Episode 16 - Jason Shivers: Reiki Explained and More

Jason Shivers, CHt, is a certified hypnotherapist, Reiki Master Teacher, and spiritual guide who supports deep healing through subconscious alignment, energy awareness, and perspective-based transformation. Rooted in both ancient wisdom and modern therapeutic practice, Jason helps individuals explore how the body, mind, and spirit store experience—and how even life’s most difficult moments can become gateways to compassion, clarity, and growth. His work blends hypnosis, subtle energy practices, and symbolic frameworks such as the chakra system to help people reconnect with their inner stability, purpose, and self-trust. With a grounded, non-dogmatic approach, Jason emphasizes that healing is not about fixing what’s “broken,” but about redirecting attention, love, and awareness to where they are needed most.

https://jasonshivers.com/

Transcript

Welcome And Show Purpose

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome to Hip Talks. I'm your host, Catherine Hitchy. I'm a certified hypnotherapist, NLP practitioner, and Sherub Senior Certified Professional in Human Resources. After spending a decade working in the music industry, my path led me into the world of the healing arts, where science, energy, mindset, and transformation all meet. Each week, I sit down with a different healing practitioner to explore the many powerful modalities available to support our growth, well-being, and personal evolution. So come with me on this journey of discovery and learn about all the opportunities for healing and transformation that are available to all of us. Jason is a certified hypnotherapist, a Reiki master teacher, and spiritual guide who supports deep healing through subconscious alignment, energy awareness, and perspective-based transformation. Rooted in both ancient wisdom and modern therapeutic practice, Jason helps individuals explore how the body, mind, and spirit store experience, and how even life's most difficult moments can become gateways to compassion, clarity, and growth. His work blends hypnosis, subtle energy practices, and symbolic frameworks such as the chakra system to help people reconnect with their inner stability, purpose, and self-trust. With a grounded, non-dogmatic approach, Jason emphasizes that healing is not about fixing what's broken, but about redirecting attention, love, and awareness to where they are needed most. Jason, welcome. I'm so happy to have you here. We knew each other at HMI where we both went to school. It's been a minute since uh connecting, but welcome.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Thanks, Catherine. I'm glad to be here. It's uh, and that was a beautiful intro. That's just sometimes when I hear things back like that, it's like, oh yeah, that is right. I do all those things.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

You do those things. Let's dig into all those things

Meeting Jason And His Modalities

SPEAKER_00 2:45

you do. So, yeah, in your own words right now, just tell us like what corner of that healing world are you working in and who are you helping?

SPEAKER_01 2:54

So, right now there's a lot of focus internally, actually. So I'm still seeing two of my pro bono clients from HMI. Been over a year and a half now with both of them. One's got like 60 something sessions, the other one's got 55, 56. It's really interesting to see the journey that they've taken since we started in the in the progression of where they were and how even subtly there can be these shifts that make big changes. So there's there's that that's the ongoing thing that really kind of keeps me in it. But then the whole separate side that came along the journey, even when I was towards the middle end of my time in school with you at HMI, my daughter was diagnosed at 13 months with a very rare uh mutagenic disease called nephropathic cysteinosis.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

And what that is, just on broad terms, it's lysosomal disposal issue where the lysosomes, which are the little cells in our body, for whatever reason, genetically, don't release cysteine. And the cysteine is an amino acid that we all use,

Parenting A Child With Rare Disease

SPEAKER_01 4:15

but when it doesn't get released, it starts to crystallize. And through crystallization, it's you know causing these like sharp pointy things, as you would imagine, crystals looking, and it pierces through the lysosome, destroying the cell. So the first thing that started damaging were her kidneys, and that's why it's called nephropathic cystenosis. So she has a lot of care, and a lot of my time and energy, both you know, physically, mentally, and emotionally, is in that support of her and our family. So I've transitioned most of my time. I would say probably 75 to 80 percent of my time is focused on her and family. And then I still reserve a little bit for working with clients. So whether that's the pro bono, I've seen people that were asking for Reiki. And even one of my former students, Reiki students, contacted me and we went through the next level of Reiki, Reiki too. And Reiki, I'm so glad that like people are still like coming through to seeking out to learn Reiki. I feel like it's something that everyone should just have some exposure to, whether you just are receiving it or you want to learn at least the very first level of it, just for yourself, just as another tool to have in your toolkit for that ease and that calm of the natural systems of your body.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

I'm gonna pause right here and interrupt you. And first I'm gonna say regarding your daughter, wow, that is a really that's a lot to hold. And that's difficult. How is she doing first?

SPEAKER_01 6:02

She's stable and and has her good days, and she has her, to be precise, good parts of days. So she can have half the day where she's irritable, upset, uncomfortable, throwing up. That's part of every day, but sometimes that's just a small part of the day. You know, maybe it's just in the morning and she's great for the rest of the day. But usually there's a lot of both being a two and a half-year-old mixed in with medical complications. It can you can imagine, like, you know, a two and a half year old, two and a half-year-old is very independent and you know, wants to assert that independence by like, no, no. But then when you have to give them medicine, you have to give them um food. And she's she's tube fed, so she has a little hole in her in her stomach, and she has, you know, we give her food through there. And sometimes she doesn't want it. But it's like, this is how we're getting the medicines in, this is how we're, you know, keeping her from feeling worse. And so there's sometimes a little bit of a fight, but then almost every time she gets the the food in, she like perks up and she's happy for the next 30, 45 minutes, and hopefully she doesn't get too happy because then it can all come back up.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

That's a lot for a little person. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

It really is, it really is. And she has really just shown us as parents and care caregivers the true resilience, you know. There, there's not that fear and that worry, right? Like we have as parents, we can we can worry that she's not getting what she needs. She can worry that she's not sleeping enough. We can worry that she's not meeting these weight charts or these growth charts, but she's not worried about that.

SPEAKER_04 7:54

Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

She's just a kid. And so a lot of that we get to see a lot of that. And that's been, you know, part of in that intro is like these blessings in disguise of like relearning what it is to be a kid without those fears, without those worries, and being able to incorporate that into our own lives of just like, let's be present in a moment. Let's enjoy this little, however long it lasts, this little bubble of laughter and joy until it changes. And then we'll just go with that flow then. But in this moment, we can just be in it and allow ourselves to feel into it and hold on to those fun times and those emotions.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Well, it's amazing that she has you for a father because you have both the training and the awareness and the ability to hold space and understand and have the pay know the have the capacity to to be what she needs, you know, and to say, oh, let me learn. Let me learn from this, you know, which I think is wonderful. Would you, for my audience who may not know, because we haven't really covered Reiki, would you just sort of give a brief explanation of what that is?

SPEAKER_01 9:11

So Reiki is a Japanese-based energy healing modality. And I say the word healing in there because that's how it's mostly referred to and used today, but the original inception of it was not about healing. The original inception and its purpose was to bring you closer to enlightenment, was to take you on that spiritual journey. Side benefit along the way is healing happens because, as you know, like some of the things that are roadblocks to, you know, these fulfillments to Christ consciousness, higher consciousness, whatever you want to call it, are sometimes physical, sometimes emotional, sometimes deeper rooted into that spiritual level. And so Reiki is starting to work with those things along the way to ultimately help you get to that place where you want to be and where your true self can really shine. But it's nothing that's new. It's like it's been around for thousands of years, you know, just like massage, just like, you know, um any of the other kind of energy healing modalities.

Reiki Origins And What It Is

SPEAKER_01 10:22

But it was rediscovered by this one guy, Mikao Usui. Now he, there's lots of different stories about him, and a lot of them apparently are not very accurate, saying that he was like a professor, and he, um, one of his students asked him about something and he didn't have the answer. And in the Japanese culture, if you're a teacher and you don't have the answer, then you're like, oh, it's a disgrace, and you have to go on a quest to research the answer. Well, it turns out he was more along the lines of a guard for royalty. But either way, the story of him trying to, he did lots of research into this healing method that was written in Sanskrit in other areas and other texts. And he's like, Okay, well, like, but how do you do it? And for him, he he meditated, meditated, and he like did a fasting meditation up on a mountain for 21 days. And when he finally got to that 21st day and he's throwing these little pebbles off to mark the days, he said he was as if he was struck by lightning, and it it hit him, and he got the symbols, the the mantras for it, for how to explain it to others, but more importantly, how to use it. So in essence, what does it do? The science is actually catching up and the science is showing some pretty amazing things, which have already been seen for a long time, but now we can see it. So let's say there's an area of your body that's experiencing some pain or discomfort. Let's just say it's your shoulder. Well, if you were to look under a microscope, you could probably see that the capillaries are maybe kind of constricted and there's not a lot of blood flow moving through. But that's not what's causing the pain, but it's maybe not helping it, you know, recover faster. But as soon as you start doing Reiki, those capillaries dilate. They start opening up. You can visibly see more blood flow moving. What does that mean? That means more oxygen going to the area that needs it, more waste removal of what needs to be removed, and that speeds up healing. In the same sense that if you're just allowing for this process to happen, it becomes deeply relaxed. And when your body's, as you know, using these other modalities that we have, uh hypnosis being one of them, when you get into that deeply relaxed state, your body can naturally

How Reiki Works In Practice

SPEAKER_01 13:05

do what it's supposed to do. And that will also speed healing, but also can relieve other tensions and stress and anxieties. So the overall modality of it is to allow for this universal energy, this flow of, and you can equate it to love, you know, you can equate it to if you're more on the side of uh Christianity, you can equate it to prayer. You know, it's this godly source, this source with a capital S, capital E energy that allows it to just move through, goes where it needs to go, and then the body will accept it or not, but like uh a river, you know, flowing down through a dry riverbed, it's gonna just follow along. And if like, oh, there's some little pebbles, it's gonna roll over them and push them aside and kind of just clean things out as it goes. And one of the most beautiful things that I love about it is, and I experienced this firsthand before I got into it, you don't have to believe in it for it to work. Okay, you don't have to have the faith of the practitioner for it to work. By being in the presence of the practitioner who is just truly a conduit, and that's the other thing that I really love about it. Because when I was side note, when I was growing up, I grew up in a metaphysical commune, and we did a lot of you know energy sharing and chiropractic adjustments and just like that kind of work on each other. And I got really good at it as you know, a preteen and teenager, but I was using my own personal key or qi. And you can see the word requi, which means universal energy or source energy. You're using all of your own, then you're gonna deplete it. And if you're depleted, then it's almost like being kind of immunocompromised. Like you can get, I would get a cold, I would get sick, I would have a sore throat, and it would last for about a week until I recovered. So when I learned about Reiki coming from source and it just passing through me, it's like I could do this all day long. Like, this is amazing. So that idea of that energy moving through and not having to be believed in to be experienced, it's pretty moving. And on the spiritual side, which they're almost there with the science to prove it, you can think of Reiki as a very high vibration. You know, if like you were talking about, you know, Hertz, right? It's like way up there. Now, when Reiki comes into contact with something that's low vibration, and I don't know if you've seen those charts where they put vibrations to emotions, you know, like guilt and shame are like way at the bottom, and then there's frustration and anger and fear, and they're like all these kind of low vibrations. When you bring this high vibration, which is a constant, it does not move. When you bring it over near something that's a low vibration, that low vibration has to move up. So maybe it doesn't move up all the way to that pure unconditional love, but it can shift out of anger, pain, frustration, worry, guilt, shame into complacent, you know, balanced, joyful, peaceful, calm, bliss, you know, into some really great higher vibration essences. And so every single time I've done a session with someone, the number one thing they will always say I feel so relaxed. There hasn't been a single person that has not said that. And then the second thing that I would say, like 99.99% of people say, not everyone, but almost everyone, is I feel lighter. And I'm not prompting them, I'm not, you know, a lot of times I'm not describing how it works, you know, and but that's what they're coming out of it with. They're just like they feel as if some sort of emotional weight, some sort of weight has been lifted off of them. And what's really interesting to remind them, just like we do with, you know, hypnosis, is I didn't do anything, but the person on the table, the person that's there allowing to receive, they're the ones that allowed it to happen. They're the ones that decided somehow, whether subconsciously, consciously, or both, that this is going to be helpful, that this is gonna work. And then guess what? It does.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

When you say the person on the table. So when somebody is getting a Reiki session from you, what does that look like? They come to you and then they get on a table, and then what happens?

SPEAKER_01 18:18

So they can they can be on a table, they can be sitting in a chair, it can be wherever they want to be uh comfortably. They don't have to come to me though. When you start with Reiki level one, you have to be within about a foot, you know, six to twelve, six to eight inches is best, which is why it's best for working on yourself. Just at level two, the very next level, you get rid of time and you get rid of space. So I can do it through Zoom. I can do it, we can set a time and I can do it for that time, which is really helpful when people like, I've got this big test coming up, and I don't want to be so anxious. I want to be able to access, you know, all this knowledge I've been studying. Okay, when is your test? Oh, well, it's on this date at this time. Okay, well, why don't we set this for you to experience this Reiki then? You know, and and just think about it. If you're anxious and worried about a test, you're probably not gonna do as well as if you're relaxed

What A Reiki Session Looks Like

SPEAKER_01 19:25

and calm and focused, right? And to know that it's happening at that time and be feeling that flow at that time, well, you're probably gonna do better. So what does it look like? It can be many different things, but let's go with the the typical one. Okay. So the typical one is they would come to see me and we would have a short discussion. And the short discussion would be what's going on in your life? Why Reiki? Why now? You know, what is what's the thing that's coming up for you that feels like uh you want to address, the thing that you want to block, you know, the thing, you know, much like we do with hypnotherapy of like, what are you trying to shift or what's what's what's bothering you that you want to change? Same thing. And then we set that positive version as the goal or the intention of the session. And then we start. Now, starting, if you're in person with me, I'll be standing next to the table and I would do an invocation, often silent, where I'm calling in all the other practitioners, gurus. Sometimes I bring in positive entities, angels, archangels, things like that, to be present if and only for the most highest good and healing, if that's what they're asking for, purpose for said person. Then I will connect with intuition to see where do I start. Now, if they just want a general kind of like a chakra balancing or alignment kind of session, I will then usually just start at the head, opening up the crown for receiving. And once I feel it open, then I'll progress to the third eye, the throat, the heart, the solar plexus, the sacral, and the root, and then I'll finish at their feet with some grounding and flow through. And there's also things where I go down along the arms, because anytime you have a joint, it can be a place where the energy can more likely stick joints down the arms, joints from the hips down to the toes. And then I wrap them up in a little uh Reiki blanket. Uh, it's not a real blanket as far as it's not physical, but I do layers of Reiki energy, and oftentimes I will get hit with colors at that time. So I'm just lifting up. An imaginary blanket and it's silver. Okay. And here's another one coming the other way. Oh, it's orange. Okay. And then one this way and one that way. And most of the time, I'm reserving that information for me. And the things that come up in the session, I'm just like, um, I'm aware of the things that have happened. If they really want to know and they really were thinking about some issue during it, or they were having some experience over a particular area of the body, like what was happening when you were here? Because there was like I felt all this stuff. I'm like, okay, well, off, and it's almost always like they sink up, you know, like I felt a lot over their right knee, and they're like, oh, when you're at my right knee, it got really hot or it's really tingly. Okay, well, this is, you know, what I saw or what I felt through there. So, and I've had some pretty amazing things happen. This one person was having this really beautiful kind of vision where they were seeing, they didn't know if it was their daughter or themselves as a little child, but they had pigtails and they were wearing this red uh with white polka dot dress. And I saw that too. Oh wow. I saw the same vision, and but I didn't I didn't prompt it to them. But then when they explained it, I was like, wow, okay. And I just give for me, that's it's just confirmation that yeah, this is this is working. Like you don't like and there's communication between the two, you know, energies, right? This person on the table's energy and my energy, just as communication. Because as a practitioner, I'm not supposed to make any part of it me trying to fix someone. That's not the purpose of it. And I think that's probably the number one thing um for students to let go of. Because, you know, you think about it as someone that's a healer. Well, if you see someone that's hurt, you want to go heal them. But this is not about that. This is make sure that you are in a place where you are balanced, where you are feeling that high vibration so that you're in that state, and then allow that to expand through to the other person so that they too can experience some of that same thing. And then guess what? They become more balanced, they start healing themselves.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

I'm a strong believer that nobody can heal anybody else, that everybody heals themselves, and that we are, as you said, conduits to help that happen. I really do believe that. Thank you for explaining that. Now, do you ever use Reiki and hypnosis combined in a session with somebody?

SPEAKER_01 24:55

Yes. It's more on the other side where I'm doing a hypnosis session, and then I'm adding in Reiki to that to um deepen the work. I'm often using it when I'm doing uh progressive relaxations. And through that, often will be some guided imagery to those chakra areas to help see, quote unquote, that expansion in the area to allow for more of the good, the positive, and the true, as Cheryl O'Neill would say.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Just to interrupt for one second, a progressive relaxation for those that don't know. In hypnotherapy, it's often part of the beginning when you're kind of getting somebody into hypnosis and you're going bit by bit, but body part by body part, either starting at the top of the head or starting at the soles of the feet and doing some imagery as uh talking the client through uh thinking about that part of their body um as as it becomes or I describing it as becoming either more calm or more relaxed, or perhaps having a visual of having a light. There's different ways to do it. There's, you know, many people will be familiar with progressive

Using Reiki Inside Hypnosis

SPEAKER_00 26:09

muscle relaxation, which is um similar yet different, where you squeeze a part of your body and then release it to let it go, which uh you know, a lot of times is done in in traditional therapy. So just to explain that, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

Yes. And um some of the the extras on that for me can be seeing the colors. And um, sometimes when I'm doing it, I don't even say a color because I'll just have them see whatever color comes to them. And that's really fun because then it really becomes their own more unique experience, right? Where I'm not like telling them the color to see, because then it's like, well, oh, I they started to see purple, but I said green, and now they're like, but I wanted to see purple, and there's that conflict that's already happening. So sometimes, and that's and that's part of the uh therapeutic imagery where you leave a lot of it open-ended so that you can have your own, you know, experience. And that's why it's it's really fun for groups because you can talk about a comfortable place, and someone might be on a beach, someone might be in a cabin, someone might be in a forest, and you've just said comfortable place, right? Like listening, listening to the sounds in that place, the smells in that place, and everyone's having a different experience.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

Okay, well, you dropped a pretty big bomb earlier when you're talking about growing up in a metaphysical commune, uh, which is, I think, you know, not what people think of. First of all, what is a metaphysical commune? And and it's not what people think about when they think about communes. And where was it and what was that like? And please explain.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Well, it was I was born into it. So uh there wasn't uh a choice on my part, it was just something that was part of my life. And what what is a metaphysical commune? Well, this one started in 1964, which was right when metaphysics were really kind of getting going. And what are metaphysics? Metaphysics is a way to look at and learn from the self. So for your own growth. So there was a lot of a lot of tools that were used, a lot of tools that I grew up with. Biofeedback was a tool where you're like hooked up to a machine and little sensors, and these sensors are testing your your frequencies or your brain waves or your heart rate, and you're listening to it and trying to shift it, and you're hearing the sound shift, and that's okay, it's working. So that's

Growing Up In A Metaphysical Commune

SPEAKER_01 28:52

a biofeedback, rough example. Um, biorhythms, which are telling you when you're more likely to have be prone to accidents or listening, you know, thoughts are blocked or emotionally unstable on certain days. Astrology was really big to learn, you know, what is my my life story? What is my uh trajectory look like, and how can I work with that to, you know, make sure that I'm not being blindsided by something in my life. Dream interpretation. Uh, but and we did logic classes. No, but we did our own uh energy, like I said, energy work where I remember when I was first kind of being shown this when I was I was working on someone, right? I was like, you know, massaging a neck or something, or even doing adjustments. And like I said, I was young, like 13, 14 years old. And I was instructed when you're doing this, imagine a white light from above coming down through you or into where you're working or into the person, and just see that like moving down through and cleaning and clearing and protecting. So there was this, you know, early connection to that kind of work. And when I went to college, my plan was to become a chiropractor because I was basically already doing some adjustments and like I want to do more like for real and like and really learn it. And my my life took a different turn. I ended up doing uh photography and videography, and that became a whole separate, you know, portion of my life for 20-something years.

SPEAKER_03 30:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

But that whole first part, and when I say first part, like I was grounded in a lot of those practices growing up. There was a shift in the mid to late 90s in the commune where uh it was a little, it was a money shift where there were some money issues that were starting to kind of crop up a little more. And once that happened, there was an even bigger kind of shift that happened uh along the way. And when I say those shifts, like I grew up with the like hippie commune that you might think of. That's that was the feel that I was like there were um when I was born, there were 88 people in it, and we lived in like 12 houses that were close together, and a lot of the backyards were connected. So like you would just be in the backyard and you would just it wasn't like you're going somewhere else. It was just part of the whole area. Like you would just and this was in a city, this was in Little Rock, Arkansas. Downtown, you would never know because it's just like three big houses, four big houses, and then somewhere across the street, but you would just walk in the backyards and you would see people and you would have lunches together with people. People would come home from work, have lunch, a lot of dinners together. And so that's that's the kind of atmosphere of just like caring and sharing and helping one another, like all getting together on the weekends to fix up one of the houses or do some big project. That was the wonderful aspect of it. Those shifts I talked about, when those started to happen, things became more financially based. People were kind of separating themselves a little more into little family groups, as um, some of the people that grew up were then meeting other people and then having kids. There was a little more separation, and through that separation, a slight disintegration of that kind of really close spiritual part of the communal lifestyle. It just became of like an economic cooperative. Like we're living together, we're sharing resources, we'll do some fun things together, but I'm also gonna just do my own thing. And I really held on to that part that I grew up with was like I really love this aspect of being in groups and being part of something. Maybe not being the leader of it, but being someone that augments another person in it, you know? And I did let that what's that thing where you're like you figure out your what skills you're good at. There's some book where it's like what I'm talking about. Like go through a big long thing, you figure out like the different types of persons that you are to, and one of mine was like the almost the number one thing was like augmenter. Like I'm my part of what I do when I get in Is this Myers Briggs that you're thinking? No, it's not Myers Briggs. Oh it's uh I forget what it's called. There was two books, and but both of them were kind of like one, and then there was another like expansion of it. It was about your your true skills or something like that. But anyway, my role in it became so much that it was I really wanted to bring up that feeling from the past and have it be in the present. And I wanted so badly for other people to do that with me. But people were pretty much set in what they wanted to do and how they wanted to live their lives, which I totally get, but my passion was so strong of like I want these people, I want to feel what I'm feeling to like go back to these roots and do this stuff. And I realized that I was gonna have to leave this place to discover this other side of me that never broke out from what I grew up with. To experience like a true independence in the world, to experience, you know, the the hardships of it without, you know, 40 people there to support you. You know, like there were some things that I was insulated from because there were some worries I just didn't really have to have. And that was a big and that was that was only uh 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 35:27

Oh wow. Okay. So you were an adult.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

Yeah, I was there. I was there until I was a little over 40. And then um I'm turning I'm turning 50 tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

Tomorrow?

SPEAKER_01 35:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

Oh, happy birthday. Thank you. I'm a May Gemini too. So there you go. Well, that was gonna be a question you mentioned. People would come home from work. So maybe my understanding of a commune is probably very much like, you know, novels or mysteries or or fiction, you know, whatever. Right. So I didn't realize. So when you were talking about your life as a photographer and a videographer for 10 years, you did that, and that you were still part of this metaphysical commune, and just so people would go outside of the commune to do regular work and then come back. So is that what you're yeah?

SPEAKER_01 36:25

So early on, it was kind of more very early on when they first started. They started as a choir group, a choir group out of Texas that was like, let's go make it big. We got something good. So they went to Hollywood and they did really well. They were the backup singers for Bonanza. They got on the Milton Burl show. Uh, they had a a quintet, but through what they were doing, there was 18 of them. They all crammed themselves into one house and they had one car amongst them, so big that the group of them so big that they, for auditions, people would come to the house instead of all of them going to wherever. When they finally left because the Hollywood scene started to get a little bit seedy, it's the commune that you think of. They moved to Arkansas, they were living that communal life, still very much in the same like household buildings, a lot of buildings that they'd built themselves. And in that, and they were in Greers Ferry, which Greers Ferry is uh a little more north. It's not like a big city, it's a a small town on a lake. And they were they were gonna just stay there. Like, you know, they had some land, they were operating like a grocery store, um, they started a little um newspaper. I mean, it was very much like boom, here are the hippies, which the people in the town did not like. They're like, who are all these hippie, long-haired hippies coming in, you know, singing all of them? Well, yeah, and they did, and that was truly like they brought that that theatrical part with them, and which I grew up with too. They were doing dinner theater, they were doing, um, they were still singing, yes. But the people that were there, which is you can think of like your idea of a redneck, yes, a redneck from the 70s. So they basically drove them out of the town, and that's when they landed in Little Rock. Well, when they moved to Little Rock, it's a city. There wasn't the big open areas for kids to play and all that. Yes, there were backyards, but so people had to get jobs, you know, regular jobs. So they wouldn't during the day have the regular jobs, and then they would come home and have their still were together, have you know, activities together, fun things in the backyard, games and stuff, still do singing. They had a school there for the kids there, which is the school that I went to. And as when I was there, they started to bring in some kids from the outside. So people that were friends or knew of the group, but they weren't like they didn't want to live there or be in it. They were sent to their kids there. So it was kind of like a expanded home school that went all the way K through 12. And then after that, I went off to college and I went to the local college. So I was still nearby, and I would go to my classes and if I had a work or job, whatever, and then I would be coming back home and still participating, you know, with with everyone else. Same as when I got my first job and my second job, my third job that lasted, you know, for a few decades. I would go on the business trips, I would do the things, I would do whatever, but I was always coming back to home. And like most everyone else was doing the same thing. And people would come and go. You know, it didn't, it wasn't just always the same people. It was a lot of the same people, but some people like I wanted something different for my life. I want to, you know, make my own decisions about, you know, what color my kitchen is gonna be, and yeah, and which is funny to me because there were a lot of people that left because of money, a lot of people that left because of like material things, which a lot of that you gave up when you were there because you just had your room, like your room in the house, and sometimes you had a roommate. So you're sharing immediately, you're sharing a bathroom, you're sharing a living room, you're sharing a kitchen. And then um, if you really didn't like that over time, then like you nothing was keeping you there. And so some people would leave, and then other people would, you know, start having relationships with people that weren't there, and that's how they found themselves there, like, wow, this is so great, this is so fun, this is so cool. And then they stayed, and are some are still there today.

SPEAKER_00 41:15

So you're not living there, you left 10 years ago, and you're living in a different part of the country now and in a different way. How is that? What is that like?

SPEAKER_01 41:28

So I left, I left with my wife at the time, who was not from the community. She I I brought her into it, but she's actually the one that taught me Reiki. She was the Reiki master teacher that taught me, and she was from Memphis, which was pretty close to Little Rock, only a few hours away. And we met and really developed our relationship because of this idea of energy work and healing and spiritual growth. And I have a lot of gratitude and a lot of thanks for everything that I received from that uh relationship, both the good and the bad, because I learned so much. And before I met her, in my mid to late 20s, before my first daughter was born, I sent out a message to the universe or to whoever was listening. And I said, in my 30s, I don't know why I said in my 30s, in my 30s, I want to be more spiritual. Like I had this idea that I would be making this shift into the this person that I truly wanted to be. You know, not behind

Leaving The Commune For Independence

SPEAKER_01 42:46

the desk, not always doing things for someone else, like doing things that were for me that would then benefit someone else. That's like, you know, whether it's telling stories or if it was gonna be through photography, or I didn't know what. So she helped with that transition just because there was a lot of support for me to engage in those things and learn in those ways. Things didn't work out, and there was a lot of mental instability, unfortunately, that caused that separation. And then I was on my own for a good number of years, and that was something that was much needed too. Still, still in Little Rock. But while I was there, when COVID happened, there was this distancing from everyone, you know, because like everyone, you can get it, you can die. And so, like, there was this really kind of like everyone was like staying away from everyone else. And I still wanted to connect, you know, like I still and one of my um clients at the time who uh I learned I went to massage therapy. School and I got my license doing massage therapy. And one of my clients had a podcast with her two other lady friends, and they were talking to this guy who was mentioning this app. And this app was um connecting people through audio. Like it was like a chat room, but it was with audio. And so it was almost like a radio show where you could have a room, and people could come into the room, you could be invited up to talk to someone. Otherwise, you could just listen, interact, whatever. I'm like, oh, that's cool. And so I went on there, and there's like whatever you wanted to talk about, there was already a room pretty much. So there was a room for things like uh Reiki or energy work. There was a room for light language, which I was interested in and had done some of. And that is the room actually where I was in, and I was speaking light language as part of this group or whatever was happening.

Meeting Love Through Distance Healing

SPEAKER_01 45:03

And my current wife was also in that room, and she heard it and she felt the energy of it, and there was some sort of connection there, and she looked up my profile and all that, and we connected later on. She asked me if we wanted to do a room together and like just offer distance kind of like healing, like what's on your heart, you know, and helping people talk through things. And so we just met as friends via distance. Like she was way up in Buffalo and way down in Little Rock, Arkansas, and she met um a couple other people that also happened to be in Arkansas, and she's like, I don't know why Arkansas has been calling me. And so she like came down actually to be in a relationship with this other guy that she had met, and that didn't work out. And instead, she also couldn't find a place to live because there was a housing shortage, because by this time COVID had all gone away, and there was this resurgence of people going into uh colleges and all these super attendance to schools. There was no place where she was to. I'm like, well, my daughter just went off to college, and I've got an extra room down here if you want to come check out Little Rock. And so she invited me to go with her to a festival, which I hadn't been to a festival before. I'm like, that would be fun, and then things grew from there, and then she decided to uh move in. Relationship grew, and then we're like, if we have a baby, is that something that would be like you want to do and do I want to do? And we both said, if it happens, yes. I've always I always wanted to have a second, you know, child to especially now to raise in this more um conscious parenting kind of way. And lo and behold, we got a child, and so we were gonna stay down there, but instead we decided to move up to Buffalo where she had more family and cousins. There would be cousins too that would be her age, and so a little more close-knit family, and so that's what brought me up to New York, to Buffalo, New York, and I'm not missing the hot heat of Arkansas. Um, uh, because you can always put on more jackets, we can only take off so many clothes, but I will say that it's a very different vibe up here, especially in Buffalo. It's a very like hard town, like a steel worker town, like a you know, like this, there's this very kind of like armored energy that's kind of like surrounding, and of course, you know, there's all there's it's a sports town, you know, the Buffalo.

SPEAKER_00 48:03

Uh my my um my son plays travel ice hockey. And so the couple of times I've been to Buffalo was uh tournaments and and that kind of thing, and it is a very big sports town, and it's it's an interesting place. It is a beautiful place.

SPEAKER_01 48:21

It is, it really has a lot of a lot of history, a lot of really cool history. I miss the in five minutes you can be in nature in Arkansas, you know. Out here, there's just like it's a lot of city, like yes, there's there's some beautiful nature, but you gotta like kid out a town to really get to it to get to deep, you know, hikes and parks and stuff, but it's still quite lovely. I haven't even explored that much and I'm looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_00 48:52

So, Jason, we have I feel like hardly scratched the surface with things to talk about. So I think I might have to have you come back to another episode. We could talk more because I have so still so many more questions for you. But before we do, one thing I noticed on your website, you talked about a soul alignment practitioner. Can you just speak to that real quick about what that means and what that looks like?

SPEAKER_01 49:21

Yeah, so what is, I mean, and this is just like my interpretation like, what is our purpose, right? Like, why are we here? That's a big question. We're here to experience, right? As the soul itself, it already closer to God in our perception of God, probably, than anything else. Like it doesn't need to feel heartache, it doesn't need to feel joy because it's happening all at once and it's all-encompassing. So the only way to like get it into feeling things is to be in one of these human, you know, flesh suits. And so, but what is it here for? Right?

Soul Alignment And The ABG Method

SPEAKER_01 50:13

Why why this one? Why now? Why not, you know, 10 years ago, why not a hundred years from now? You know, who knows? Maybe it'll happen again. And so the alignment aspect is finding what's closer to your true purpose. And by aligning to that, you're guiding yourself on a path that is uh what I like to see as the most highest and truest path for you, for this time for you. Because whether you go from a straight line to B, or you go from A and you go this nice squiggly, and you take a little break, and you go all the way around, maybe circle around backwards, and then you make it to B, you're still going from A to B, right? That's you.

SPEAKER_00 51:05

That's me.

SPEAKER_01 51:07

And so what I'm here is to help with is to offer that perspective of, you know, yes, it is about the journey, but along the journey, if we're able to listen to uh the intuition, listen to those little feelings that have been trying to point us the way this whole time, and by listening, we can guide this body, this experience more closely to that aligned path, then we're going through life, experiencing things in a way that is taking us maybe faster, taking us through the things that we're supposed to experience in this lifetime. Um, but either way, you know, like I said, being grateful for the pain along with the love is the true blessing of my life, and then what I try and to help other people see, you know, like death can be okay, be okay to to know that like it is truly a part of this cycle, and whether it's your own death that you're fearing, or maybe someone you've experienced in your life that is passed, like incorporating that as part of the experience for this soul right now in these contracts, or however you want to uh describe these connections to the other people that are beyond your nose, right? This is where we can kind of find some of that alignment and practice it. And just really quickly, I have a practice that I call the ABGs, and it's like ABCs, so it's easy to remember ABG. A is for awareness, B is for breathe, and G is for gratitude. And the A awareness is being aware of that experience that you're in in the moment, which can be the physical pain, you know, in that shoulder. It can be that feeling when you wake up in the morning of just like something feels off today, but just being aware of what's going on. It can be low vibration things, high vibration, doesn't matter. That awareness, you take it to the next step of breathing through and into that, bringing yourself into the present moment, having control over some form of your life, taking a conscious breath. That's the the number one thing that we need before water and food and shelter and sleep. You have to have air. You don't live but a few minutes without it. So if you are able to control the breath and take that moment to be present, you're putting a lot of yourself and your pieces of yourself back together. And then having gratitude G for not the pain in your shoulder or the heartache or whatever, gratitude for taking that moment to connect with that message that was trying to come through. And the more we practice that, the more we practice connecting with these messages from within, the easier it gets, and the more aligned we become to where we're being pushed and sent from within. Because the soul has that guiding power, has that knowledge, but in today's society, and especially as humans, we're very easily distracted, we're very easily taken off course. And if we just take those little pauses and those little moments to listen to within, we can put ourselves back on that path that we were always meant to be on.

SPEAKER_00 55:11

That's wonderful. I love that. I do think that when you come back, we'll dig into that a little bit more because even just having awareness, I think, is a is a huge struggle for many, many people, right? Just to even know that what you know what's happening, having the ability to notice and label what's happening out awareness. All right. So I wanted to make sure that we had enough time for you uh to lead us through something. Would you would you like to do that? Okay, great. Yeah. Hey everyone, if you're listening while you're driving or operating heavy machinery, please hit pause at this point and come back when you're safely somewhere where you can listen and go into a nice trance state.

SPEAKER_01 55:59

All right, let's see how this goes. And my voice is a little bit deeper than it normally is, which is kind of nice for this kind of um format. So let's just begin to settle. And as we begin to settle, you can just lighten your gaze or close your eyes if that feels comfortable. And just bring your attention and awareness to the surface beneath you.

SPEAKER_03 56:29

Anywhere where you feel something other than your body touching your body. Perhaps you're laying down and you're feeling those points on your back or your shoulders or your hips or heels. Or maybe you're sitting down. You can feel it under your legs, your sit bones. Just notice those areas that are are connected. And as you do, I want you to feel into that

Guided Grounding And Energy Flow

SPEAKER_03 57:04

pull. That connection that gravity has. And that idea of gravity of bringing these two things together.

SPEAKER_01 57:18

And as you feel that pull, maybe go through the body and see if there's any areas of the body that maybe need a little adjustment.

SPEAKER_02 57:29

Or maybe even a little letting go. Perhaps the jaw loosens a little bit. Shoulders fall some.

SPEAKER_03 57:46

And feeling into those places beneath you where that connection is. Follow it down. Following it down past the bed or the chair or the floor.

SPEAKER_02 58:03

Following it down to the real connection Earth, Mother Gaia, the celestial body that we're connected to.

SPEAKER_01 58:16

And instead of being pulled down, notice a different shift that might happen when you're feeling like you're being lifted up.

SPEAKER_03 58:29

Like this connection is actually supporting you, it's keeping you aloft in that position. And that support, that grounding support comes from this humongous sphere that we're all on.

SPEAKER_02 58:51

And perhaps going down even deeper into the earth, we can get to that mystical, magical, swirling core that's rotating as we speak.

SPEAKER_03 59:10

And as it's rotating, it's creating a lot of energy churning and turning. And this energy is transformative. It's transmutative. So now just moving into your body. Just do a quick scan from the top of your head all the way down. And just notice any areas of tension or stress. Could even be thoughts that keep coming through or images.

SPEAKER_02 59:49

And with your next breath, breathe into that area.

SPEAKER_03 59:57

Hold it for just a moment.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:00

Bring your attention and your awareness to that spot or those spots. And then as you release, allow it to flow down all the way through into the core of the earth, allowing it to be transmuted as it's churning and turning.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:24

And then with some gratitude for all of the earth's work.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:32

Send down some love with your next breath.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:37

So just imagine, pretend, or even visualize, breathing in from the outermost edges of space through the top of your head, moving down into that place of the heart where the lungs expand and the belly expands, feeling that connection to love and source.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:02

And on that exhale, allow that love to be carried from you down to that core of the earth, helping the earth Mother Gaia heal as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:17

Taking this idea of the conduit.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:25

And as this movement of light and energy moves through the body, just allow yourself to feel that soothing sensation, whether it becomes more calm or relaxed. Feeling the eyebrows relax, forehead relax, the cheekbones and the jaw on the tips of the tongue, teeth relax.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:56

Those little neck muscles relax, the shoulders feel nice and heavy as those arms become loose, limp limbs. With each breath in that energy, that source, that light moving in through the top of the head and just flowing down across the neck and shoulders, down past the elbows, forearms, the palms, the fingers.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:29

With each breath in, getting that beautiful influx of energy. And with each breath out, that wonderful release. Allowing to spill down the body past the chest and upper back, the diaphragm and the mid back, the abdomen, low back, hips and pelvis.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:17

Running up and through and around those hip bones as it reaches into the hamstrings and the thighs, down past the knees and the calves, through the ankles, the tops of the feet, and the bottoms of the feet.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:42

Touching those toes and then out through the soles of the feet. A beautiful release.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:52

Deeply connected with each breath. That breath that happens whether you're awake or whether you're sleeping. That breath that is there 24 hours of the day, seven days of the week. Whether you're consciously breathing, in hypnosis, relaxing.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:18

And even right now. That wonderful connection of each breath bringing in with it life. Each breath releasing with it that which is no longer serving. Breathing in that life and that connection to it.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:46

All that supports all of the cells within your body.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:54

And releasing all that is no longer needed. And just sitting with that for a moment.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:09

Whether your breath deepens and you take some conscious breaths, or you just watch the breath naturally.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:51

Taking a nice deep breath in with a wonderful sense of well being. Wiggling those fingers and toes. Starting to open the eyes and coming back feeling refreshed and full of energy and focused, ready to to uh take on what's next for your day.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:14

Thank you, Jason. That was actually really quite lovely. So I went in pretty deep. Um, how did people find you?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:28

The easiest way, my website, and what's so great about it, because I got it very early on, is just my name, jasonshivers.com.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:36

All right, great. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. And I would love to have you back again and talk some more about the the things that we went through today and dig in a little bit deeper if you would.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:49

I think that would be so much fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:51

You've been listening to Hip Talks, original music by Tracy Moore and the Jazzy Fat Nasties, Podcast Editing and Sound Engineering by Zachary Trainer. If you like what you heard, please like and share and follow us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you make a comment, I promise I will respond.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:15

And give one life to live your gifts again. Give for life to live your gifts again.