RWP Episode 203: Being Kind to Yourself

Being Kind to Yourself | Practicing Self-Compassion in Reiki

What does it really mean to be kind to yourself?

In this Reiki Women Podcast episode, we explore the Reiki precept “Hito ni shinsetsu ni” — be compassionate to yourself and others and why real self-compassion isn’t self-pity, people-pleasing, or avoidance.

We talk about perfectionism, burnout, intrusive thoughts, honest self-reflection, and how Reiki practices like Joshin Kokyū Hō and precepts contemplation help you work with the inner critic in a grounded, practical way. If you’ve ever struggled with harsh self-talk, boundaries, or being “too nice,” this conversation is for you.

✨ Offerings mentioned in this episode:
✨  Financial Foundations: Developing Seven Income Streams for Healing Arts Professionals with Carrie  - https://www.reikihealingsociety.com/financial-foundations

✨ Michaela’s Embodied Joy: a 10-week journey through The Book of Joy — a sacred text for cultivating embodied joy and compassion 
https://www.heartscapesinsight.com/workshops/2024/10/15/embodied-joy-10-week-journey-with-the-book-of-joy-je9el

✨ Bronwen’s Reik III online training and mentorship: Shinpiden+ - shinpidenplus.com

▶️ Watch the full episode and share your reflections in the comments.

💛 Support the podcast and help us continue offering free Reiki education: GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-reiki-women-podcast-in-2026

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00:00 Daily Self Review
03:05 Podcast Welcome
04:17 Reiki Precept Compassion
05:06 Perfectionism And Niceness
07:52 Honesty As Kindness
11:33 Acknowledging Your Effort
12:25 Numbing Versus Compassion
13:48 Tiredness And Self Talk
15:48 Intrusive Thoughts Practice
17:31 Choosing Breaks Mindfully
23:55 Reiki And Mind Shifts
27:08 Breathwork For Heaviness
29:46 When Self Love Is Hard
34:43 Small Pleasures No Shame
38:33 Closing And Offerings
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#reiki  #reikicommunity  #selfcompassion  #energyhealing  #reikihealing  #reikiwomenpodcast  #selfcare  #selflove  #selfrespect 

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About the Podcast
Reiki Women Podcast shares the voices of women-identified Reiki practitioners from around the world. Through stories of healing, lineage, and spiritual practice, we explore the culture and community of Reiki practice.

Join hosts Bronwen Logan, Carrie Varela, and Michaela Daystar as they reflect on the system of Reiki and the women who shape its path.

Meet the Hosts
🌿 Bronwen Logan — @reikiwithbronwen
🌿 Carrie Varela — @reikihealingsociety
🌿 Michaela Daystar — @heartscapes.insight

🎧 Listen on Spotify, YouTube, and your favorite podcast platforms
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#ReikiHealing #WomenInReiki #ReikiPodcast #ReikiLineage #ReikiCommunity #SpiritualPractice

Transcript

0:00

I guess that takes me into a review of my day. So maybe places where I have been kind to myself, I've showed up. Maybe places where I can be more acknowledging of, "Hey, I did that. F- yeah. Great, good for me." Like, give myself a, a pat on my back because, and acknowledge myself for those efforts because maybe nobody else could see how hard that was or, how much effort that took or how I donated my time for something. And, and unless I'm willing to acknowledge it for myself, how can I expect others to acknowledge it for me? so I think that's one way to be kind. I think, we really have to distinguish between kindness and self-pity. kindness and compassion can come with a, sharp edge. You know? It can come with- Mm boundaries. It can come with truth-telling in a way that can be challenging. it's not always pretty. It's not always sweet, right? But, ultimately it takes us to more important places. So I think that's where I'm gonna start. My answer to your question, how am I kind to myself being willing and more and more able to be honest with myself about, how am I really feeling? How am I really doing? Am I really happy with the way that I am behaving, the things that I'm doing, the way I'm living my life? And if I find that the answer is no or the answer is there's a change that is needed here, just being willing to look at that honestly and then decide from there am I gonna do anything about it Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Reiki Women Podcast. Today, it's me and the lovely Michaela DayStar. And, before we get started with this juicy conversation today, would you do us a favor and subscribe, and like this video, and do the little ding thing, so when we're gonna get, your notifications about our next episodes. And then if you even scroll down and look down in the bottom, there's this fundraiser for the Reiki Women Podcast, and we would so love it if you could send over $5, $10, $15, $100, whatever you felt like you had the generosity to share with us to keep our podcast going. and so thank you so much for all the people who have already donated to our fundraiser, and wanted to invite you to donate to it as well. If you haven't already, it's super s- simple and easy, and all of that goes to help us produce this podcast. So, with that in mind, let's jump into our topic today. we wanted to talk about, it's a little bit of a follow on a conversation we've had recently about are Reiki women too nice? and so that was a really good conversation. Brought up a lot of feathers, prickles, and edges. I don't know about you. It was a good conversation. But today we want to talk about, kind of an add-on to something that Bronwen was talking about, is the Reiki precept “Hito ni shinsetsu ni”, which is be compassionate to yourself and others. And so we wanted to talk about specifically how to practice kindness and compassion to yourself. So I'd love to pass it over to you, Michaela. What do you think? How do you practice kindness to yourself? Ah, it's one of those questions that's both simple and complex at the same time. And, the complexity can come in with the many layers of ways in which we can be sneaky in our unkindness to ourselves, and the ways in which we're often socialized to, to put ourselves down, to, be particularly critical of ourselves. oftentimes the desire to do good, to do a good job, to be a good person gets pathologized into perfection. needing to perform for others, to do it correctly, to avoid criticism, punishment. not being good enough. there's so many ways in which we encounter the messaging that we're not good enough, and then try to push back on that by perfecting ourselves, which is a real vicious spiral of negative stimulus and attempting to correct that by, what often turns out to be a lot of unkindness towards ourselves. And so this simple precept, be kind to yourself and others, be compassionate to yourself and others, sometimes, not always, but sometimes can be the hardest of the precepts to really work with. and it's heartbreaking to witness people struggling with this one, right? and I do think there's a little bit of a thread on how to orient to it from that conversation about niceness. And we talked about, in that conversation, we were defining or we were orienting towards being too nice as that kind of facade of niceness that can sometimes get put over ourselves and, that can cause us to, be codependent, to be, like, making ourselves overly responsible for other people, bypassing concerns that other people have, by trying to keep this kind of facade of niceness. And that, that niceness facade can become a really tough barrier- To getting to the root of interpersonal challenges, problems that need to be solved, sticky places that need to get worked through, and all of that also pertaining to our relationship with ourselves. And so kindness, compassion gives us a different way in. And I think to your question of, how do I practice kindness to myself, of course there's a lot of ways to answer that. But I think it, where I would wanna start is with allowing myself to... allowing myself and at times pushing myself to take an honest assessment of where I'm at as far as, how I'm treating myself, and as an extension how I'm treating others. And, that's become a more routine process, and it's become smoother as it has become more natural to me. But there was a time when that was a really rough go. Like, coming into a place of being willing to be honest with myself about the ways I was being unkind to myself, and by extension unkind to others, when I thought that I was being a good... I was doing things correctly. having to really see the ways in which I was using certain behaviors of niceness to disguise an unwillingness to deal with, challenges in life, and things about myself that really, I'm not gonna say needed to change, 'cause it's like, what do we need? I don't know. Do we need to do anything? we can be however we w- we are if we want to. But I will say things about myself that I have greatly benefited from changing. So all of that- is to say, yeah, right? Like, there's a distinction there, right? Like, should I change things about myself? Depends on the people. Well, y- you could be an asshole as much as you really wanna be an asshole. Absolutely. I can- There's consequences for being an asshole, but Exactly, right? yeah. And there were consequences for being codependent. There was consequences to me of being too nice, of, of bypassing having difficult conversations with family members 'cause I didn't wanna deal with it, and thinking, "Oh, I'm just gonna smooth everything over," or, "I'm gonna, I'm gonna be the, I'm gonna be the mediator in this, and I'm gonna get, keep everything nice and smooth in the family." But what I was really doing was- putting Band-Aids over an infection and letting that infection run wild, which ultimately was very unkind to myself and to my family. So sometimes- kindness and compassion, and we've talked about this before, kindness and compassion can come with a, sharp edge. You know? It can come with- Mm boundaries. It can come with truth-telling in a way that can be challenging. it's not always pretty. It's not always sweet, right? But, ultimately it takes us to more important places. So I think that's where I'm gonna start. My answer to your question, how am I kind to myself- being willing and more and more able to be honest with myself about, how am I really feeling? How am I really doing? Am I really happy with the way that I am behaving, the things that I'm doing, the way I'm living my life? And if I find that the answer is no or the answer is there's a change that is needed here, just being willing to look at that honestly and then decide from there am I gonna do anything about it. That's the first step- for me in being kind to myself is being honest. How about for you? I, yeah. This is, you know, it's a work in progress. You realize how much of this is a practice, right? Because it's easy to stray from it and being like, oh, reminded, "Oh, just for today be kind to myself. Okay. So what does that mean for me today?" Right. And has there, you know, so, I guess that takes me into a review of my day. So maybe places where I have been kind to myself, I've showed up. Maybe places where I can be more acknowledging of, "Hey, I did that. F- yeah. Great, good for me." Like, give myself a, a pat on my back because, and acknowledge myself for those efforts because maybe nobody else could see how hard that was- Mm or, how much effort that took or how I donated my time for something. And, and unless I'm willing to acknowledge it for myself, how can I expect others to acknowledge it for me? so I think that's one way to be kind. I think, we really have to distinguish between kindness and self-pity. And sometimes they can weave together, especially- Yes, they can if we're not feeling that great. Yeah. If we're feeling a little bit like, Angry, sad, frustrated, or like in a, a space of emotional turmoil, mental turmoil, sometimes it can be easy to just lean into that glass of wine or something else that you use, TV, food, whatever, to numb out those feelings. and, that's definitely something that I can lean into, But then it gets that edge, right? Where it's if I keep doing this, it actually just makes me feel worse. It's really not making me feel better. It might make me feel better in the moment, but ultimately it's just shoving those emotions down, not seeing them, not tending to them. and then they just get stronger. They get stronger and more virulent and more resilient. And you're like, "Wait, wait, I didn't wanna feel that." Yeah. And then it just keeps coming back. Yeah. so I think that speaks a lot to what you're saying is, to be compassionate is to, instead of avoiding or numbing those emotions, is to turn towards them with loving kindness, with awareness, and then see what can be done about it, right? so I've been feeling exhausted lately. I don't know. Does anyone else feel exhausted lately? It's maybe a perimenopause thing. It might be a midlife thing. It might be my life, work-life balance. but I've noticed that those unkind feelings and thoughts tend to creep in a little bit more when I am tired, when I am not feeling like my best, right? I've been really working with just acknowledging, today I sat down and I was trying to write something out, and it was really hard. I literally just was trying to write this thing, and I like put my forehead on my desk and was like, "Nah." Like I give up 'cause it was just too hard. My ADD brain couldn't handle it in that moment. Oh, girl. And I had to walk back through it. And why couldn't I for like face that thing or write that thing? It's 'cause I was tired. That was one of it, one piece of it. Other piece of it was all, I was on all day yesterday. It was lit it was so full on from, yeah, a three-hour Reiki course to, my kid's, tumbling class, to straight from that to go to a webinar. Then straight from that, a three-hour meeting that didn't even finish till 9:00 PM, right? And so- Here I am the next day, I'm like, "I'm tired," and I'm trying to work through this, right? But my body and everything is saying, "Stop, stop." and, it's frustrating for me to hit those limits. But what's helpful to say is, actually what's in the way is not I'm not stupid, I'm not, lazy, I'm not this, I'm not that. I'm not all of these ugly things that I could say about myself. I could just see, have a moment of just honesty and say, "I'm tired. I'm just tired. That's why." Yeah. and then I guess the other thing that has been alive for me in this is intrusive thoughts. And, having enough mindfulness to notice those intrusive thoughts. Yeah. So, like when you're in meditation or you're writing something or you are, putting yourself out there in any way, or just in your day-to-day life, sometimes we get these really mean thoughts that pop into our head. I think we had an episode about this, about what to do with the inner critic. Mm-hmm. And what I've come to determine about this inner critic and this critical self-talk that sometimes arises is it's actually trying to protect you. It's trying to protect you from somebody else's, either self-judgment or perceived judgment from others. It's trying to, yeah, help you refine what you're saying, make it more intelligent, make it more, translatable, right? From what something might be alive in my inner world to trying to translate that to other people. This is a very intimate journey with that. but then sitting with those intrusive thoughts and being like, "Whoa, hey, wait. Let's just take a step back. no, I'm not worthless." Like, and really sitting with that thought and be like, "Well, thank you. That's a terrible thought, and I don't want to think that about myself." I really don't think that about myself, but it's just an example. But, yeah, of sometimes the self-dialogue that shows up. Yeah. okay. I'm gonna pass it back to you. Yeah. I'm really glad that you talked about the truth-telling and connected with things like working with intrusive thoughts. I think that the truth-telling and the daily assessment, right? Because what kindness looks like- on a given day will change. And the more we can be self-reflective and honest, the more we can make choices about what just for today I am compassionate to myself looks like on a given day. And, and you talked about, the process of numbing out or, using, addictive tendencies or other, methods to check out from our feelings. And I, one of the things that I realized when I started being in this kind of contemplative, truth-telling process was first of all, an awareness of when I was doing that, an awareness of that, that is a subconscious response that is a very normal response to, intolerable discomfort, that we very- readily can fall into, but we're not always aware of, and I wasn't necessarily. But once I became aware of, what my go-to, numbing behaviors were, I had more control over them, and I realized that sometimes kindness to myself does look like allowing myself to numb out from something that's really uncomfortable or painful for a time. Yeah. For a controlled amount of time. And that, that self-honesty and discipline or, diligence if we bring the fourth precept into it, is, requires that we, if we're gonna do that, if we're gonna say right now kindness looks like I'm gonna let myself zone out and not deal, not pay attention to that thing- that is hurting me or stressing me out. But not indefinitely and not, to excess, right? I'm gonna be aware that I am- Mm choosing this in this moment, and tomorrow I'm going to go back to working with that thing. And- you know, and that's, and that can be challenging because, like, once we allow, that in, it can be easy to fall back into that behavior. But what I've found is that, as I said, some days kindness does look like letting myself take a break from things that are particularly stressful. Other days, kindness looks like dealing with those things so that they can get cleared out of the way, or that they can be confronted, or they can be transformed, and I can have a different experience- moving forward. And, of course, if we look at our practices, the precepts contemplation practice has been so valuable for that. Sitting with, okay, just for today, what does just for today I'm co- I'm compassionate to myself mean to me now? And what piece of that is available to me to give to myself now? And if I'm perfectly honest with myself At what point does that need to change to a different strategy? and that has been really helpful. to build up the, more of a finesse, like more a fluency with my own responses to stress and to make more conscious choices, and to be able to shift out of, different habitual patterns more easily. You talked about intrusive thoughts. That is absolutely a habitual pattern that many of us can fall into. I feel really grateful that's not something that I suffer from chronically. It's something that happens sometimes, especially when I'm tired, when I'm just feel worn down, or when I, when there is something that I feel like I've really made a mess of or made bad choices. Sometimes I look back on, like certain big life choices and I'm like, "Oh, man. that was a bad choice. I wish I hadn't done that," right? So it's like we can get into those, like self-condemning kinds of thoughts, and I know that there are folks I've... There's people very close to me who really suffer, right, from intrusive thoughts, and just spiraling negative self-talk, unkind words directed at themselves in their own mind regularly. and I, and I do mean suffering. It is such a painful experience to be in that- over time. And that can be a really... It can be an incredibly challenging thing to shift, and I don't have, like the answer to it, obviously. Very famous person. but I have observed the way that our practices within the system of Reiki really can impact that particular experience by bringing awareness to it, by shining a light on it, by giving us tools and structures to engage directly with those thoughts. the thought, for example, "I am a bad person," is one that somebody I know spirals around. I'm a bad person. They're not a bad person. They're the quite the opposite of a bad person. it's incredibly painful thought to have to continue to interrogate over and over again. And being able to pause and, first of all, notice that thought is coming through habitually, pause, really sit with it. what, what is bringing that thought up? where... how am I feeling it in my body? What's happening inside of my body? And then to apply practices to those experiences is incredibly valuable. and, you know- In the times that I have that experience, it's been incredibly valuable. So yeah, I think just coming back to what kindness looks like, is a moment by moment question, and sometimes it does look like doing something incredibly nice for ourselves, doing something really delicious and wonderful for ourselves. and sometimes it looks like setting a hard boundary with ourselves, not doing something we would really want to do because we know ultimately it's gonna amount to unkindness. and using our practices to be able to hold that space for ourselves. yeah. There's one more piece that's popping through, but I want to see what comes up for you first. Yeah, I think, I really appreciate, those perspectives on intrusive thoughts. It's... It is. It's, something that I've dealt with, and I don't know what it was, but when I first found Reiki, it just, turned this light switch off, and this rolling diatribe I had in my head just stopped, and I don't know. It was magic. It was really awesome. What do you think that was? And, What... how do you account for that? I... You know, great question. I think it was just Reiki. I think that was some of the healing, that Reiki showed me there was a different way. and that's something that I have experienced with Reiki, is that it's like we need to feel what life is like without that. Like, we need a release from that pain or that suffering- in order to realize there's a whole 'nother way. And so it was like something, like this gift to just, like, Reiki just wiped it out. Wow. I don't know. and for years. For years. And then it kind of creeped back in. and so it's still there for me, and it's more in a creepy place. It creeping in. and I've come to learn that that inner voice is a sign that something's wrong, or that that's something... there's something in my life that is, like, painful, and I'm having a hard time confronting it. Mm-hmm. and it can be something that slips in even more if I'm hungover, if I'm not feeling good, if I'm sick, if I'm this or that. And so it's just even more important to, like, take good care of myself. I, I think of it, I know this doesn't really fit in within the traditional Re- Reiki, worldview, but it's like a slower vibration. And if I let myself marinate in self-loathing for example, that's where I'll be, right? If I can say, confront that voice head-on and say, "Hey, you. why you all up in my grill right now?" And how can I switch into self-love, and sit with that. Yeah. in general too, the Reiki, I think working with a lot of the different Reiki principles, we understand that our mind is very powerful. If we're fixated on worry, then we manifest more worry, or we just, that's all we can see. That's where our focus is. If we can release some of the worry, we get to be more in the flow of, what's good in my life? What's there? Where are those spaces where there's nothing to worry about? and actually feel a sense of trust with that. Like- I can be supported in my life. I can have the things that I need. I am well on all levels, mind, body, spirit. yeah. What about you? how have, how has Reiki helped you shift out of maybe a low vibe day or just a heavy energy? Yeah. Yeah. in the literal sense, just coming back to our tried and true Jōshin Kokyū Hō,, like- very, uh, effectively addresses that feeling of heaviness, right? it like literally makes me feel lighter, and paradoxically more grounded and on the earth, But also lighter and more spacious. not all constricted and bogged down. And when I'm dealing with something like, sadness or... we have our own signatures of where our mind will go, or our emotional landscape will go when we're not really well. Mine tends to go to sadness and depression. Like that's, you know- my go-to place to hang out and cause self-suffering. and heaviness and a feeling of being bogged down, and being under a- blanket of whatever, it, are a lot of the sensations that will come with that. And so Joshin Kokyu Ho really helps with the feeling of staying grounded, staying steady, 'cause it can also be very un-steadying, and at the same time lighter and more spacious, and therefore more open to possibility, which is really a great antidote to sadness. and then, if I can if I'm in a space where I can really work with my mind in a more detailed way, those precepts contemplations are just really valuable for assessing- where, where I might be struggling, where there's a gap in what I'm feeling, and to identify what a small step I can take in the direction of that. And, when we can guide others in that, especially like providing some structure and some guidance for how they work with that practice if they're not familiar with it, can be just a really powerful way of shifting, of just understanding our relationship to, these fundamental aspects of our human experience. Not in, not to fix them or, but just to understand them, What is my relationship to anger, fear, gratitude, with being true to myself, diligence, compassion, in this moment and, am I where I want to be? And if I'm not, is there a way I can shift that? Yeah. One of the things that I've, occasionally encountered with students or clients around this piece of self-kindness, self-compassion when working with the fifth precept is, a deeply, a more deeply entrenched resistance to self-love, and therefore self-compassion. Like, a level of self-condemnation that is deeply entrenched, that they're aware of and struggle with, and simply, contemplating the precept or thinking about how I can be kinder to myself, like, doesn't touch it. and that was, that was one piece I wanted to bring into this conversation because, a lot of times when I've read about, talked about things that I've been taught by my teachers about the fifth precept, is- is really the idea that we can't fully extend, pure compassion to others if we cannot extend it to ourself, that the precept is worded the way that it is on purpose. C- be compassionate to yourself and then others, right? That- The way we can meet others with compassion is an extension and a, it flows from our ability to do that for ourselves. And looking at the word compassion, to be with the pain, be with suffering, be with the full experience of whatever we are feeling, to be with that. And so we have to be able to be with ourselves in the fullness of our human experience in order to truly be with another person in that. That's the, I think, the idea behind how that precept is worded. Occasionally, I will have somebody who's like, "I cannot do it in that direction." Like, "I do not feel compassion for myself. I do not love myself," which is a heartbreaking thing to confront in somebody because they are heartbroken about it, right? Like, they are struggling with that very much. And- for a while, I didn't quite know how to handle that 'cause I'm like, "But you have to love yourself first before you can truly love someone else." And I had a student who was in this situation say to me, "It doesn't have to go in that di- It can go in the other direction. It takes mindfulness." But, you know, she was like, "What my practice looks like," or what it evolved to look like for her over time, is to intentionally extend kindness to other people, which was her nature, kindness and generosity. And what I was trying to, like, what I was observing in her and trying to help her to move away from was the way that can look like, overgiving and caretaking in an unhealthy way for other people, and she was aware of that. but what her practice evolved to was intentionally extending kindness and generosity, assessing how much generosity she could extend without it being a burden on herself, 'cause that's one of the dangers of that type of mindset is that we burden ourself with overgiving, so being mindful of that. And what I invited her to do was when you do that, take some time afterwards to contemplate, just for today, I am compassionate with myself, and allow that generosity that you just extended to be a living example for yourself that you are good, that you are kind, that you are worthy of love and compassion. Not just from other people, but from yourself first and foremost. And to, almost use it as, ongoing case studies, right? To be with the thought that she's not good enough or she's not worthy of love, and to just slowly over time give herself lived examples of the opposite of that. And let her kindness and compassion for other people circle back around to herself, flow in the opposite direction- And it worked really well for her. And I know that there are, like, some pitfalls in that strategy, but I just wanted to name that because for some of us, that can be a real roadblock for, you have to be loving to yourself, compassionate to yourself before you can truly extend that to others. If somebody's "I cannot. I cannot extend that love to myself at this time," well then where does that leave them, right? Don't be kind to other people 'cause you can't be kind to yourself? No, we don't want that. So how can we then be creative and flexible and nuanced with these practices and these mindsets to help work through something that seems to be in conflict with them? And I'm just curious if you've run into that with yourself or with others. I know it's a tender question, but you know. No, it's really good. thanks for bringing that up because this really is an important thing. So you're like, "Okay, cool. I'm gonna find my true self. I'm gonna connect with who I really am. I'm gonna get into my spiritual essence." But what often that journey butts up against is this layer of self-loathing and self-hatred, or just this incapacity to love or be kind to oneself, to feel unworthy of that. Ugh, it's painful. It is painful. And these things are like oil- self-love and k- self-compassion are like oil and water to that self-loathing and that self-hatred. And they don't mix, and they really, they compete with each other. and so I really liked what you said earlier. it was just like a minor point, but, kindness is, is letting myself enjoy what I enjoyed without, the shame or guilt of it. Like, so maybe I wanted that slice of cheesecake, and it was really good, and I don't really have to beat myself up about eating that slice of cheesecake. I mean- Thank God there's cheesecake in the world because- what would we do without it, really? right? But like, so this, this- Make conscious choices and accept the consequences, you know? Right. And if that's a little extra love handle, I'll just take that as Mother Nature's love for me. insert your favorite dessert. But same with like, okay, I had a glass of wine. Do I need to, like, beat myself up for that? Like, am I allowed... You know, so letting yourself experience pleasure without guilt or shame, I think that's, like, a, an entryway into kindness, you know? Because kindness wants us to experience good things. It wants us to, yeah, be willing to be open to the joys of life, right? but that's some of the practice that somebody maybe who's really stuck in self-loathing or can't practice self-compassion is, how do I work with even a simple thing in my day-to-day life? Like, I wanna go sit outside in the sunshine for 20 minutes. And give yourself these little gifts in your day. Give yourself these little gifts of the cheesecake or, And always, coming back, "Well, this doesn't harm anyone, and so why can't I take that in?" Mm-hmm. And I think when we get more accustomed to giving to ourself, it is, it, like, is etching away at a marble. It's etching away at some of those barriers and resistance that we have. and to be held in the energy of Reiki, it's just so kind and compassionate, too, and, it can help break down barriers. I've been watching this doc- there's a documentary right now on Netflix about psychedelics, and a lot about the clinical trials done on psychedelics and how they're helpful and how they're benefiting so many people and, people's mental health in particular, mental and emotional health. And one of the things that they're saying in that documentary was that psychedelics help break down our rigidity- and our defensiveness. So those walls of, "Nope, can't let, let that compassion in. No, no, no, no, no," That's exhausting. And so something about adding a psychedelic into, you know, in a healing capacity helps us lower those walls and break down and break through those rigidities. Which is interesting, but I also, I feel like Reiki helps me do that without psychedelics. So, I'm grateful for that too. Indeed. Indeed. Well, it was lovely spending this hour, talking about contemplating how we can be kind to ourself. thanks for all who are listening, and we hope that gives you some momentum to maybe just try on practicing kindness with you, for yourself until our next episode drops. Indeed. But before we leave- Yes, before we leave. Yeah. Mary, you've got- Before we leave, before we leave you've got, a really cool offering coming up, for the public at large, and I would love to hear more about it. Yeah. I'm sure listeners would as well. Oh, thank you, Michaela. well, I'd be happy to share more about it with you. so my upcoming course is called Financial Foundations: Developing Seven Income Streams for Healing Arts Professionals, and this is a baby born from years of trial and error and, learning and unlearning things that worked for me and my business, and things that didn't. but basically it's designed to help you wherever you are on your journey to being a healing arts professional. So I make it more broad than just Reiki because oftentimes Reiki practitioners, we have more than one modality that we're working with. Or you might be a healing arts practitioner, and your thing might be, hypnotherapy or massage or yoga. And you can do... You know, you have maybe more than one tool in your toolkit, so how do you bring those together in a cohesive way, in a way that doesn't burn you out, stress you out? so I'm I opened up this course, it's usually a self-study course, but I'm opening up a live cohort for it over the summer months, and in that live cohort we're going to be talking about how to align your business around these seven income streams, how to design a rate structure that supports your life and your lifestyle, and we'll also be talking about healing our relationship with money- and resources, and using Reiki practices to help us with that. so the course includes a weekly financial ritual, and also some very supportive spreadsheets of helping you keep track of business finances, personal finances, life finances, and just helping us kind of work through the tangles in our financial life and braid together, your offerings into a way that really makes sense for you and for your clients. so I'm really excited about that. And what about you, my friend Michaela? What's Yeah cooking in your Reiki kitchen? Well, I want to say first, I love the way that your course weaves the, mystical and logistical sides of things. that works really well for me, and so y'all should join us. I will be joining this class. I'm very excited about it. and we hope that some of our listeners can join as well. So there will be information about that in the description down below. And I am, about to launch my annual exploration of joy with my Embodied Joy course. This is a 10-week jaunt through the Book of Joy, which is one of my sacred texts, for my practice. this beautiful exploration of what it really takes to tap into our inherent, true self of that is, characterized bo- by joyfulness, that is independent on what's happening around us. But that there are many obstacles to being able to readily, freely feel that flow of joy through our system when, when we need it, and in spontaneous and intentional ways. and there are many things that we can uphold, that we can strengthen and cultivate within ourselves to, make it more, readily available to us. in working with this, text, which charts conversations between the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu on this subject, there's so many incredible connections with the system of Reiki. Of course there are. and many of the, obstacles to joy and the pillars of joy show up in our precepts. They show up in our teachings. They are, they're very much part and parcel of how we talk about and teach Reiki, so much so that I've really come to identify that spark of life within us, that, that spark of light that we imagine when we go into Joss and Kokuyo, that true self, that Reiki is there to help us remember the wholeness of our true self. I've come to understand that one of the primary characteristics of our true self is a free-flowing, inherent joyfulness. and so it just dovetails so beautifully. So we will spend a 10-week, Saturday class diving through that. It's always one of my favorite things to teach every year. And so we are recording this on, the 13th. we begin that class on the 16th, so I'm not sure if this podcast episode will be out before or after that. But if you miss the first class, it's okay. We'll just weave you right into the second one. You'll get recordings. It'll be all fine. so if that is of interest to you, again, that description will be in the, the link will be in the description down below. We would love to have you. So that is what's up. Yay. what a wonderful way to practice kindness to yourself is join Michaela's joy course. That really pulls together. Or Carrie's- Joining financial freedom's course. Yes. There we go. well, love you, friends. Thanks for, being with us to the very end. And if you haven't already, I'm not sure why you haven't already, but subscribe, thumbs up this episode, hit the bell, look at the links below, donate, or join our programs. We'd love to see you around our community. And, have a gorgeous week, and we'll talk to you again soon. Bye. Bye.