Reiki 4 Real Life
We invite you to join Reiki Masters Elaine Riley and Beth Blair on a journey to explore how to become your own, real life sage by utilizing tools like astrology, human design, Feng shui, crystals and so much more. All while calling in the power and support of Reiki. Helping you to connect deeper into your own inner authority and wisdom for a more balanced and fulfilling life.
Reiki 4 Real Life
Embracing the Neurodivergent Mind: ADHD and Reiki
"Chaotic magic" might be the perfect way to describe how two neurodivergent Reiki Masters approach their energy practice and teaching. In this candid conversation, we pull back the curtain on our personal journeys with ADHD and how it fundamentally shapes our relationship with Reiki.
For decades, we operated without understanding why our brains seemed to work differently. The revelation of our neurodivergence came later in life, bringing clarity to lifelong patterns. As one of us puts it, "I'm a computer with 150 tabs open on a given day" – a reality that many with ADHD will recognize immediately. While this constant mental activity can be challenging, we've discovered it brings extraordinary gifts to our Reiki practice.
The neurodivergent mind notices everything – the shifted picture frame that's been moved after three years, the subtle energy shifts in a room, the connections between seemingly unrelated concepts. This heightened awareness creates a natural affinity for energy work. We can hyper-focus when needed, accomplishing more in short bursts than seems humanly possible, while also bringing a creativity and intuition that enhances our healing approach.
We've transformed our teaching method to honor how neurodivergent minds actually work – breaking content into digestible pieces, shortening meditation times, and creating an environment where students don't need to process information in a neurotypical way. The result? A more accessible approach to Reiki that welcomes everyone, especially those who've been told they "can't sit still long enough" for spiritual practices.
Reiki itself becomes a powerful tool for managing ADHD symptoms – bringing scattered attention back to center, creating a sense that time expands when needed, and reducing the anxiety that often accompanies neurodivergence. If you've ever felt your brain works differently and wondered if energy practices could be for you, this conversation offers both validation and practical insights for turning your "neurospicy" nature into your greatest spiritual asset.
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Until next time, keep shining your light.
Hi Beth. So today we're talking about a big topic. I feel like we always talk about big topics, but this one is one that's kind of near and dear to us how we work, how we've learned to develop our Reiki practice and style and teaching and all that kind of stuff. And we were talking in pre-recording about how this is kind of like a buzzword topic and we don't want to feed off the buzzword topic that we're talking about, adhd. It's something that we literally work with and work on every day, and we had kind of a long road to realizing that we operate that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's kind of an understatement. You know, here I am 59 years old and it's just been in the recent years that I understand that I am clearly neurodivergent, definitely ADHD, and who knew? I didn't know.
Speaker 1:I mean I still remember you coming into my booth at Seaglass and going I'm ADHD and I'm like duh. Okay.
Speaker 2:Well, you know.
Speaker 1:But I understand it was a big moment for you.
Speaker 2:Well, it was a big aha moment for me and you know I ran through the inventory of. Well, you know, like in my relationships, like in my upbringing, like looking at all the places where I struggled so hard, I made it through. But, looking back on it, it would have been helpful to have some of the tools that I have now, or even just my own personal understanding, being able to say, hey, I need a minute, you know, or I'm extra spicy. Today my mind is going down five rabbit holes at once instead of just one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Sorry, it still makes me laugh I'm not laughing at you that while they can look at a word like neurodivergent as something real, adhd is a made-up thing by a doctor. But it's how your brain processes. So you know there are all the jokes about. You know, I'm a computer with, you know, 150 tabs open on a given day. It might be 150. It might be 305. I mean, it's never just one. No, I don't operate thinking about just one thing Same.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I feel like in women, I guess typically it's we think of ADHD, we think of like the hyperactive kids who can't sit still and stuff like that, whereas typically in women, but in all people, adhd can show up in the mind only Like it's hyperactivity of the mind, not just your physical energy, and I think that's where that wasn't studied. You know, when I was growing up, when you were growing up, that wasn't a thing like that, wasn't ADHD. So that's why you know we're grownups now going wait a minute, I do have that Like I. That is how a thing Like that wasn't ADHD. So that's why you know we're grownups now going wait a minute, I do have that Like I. That is how I operate and you're right, like if we would have known, growing up, the tools and how our brains work and not being ashamed of it, not being because it was a bad thing to be so quote unquote unfocused or focused on the wrong thing, that we buried that or we hid it, and then that makes it worse because it constricts the energy.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly, yeah, I mean I think of a neurotypical. A neurotypical person is never going to understand fully what a neurodivergent person thinks. For a long time I've said and I would say this to my son, who is also neurodivergent I would say people just don't think like us, other people don't think like you. You have to just understand that not everyone thinks like you and just move on. And that was my coping mechanism for my whole life. People didn't think like I did. It also was part of why I never felt that I fit in, because people didn't think like I did. I would walk into a room, I would see things that nobody would see and I still do and it blows people's mind. I'm like you know, you moved that picture from three years ago and they're like how do you know that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, a neurotypical brain thinks from point A to point B, the highway, using the map and just going where they're going. A neurodivergent brain thinks about driving the country road. Which detour can I take? I'm going to look at the cows in the pasture. I'm going to look at the sky in the pasture. I'm going to look at the skyline. What's the weather doing?
Speaker 2:I wonder what color that balloon is on the inside, like it just like it never stops. And then I need to go to the grocery store and did I make my doctor's appointment and you know I need to pick up paint, and did I feed the dog, and like it just never stops, it never stops, it never stops. And then the list of if someone tells you that you didn't do something right, that thought stays on for a long time the list of what I should have done or how am I not going to do that again. Like you come up with 50 ways to Sunday of how you're not going to do something again that you probably never would do in the first place. Again, you know what I mean, yeah.
Speaker 1:No, it's that overthinking, that overstimulation of the brain in so many ways, so many more ways than you know. We think, like it, just the neurodivergence controls everything. But it's not control, it's learning that it can be a superpower and not just a distraction.
Speaker 2:I can get more done before 8 am than most people can get done all day long, because I hyper focus in the morning. I do personal reading, writing, art, I walk the dog, I, you know, do some chores around the house, all before I sit down at my desk to work, and that's a natural thing. And then if and that's not even being like hyper-focused, okay, but if I turn on the hyper-focus, the amount of stuff that I can get done is mind-blowing and it's just natural and like I have friends who will be like you did all that in like two hours, yeah, yeah we were cleaning today.
Speaker 1:it just reminded me we were the kids. We woke up at like 8 30 and they're doing the lawn and all this other stuff and I'm like you know 10 o'clock. I'm like I'm gonna go jump in the shower and strider's like already we haven know we've, we still have stuff to do and I'm like I've been up since six o'clock, I've been cleaning since six o'clock. You're behind Like I've already done all my stuff. Yeah, my list is done baby.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm on to the next thing. Now I'm going to work. But it was funny the way he was like we just started and I'm like, no, you just started, yeah, well, and I think there's okay. So there's the creativity aspect, there's the intuitive, sensorial aspect that shows up.
Speaker 2:So a lot of people not all, but a lot of people who are in the energy world or intuitive world or empathic abilities, the clairs and things like that, are people who probably, although I'm not diagnosing are neurodivergent in some way, because it is an ability to use multiple parts of your brain in a very sensorial way, where you pick up on so much stuff. I mean I am super creative and I mean I problem solve for people just like I will. I have a friend who tells me that's enough ideas, because I'll say, hey, what do you think I should do about that? And I'm like well, you could, you know you could do this, you could do that, you could. Hey, you know you could, and I like, and they're like okay, thank you, it just happens. And there's a variety in people's abilities. Like my neuro divergence is different than yours and yours is different than my son's. And, however, when we, when we get together than my son's.
Speaker 2:And, however, when we get together, it's like chaotic magic, it is. It is Well okay.
Speaker 1:So that chaotic magic is a lead-in to why are we teaching the way we're teaching, so mainly to honor our own brains and our own energy. So, through our journey and through connecting with our authentic selves, we realized that we are not like everybody else. We do not practice Reiki like everybody else and we don't need to teach Reiki like everybody else, because we, our brains work differently and we want to honor the other people that work their brains work differently. So we do teach together, which gives two perspectives. It gives two different the words not coming in just two different energies. And we, I feel like we hyper-focus on different things at different times for whatever the class needs. I feel like and that's part of the magic of working together and having two neurospicy people teaching you because we're going to teach you a variety of things and we're going to have a variety of energy. Whatever you need, you know, and we pick up on that.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I think it's.
Speaker 2:The combination is the assessment of what's going on in the classroom.
Speaker 2:It's also breaking it up the way we do, because, while a neurodivergent person can handle a lot of information, they can handle a lot of information if they're interested in it, and it's not that students aren't interested in all the information, but there's some information in a class that needs to be taken in smaller bites and that's why we record the history, for example, because that is a ton of information and when that was presented to me, by the time we got to the quote unquote good stuff my brain was on overload and then learning symbols or learning technique or something like that, and I was just like I have no place to put these grocery bags down because it was so much information.
Speaker 2:Breaking it out the way we do and sending it out ahead of time, the student has time to take it in and bite, break it up. If they need to, they go back to it, and then the interactive part is where we can keep them engaged, because now we can get them hyper focused. Not that everyone who comes to us is neurodivergent, but you know you attract your students, so yeah we tend to attract and it helps our energy too as we're teaching.
Speaker 1:So it's not too much for us because we want to honor how we operate too. So if we were to teach it traditionally, like two, three, eight hour days by the time we get done teaching all of the quote unquote, mundane, slower stuff. We're spent energetically.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, because you use your energy to create the container for the classroom, and then you have the information energy, and then you have the relationship energy of the students in the room and the students with you, and then the nervousness of learning. There is that anxiety that shows up because it's something new, and when anxiety shows up in a group of neurodivergent people, it amplifies. Yes, it's an energy, it's a sensorial energy. It's not that a person who is anxious is creating chaos there. However, the energy is chaotic and it creates that resonance in other people that creates this vibration and so, breaking things up into pieces, reducing the anxiety.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, there's also the rabbit holes in the time blindness that go into conversation, and you want to allow for that. You want to allow for people to be able to have their experience. And if you're watching the clock because you have to get all this stuff in, yeah, now there is a component. We've talked about this before. We both do this a little bit differently Length of meditation times and length of attunement times, and I don't even know that. I want to record this, saying this out loud. I am a brief meditator, brief in the experiences and things like that. I'm not one to get lost in the ethers. You know I got stuff to do.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I could spend all day in there. It's my favorite place to be? Not really, but yes, it is. Yeah, everybody has their different styles as far as the meditation goes, and we do cut down the meditation time. I know my brain just stopped, but there again, not everybody meditates the same, experiences the same.
Speaker 1:Not everybody sees and has these crazy journeys for, I feel like, is the same. Not everybody sees and has these crazy journeys for I feel like, especially in the neurodivergent crowd, it's not the 20 minute journey. Like I didn't start that way. I had to work up to being able to journey and meditate for that long because I definitely could not in the beginning. So when you have a brand new class of people, they're nervous, they're anxious, and you send them on a journey for 26 minutes or 30 minutes or however long, I feel like a majority of the time they are thinking about other things. They're worrying about if they're doing it right, if they're experiencing it right, because they're not seeing or not experiencing it the same way as everybody else. So if you hyper focus that attunement or meditation to 10 minutes, I feel like it amplifies the energy and allows for more magic to come through after.
Speaker 2:Well, and if we reference back to our previous podcast on Reiki integration, the Reiki is going to integrate with the person as the person needs, and it's going to stay working with that person for as long as is needed. Now, that's not a cop out, that's just saying I am not in the driver's seat, so here I'm, bringing you to the place where you are going to interact with the Reiki energy, and the Reiki energy is going to have its way with you, so to speak, and there you go, and it's going to have its way with you, so to speak, and there you go and it's going to walk out that door in the classroom with you and it's going to be with you forever. So I don't want to say that I don't respect the time of the practices. I just I don't know what everyone individually needs, so I'm going to let it. I'm going to let Reiki take that one.
Speaker 1:I feel like we respect the energy, how it comes to us, how we feel it, how we integrate with it, and we are going to attract and teach the people that need to learn it our way. And so we are not shortchanging or cutting the meditations or the attunement. You know it's not going to lessen the energy anymore, Like you said it's. It's there, it's attuning to you, and just because you don't sit there for 26 minutes doesn't mean that it's not going to work.
Speaker 2:Right, and you know, the thing is is that if you look at our format, where we pre-record information, we send it to you, you take that time. Well, you should take that time, Let me say it that way, to do that. We talk about the recordings when you come into the class and then the interactive time is really a healing process in community and it comes together very quickly because the focus is all on those healing practices. There was something else that was there that wanted to come in. I think that breaking it up it gives a focus and it gives the hyper focus too. Like we get to use focus and hyper focus at the same time, which I kind of dig. Best of both worlds. Kind of dig best of both worlds. Yeah, but now let's let's go back to our personal experience with neurodivergence, and how do you think reiki has helped you with your neuro spiciness?
Speaker 1:Reiki. It helps me to focus the energy for me. It helped me to align my energy to right here, right now, and stop that overthinking and stop the overactive brain and stop worrying so much about what's going to happen and just focus on me now. The energy and the Reiki helps to amplify that. I want to say peace. That comes with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, I think that for me it's funny because you know I have to go. Well, how did Reiki help me all those years that I didn't know that I was neuro-spicy? I can see where it would kind of guide what was important on the the list, so to speak, because I can think of 10 things that I have to do at once and I will try to fit them all into that one moment. So I feel like and I don't mean this in a flip way to Reiki, but it was almost like the uh, you know, it was my time management thing, because, while I would drop into that time blindness, I am a person who is perpetually early. Okay, I know it drives some people crazy, but I show up at least. If I'm not 15 minutes early, I am late.
Speaker 2:I would have these experiences where, whether it was in a session with a client or it was needing to get stuff done, that time would expand or time would slow down and somehow everything would get done. When I was working in the hospice setting and dealing with people with significant pain and things like that, and I was only allotted, you know, say, 15, 20 minutes per person in the hospice home, I could do what would be viewed from the outside as almost a full session, like a full hour session on somebody in a short amount of time, and I feel that it was truly Reiki managing and expanding or slowing, like giving me the time that I needed to do the work, but it slowed the clock and sometimes when I think about needing more time, I invite that idea in and I can get things done. And it does calm me down because I can trust that I'm going to get the things done that I need to get done, because perfectionism is something that I'm still working on letting go and it's a stumbling block for me. We talked about this before, about or in off of camera, about validation, and that is still something that I work with camera, about validation, and that is still something that I work with.
Speaker 2:So my perfectionism and needing validation for doing things right or getting something done or hitting all the points, is a place where I think my neuro spicy brain really kind of takes a hold of me. And so inviting Reiki into that place and allowing myself to settle into doing the best I can with what I have, with where I am, because you know I'm not, I'm efficient and I'm also distracted, so I can get a lot done in a short amount of time. But then I have this other time where sometimes I don't want to do anything.
Speaker 1:Executive dysfunction.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yeah. And that is such a like that hits my solar plexus. Yeah, because I think I'm cheating somebody or I'm not working up to my full potential, but yet I can run circles around somebody when I'm hyper-focused, you know. So I figure the math. It levels out. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:It even felt the energy. It does Go ahead. I totally get it because it's almost like learning how to work with the neurodivergence. I set myself up for that. I know that I'm going to hyper focus for the first four or five hours of the day, but then come four or five o'clock, I know that I'm probably going to be quote, unquote, useless or that there's going to be times. You know I stack my schedule so that I have those times of hyper focus but I also have those times of rest, Because as much as we work in those four or five hours and get it done, you need just as much time to reset the system. But it's knowing that that period is coming.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And setting yourself up for allowing it.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, the pressure of last minute really does motivate things.
Speaker 2:It does, yeah, pressure of last minute really does motivate things. It does yeah We've talked about this before that we can get right up to the end of something and all of a sudden produce this great work where you might have had time in the schedule to build it out, and then you just keep putting it off and you just keep and then then all of a sudden it's like I have to get it done and there is something in the neurodivergent brain that you know loves those hits of adrenaline and dopamine. I mean, it's both of those. It's like we love the push to make us have to get something done, whereas if we just did it in the pace it wouldn't be as rewarding. But yet, if you put a little Reiki in between those two things, you can get the rush of energy with the Reiki to be able to work with you without having to set yourself up for the procrastination and the stress of running late. Yeah, it's true, I think we've hit all the points there. I mean, I could go on about being neuro spicy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like a takeaway I just want to leave everybody with because it was coming into my brain while we were talking is that I hear so many people say, when I say you know, I'm a Reiki master, I practice Reiki, they're like I couldn't do that, I can't focus that much or I can't sit still that much. I can't, I don't have that attention span. I guess what we want to let everybody know pretty much through this episode, this podcast, is that you don't need to, you don't need to sit still for 20 minutes, you don't have to do any of that. There is room for both ADHD, NeuroSpicy and Reiki, and they can work magic together.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Well. And going back to the integration episode, he's going to integrate with you where you are, and so I feel that Reiki needs to be, if not with everyone, at least in every household. Someone in the house needs to be offering up some Reiki. You know for themselves, first, which, by offering, by working with Reiki for yourself, you affect the environment that you're in, and imagine what that would be like and I think that you know for younger people who are diagnosed with ADHD and things like that, if they were given the simple tools of Reiki to help them help themselves and set the boundaries and guidelines of their energy. I mean, my heart just feels for the people who struggle with it and didn't you know? Don't know that there's a way that they can manage through it, reduce the anxiety, balance out the adrenaline, all of that kind of stuff, through simple practices that don't take an hour. Yes, all right, we're looking at neurodivergent, all right.
Speaker 1:Until next time, elaine, until next time.
