you name. It made every kind of most insane, ridiculous excuse, like I can't come there Cause I. You know A, B, c, d, e, f, g, all the way down to Z, and you know, sometimes you don't know the story, you might have to wait for it. Well, you know, here I've come and I've been here for exactly three years and my daughter got a job at the zoo here and it's like, oh well, maybe this is all making sense of the connections and the people. So now I can stand three years later to look, oh, I get it. I was supposed to be here to help this person and to help that student and to help that client and bring her here. And you know, so be open with it. You know, you think the world's against you. It's like, oh, why is this? Is the worst possible? That's always at the worst possible time, right, worst possible time. Like, why is this happening? But trust the process because you will be shown like, oh, I get it.

Speaker 4 22:12

Right, there it is there's so much value in doing even what you just did in you know a few seconds, but to spend a little time with that, reflecting back on. I mean, a three year period is a really great period of time to reflect back. You know what were the you know, and or to go back to that point where that pressure to change existed, that pressure to change existed and where that resistance to change existed, and the moment when you chose to do the thing anyway and then to follow the tracks, the threads, what happened, and then what happened. That's from where you are now.

Speaker 4 22:48

Back then, you couldn't have predicted now, but when you look back, on it you can see the logical projection, the logical progression, even if it was circuitous and you know like it was a roller coaster ride.

Speaker 3 23:00

And then you're like, wow, I get it now. But it was so resistant, I was kicking and screaming, but the universe kept getting louder. I'm like, okay, I don't know anything else I go because it's like and I tell my children you know what? The universe keeps talking? It's going to get louder, so listen the first time. Yeah.

Speaker 4 23:23

I mean when we partner with ourselves and with you know what we're noticing out in the world, we do make it easier on ourselves. Right, resistance to change is a big one, so sometimes we got to struggle for a while.

Speaker 3 23:38

Very good. So you had that teacher for three years and you can, you know, use her as an example if you'd like. What are some qualities that you look for in a Reiki practitioner or Reiki teacher or energy work? Yeah, yeah, good question.

Speaker 4 23:50

Yeah, so I worked with her for three years, and then I've been working with a set of other teachers ever since then. So for the past, or energy work, yeah, yeah, good question. Yeah, so I worked with her for three years and then I've been working with a set of other teachers ever since then, so for the past seven or eight, and then, in addition to that, I've worked with Shingon Buddhist teachers to deepen that route. So I have a lot of teachers and I am very teacher-oriented. I love a teacher, I am a teacher, and so you know that question of what makes a good teacher.

Speaker 4 24:17

Of course it's very personal, right Like. So I would say that you know, aside from them having rooted not only credentials but experience in the things that you are interested in, of course that's essential. But you know, making sure that there's values alignment, making sure that the way they talk about their practice feels authentic to you, the goals that they might state for not only their practice but for what they would want for your practice, are really important. You know, for example, as a teacher, I primarily work with people who are looking at Reiki as self-practice, and they might want to work with others, you know, have a Reiki practice themselves, but that's not their primary motivation.

Speaker 4 25:01

And so I'm not a good teacher for people whose primary motivation is they want to, like, immediately start a Reiki business and that's their focus. I wouldn't be the right teacher for that person. I also wouldn't be the right teacher for somebody who wants to work in Western Reiki forms, who wants to, you know, kind of blend Reiki with a lot of different things. You know, I'm a better teacher for people who want to learn those origins and to practice from that position and so being willing and, you know, courageous, to be clear about what it is that you want, what you're drawn to, and asking those questions of that teacher or that practitioner, and we're talking about a practitioner, right?

Speaker 4 25:40

So if we're going for Reiki sessions as a client, you know some of the similar things around values, but it's maybe more about their process, more about how they've created their space that you're going to be stepping into. So don't be afraid to ask if you can see their space before you commit, if that's available to you, even if it's over Zoom. You know to have a conversation with them ahead of time because of course you know interpersonal connection is important when we're talking about doing intimate work like this. If it matters to you that the person has some sort of understanding of trauma sensitivity or being trauma informed in their practice, ask those questions. Look for that information on their website.

Speaker 4 26:22

I do teach Reiki practitioners how to make their practice trauma informed. That's becoming increasingly more important as we understand more about just how common it is that you know we walk through the world carrying some form of trauma and how easy it can be to create a space that minimizes the risk of antagonizing that experience. So I guess I would say you know values, alignment, having you know, feeling good in the person's presence and having shared goals are the kind of overall topic and then to help you understand if you share that with them. Don't be afraid to ask questions and, to you know, look for like if a person's unwilling to talk to you before you book a session with them, that's a red flag right there.

Speaker 3 27:08

Absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 4 27:10

You may not want or need that. It's totally fine to just pick someone based on their website or whatever and just go ahead and book a session If that works for you. That's a bonus too, and you want to ask these questions like, where's your space?

Speaker 3 27:38

Is it in a building, right? Is it in your home? Because that can make a difference when I was in kind of transit from you know my space. I have a little space in my home here but I also have little dogs and that could trigger someone whose trauma. You know dogs and that could trigger someone whose trauma you know has things going on. So letting them know, well, I'm in between spaces right now I'm running it out of my home. I do have a private entrance, but elsewhere on the property that you won't be near, there are dogs. So if you hear a bark, that might tend somebody, which is counterproductive of the of the session, right?

Speaker 4 28:14

Or they might be allergic or you know whatever. And I love that you mentioned having little dogs, because my little dog is right outside this door and she's barking her head off and so I know we're live, but I'm going to just step right there, let the dog in, so she's done.

Speaker 3 28:31

Good, very good, and then some of the other things that are interesting. That she had mentioned is about teachers, and you know my way. I teach, I'm a teacher's teacher, that if you know you help, guidance or help or support with teaching. You know I have a background in elementary education and I've always, since as long as I could remember, have a heart of a teacher.

Speaker 3 28:56

So if you are someone that needs help being guided within that starting the business, I tend to get those type of students who, okay, well, I've been studying for quite some time, I'm need a little bit of that confidence to kind of get me forward so I can go soar in my business. And I tend to be that type of teacher with that, because you'll see other practitioners, other master teachers and they'll have like 20, 30 people in a room, right. And then I was just had a little season where I was like getting two or three or four people but I was realizing, well, this is what they need. You know, instead of me having this idea of needs to be grand and huge, I was getting exactly, or giving and receiving exactly what needed to be done in that moment with those students.

Speaker 4 29:44

So I love that perspective. You know, and I'm, I'm, I also. I love teaching teachers. Like teaching teachers is really my heart work. I I just graduated my first teacher training apprentice.

Speaker 4 29:55

I run them through a year long apprenticeship and bringing two more on for my next round and I just, I just love it so much. And, and the openness and spaciousness to say if I have 20 students in the room, if I have two, you know that's what works. And obviously we have different business models. We have different. Sometimes, when I was renting space before I had my studio, I couldn't afford to run a class with just two people in it because it just wouldn't work out cost-wise. But you know, now that I have a studio available to me, I love the freedom to be able to. Hey, if one person has signed up for this experience, then we're going to have a hell of a one-on-one and it's going to be amazing.

Speaker 3 30:36

Yeah, and that's what people need to look at too. If you're like this new Reiki master teacher, why am I not getting all these people that, whomever is putting on Facebook, social media, it could be that maybe that teacher had to wait because they're paying for a space. Because there's spaces that you rent, you have to pay per month, or work out some deal or do 70 30. That may be an issue, but you know, that made me think of like just two students. That may not be something that's affordable if you're renting a space and you have to pay x amount of dollars a month. But there's ways around it. I've gone to people's homes, I've gone to their offices, so you get, you get creative you get creative with it.

Speaker 4 31:15

That's one of the things I love about this work is that it is inherently creative and flexible and we can use technology in amazing ways to make it more accessible. And we live in a time when the traditional view of an office job and a nine to five and that work has to look a specific way and fit into a specific structure and time frame has just been blown out of the water. Like we have so much freedom to create our own path. Now, with that freedom can come a lot of overwhelm, confusion, complication, frustration, absolutely, and as a small business owner for the last eight years, I've had my fair share of that. But I do, you know, and this is just part of how I'm wired I really appreciate the flexibility that we have to make it our own. Beautiful.

Speaker 3 32:00

So what advice would you give to someone who's just entering this profession?

Speaker 4 32:07

As a Reiki practitioner Could be a.

Speaker 3 32:10

Reiki practitioner, teacher. It can be, as a business owner, the pearls of wisdom that you have to share from your experience.

Building a Reiki Business

Speaker 4 32:19

Yeah, I mean a couple of things come up. I mean this can be. I'm a member of a group that puts on a Ricky business summit every year, coming up in the fall that, you know, deep dives into so many different. It's like there's so many different directions that this question could go. But I think you know part of what rises, you know following on what we just said, is to allow yourself flexibility, allow yourself time to manage your expectations. We might have the expectation that, like we get our Reiki training, we put the sign up, we're open for business and you know the customers will just come.

Speaker 4 32:54

There is work involved and what I totally did not have enough respect for when I first started was the fact that running a business and being an excellent Reiki practitioner are different skill sets, and I did not have any of this one right here, this bucket here that's called being a decent business owner. None, I had none. That's not true. I had a lot of skills that are necessary over here, but I had no experience in putting them together as a. This amazing thing I'm trying to do for people is not working as a business. It's because business skills are a separate skill set.

Speaker 4 33:45

And so I you know, eventually did bow to the universe and got some really great business training with an organization that specifically works with women solo entrepreneurs who work in healing and arts professions so perfectly tailored it's called Women in Community or Wink, if you need some of that in your life, and that really was a game changer for me to just really come into like humility and respect for the fact that this is a living, breathing entity and it has to be approached and worked with, you know, as itself. Right, it is, it is itself and we get to be in again relationship with our business and and be fluid with it. So that would be the first thing. I would also say that, as much as you want to and as much as you probably believe you can, you are not for everybody. You're not meant to help everybody. We cut many of us come to this work at least you know, ideally we have from a genuine desire to help everybody.

Speaker 4 34:47

Right, reiki can help everybody. It can, but I am not the right practitioner for everybody, and what that means is that I have to be really clear about who I am, who I serve and how, and that's also something I didn't understand for a very long time. I was trying to help everybody and I was being very generic about what I was saying, about my practice and about how I wanted to help, about how I wanted to help. And you know again that, back to that fear of really acknowledging myself and knowing myself and owning how weird I am and being my, you know, true, weird self, you know that played out in my business where I didn't really want to be seen for who I truly am.

Speaker 4 35:26

And I didn't want to really be seen for bringing together the different parts of myself that matter. I kind of had adopted our society's view of humanity that we have to kind of exist in these silos, Right? So there's the the work me that has all of this experience in social justice, leadership and higher education, and that's different from my gardener hippie me. And that's different from my Reiki practitioner me. And the truth is there, hippie me. And that's different from my Reiki practitioner me. And the truth is there's just me.

Speaker 4 35:57

And so as I got more willing to be vulnerable and say who I am and to say, hey, this is who I am and this is who I'm for. You know, this is who I can best help because of who I am, my business got much easier. It got much clearer. The people who were self-selecting to come were so much more aligned. There was much less tension when I'm working with someone that like, ah, we're just not a good fit. You know back to that fit. You know making sure your values are like. Know your values and clearly articulate them in your marketing. It's my best advice to you Know who you are, know your values clearly, articulate that when you're communicating about your business and really be humble about the fact that you're not for everybody, and that's okay. The people that you're for need to hear you say it so they can identify you as their people.

Speaker 3 36:50

Yeah, beautiful. I mean in trying to help everyone, that's what causes the burnout. I mean that is something else too. When you begin to start seeing that very full schedule and it gets overwhelming, they're like, oh my goodness you know, and then your cup gets emptied so that you cannot be in the best shape that you can be to help service others. So that self-care is very important and that can come into the way of being selective, right Saying no. So what books do you recommend?

Speaker 4 37:22

Oh my golly, I'm laughing because I have at least four videos on my YouTube channel that are like let's look at the library.

Recommended Books for Practitioners

Speaker 4 37:32

Here's the bibliography that you should have. Okay, so I would put that in a few different categories. So if I'm thinking about books that are essential for me and my Reiki practice and my business, the first two that come to mind are really the first two that I found when I knew that I needed to pivot into studying Reiki from the perspective of its Japanese origins, that I needed to do that for my integrity, I needed to do it for my effectiveness, I needed to do it for my heart and my soul that was longing to be in deeper relationship with this practice, and I found my way to the Japanese art of Reiki and the inner heart of Reiki by Bronwyn Logan and Franz Dina. Art of Reiki and the Inner Heart of Reiki by Bronwyn Logan and Franz Dena and they've been my teachers ever since then. That was about eight years ago. Two of my teachers and those two books, written in incredibly accessible language, very easy to understand, very bite-sized, but also very in-depth at those origins, and so they and they would go in that order. The Japanese Art of Reiki is really a more introduction kind of Reiki, level one, shoden Reiki. Level two, okuden focus, and then Inner Heart of Reiki is more advanced and focused on shimpeden, level three. So those for sure.

Speaker 4 38:42

And then, if you know, for me that really led to wanting to understand those origins better, and so I have a collection of books that you know where I've learned more about Shinto and Japanese Buddhist practice, and one of the books that best bridges those two areas of study that I will recommend is called Women in Reiki. I am totally blanking on the authors right in this moment. But Women in Reiki, totally blanking on the authors right in this moment. But women in Reiki, and that tracks the history. It's really like a biography of the Japanese women, so not coming into the United States, it stops at Takata but the wives and the daughters and the mothers of the men we hear about in the system of Reiki. You know Sui and Hayashi and their students and their colleagues. But, as is so often the case in history, the great men that we hear about are actually buoyed and supported and sometimes led themselves by great women.

Speaker 4 39:43

We don't always hear their stories, and so that book really goes in depth to the biographies of the women who supported the system of Reiki becoming an in-depth practice, becoming something that is still at play in Japan. In its original form and in its Western form, Reiki came to be during a time when many, many, many different little versions of Japanese spirituality were being created, and they didn't all survive. Most of them didn't, so Reiki is still there. Anyway, all of that is to say, you get a really powerful history of Reiki in Japan as well as an intimate look at these women that were so important to us. Having it at all.

Speaker 4 40:26

I would also recommend having and this is just my constitution, so this may or may not resonate for you, but having books of poetry, books of philosophy that don't have anything to do with Reiki but that speak to your soul, that speak to your own personal journey, your own lineage, that you can bring in as almost like bibliomancy, as inspiration for you, but also as these little points of reflection that you can bring to your students and clients. I routinely, when teaching a class, will at random grab a book of poetry off my shelf, take a breath into whatever is happening in the class in that moment, open to a random page, and what's on that page is exactly what the students need to hear in that moment. It's really powerful and very cool practice. So have a robust library of poetry, of stories, of philosophy that speak to your soul, and share them with your clients and your folks.

Speaker 4 41:25

And right now, my favorite is a book by Jeff Foster called you Were Never Broken Poems to Save your Life, and that one is a deep reservoir of incredible medicine. Also, books by Pixie Lighthorse, which are prayers and poetry brought together from an indigenous perspective. Lastly, I will recommend the book when no Thing Works by Norma Long. Norma Long is one of my mentors, has deeply influenced my thinking, both on the social justice and spirituality side of things. She's a Zen priest in Hawaii, a former state legislature, a teacher, a social justice warrior and a freaking amazing human being, and one of my teachers. And she just published her first book, when no Thing Works, and it's specifically designed to guide us through spiritual and political principles through times of chaos, disruption and collapse which we are currently living inside of. So it's a I would call essential reading, not related to Reiki, but also very much related to Reiki.

Speaker 3 42:24

Thank you for sharing that. So what other modalities and services do you offer and where can we find you?

Speaker 4 42:32

Yeah, well, you can find me on the ye olde interwebs at heartscapesinsightcom.

Speaker 4 42:38

You can also find me on YouTube at Heartscapes Reiki.

Speaker 4 42:40

I have a pretty robust library of teaching videos, reflections, you know, moments of connection. So my primary modality is Reiki, also the system of soul collage, which is a practice of intuitive collaging that comes through Jungian psychology, very different practice but actually guiding us to the same place as Reiki, which is remembering the wholeness of our true self, integrating all of the parts of ourselves so we can be a more fully formed human and more in our power and our capacity. So soul collage and Reiki are primary things that I offer and then, secondarily to that, I've done a lot of work with various nervous system regulation practices, primarily emotional freedom technique or EFT, tapping lots of different embodiment based practices to regulate the nervous system and that blend really beautifully with those other modalities and so I'll bring those in, you know, as needed. I do work with EFT with one-on-one clients, but not as a primary. You know it's kind of something that comes up if it does, but those things are kind of just woven throughout teaching and practicing with Reiki and Soul Clash.

Speaker 3 43:52

All right, beautiful. Well, that ends the first part of our journey. I'm going to continue to guide you on to the second part, which are questions from listeners and from Reiki students. So here we go. Number one what inspired you to create your business Heartscapes?

Speaker 4 44:18

business HeartScapes. Yeah, I was inspired to create it out of one of those points of tension and change. I, as I mentioned, worked in university for 12 years at a particular college and then really ever since, but more intensively for the next three years, in organizations and other colleges as a consultant, and that work is dear to me. I absolutely am passionate about supporting people to make change in the world that matters to them. I love working with students. I loved working to a certain extent, I loved working in university. There's a lot of things about it I did not love, but ultimately it really wasn't where my skills could best be put to work. Ultimately it wasn't where I fit and because I was unwilling to show who I really was, because I was so scared to be my true self, there was an incredible amount of pain and tension in the last few years that I was doing that work and I actually went to grad school trying to resolve that tension in the direction of doing my job better. I had this choice point do I go do this one one program in social justice, leadership development, so exactly the work that I was doing, or do I do, you know, arts and consciousness and like spirituality and like the other direction, which, again, I believed were separate parts right, they were divided in my mind and I chose to do the practical thing go get a master's degree in social justice leadership. And the universe is such a trickster and so funny and tricks us into getting what we need. The particular program that I was in was actually at a Jesuit university oddly, that's a whole other story Very focused on spirituality, very focused on leadership from the inside out, on really getting to terms with who you are and what your actual contribution is to the world.

Speaker 4 46:00

And in doing that I like broke down in the very first seminar and was like I there's these two, I can't decide. This is so important to me spirituality, art, working with people on their inner landscape, on you know their pains, their traumas. But like also social justice work external out in the world. And they looked at me like I was out of my mind and they said why do you think those are two different things? Why don't you think that we working out in the world to make change don't need to understand ourselves real well and deal with our trauma? And like come inside and have nervous system regulation, like could you please come do this over here with us. So really it was, you know, what led me to start Heartscapes was being given permission to bring these two sides of myself together by a cohort of people who could see me, even though I was trying to hide Beautiful.

Speaker 3 46:53

Well, that goes very nicely into our second question. After 15 years career in social justice leadership development, why Reiki?

Listener Questions and Final Thoughts

Speaker 4 47:01

Yeah, right, because I could see that my students, who desperately wanted to change the world and were throwing every piece of themselves against what was wrong with the world, were coming to it because they had been hurt, because they had been deeply harmed by systems of oppression, by racism, by sexism, by government, by you name it, all the things, and that there was no capacity in my job at the time, and really at the college generally, to help them with that internal experience of harm. And I watched them flailing and beating themselves against these systems of oppression without the internal resilience and calm and strength that they needed to sustain that kind of work or to rethink. Should I actually be beating myself against these things or should I be going about this in a different way? And I deeply wanted to help them with that. And I couldn't in the job that I had, not only because the structure wasn't there, like I, that wasn't what I was supposed to be doing, I was supposed to be teaching them leadership skills but also because I myself didn't have like, I didn't know what I was like. I want to help them and I don't know how.

Speaker 4 48:13

Um, and I did find little ways here and there. We did some art stuff. We did some reflection, we did. I guided them in meditation once. It felt so subversive and scary, um. But when I found Reiki, you know again, because my own life was falling apart and I needed it for my own self I could finally see a place to help, and so there was that. Okay, I needed it for myself, I want to help them, but I see these things as separate. I don't know how to bring them together. And then my cohorts were like just bring them together, just do Reiki and do these things for us. But it still took several years. Again, back to what I was saying about articulate who you are. It took me several years, from that point starting Hardscapes, to actually say publicly to the world on my website, on my YouTube channel hey, change makers, those of you who are burning yourself to the ground trying to change the world, give yourself a minute to come inside and I can help you. Yeah.

Speaker 3 49:15

Yeah, thank you for sharing that Cause. So many people come to this, come to these modalities, and they went instant, but it was cumulative for you. It took time, right and in a gentle, loving way when you were ready. So, yeah, it doesn't always have to be the big bang, boom, right.

Speaker 4 49:34

Yeah, bangs, right Like bang. And then now I'm existing in this new reality. Oh wait, bang, something new.

Speaker 3 49:43

Number three you teach different systems of Reiki. One of the systems that you teach is soul collage. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

Speaker 4 49:51

Yeah, so I'll make the distinction. Soul collage is very much a different system than Reiki, so not a Reiki modality at all, but, like I said, synchronistic with Reiki in some really beautiful ways. So soul collage is a system of intuitive collaging. I very much wish I had thought to bring a card down here to show you. I sure didn't. But basically you're making a deck of cards. You can think of it like an Oracle deck or a Tarot deck.

Speaker 4 50:19

The cards are five by eight inches, so about that big, and each one of them you're making a collage representing a different aspect of yourself, a different aspect of your personality the roles that you hold, deep, dark fears that you might have, your belief systems, your values, your strengths, your community, people that have influenced you, archetypes in the world that inspire you or that are at work in your life, the wisdom in your body, all the different parts of you. How many parts are there of you? I haven't gotten to the end of my list yet. It's probably in the millions, but you're making, you're giving each of these parts that for the most part live in our subconscious, they're mostly unavailable to us consciously. You're giving them form in the form of an image, a collaged image and you're giving them voice in the form of a ritual way of engaging with that part of yourself by working with the cards.

Speaker 4 51:17

And so you end up with a deck of cards that represent the landscape of you, that represent the one you that's made up of many, many, many parts, and then you're able to interface with them, ask them questions, get to know the motivation, right. The imposter syndrome was my first soul clutch card, because that part of me was really messing me up at work and we needed to like deal with some stuff like hey, stop making me hide at work because I need to ask for a budget increase. Like I need, I need you to like stop making me small. And then that little imposter syndrome was like but you'll get fired and you'll die if you don't.

Speaker 4 51:56

So it gives you a way to be in conscious relationship with your subconscious, basically, and it was developed by a union psychologist named Sina Frost, who really created an elegant, beautiful system. And you know, as I came into Reiki from its Japanese origins, you know we kind of summarize that healing is remembering the wholeness of your true self, and that is also the goal of Soul Collage to remember the wholeness of your true self.

Speaker 3 52:21

Beautiful. Well, that was our last question and, as we've been talking, is there anything else you might have forgotten about or something you'd like to share?

Speaker 4 52:29

The floor is yours, you might've forgotten about or something you'd like to share. The floor is yours. Um, yeah, well, I would just love to invite folks to be in community and to be in conversation about these things. There's so many different ways to engage with Reiki, to engage with healing, to engage with each other around these things, and I really encourage us to be in conversation. So, as far as I'm concerned, um, the way that that looks is on YouTube. So I mentioned I have a YouTube channel, hardscapes Reiki, where I do a lot of teaching.

Speaker 4 52:57

I do have a Facebook group, reiki Community Practice with Hardscapes, and then, of course, I teach the system of Reiki from its Japanese origins. I teach that in a nine-month deep dive program. I do teach a Reiki one as a standalone class as a way of kind of connecting and having a first point of contact. The next one will be coming up in October. I also do one-on-one teaching with folks who want a more individualized approach, and then I also teach a number of kind of continuing education classes, special topics, classes related to Reiki and other endeavors. Those happen both live, and I have a self-paced course catalog through Thinkific that can be found on my website. So lots of different ways to dive in.

Speaker 4 53:41

My primary focus, really overall, is to take these esoteric, you know, deep, very personal practices and bring that into our daily life. What does this have to do? What does ancient with today? What's happening in my life, right and in the special topics classes, has to do with bringing this alive in our life, because if our spiritual practices are only available to us when we go on a retreat or we separate ourselves from our life or we take that special time, they're not available to us in the moment, in the day to day, then they're of limited usefulness. So I always want to bring it back to what does this have to do with my life? And a lot of different ways we can have that conversation.

Speaker 3 54:27

Beautiful and if anyone wants to connect with you in person, where are you located?

Speaker 4 54:32

I'm located in Davis, california, central California, just outside our state Capitol. Most of my teaching is either online or it's in a hybrid form, so you can either come live to the studio or be with us on Zoom, and, of course, I do offer Reiki sessions here in my studio as well.

Speaker 3 54:47

Perfect, All right. Thank you, michaela, so much for taking this amazing and wonderful journey with me and taking you know this time to share all of the wisdom that you've gained in your experience. So thank you so much, thank you so much.

Speaker 4 55:00

Tracy, I appreciate this.

Speaker 3 55:01

Wonderful. So, my wonderful listeners, if you would like your question featured on Ready Set Reiki, reach out wwwreadysetreikicom. I'm Tracy Seawright and this has been Ready Set Reiki. Thank you.