Dive into the heart of Chicago with Heather McCutcheon, the driving force behind Reiki Brigade.
This remarkable group of practitioners has extended Reiki to institutions ranging from the Chicago Police Department to local schools and medical centers.
Discover the stories, challenges, and transformative experiences as Heather details the journey of sharing Reiki with some of Chicago’s most essential organizations. Whether it's a 'lunch-n-learn' or a dedicated Reiki session, learn how the Reiki Brigade is changing the narrative on energy and community service, to make Reiki mainstream.
Heather McCutcheon left corporate America in 1998 to study massage therapy in search of a greater sense of purpose. She shunned metaphysics until the universe challenged her to open her mind with an unmistakable invitation. Today she is a licensed massage therapist, Reiki practitioner/instructor, author, and founder of the Reiki Brigade. Her book, Connecting the Dots, from ad exec to energy practitioner tells her story of evolving from Reiki skeptic to Reiki activist. Since 2011 the Reiki Brigade has offered more than 6,000, ten-minute Reiki demos to large Chicago institutions and communities in crisis.
Stay in touch:
Web site: www.ReikiBrigade.org
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reikibrigade/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReikiBrigade
Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@HeatherMcCutcheon
Make a donation: https://www.reikibrigade.org/checkout/donate?donatePageId=6470dbf254b23e6bf8e3d33a
Outreach Optimization Kit: https://www.heather-mccutcheon.com/outreach-optimization
Heather's book, Connecting the Dots: from ad exec to energy practitioner: http://www.heather-mccutcheon.com/ctd-purchase
Pam Allen-LeBlanc is a scientist, a businesswoman, and a Licensed Reiki Master Teacher (LRMT) with the International Center for Reiki Training. She is the author of "The Reiki Business Book" and a co-author of ICRT Animal Reiki training. Pam teaches Reiki, Animal Reiki, and Animal Communication online and in person in Canada, the US, and Australia.
Get in Touch with Pam:
Email: pam@reikifromthefarm.com
Pam's ICRT Classes:
Book a Reiki, Animal Reiki, or Animal Communication session:
A special thanks goes out to Music from Pixabay for the intro music and to Nate Miller for the meditation music.
Register for our newsletter!
Dive into the heart of Chicago with Heather McCutcheon, the driving force behind Reiki Brigade.
This remarkable group of practitioners has extended Reiki to institutions ranging from the Chicago Police Department to local schools and medical centers.
Discover the stories, challenges, and transformative experiences as Heather details the journey of sharing Reiki with some of Chicago’s most essential organizations. Whether it's a 'lunch-n-learn' or a dedicated Reiki session, learn how the Reiki Brigade is changing the narrative on energy and community service, to make Reiki mainstream.
Heather McCutcheon left corporate America in 1998 to study massage therapy in search of a greater sense of purpose. She shunned metaphysics until the universe challenged her to open her mind with an unmistakable invitation. Today she is a licensed massage therapist, Reiki practitioner/instructor, author, and founder of the Reiki Brigade. Her book, Connecting the Dots, from ad exec to energy practitioner tells her story of evolving from Reiki skeptic to Reiki activist. Since 2011 the Reiki Brigade has offered more than 6,000, ten-minute Reiki demos to large Chicago institutions and communities in crisis.
Stay in touch:
Web site: www.ReikiBrigade.org
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reikibrigade/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReikiBrigade
Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@HeatherMcCutcheon
Make a donation: https://www.reikibrigade.org/checkout/donate?donatePageId=6470dbf254b23e6bf8e3d33a
Outreach Optimization Kit: https://www.heather-mccutcheon.com/outreach-optimization
Heather's book, Connecting the Dots: from ad exec to energy practitioner: http://www.heather-mccutcheon.com/ctd-purchase
Pam Allen-LeBlanc is a scientist, a businesswoman, and a Licensed Reiki Master Teacher (LRMT) with the International Center for Reiki Training. She is the author of "The Reiki Business Book" and a co-author of ICRT Animal Reiki training. Pam teaches Reiki, Animal Reiki, and Animal Communication online and in person in Canada, the US, and Australia.
Get in Touch with Pam:
Email: pam@reikifromthefarm.com
Pam's ICRT Classes:
Book a Reiki, Animal Reiki, or Animal Communication session:
A special thanks goes out to Music from Pixabay for the intro music and to Nate Miller for the meditation music.
Register for our newsletter!
Hi and welcome to the Reiki from the Farm podcast brought to you by me, Pam Allen LeBlanc from Hidden Brook Farm. I am a scientist, a businesswoman, and a licensed Reiki master teacher with the International Center for Reiki Training. Each week in this podcast you'll be entertained as you learn about a wide variety of relevant Reiki topics, helping you become a more knowledgeable and effective Reiki practitioner. We caution you though, this podcast may also dramatically improve your life, and we are so happy that you're here. on this week's podcast, I'm speaking with Heather McCutcheon, From Streets to Schools, How the Reiki Brigade is Transforming Chicago. Heather left corporate America in 1998 to study massage therapy. In search of a greater sense of purpose, she shunned metaphysics until the universe challenged her to open her mind with an unmistakable invitation. Today, not only is she a licensed massage therapist, she is a Reiki practitioner, instructor, author, and the founder of The Reiki Brigade. Her book, Connecting the Dots, From Ad Exec to Energy Practitioner, tells her story evolving from Reiki Skeptic to Reiki Activist. Since 2011, the Reiki Brigade has offered more than 6, 000 10 minute Reiki demos to large Chicago institutions and communities in crisis.
Thank you, Heather, for not only for being here, but for all that you do. Thanks. Thanks for having me. It's so nice to have you. Before we go too far, I just wanted to let you know that we would love to have you join any of our licensed classes in the month of October. I've got Level 1 and 2, Masters, Animal Reiki 1 and 2, and Kaurna Reiki at the end of the month in the evenings Thanks. For in North America and mornings in Australia and Asia. And I also have some classes, an intensive six days of animal classes. Animal Reiki, Level 1 and 2 Reiki, which is a prerequisite to Animal Reiki 1 and 2, and Animal Communication 1 and 2, coming up in December, and would love to have you join us. Heather, what do you have coming up? I'm always teaching Reiki classes as well. I teach via Zoom and live in person mixed classes so people from all over the country can take them and join in the classroom and everyone can see each other and talk to each other. I have my book, of course, Connecting the Dots from Ad Exec to Energy Practitioner, a memoir and guidebook. And we're going to be talking about the Reiki Brigade. The book came out in 2015 and it ends with me saying, gosh, I wish someone would do this and. Now we've done it. You're not going to see so much of what I'm talking about today in the book. I'm thinking about doing a second edition with some extra chapters of here's what came after that. But yeah, that's more my story of Reiki, that's ridiculous too. Oh my gosh, Reiki and all the steps along the way where I was like this can't be real. Oh my gosh, this is totally real, but that's not real. Oh, that's real too. Oh my gosh, here we go. So it's chapter after chapter of that. And it's amusing and it's educational for people who are, at any stage of their Reiki journey. I've gotten a lot of positive feedback. Also I wanted to mention, and we'll talk more about it. Towards the end of the interview, I put together an outreach optimization kit. So if what we talk about today appeals to you and it's something you want to do in your community I do have a, a self guided learning tool kit available for you to go ahead and purchase that and do outreach in your own area. I think that's brilliant because I love what you do. I think it's amazing and it's really great of you to go and put those pieces together to make it easier for others to do the same thing or something similar, even if they put their own spin on it. Yeah. I've learned a lot in 12 years and I want people to benefit both from my experience and my mistakes. So that's what goes on in that kit. I think 2011 is the same year I started teaching Reiki, actually, and it's, yeah, that's really cool. That resonates with me. Before we go too far, I'm going to invite the listeners and we'll join you in just bringing your hands together in Gassho, your palms together, your thumbs at your heart, and just Activating your Reiki energy. We're going to be talking about a special form of outreach today and I'd just like you to open your heart and consider is this something that might be possible or plausible? for you is a way of spreading more Reiki and just opening your mind and it may evolve into something a little different for you or it may be very similar to what Heather's doing. But in either event, our purpose today is to just explore ways that we can spread more Reiki in the world. And Heather is doing this in such a unique way that I just had to share it with you today. Just activating and connecting with your own divine purpose so that you can discern and understand whether this might be part of your purpose today. Aho and Namaste. Thank you. I always find listening to any podcast, any television show, any, anything with my Reiki energy activated causes me to hear the parts that are specifically for me. And I may drift at other parts, but so I always love to, to start out like this. And plus it keeps me grounded. I can get so excited about the topic that we're. talking about. It's a good idea for me to ground before I get too far in. Heather, tell us about the Reiki Brigade and its mission. I had never heard about this until Karen Kegg mentioned you on a previous podcast and I knew I had to learn more. I immediately looked you up. Thank you for agreeing to come and talk with us. Tell us about this. How did it come about and how does it work? Sure. So currently the Reiki Brigade is a not for profit as of early this year, 2023. Prior to that, for the previous 12 years, it was... a lot of volunteer work on my part. And then, and you're keep saying my name. It's a large group of people. I have about 20 volunteers and that's a fluid group of people. Some people come for a couple events and I don't see them again. I've also had people that have worked with me for years. So I've certainly not offered 6, 000 Reiki sessions by myself. This is a big group of people. But over the years it became a bigger and bigger effort, labor of love, up to the point now, sometimes we have several events in one week, so it's definitely more than a part time job at this juncture. So we are now incorporated, I now do have a job, and the volunteers are still volunteers, thrilled to have the opportunities that I've generated for them, and the resume that I've created, such that we can get these invitations and opportunities. It started Almost as soon as I was introduced to Reiki during a very difficult time in my life, and I won't go into the details, but suffice it to say, as a lot of people, have the term wounded healer, everything was going great, and then all of a sudden, I got thrown for a loop, and I had PTSD I had, fear, anxiety, rage, Heartbreak, all the things. I was starring in my own psycho thriller, Afraid for My Life. Everything was going very badly. And I had a couple strangers put their hands on me in a time when I was like, I don't know if I'm going to get through this. I seriously don't know if I can navigate this and get to the other side of this. And a yoga instructor and then someone teaching meditation at different times didn't know each other, put their hands on me for moments. And I came out of, I went in with busy mind, heavy heart, knot in my chest, can't sleep. And I came out feeling tremendously calm and blissful and as if everything was right in the world. Like a profound change. And my first thought was, that was amazing, how did she do that? And my second thought was, can I do that? If I can do that, can everyone do that? And then why aren't we all doing this for each other? Why aren't we all doing that? Yeah. So Reiki was the answer to that question. I didn't talk to those women. I don't know what they called it. I did talk to them. I didn't, it wasn't Reiki, whatever they were doing. One woman disappeared into the ether, the yoga instructor I never tracked down. The other woman, it was more like a religious based thing. It was a prayerful intention. Which I'm not super into. But I loved what it did for me. So when I found Reiki and had experiences like that and I can learn Reiki and I started as a massage therapist, putting my hands on my clients and they were reporting. How it was making them feel. I was like, this is the path. This is what I'm doing. I took all the classes. I almost immediately started offering Reiki. And it started out in like storefronts. What's the Lululemon? Can I come give Reiki to people shopping in your store? That's weird, but sit over there. Customers are like, I'm shopping for tights. What are you doing? I started going to wellness fairs at the YMCA. That was a little bit better. And I just worked my way up and built a resume and attracted people and made connections to the point now where we're about to get a contract with the Chicago Police Department. We're going to the fire department tomorrow. Two days ago, we went and worked with this organization that works with guys coming out of prison, a re entry program and offered Reiki to guys who had just come out of prison and obviously have some energetically stored trauma. Doors are definitely opening up now, but it's been a long process and I'm thrilled with where it is. On the one side, I'm like, I really thought people are going to feel this. I'm going to give Reiki to one cop, and all of a sudden, every, the whole police station is going to demand Reiki. It's really, 12 years later, this is finally happening a little bit. It took much longer than I thought. But on the other hand, when I think of what has happened and what's been accomplished. I'm really, quite thrilled with it. Yeah, so that's what we are. We're a bunch of volunteers going out offering Reiki to, veterans first responders, police officers, firemen, at risk kids women who have been survivors of domestic abuse. Also, and healthcare practitioners, ER doctors and nurses, medical students, anybody who has influence in the healthcare industry who we would like them to have experience with Reiki so that they have a positive reaction when someone talks about Reiki and or investigates it further and incorporates it into their practice. So yeah. Wow. I'm blown away. Like this, it's incredible. And I sometimes think, you talk about how it didn't happen overnight, and it didn't, I think it's good that it doesn't, because I think that sort of slower organic growth is a lot easier to manage and sustain. And it's more real. The sort of the flash can, if it had happened like this. We're back when you started it would have been very difficult to manage, but I think we grow with it. Yeah. Yeah, you're right I've Developed processes and procedures and surrounded myself with a group of people when I first started out I would just post on social media. I'm going to the VA who wants to come with And people would show up and offer Reiki and sometimes they were Reiki teachers and took it very seriously. And sometimes it was someone in a Merlin hat or a woman in a bikini or someone who hadn't showered in a week. And I'm trying to counter the flaky Reiki stereotype. And it's very difficult to do when there's someone next to you wearing a Merlin hat waving around a wand. Yeah I've had to shore it up a little bit and that's, it's been a process. That is so interesting, that never even occurred to me, but I could totally see that happening and yes, I'm always talking about Reiki and science and that I'm, as a scientist, I was also very skeptical, but I was also at my wit's end and I also felt that deep peace and that I wanted more of. I had never felt that before. Yeah. And I love it. And so what do you think your inspiration was to go to Lululemon? That takes to do that. I, you're saying that I wouldn't go to Lulu. I'm very vocal about Reiki, as with the podcast, with anybody who I talk to, but like going to Lululemon and saying, can I do Reiki? That takes a lot of guts. And it's impressive. Like what do you think your motivation was? What was that drive? I just wanted to get the word out to everybody. I just feel so called to it. I'm actually a pretty shy person when it comes to this topic. I am not. I am a megaphone and I sometimes feel like I'm channeling. I don't know. It just it's worked out. I expect you are channeling and That megaphone and that drive and that, that tells me that this is just aligned with your life purpose. And so I do think that, that's what's happening. Now I promised the dogs that they'd stay in here if they wouldn't bark and they're not really following their end of the bargain. I didn't hear anything. Good. My microphone must be working quite well then. Do you have any particularly interesting stories from one of your outreach events? I have hundreds. I have hundreds of stories. And one of my favorite stories and it's a long one so I won't share it now is when I went and gave Reiki with a group of my volunteers at the Juvenile Detention Center, so it's kid's jail. And the goal was to teach a Reiki class in the kid's jail, and I was able to do that. And these are kids that have had a rough time. And they were interested in taking the class, they received the Reiki during the demos, they wanted to take a class, I was able to go in and teach a class, and it took a couple years from, Hey, I'd like to give Reiki to some employees at this jail, to teaching the kids Reiki, mainly because my contact kept going on maternity leave, but also, these big organizations, it just takes a long time. So it was two years in the making, but. It was such a profound experience that one of the guys in that class took to it so well and had such a profound experience in the in the share at the end. And he had been scowling at me through the whole class. And it's jail and I know it's dangerous and my contact was like, Heather, I understand you're a bleeding heart liberal. Some of these kids have killed people. Get it together. It's okay. So he was scowling at me the whole day, but at the end, during the share, he had a big smile on his face. He had a profound experience with his partner. It was one of the more moving moments of my life. And I felt so blessed to be in that situation where I could have that experience and bear witness to that. So that was wonderful. And that was minus a bunch of the details. I had an experience at the VA working on I was trying to do a clinical trial about Reiki for phantom limb pain, because there are so many amputees there and they are suffering from phantom limb pain. There's so many things. happening at the VA that they don't know how to treat and Reiki can be so helpful for. And we were there every week for two years offering Reiki on Fridays in the gym and people would just saunter up and what's going on? What's this? I'll try it. They sat down, they got Reiki. And one of those guys came up with missing his right leg from above the knee down. And I'm just giving him Reiki. And for anyone who's given a ton of Reiki, this maybe won't be surprising to you, but people who have not given a ton of Reiki, you can have extremely profound experiences giving Reiki to someone else. This experience is not just for the receiver. This is a shared thing that's happening. And I wasn't expecting it. He certainly wasn't expecting it. I put my hands on him and closed my eyes and I went on like a roller coaster ride with like electric light. It was for sure a carnival ride type scenario. And I just sat there with my eyes closed in profound awe of what was going on. And sometimes in those circumstances, The other person will say that was relaxing. And they had a very different experience than I had. And I feel like there was a bunch of Reiki happening, but they didn't experience it the way I did, but he had a similar experience to mine. And when it was over, we just stared at each other, just wide eyed. And I was like, that was, Straight up tripping. And he said it was and he started telling me and we had a very similar experience of that. And I did hear, I don't know if I ever saw him again. I think it was towards the end of the program. But prior to that people with phantom limb pain had said that it was beneficial. So I hoped that had helped him going forward. And that was profound and memorable and many years ago. I also had You can cut any of these out if this is too long. It's not too long, it's perfect. One of the very first events we did was at a service fair for caretakers of children with learning disability. There were like computers that talked if you were blind or, just a variety of things. There's booths with people offering stuff. Here's tools that you might use, technology that might be helpful, therapy, whatever. And we're there offering Reiki. And it was a big hit. At these events, it's almost always a big hit. It's a big, loud room. People are all, everybody at the booths is talking about their stuff, so there's a din of noise to say nothing of all the technology and noise happening. And people were coming up and trying it and having pretty cool experiences. And one woman came up and she's I'm having a really hard time. Will it help with this? Will it help with that? Will it help with the other thing? And I was like, just, why don't you get on the table and see what it does? And back then I hauled around massage tables. I don't do that anymore. Now people just sit in regular chairs. She got on the table. I put my hands on her and within moments, I had my eyes closed. I'm in this loud chaotic room within moments. I felt this ball of light, like a beach ball sized ball of light, come up over my head like this, and I felt myself floating up out of the chair. And I thought, how is this happening? What is going on right now? This is going to attract attention. Is everyone staring at me? This is the experience I'm having. And I did open my eyes and realize, no, I'm just sitting very still in this loud room with my hands out like this. But I was having just this very profound experience of the energy, sensations, visuals, all the things. And it went on for a few minutes. And I had someone there, it was one of the earliest times when I had someone there recording feedback, so there was someone at the sign up table, and this woman, when we were done, she was very excited and wanted to talk to me all about her experience, but I was I was just recovering from my experience, and I just needed a moment, so I was like, if you want to tell her how it went, she'll, tell the woman over there at the desk, and And I sat there and cried for a couple of minutes, like I had to take a few minutes to get together just out of awe of, I can't believe that just happened. But again, because my experience was often different from the recipient's experience. I thought she maybe was going to tell me why your hands were really warm or whatever, and only two weeks later, I saw what was recorded on that video. She said, Oh my gosh, that was amazing. My pain is my head's terrible back pain. It's totally gone. That was incredible. I felt stuff moving down my legs and it moved out and she had a really profound tangible experience as well. And I have a YouTube channel, we maybe should include a link to that too. It's not. Like fabulous Purdue stuff, but I have a few videos and one of them is what can Reiki do for me? And it's some of these clips of feedback from people who have just received Reiki and hers is in there And the room was so loud that I had to put words at the bottom So you can't even hardly make out what she's saying. It's so loud, but she's And i'm sitting at the massage table bawling, so It was just a really profound experience for a 10 minute Reiki session for someone who has no idea what's going on. Sure, I'll give it a try. She had a really profound experience. I had a really profound experience. It's not like you're doing something for someone. This is a really cool thing to engage in for you. I think that's an excellent point, Heather. And I, yeah, thank you for making it. These are some great stories. How did you get into institutions like the Chicago Police Department the VA? Medical Center, and how have they responded with you, to you, that, you just said you're about to enter a contract, so obviously it's, they've responded positively, but how did that all come about? Over years the VA was a little bit easier because I came across something called a stand down, which is a service fair for homeless veterans, and I believe every VA in the country, in the U. S. will have those. They're pretty fast and loose about who shows up to help out for that. So that's homeless veterans showing up for services. So they get eye checks. They get clothing. They get fed. They get boots. They get haircuts. And they get Reiki at the one here in the city of Chicago, they get Reiki. They said, sure, show up and have a booth. And the first couple of times we went, we had, a banner and we had some yoga mats on the ground on the grass outside. And the vets were, were offering Reiki, they're snickering. There's. Sometimes a wink, wink, nudge, nudge. They've been overseas. They've been offered hands on services. Here we are, these, at the time I was younger women, hey, lie down and I'll put my hands on you and this will happen. And they were like, yeah, but a few of them bravely tried it and then had wonderful experiences. In my experience, you can give Reiki to anyone who's having garden variety issues. Am I going to be able to, fit this project in or did I remember to pick up the dry cleaning? If you're dealing with someone with PTSD, they are much more likely to have a very profound reaction to the Reiki. So your neighbor is going to be like, that was interesting, I feel warm and fuzzy, I feel relaxed. Someone with PTSD is very often going to go, what just happened, that was crazy, I feel amazing. So if you're doubting Reiki, if you're feeling like you want, some validation. Go work on people who are really in trouble, and you will get validation. So individually that was very well received. In terms of getting Reiki into the VA hospital, that was a whole other story. So these are huge bureaucracies, and it was ridiculous the hoops that we had to jump through. To get in there to volunteer on Fridays to give away for free what was tremendously beneficial for these people that this hospital is there to serve. And the same thing with the police department. Individually, the cops are like, that's amazing. That was incredible. I can't believe that just happened. But going up the ladder, that's ridiculous. That's not going to happen. We can't have that. So long, and I think this is a good point to talk about supply and demand. Anyone who works with Reiki, anyone who's experienced profound benefits from Reiki knows that everyone can benefit from Reiki. But need and demand are two different things. I know that people who are suffering from trauma could benefit tremendously from Reiki, but you can't just say to them, that sounds to them like, Hey, you should get a flugenflagel. You would really benefit from a flugenflagel. What is a flugenflagel? What are you talking about? No, it's great. You're going to love it. People are not rushing out to buy flugenflagels based on that. It takes years to develop. to educate people and to develop a reputation for what you're offering and for your organization and then for them to say, we do need that. Can we have that? So I was so thrilled the other day when the fire department called me and said we've had some, the LODD's line of duty deaths of EMTs. Everyone's morale is down. Can you come help? Because that's the shift from me calling people low on the totem pole or whoever and begging, can we come? Please let us come. This will be helpful. We really can help you guys. And them saying, Oh, what are you talking about? I don't know. I'll call you back. Not calling me back. Hanging up on me. Whatever. Years go by. They're having a hard time and their thought is, where are those Reiki people? Where's that woman's number? That took so much time and effort. This doesn't just happen. You don't just educate one person and it changes. But it is happening now. And that is the value of outreach. And we do 10 minute sessions. The purpose is to educate people and to offer them, obviously, the service. You had asked me about the Reiki Brigade earlier. Our mission is two fold. So the first part is to bring peace to individuals, community, and society as a whole. by offering Reiki. And the second part is to raise awareness and availability of the benefits of Reiki. So we're educating while we're providing the service. So they're 10 minute demos. We're not out there giving away 60 and 90 minute sessions. We're not in competition with Reiki practitioners. We are creating demand. throughout the city of Chicago for this service. And the hope is that more and more, it will be a viable career choice for people because these organizations and individuals and companies and whoever are going to recognize that has value. I would like to pay for that. So it's been a long slog, but we're getting there. It's just, it's been a ton of work, but it's happening. And I would certainly love it if other people could leverage what we've created and make that a shorter. A shorter gauntlet in their community. That's, I think that's the goal. Even when I wrote the Reiki business book, it was because I don't, it took me 10, 12 years to develop my business to being not only sustainable but really successful. And I don't want other people to have to take that long, like just I'd love to, I, we'd love to teach them from what we've learned so that. your learning curve is shorter. You don't waste as much time or money, right? And the goal is for Reiki to be a household word, much like meditation and yoga are. And it wasn't, it was 25 years ago. Yoga was like a weird Indian thing to do. And now there's yoga everywhere and everyone understands the benefits of yoga and meditation is done in corporate environments and everyone recognizes the benefit of that. Not that everyone does it, but people know what it is. And it would be wonderful if Reiki was. in that, in those categories of, yeah, meditation, yoga, Reiki. It's funny. I think we're coming at it from two different angles, but a very similar purpose. Heather, I'm just realizing because the purpose behind the Reiki business book was Colleen Benally has always said that it's her dream that every family have a Reiki practitioner in it. And that it, that people, young people can see this as a viable career option and things like that. And I can remember when she said her dream was every family to have a Reiki practitioner in it. I remember thinking that's naive. That's not going to happen. And then when I was in England, as the borders were closing, I was at Heathrow airport, Coming home to Canada as the borders were closing and flights were being grounded and cancelled and all of that and I looked around at the chaos and panic around me and I went, she's right. Every family needs a Reiki practitioner in it for times like these to help people who are at their bottom, like you were when those people put their hands on and like you my Reiki, it It actually started with Cranial Sacral and I wasn't guided to learn Cranial Sacral, but I was guided to learn more about energy and Reiki was very obviously my path. So I just, I love this. Tell us about some of the challenges you encountered when you were introducing Reiki in these public sectors and how you navigated those. Just broad strokes, bureaucracy has been a big challenge for these large organizations. For any smaller group of people, it's much easier, but when you're talking about a police department or the VA, these are ridiculously large organizations that do it how they do it. And there's politics and all that stuff, and it's very challenging. So in response to that, as I've said, we built a resume, we made connections, and perseverance. Perseverance came to mind. Yeah. We, I've had, I just remember one event we did at University of Chicago Medical School. There was a long time there where we were offering Reiki to medical students. And we get some takers, curiosity whatever. The biggest days we ever had was before finals, when people were super stressed out. It's ridiculous, but now I'll try anything. And I identify with that was my thing too. I've heard about Reiki, I thought it was ridiculous, My life went haywire I was like, anything! And there it was And then. When Donald Trump won the the primary, you had a line, they lined up. Yeah. Yes. Those medical students were, what is going on? Yeah. But I had one medical student walk up while we were giving Reiki and we'd been there several times. Banner, sign in table, handouts, people getting Reiki, people enjoying Reiki, and some, one of the students came up and said, I can't even believe they let you in here. This is a prestigious medical school, and you've got this pseudoscience crap, and he stormed off. And I was like how did I? In retrospect, I was like science is gathering data, and then forming an opinion, and you could sit in the chair and gather data. But you stormed off, but in response to that, I now carry around a list of research studies that are published in peer reviewed journals. And it hasn't really come up on occasion I've handed those out, but I have them in my kit just in case if anyone ever says the word pseudoscience to me again, I'm going to be like, this is what we call science. This is actual science, peer reviewed. Yeah, peer reviewed, replicatable clinical trials. And the results and right in front of you, an opportunity for you personally to have your own little field study. On Reiki. Yeah. Make a decision based on your own experience rather than preconceived notions. Exactly. Exactly. I love that. And at the same point, everybody is entitled to their own opinions. But it's, it must have been a bit disconcerting. It would have been for me too. And divine timing. Yeah. Divine timing. There's always something to learn in these when these things happen, when whenever you do have a challenge like that, it's, it made you better. Now you've The science and, yeah. Yeah, and I guess for the benefit of the listeners, I have another example. Again, if I'm running out over on your time, cut this out, but we were invited to do a wellness fair at the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration. And there were multiple booths, blood pressure, diet whatever, there was a pole dancer there, which got a lot of attention. I think that was supposed to be like an aerobic exercise thing. All the men gathered around the pole dancer and then we're adjacent next to a chiropractor. So we're offering our Reiki and people are trying it. It doesn't turn out the chiropractor next to us was a Reiki master. So we run into, Reiki people on the down low, a lot of places. So we had people receiving Reiki from us and there was a group of guys in white shirts with the lanyards, like upper managerial people, walking around, perusing the wellness fair, and like a group of thugs They came up to our booth and started laughing and poking in the chest the people receiving Reiki. They're sitting there with their eyes closed in their meditative state, and here comes this group of cackling hyena guys, literally poking them and assaulting them during their sessions. And I had to physically put myself between... this group of guys and people receiving Reiki and I was like beside myself like what is happening right now? And I, try to keep it together just for today. I will not deck this guy, that's the sixth ideal. Yeah, that's right. That's right. I've had to invoke that one a couple times. But what happened was, they walked away, I was rattled, we continued giving our sessions, it was fine, but HR had put on that event, and enough people, we'd worked on 40 some people, given 40 some people Reiki, and they had gone back to HR and said how amazing it was that they called me and specifically said, we would like to do a Lunch and Learn that's specifically Reiki, will you come back? And we went and we gave Reiki demos before the Lunch and Learn. There was like a 45 minute presentation I gave with a slideshow and I talked about Ampere's Law and all kinds of science stuff and energy and quantum physics and Reiki. And then we gave demos after. I got a standing ovation from a group of engineers from the Federal Aviation Administration. So the moral of the story is, Persevere, do not be deterred. I know this, you look through our social media, I know it looks easy. I know I've made it look easy. There have been some rough patches. Oh yeah. For some of you, this, you said earlier, it sounds like this is what you're supposed to be doing in life. This is my calling. This is what I'm doing. And we've kept going. And it's happening. You're doing a wonderful job at it. Thank you. I just, yeah, really want to take a moment and honor that. And Yeah. Thank you. What's, we talked we had a podcast about Reiki shares and that's where I found out about you. What are some of the main differences between an outreach event like what you're offering and a Reiki share? I think we're starting to get an idea, but would you, are there some specific things that you would point out that are really logistically different or just different from the get go? I would say it's mostly in the presentation. So the audience receiving the Reiki... is going to be invited to a wellness event. So sometimes it's, as I said, it's a wellness event with multiple modalities and booths. And sometimes it's a Reiki, for example, the second time we came back, this is a Reiki presentation and Reiki demos. But it's called, a wellness event for them. It's a lunch and learn. It's a medical personnel will call it an in service day. When we go to work on the nurses or social workers, it's an in service day where someone's coming in to. provide something for them. So they're not ever talking about a Reiki chair or a Reiki circle. And they, we've got our banner, we've got a sign in sheet, they're going to get a 10 minute, Reiki experience. We do now, recently we've started asking before and after on a scale of 1 to 10, the Wong Baker scale. How do you feel in terms of stress? Is anything hurting your body today in a scale of 1 to 10? 10 minutes of Reiki, afterwards, how'd that go? We write down any comments of note, and then we ask, okay, how are you feeling now in terms of stress? So we have before and after and then they just go back to work. So they're just really only there for 15 minutes while they're getting the spiel, getting the Reiki. And filling out the form, and then they leave. And it's just a rotating thing. So we'll be there with however many volunteers we have. Sometimes it's two, sometimes it's six. And we just have the chairs set up. Two chairs per station. I'm lazy. I like to sit while I'm giving Reiki. I'm going to be there for three hours. I'm not standing for three hours. I sit in the chair behind them. Or, move around. Ground them down to their feet at the end. Whatever. Hand sanitizers at each station, sign in sheets, handouts, etc. Yeah, so it's something for them mostly just to go through in 10 minutes. I know we talked about presentations. We did do that Lunch and Learn at the FAA, but it is rare that I get the floor. Okay. A couple times at the police department they let me talk at roll call. So that's. The shift change we specifically schedule it during the shift change, and in Chicago it's staggered so that there's always officers on the street, so it'll be like 2 and 2. 30 will be the shift change, so we'll go from 1 to 3 to make sure, or from 1 to 4 to make sure that we're there for the shift change, and they sometimes will let me go and address roll call, and now these are cops, and I, there'll be eye rolls, there'll be whatever, and sometimes the commanding officer will be like, go down and do this, And they follow directions. What am I? I don't know. What am I doing? I'm supposed to be here. And I once had a guy who looked like Mr. Clean, this enormous man. He barely fit in the chair. He had little arms on the little chair. He barely fit in the chair. And I put my hands on him and he started trembling. And I know he was having like some kind of emotional... release situation and he didn't want to do it at work. And that's when I learned to not have the chairs facing each other. You have your privacy while you're having this experience. It doesn't happen often but he had a profound experience. Yeah. Wow. This is just incredible. You're blowing my mind. How do you and your team make sure that you represent Reiki reliably and professionally? You talked about the people showing up in the bikini and unbathed, how do you maintain that professional image that obviously you have maintained in order to build your resume? As you said what did you, what steps did you have to put in place for that? The first one is branding. My corporate career prior to this was in advertising. So I know a little bit about visual communications and we all wear t shirts that match. We have a banner that matches our handout matches. Everything has our logo on it. We just look professional and put together and we have procedures in place. So that there's a process and everybody knows what to expect. So when I go to roll call, I can say so for example, you're going to sit in the chair. It's going to look like this. I'll ask you these questions. I'll do this and here's a quick blah blah blah and they're like, okay now I know what that looks like and I know that whatever volunteer they get that's the process that's going to happen. So the Reiki part can be, we always start with hands on shoulders because that's a very safe. place for people to be touched. And once the Reiki starts flowing, people are more comfortable with maybe a hand on the knee or, whatever else happens within reason. But shoulders is just a safe place to start. We always ask people, do I have permission to touch you? I can do this hovering in your energy field or with light touch. Do I have permission to touch you? And that's empowering for anybody that's I'm just feeling a little weird about it. But also a really big part of this is I now screen the volunteers and I train them and they have to give me their resume and references and I will call them and it's a process and not everybody makes it and I, people have said that's not very Reiki. I had one volunteer who showed up in full face makeup and jewelry and really skin tight centimeters away from some guy's root chakra, and this was guys who had just gotten out of prison. A crowd gathered. There was snickering. I was like whoa. We can't have that. And she was like, I, you're too uptight. You're walking back all my years of work right here. I can't have it. The term Reiki police has a really negative connotation. I wouldn't say that I'm the Reiki police. I'm absolutely the Reiki brigade police. This is what we are doing. You may go do your Reiki on anyone you want and that will reflect on you. This is what we are doing. It's the Reiki brigade. It's not the Reiki coming to do whatever you want. No, you have to maintain a level of professionalism and I know in the ICU, this is part of our code of ethics. Yeah. Not touching genitals, maintaining a professional image for the practice of Reiki. And I think it's really important if we want Reiki to be taken seriously. Exactly. Yeah. And it's also okay. Mrs. Takada taught us that. It's also okay to change your language, to change the way you do things, to change your messaging for the audience. When she was trying to practice in Hawaii after Pearl Harbor. It was very difficult for her. And, so she made Yasui Sensei a Christian and the president of the University of Chicago. And in a way she showed us and I do that all the time. If I'm talking to medical people, I'm not. sharing some spiritually guided insight that came in. I see that and I wouldn't do that, you wouldn't do that in the situation that you're in. You save that for the people that are really invested and they're, that's what they, that's what they. Are interested in this, it really makes sense to me what you're doing. You have to maintain that professional image. It's absolutely essential. So it does it, it makes it a lot of work for you though, in order to do that, doesn't it? It's paying off. It is, it's good. I'm happy with where I'm at with the work that I've put in. I'm thrilled so. You work with schools, you work with firefighters, you work with VA veterans, people with PTSD people missing limbs. You've got such different audiences, from students to firefighters. Do you change your presentation with each group, or is it a similar? Again, we don't give too many actual presentations, but in in my description to people are actually it's almost shows up more in my initial contact with people because I will send an email saying, Hey, here's what we do. I'd like to come help you out. Here's a link to a video that'll explain what Reiki is. Here's a link to a video of people giving feedback after Reiki. And below, you're going to find pictures of us giving Reiki to, and it's going to be whatever their population is. Here's us giving Reiki to a bunch of first responders. Here's us giving Reiki to a bunch of guys who just got out of jail. Here's us giving Reiki to, women. We don't ever take pictures of women who are in coming out of domestic violence situations, but it'll reflect. their population. So cops want to, they don't care about any other population, but they're, so you're really helpful to CPS teachers. Are they cops? I want to know how you've helped cops. Fortunately, Chicago Police Department now is really active with their social media, and they will often come take pictures of us and post it on their social media, and all I have to do is repost it. And I screen cap it. And when I'm pitching in other districts, because there's 24 districts in the city of Chicago, and I've had to approach them all individually until now, that I'm dealing directly with the wellness director, who's yeah, we're going to institute this program wide, in terms of the entire department. You don't have to go to each district and make new friends everywhere, and there's turnover and start over. But when I did have to do that, I would screen cap that, us gathered around the banner and cops in uniform gathered around us going, Yay, Reiki! And I would say, the 14th District loved us. Can we come to the, 18th District? And, several pictures. Here's us giving Reiki to Luz Hennen at the 12th. Here's us, whatever. Pictures of that happening. Here's where we've been. Can we come to where you are? You've worked so hard on this, and this is all volunteer, I believe, is what Yuri said. I got my first paycheck like two or three months ago, and it mostly reimbursed me for all the costs of getting incorporated. So still standing by for funds, going to be applying for grants. Anybody believes in what we're doing and wants to pitch in five bucks? We'll give you that link, too. Thanks for your help. You can definitely include that link, Heather, in what we're doing here. Absolutely. And amazing. What are the biggest misconceptions you've had to address? Again, the flaky Reiki thing. And I think we've sewn that up pretty well in terms of our presentation and people will still look at the banner and just scoff and walk away. But more and more people are recognizing what it is. Let's see. Yeah, mostly that. But it's not real. It's ridiculous. But there's almost always brave early adopters. So even if we go someplace where The population is likely to be very skeptical. Somebody will try it first. And then they'll get up and they'll hug the person that gave them the Reiki and they'll go back to their desk and say, Oh my gosh, that was amazing. I made these little stickers that say, Ask me about my free Reiki session. We'll offer them. If anybody's Oh my gosh, that was amazing. Hey, do you want to help us get more people through the door? And we'll offer it to them and they'll put it on their shirt and go back to the conference or to their desk or wherever. And then they're a walking billboard for us throughout the event. And yeah, then it's word of mouth. And so many times it's been a very slow start. There's four of us twiddling our thumbs, one person's giving Reiki, and at the end there's a line out the door because by then word has gotten around. This is amazing. This is great. You gotta go try this. Yeah. So again, perseverance, don't get discouraged, communicate well. And can I just say your marketing is spot on. I'm really impressed as a fellow marketer. Thank you. Yeah. Listen, what do you think, where are you going with this? I'm so excited that you've become incorporated. Where do you see this going? Are there other institutions, other communities you're hoping to reach? What's in the future for you? I'm hoping to be working inside Cook County Jail. There are 10, 000 people in there that could use some support. I would love to, down the road, have a brick and mortar location. Right now, we're virtual. We don't have... a space at all. I send out emails and we all just converge on whatever location we're going to, but I would love to have a space where we have a place for presentations, a place to give demos, like we would have first responder Fridays, and they could come in on Fridays and know where we are and that's always available to them. And students and Reiki practitioners could come there to, to practice and build confidence and learn to communicate better about Reiki. I would love to have treatment rooms there that volunteers could rent out at a discounted rate to have a practice. I would love to teach classes there. And I would really love, I've gotten calls from around the country and frankly around the world now for people saying, when are you coming here? And back when I was volunteering, it was frustrating for me because I was doing this trying to motivate other people to emulate what I've done and start in their own community and people just kept calling me and saying, come here and do it. This is a really big job and I'm not getting paid. Get off the couch and do it yourself. But. Now that we're incorporated and potentially be taking in grant money, there's a possibility that I could fly to Texas and help them get started, and we could franchise. Currently people who want to do this kind of outreach cannot be the Reiki Brigade. I would encourage them and, can help them, and this is where we had talked about the Outreach Optimization Kit. Certainly you can browse through our social media. And see what we do and you could go out and copy us, that would be great. Go do your own work, get your own logo, do your own thing. But if you want some more support than that, I do have an online kind of instruction manual, and it includes artwork for a banner. It's not a Reiki Brigade banner, but it's a Hey, Come Get Reiki banner. This is what Reiki can do for you, and there's a picture on it. And it has matching handouts, and it has the surveys before and after. So there's tools there. There's a list of materials to bring, there's instructions on how to do this, there's best practices, there's a video, there's an article I wrote about giving Reiki to vets and other people with PTSD, so that's available you could purchase that, it's 79, go through that and you have everything you need to get launched in your own area. But down the road, like I said, maybe I could fly around and actually have branches of the Reiki Brigade. I've gotten requests from Australia and London, when are you coming here? So that might be a possibility. That would be incredible. I, yeah. Is there any way we could link to your article? The... The article you had written about yeah, it's in my blog on my, it's in my blog on my website. Okay, I was just thinking it'd be nice to, maybe we could, but I, but we are definitely going to put a link so that people can consider purchasing that kit because in my mind, that's just the most, if this is calling to you, that's the most efficient way to get started. Yeah. Like I said, 12 years of experience. Here's what to do. And here's what definitely don't do. Yeah, 12 years of my life. Here you go. This is gonna save you 12 years or at least And there is also, if you just even go to the page where you would sign up to purchase that, there's a link to the letter that, that I put together that says hey, I would like to start doing something like the Reiki Brigade in our community. I've, identified your organization whatever, can we come there and do this? And then you can click to our links that will explain what it is. So you wouldn't say, I'm the Reiki brigade, but you'd say, I'm a Reiki practitioner in the area. I would like to do this. Can I come give Reiki at the YMCA or the block club or the fire department or whatever? So that letter is available to everybody for free, just in the description of here's what the outreach optimization kit has in it. You've really thought of everything, Heather. I'm impressed. Marketing communications. No, it's helpful. Wow. And if somebody's listening from Chicago is there room in your organization? Can they reach out and become a volunteer or are you full at the moment? I would never say that we're full. The more volunteers we have, the more we can do. There is an application process. It includes interviews and resumes and references and there's a 60 charge for that because it's my time getting you processed and you get a t shirt with that your Reiki Brigade t shirt that says ask me about Reiki on the back and Part of the reason I did that is because I spent a lot of time training people that never showed up for events. That was an enormous waste of my time. Are you invested? Okay, then I will spend time with you. Yeah, that makes sense. I, yeah. It's a couple hours of my time and a t shirt, actually, it's you're not very well paid. Anyway, that's besides the point. What would you say to someone listening about the importance of community outreach and education, and what advice would you have for them? I think it's one of the most important things going on right now. We're talking about a paradigm shift in the way that we understand and treat trauma, mental health. Large segments of our community, when we're talking about crime, we're talking about violence, we're just talking about bad behavior, is always the result of, someone feeling conflicted. and behaving that way. So when I think about Reiki, I don't think about it in terms of making someone, like an individual feel better. That person, once they feel better, will behave differently and that affects everyone in their circle. I don't want to get all Age of Aquarius, Kumbaya, but... You are talking to a good crowd if you do want to get that way. This is a paradigm shift and I feel like it can't happen Soon enough, watch the news. Stuff's going on. And I feel like this is the best way for us to approach it. I had a, my quote from Martin Luther King is one of the driving forces behind the Reiki Brigade. And he says, people who love peace learn need to learn to organize as well as those who love war. And you can't just sit by and watch and complain. Get organized. Reiki Brigade. Fall in. Let's go. This is a job. It's got to be done. Let's do it. And that's how I feel about it. I don't think there's anything more important happening. I love that. Thank you. Is there anything that we've missed, Heather, that you wanted to talk about or, I don't think so. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to share with your audience my enthusiasm, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Now we usually end with a short meditation. Is that something you'd like to lead us into today, or would you rather I did. I'm a little amped up right now. Why don't you go ahead and do it? Okay. Thanks for the offer. I lead a great meditation, but I'm hopped up right now. You've had a busy day. I have. And it's late. So I'm just going to invite everyone to close your eyes and place your hands on your heart, activating Reiki energy, and just feeling into what your heart's calling is, your soul's purpose. Peeling into ways that you might be able to do some outreach, to talk about Reiki, to shift your language with the audiences that you're speaking with. We're just going to invite Reiki to work with us to help us form the language, the words that we can use, the outreach, the type of outreach that's right for us. And the type of outreach that the Reiki Brigade is doing might be exactly up your alley, or you might be suited to something in a different vein, but whatever way that we proceed. As Heather said, outreach is one of the most important things we can do right now. Just look into your heart for a moment and consider who you'd like to reach with Reiki. Just stay here for a few moments, letting that insight come to light. It's okay to invite the Reiki energy to give you some ideas of how you might approach those who you would like to reach out to. We'll spend a little bit of time here just allowing those Ideas and thoughts and insight and guidance to form. Sometimes these insights or ideas take some time to fully develop and so they may show up later when you're out for a walk or making a meal, cleaning up, doing some other mundane tasks and we invite that. Right now I invite you to shift your focus and let's just all send some Reiki energy Thank you. To Heather and her group of volunteers, and thanks for what they are doing in gratitude and appreciation for their efforts to raise the profile, to successfully raise the profile of Reiki amongst some of these organizations who can truly benefit. We'll just spend a little bit of time sending Reiki to your mission, your purpose, and your effortless success. I hope you can feel... Our appreciation for you. Now let's expand that so that we send Reiki to the individuals and organizations that the Reiki Brigade and other groups like them will work with going forward. Just asking it to go smoothly and effortlessly for everyone involved and asking that it be positive for the clients as well as the practitioners. And now we go back to that original thought of Some people we would like to reach out to, or perhaps organizations. And collectively, or as a group, we are always more effective, more powerful. Together, supporting each other. Collectively, we all send Reiki to those who you would like to reach out to. Whether they are individuals, organizations, groups. Imagining the other practitioners. Reiki Masters that are listening, Kaurna Reiki Masters, Animal Reiki Masters, the one beside you is placing their hand on your shoulder, supporting you as you place your hand on theirs, supporting them, and just feeling that web of support that we have for each other, regardless of our lineage. or organizational affiliation, just that intention to create more wellness in the world, to spread love and light as we do enter into this new age, this paradigm shift. You can stay here as long as you'd like. When you feel ready, I invite you to come back. Thank you. That was a large group of people sending Reiki to this intention and this energy. I don't know. Thank you. Feel it, Heather, but I got a very real sense, so this is definitely a topic that is reaching out to people, I would say or that they're very interested in. Listen, I can't thank you enough for what you're doing and for being here with us today. Our very best to you. Reach out. If you ever need anything, I think we have a group of Reiki from the farm, Reiki family, people who will be happy to support. Thank you for sharing your ideas and for all that you do. Thank you so much. Thanks for all you do. Thank you. And once again, to the listeners, blessings to you. Thank you for the light that you're sharing in the world today. However you do you. Namaste. Namaste.