Feel good about your feet!-Healing tools in your toolbox. – Part 4
Once you see the soles of your feet as more than just the bottoms of your feet, you find your soul. You have a better understanding of the path you travel to a deeper consciousness.
I’m a reflexologist, teacher, writer, speaker, dowser. And, whether I heal, teach, write, speak, or dowse, my intention is the same.
I want us all to become more conscious of our unique selves.
I want us all to take charge of our own healing.
I want us all to release things we don’t need anymore. This will make room for changes that are important for our current time and place.
As we journey through life, we discover things about our selves that we never knew. We rediscover things we once knew but forgot. And, finally, we see things about our selves which we may have felt weren’t important but now realize they are.
My job is to help you find your feet.
Once you see the soles of your feet as more than just the bottoms of your feet, you find your soul. You have a better understanding of the path you are traveling to a deeper consciousness.
After awhile, everything falls into place. For some, this shortens the journey. For others, it takes months or even years.
Historical references to our feet as healing conductors can be found in the Physicians’ Tomb in Saqqara, Egypt in wall paintings dating back almost to 2400 BCE.
Ancient Chinese writings describe pressure points on thumbs and toes.
The Medicine Teacher Temple in Nara, Japan has stone carvings of Buddha’s feet.
In India, Vishnu paintings highlight points corresponding to reflexology points on feet.
Ayurveda medicine incorporates foot reflexology.
When I work a person’s feet, I feel as if I’ve opened a book filled with stories, all waiting to be told. This is the Language of Your Feet.
But, many of you already know this. You practice reflexology, or some other healing modality, either as a hobby or as a profession.
But, however we describe our Reiki therapy, our healing modalities, our Yoga classes, our music, our meditations – let us never forget: These are tools to use throughout life. They exist to get us through the tough times, the crises. They “get us down the road” as my grandmother used to say.
I’m so grateful we have these tools!
Thank you for reading this article. Please share this post with your favorite social media network.
Thurman Greco
Practicing Reiki-Part 3
When I enrolled in my first Reiki therapy class, I was primarily interested in learning something I was curious about. A massage therapist, I regularly participated in continuing education programs. I liked to learn new things to use in my healing practice. Reiki therapy interested me because it was so hidden in my area.
I learned Reiki therapy was easy to use, and extremely adaptable. In short, I loved Reiki.
For the next few years, I was in a Reiki therapy class somewhere learning something at every opportunity. I liked to tell my classmates that I loved Reiki therapy classes and somehow the universe saw to it that I had enough $$$ to pay for every class I signed up for and that my car had enough gas to get me there.
But, not everyone who studies Reiki therapy is a massage therapist seeking continuing education credits for annual certification.
Whether healing professionals or not, a question in every student’s mind was “What am I going to do with my new skills?”
Reiki therapy is a keeper skill. Once you receive an attunement, it stays with you – whether or not you consciously use it. Reiki accompanies you on your life path.
Reiki helps you create your life story. Because each of us experiences a unique life journey, Reiki therapy is different and inique for each of our needs. No two people experience Reiki in the same way.
If you received a Reiki attunement 20 or 30 years ago, you still use it.
Books were few and far between when I learned Reiki. Today, Reiki books are everywhere it seems. You have the luxury of picking up any Reiki book that attracts you.
We can all thank Diane Stein for that. Diane Stein changed the game in the healing world when she wrote a memoir/expose about her career as a Reiki Master. “Essential Reiki” is probably still found in book stores and libraries today.
I have a suggestion for you if you are attuned to Reiki and are not sure what to do next:
Get yourself a spiral notebook, or bound journal, or whatever.
Get yourself an appointment book or calendar.
Call around and tell people you have learned Reiki therapy and are doing your clinicals. Schedule 100 sessions.
Include your hairdresser, neighbors, friends and anyone else who might take you up on your offer. Find five people with health issues. This can include things like MS, headaches, allergies, low thyroid, cancer.
These five people will receive five Reiki sessions as close together as you can schedule them.
Everyone else receives one or two sessions.
Record each session in your Reiki journal. Include the person’s name, address, contact information, and a short description about the session.
At the end of these 100 sessions, you will have learned much about Reiki, yourself, healing, and life.
Join or start a Reiki circle. In a Reiki circle, you’ll meet new people and share Reiki on a regular basis.
But, what if you don’t want to do any of these things?
Your new-found Reiki therapy skills are with you – assisting you throughout each day. You carry the Reiki energy with you every where you go on your life journey.
How cool is that?
Thank you for reading this article. Please refer it to your favorite social media network.
Thurman Greco
A Reiki Practitioner’s User Manual – Part 2
When I studied Reiki, Mary Ruth Van Landingham’s classes and handouts were my user’s manual. They didn’t even begin to approach all the things Reiki can do for us all. I think Mary Ruth Van Landingham did that intentionally because we each write our own user’s manual.
Reiki is a unique and individual experience for each of us. Our attunements are the user’s manual for each of us.
I learned to practice Reiki on my massage therapy clients. Each one got a 10-minute Reiki boost at the end of the massage therapy session. Because Reiki was still unknown in my area, none of them had ever heard of Reiki. Their introduction to Reiki came during the last ten minutes of a massage therapy session so it came at a moment when they were blissed out, pain free, and totally relaxed. Needless to say, they all loved their Reiki.
This was good for me also because I was new to Reiki and was fearful about the results. It took a while for me to become accustomed to how Reiki worked.
I worried that they might not receive a proper introduction. So, what happened was that both my clients and I learned together. For starters, we learned to recognize my warm hands when I introduced Reiki into a session.
Over time, I learned that my hands warmed up whether they were on another person’s body, or my body, or a plant, or a car. Or whatever.
I learned to trust Reiki. This was a huge life lesson for me. I suspect it is also an important lesson for others as well. Many people go through life never learning to trust people, places, or things.
When I teach Reiki, I don’t think I even mention the word trust. The word floats above the classroom like a gorgeous cumulative cloud. It’s there for all to see.
A wonderful thing to do is practice self-Reiki to experience a regenerative sleep, easy your headache pain, feel comfortable in your body, or simply feel grounded.
Actually, it’s not necessary to do anything with Reiki. Just enjoy having received your Reiki attunement(s). Rest. Heal. Let Reiki be with you.
You do not give up anything to learn Reiki. Reiki does not test you in any way. Reiki is not a cult. It does not come between you and your religious beliefs. You do not need to change any of your core beliefs.
Instead, Reiki opens doors and windows of learning, opportunity, and enlightenment for you…if that is what you want. For some, changes are apparent, immediate, and outward. For others, changes are slow, careful, discreet. It all depends on you, your situation, your life path.
Some students, after receiving their attunements, internalize their new skills. Reiki is private, intimate, internal.
Other students use their newfound skills, practice Reiki and give sessions at every opportunity.
Neither way is better than the other. In all cases, Reiki assists you on your path. For me, there is nothing more beautiful than to travel one’s life path.
Thank you for reading this blog post. Please refer it to your preferred social media network.
Thurman Greco
Reiki – Is it in your toolbox? – Part 1
In these stressful times, we all need a toolbox because we’re all healers. And, we never know when we might need to use our healing tools.
Reiki is a basic healing tool that works almost anywhere, anytime.
Many of you reading this blog use Reiki. But, many don’t. Reiki was the basic skill which put me on my healing path. That’s not to say that I wasn’t healing. I’d been a massage therapist since the 1980’s. But, there’s a difference.
Before Reiki and after Reiki.
I’ll never forget the first time I heard the word: Reiki.
I was at a weekend continuing education class in Clinton, New York, at a place called Spring Farm CARES. There were about two dozen students in the class. As we each introduced ourselves to the group, every student, except me, mentioned Reiki. They were all either Reiki practitioners, Reiki Masters, or Reiki Master Teachers.
I had no idea what that was. But, as I returned to my home in the Washington, D.C. metro area on Sunday, I decided to learn about Reiki. Reiki, at that time, was not mentioned much in my area. To be perfectly honest, it wasn’t mentioned at all. I called around.
I eventually found two friends who practiced Reiki. One of them, a massage therapist, was a Reiki Master Teacher for years and never shared her secret. The other friend studied Reiki but wasn’t using it because she believed that it healed people whether or not they wanted to be healed.
I found Mary Ruth Van Landingham in Vienna, Va. She had a shop, Terra Christa, with a classroom in a building behind the store. I learned nine different kinds of Reiki in that little building behind Terra Christa. She taught most of them.
At that time, there were few to no books about Reiki. Mary Ruth’s classes were filled with handouts. Now, when I teach Reiki, I offer handouts and encourage students to read any Reiki book that attracts them. Book stores everywhere carry several titles. Overall, there are hundreds to choose from.
I spent a good bit of the next two years studying in the little classroom nestled behind the store. Mary Ruth invited other trainers to give classes. I studied under Tom Rigler, Rev. Dan Chesbro, and many others before I finally moved to New York State.
“Reiki is a light touch offered to a clothed body.” is the definition Pamela Miles offered at a class at the New York Open Center.
Over the years, I learned that everyone who practices Reiki describes it differently. I invite my students to define the Reiki experience. Everyone has a different description and definition.
The word Reiki means Universal Life Force Energy. Practitioners refer to Dr. Mikao Usui, the man who brought Reiki into the 20th century. He practiced in Japan prior to World War II.
Other prominent Reiki teachers during this time include Mrs. Hawaya Takata, and Dr. Hayashi.
I like to include Frank Arjava Petter who, at the end of the 20th century, wrote a Reiki handbook “The Original Reiki Handbook of Dr. Mikao Usui.”
Reiki works on the physical level when the practitioner uses her warm hands.
The Reiki symbols work on the mental level.
Emotionally, Reiki sessions bring peace and calm.
The Reiki practitioner as well as the session itself, offer healing which impacts the energetic body.
But, beyond working on the different levels of a person, Reiki heals without judging. The healing energy of Reiki doesn’t care whether a person is religious or spiritual or not. The healing path of a person receiving or giving Reiki is nondenominational, positive, accepting.
Reiki heals.
Reiki never makes exceptions because of one’s beliefs, health condition, situation in time, lifestyle.
Reiki doesn’t ask about one’s religious or spiritual beliefs. Reiki never cares whether a person is Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu…or anything else.
I have an invocation which I use often when offering Reiki to someone. It’s not original with me. And, I’ve used this prayer often for many years. I offer an apology here. I don’t know where it came from.
Whatever or wherever its origin, I send gratitude to the writer of this prayer. (Maybe, after reading this blog post, someone will know where it originated and share the information with me.):
I call upon the essence of the Healing Buddha and the Master Spirits of Reiki.
(At this point, I include any and all names that seem appropriate. I may include Jesus, St. Michael, St. Anthony).
I ask that my hands and heart be illuminated by the light of your unconditional love. I ask that this session proceed for ………………’s highest good. Amen
When I’m offering Lightarian Reiki, I go a step further. I include a request to seal the room in the prayer.
Reiki accepts.
Reiki does not ask that you give up anything in order to use its energy. Mary Ruth Van Landingham was a practicing Catholic. My friend Kathy is a devout Episcopalian. I teach Reiki to people of all faiths.
Reiki sets no one’s beliefs aside.
Thank you for reading this article. Please refer it to your preferred social media network.
Please join me for part two of this series of posts about Reiki.
Thurman Greco
Guided Meditations get you to the next level in your sessions.
I learned about guided meditations in Mary Ruth Van Landingham’s classes at Terra Christa in Vienna, Virginia. She always included a guided meditation as part of each learning experience.
When Rev. Dan Chesbro taught a class at Terra Christa, he always included a guided meditation. Looking back on his sessions, I see now they were guided meditations in and of themselves.
I bought three books at Terra Christa: “Meditations for Awakening”, “Meditations for Transformation”, and “Meditations for Healing” by Larry Moen. These books became part of every work day, whether I was teaching or healing.
The influence of these books on my career was significant.
As a matter of fact, I wore out the Awakening book and had to buy another to replace it. The other two need to be replaced now.
I’ve bought other guided meditation how-to books over the years.
Two that stand out include “Guided Imagery for Groups” by Andrew E. Schwartz and “Himalayan Salt Crystal Lamps for Healing, Harmony, and Purification” by Clemence Lefevre. I’m including them in this list because they are interesting and helpful. Each book shows how different and honest guided meditations can be.
These 2 books each have a different approach to guided meditations. Through the years, even though I wore out the Larry Moen books, it was important to me to expand my boundaries and use different information. That’s how I learned.
Somehow, my learning path included one short class about writing my own guided meditations. I took an End-of-Life Class at the New York Open Center. Henry Fersco-Weiss taught this class over a weekend. He included a short instruction about creating a guided meditation. It was all I needed.
I knew after that short segment that I could do this on my own. Even though I’ve written many guided meditations, I always return to Larry Moen’s books. Specifically, I like to select “Lagoon” on page 20 of “Meditations for Awakening.” I always go to this meditation in my Reiki 1 classes.
But, when you get into guided meditations, the choices are many.
I hope you’ll be motivated to incorporate guided meditations at every opportunity.
Thanks for reading this article.
Please refer it to your preferred social media network.
Thurman
Your Own Guided Meditation: Relax and Enjoy the Journey
A guided meditation awakens, transforms, heals. It creates a journey so you can fulfill a purpose or reach a goal or answer a question of some kind. In short, a guided meditation helps you solve a problem you may be experiencing.
Many guided meditations use quiet, calming music to support your journey. I like music which doesn’t have abrupt changes. Whatever music you use, you need something which will not interfere with your visualization.
Guided meditations work well in groups with one person reading or speaking the meditation aloud. They also work well for a person alone who reads the meditation or who is listening to it on an audio device.
The best time for a guided meditation is whenever or wherever it works best for you.
Don’t worry if you feel you have fallen asleep during your meditation. Usually, you have not.
Pauses guide and pace the journey. They can occur throughout a meditation. How many, and how long each one is depends on the meditation and the group. I like to schedule the pauses in the meditation when I design it. .
Breathing tempo is established at the beginning of each meditation. Many people do not breathe deeply enough. Although shallow breathing is common, meditations call for deeper, slower breathing. Belly breathing is part of the event. I set the breathing tempo early in the meditation.
A first step in a guided meditation is to spend a few moments encouraging your recipients to get comfortable. Try not to rush this part. Many people are not comfortable in their bodies and may not recognize when they are comfortable – not for a few moments anyway.
Then, the scene emerges. This can be in a secret room, in a meadow, on the edge of a lake, an the foot of a mountain. The scene is described. Meditation recipients are often invited to add their own details mentally as they listen to the unfolding journey.
After the introduction which sets the scene, the meditation generally involves a journey…walking down a path, riding a canoe on a lake, taking a trip on a balloon. Again, a few moments are taken to include details. Descriptive paragraphs tell the story as it unfolds. And, again, your meditation recipients are often invited to add their own details through their thoughts.
Sometimes, a guided meditation may introduce a character – an angel, a wise elder, one’s inner child. This character’s job is to listen to any questions a person may have and offer an answer or response which may be received during the meditation or at some time later in the day or even the next day.
With a guided meditation, you and your recipient’s job is to relax and enjoy the journey. You reach your destination when you receive an answer or solution.
The final step allows a recipient to slowly return to the present moment knowing that she can return to the meditation at any time. There is no rush.
Assure your recipients that they can return to this meditation whenever they desire. It is time to stretch, yawn, open eyes, and return to the present moment.
Thank you for reading this blog post. I hope you enjoyed it.
Please forward this article to your preferred social media network.
Thurman Greco
A Crisis Toolkit for Your Mind, Body, and Spirit.
For years and years, I’ve carried around a crisis toolkit to use whenever a friend, family member, client, coworker, or complete stranger entered my life in a crisis situation. Do you have a healing tool kit?
I’m betting you do. After all, we’re all healers. We all carry one around, even if we don’t call it that. So my question is this: What’s in it?
My toolkit has things to help with fear as well as death and with the dreaded coronavirus. But it also has to help with all the other diseases and aches and pains we encounter in addition: colds, fever, rashes, asthma attacks, arthritis, heart attacks, cancer…
Maybe you feel your toolkit is not ready for today’s situation. It’s probably filled with all sorts of things you can use.
Here are some things I’m sharing with you. Maybe you have things in your toolkit you can share with me.
When it comes to supporting your mind, body, and spirit during these challenging times, I TURN FIRST TO YOGA. I recommend restorative yoga.
When you are stressed, a weekly session is important. I don’t know how it is in your area, but I’m in Upstate New York which is a new hot spot for Coronavirus. I take a restorative yoga class via Zoom every week with Carolyn Abedor.
Carolyn is a physical therapist/yoga instructor. I come away from her class restored, renewed, and recharged for the coming week. I would take her class twice a week but I work on the other day she teaches it.
Do you have a yoga teacher? If not, make finding one a priority. Today’s challenges call for restorative yoga. But, if you find a different yoga that you prefer…go for it. Use what works for you.
REIKI CANNOT BE OVERESTIMATED. Do you practice Reiki therapy? If so, don’t forget to use this tool every chance you get.
Use your Reiki when you walk into a building. Use it when you walk down the street. Use Reiki when you encounter other people. Everyone is stressed out. We can all use Reiki’s healing, calming energy.
If not, now is the best time I know of to learn Reiki. Reiki is essential in stressful times. And, frankly, no time can be more stressful than now.
If you don’t practice Reiki and you can’t find a teacher, book some sessions with a practitioner. Begin with 5 sessions.
Whether or not you practice Reiki, or visit a Reiki practitioner regularly, now is a good time to organize a Reiki circle or Reiki share. Gather several friends together and let the Reiki practitioners offer healing to everyone in the room. Reiki is not one bit intimidated by the requirements of social distancing.
DON’T FORGET REFLEXOLOGY. Reflexology sessions are extremely grounding. If you are stressed out or if you have health issues, Reflexology sessions can help. Gloves and face masks will not negatively impose on Reflexology.
HEALING MUSIC HAS BEEN AN IMPORTANT PART IN MY TOOL BOX FOR YEARS. I use it during healing sessions, classes, or whenever I feel the need.
Through the years, I’ve learned that healing music can be all sorts of sounds. Beauty is in the ears of the beholder. I tend to favor Deuter, Halpern, Ken Davis, Anugama. Your favorites may be totally different. Because of my experiences, I prefer the older musicians. But, there are many kinds of healing music available today. Explore them until you know what works best for you.
GUIDED MEDITATIONS are essential. I began reading those written by others and now create my own. I suggest that you go with someone else’s until the time is right for you. The goal of a guided meditation is to awaken, transform, or heal. For years, I relied on the meditations compiled in books by Larry Moen.
BEDSIDE TABLE BOOKS are essential. They are the books I read when my tanks need refilling. These books vary with the need. Sometimes escape is the only route. Other times, I need to know what other people have to say about the situation I’m dealing with.
I’m often hungry for the wisdom others offer. To prevent empty tanks, I try to read about an hour a day.
When I fed hungry and homeless people in a food pantry, I found solace in the statistics of hunger. At any given moment I could tell you what percentage of children in our country went to bed hungry. I knew the difference between resource poor and generational poor and struggling poor. I knew all about dumpster diving.
Now, I’m attracted to memoirs. It’s not the problems that attract me. It’s how the writer tackled the problem that counts.
Fear, and forgiveness are big on my list.
Finally, when I need to veg out, I go for whatever catalogue is in my mailbox.
The important thing is to know when to fill your own tanks. Your toolbox won’t be worth much if you’re stretched too thin.
Your toolkit may be totally different. It probably is different. After all, we are scattered all over the planet. I hope to hear about some things in your toolkit. Please email me.
Meanwhile, please forward this article to your preferred social media network.
In honor of this most stressful time, I’m offering you a free copy of a book I wrote entitled “Miracles”. Email your mailing address to thurmangreco@gmail.com before April 12th, and I’ll send it along – absolutely free with no strings attached.
Thank you for being here.
Thurman Greco
The Spirituality of Fear
Full-blown fear isn’t really in my personal vocabulary, so I don’t often feel it. But, when I do feel fear, I feel it 100%. I feel fear for us, and the earth. This is the spirituality of fear.
When I felt fear in my life, fear interfered with my grounding mechanism. And, that wasn’t all. It took control and moved and directed me throughout every single day.
That is not to say that I have not ever experienced fear. I have, definitely, lived with fear. But, this post is not about that fear. It is for us, our fear, and our Earth.
I feel in my spiritual core that fear is directing many of us nowadays. Through the guise of the Coronavirus, fear is totally in charge of many of us and our lives.
I am suggesting, no – pleading – that fear has no place in our lives at this moment. For one thing, when fear controls us, it wrecks our immune systems. Not one person on our planet today needs an immune system compromised in any way.
Instead of fear, focus on our planet. In my inner core, I feel that I need to focus on our precious planet earth because she’s the only planet we’ve got.
With all the cars, factories, ships, and planes grounded and parked, our Earth is getting a very much needed time-out.
During this time, our Earth’s streams, lakes, and oceans are cleaning themselves up.
The atmosphere surrounding our planet is cleaning itself out – finally! The humans on our planet are, for the moment, generating less smog.
We are using the dirt – fields, meadows, mountainsides – in different ways now.
So, while our medical, and governmental leaders are figuring out how to combat this pandemic, I can’t help but be grateful for this time out, this cleansing experience on and in our Earth.
In my spiritual center, I feel we are on the verge of a whole new world. I am not longingly looking back on the return of the old reality of the past. The past is gone – a memory which we can write, paint, and sing about in the future.
Instead, I look forward to our new world and its cleaner, healthier, reality.
Please join me.
Let us celebrate our future together.
Let us ponder things learned and create better ways to live our lives daily.
Let us rejoice in a cleaner, more beautiful tomorrow.
If you feel moments of fear, there are things you can do:
Meditate on a future you would like to see.
Seek grounding through bodywork.
Find gratitude in lessons learned and beauty to experience.
Thank you.
Thurman Greco
Thank you for reading this blog post. Please refer it to your favorite social media network.
Let us all embrace the beauty we will experience.
Thurman Greco