Gratitude to my teachers
I am bringing together wisdom, practices and experiences that I want to share with you. I am known as someone who can really sell/market someone else (and not always the best at marketing me!) I want everyone to know all the good stuff in life, and I love to support people one on one and to connect people with others. I will continue to share the wisdom from my teachers with you, and how these practices have served me and so many of my students and clients over the years.
There are so many amazing teachers and mentors I’ve had throughout my life, and my “healing journey” of recovery and looking at life in a whole new way really started at the Tai Sophia Institute in October 2008 when I attended a weekend course, Redefining Health, taught by Bob Duggan and Dianne Connelly. It blew me away and I continued with my master’s degree program starting in January 2009, Applied Healing Arts (aka Transformative Leadership and Social Change). I also started acupuncture at the same time with Bob and Dianne’s daughter, Jade Duggan of Humaning Well– she is an amazing teacher and inspiration for the work I share now. The years of this program brought the practices into my life that I live and love to teach now. During this time when my nervous system didn’t even know how to meditate, I found Karen Brody of Daring to Rest, and practiced her recorded yoga nidra meditations daily, which supported regular acupuncture- it was my own self-care daily practice. These got me through early motherhood and I still love and practice yoga nidra consistently, and continue to learn and be inspired by Karen and her amazing programs. Bonnie Tarantino brought the practice of Reiki into my life and brought me to Ireland where I connected to my traditional Irish roots in the most powerful and magical ways. Her encouragement, laughter, friendship and love got me to take the leap to share Reiki and to keep taking the next leap in how I share this practice with others. I learned to trust and listen to my intuition and learned and practiced powerful tools of visualization with my teacher and friend, Stacia Synnestvedt, through 2 years of Intuitive Training based on the Berkley Psychic Institute curriculum. These two years of training not only gave me tools but was 2 years of healing and clearing patterns and energy that did not serve. I love bringing these practices into my work and sharing them with students and clients.
I met my now very close friend Maren Miller, right after she moved to Colorado, at a workshop sponsored by SURJ, when I was just starting to learn about Whiteness and White Supremacy Culture. I have learned so much from and with Maren and continue to with her, as I learn, unpack my own white fragility and white guilt. We now have deep conversations with other Reiki practitioners about our role as white women sharing a Japanese self-healing practice, and how we share these practices with others. These conversations and learnings are never complete, I am never an expert in any of the work, and I know that I will make mistakes.
I am grateful and blessed to know so many other colleagues and friends who support me through this work of holding space for others, sharing and teaching Reiki, and building community whenever I am able.
Personally, my healing and growth has been in partnership with my inspiring younger sister, my partner, and some very close friends, as we navigate breaking family patterns of addiction and codependency, for the sake of my daughter, stepson, and the 7 generations (a concept I learned from Native American cultures and I know is more and more understood from a generational trauma healing perspective).