Herbal remedies and alternative healing have always been my first approach to any sickness I may have encountered throughout the years, as well as eating healthy and exercising. In 2002, I decided to resign to go back to school after working 12 years in a medical manufacturing facility in my hometown, of Reading, PA. Since I was always interested in health at a very young age, I thought nursing would be a great fit for me even though it was conventional medicine and not natural and holistic.
I became a certified nursing assistant and a phlebotomist. I found out early on while working in the hospital, hospice and nursing home environments, I did not want to further my education in nursing. Working around sickness was very depressing for me. When you see the result of disease and tragedy looking you in your face everyday, it can take a toll on you. It changed the way I viewed life.
I realized more and more how much life is a gift and we take things for granted. We never know what can happen to us or any of our loved ones in the blink of an eye. I wanted a more upbeat career, so I went on a career search and did some soul searching. I found communications was the right fit for my personality. I received a B.A in Corporate Communications in 2012.
Ironically, I have continued to work as a home health aide on a part-time basis for the last 17 years. It is a blessing to be able to help people experience a good quality of life while maintaining their dignity in their own home instead of a nursing home environment.
Since I am a person who is bothered by the suffering of others; I have a love for natural healing, and I am aware of the numerous health and emotional conditions so many people are dealing and/or struggling with-whether from a result of poor choices or from everyday stressors life can throw at us-I recently made the decision to become an instrument used to help people heal by becoming a Reiki practitioner.
I would love to be the earthly vessel you choose for your healing journey. This can occur in your own home. I do not have to be present or within close proximity. For more information please email me at: tracylynn614@hotmail.com
What is Reiki? It is a spiritual art of healing that heals a person from within using the divine energy that is in all of us and all around us. It is an alternative holistic healing of Japanese origin, addressing the mind, body, emotions and spirit of the person. The word Reiki is made of two Japanese words – Rei which means “God’s Wisdom or the Higher Power” and Ki which is “life force energy”. So Reiki is actually “spiritually guided life force energy.” Taken from https://www.reiki.org/faq/whatisreiki.html
The practitioner uses a divine healing which comes from God/Source/Universe (whichever your belief system is) to open the person’s energy fields in order to become balanced and create a sense of well-being. Reiki moves stagnant energy in the body by moving healing energy to the fields around the body to promote the healing process.
The practitioner can use a light touch or hover over areas of the patient’s body to activate the universal healing energy. Reiki helps with: stress, depression, eliminates blockages, ability to remember, heal unwanted habits, physical injury and reduces the pain, emotional pain, boost the immune system, promotes relaxation, improves mental attitude, and more. Many hospitals are now implementing Reiki sessions as a part of patient care to heal faster.
Reiki is not a religion as some may think, and it does not come from the devil (I mention this because I have both heard and read about people who believe this to be true.) The devil does not heal. The devil comes to steal, kill and destroy as the Bible says in John 10:10. Reiki may be similar to, but not the same as, the laying on of hands in the church. I am using this correlation to demonstrate Reiki from a perspective other than what you may have heard, or any preconceived ideas that have been instilled causing you fear that will hinder you from experiencing the many benefits Reiki has to offer.
How does distant Reiki work? Distant sessions are just as effective as if you were physically present with the practitioner. Because we, along with everything around us, are energy matter, we are all connected. I like to use a cellphone analogy as to how distant Reiki works.
Say the practitioner is a cellphone tower and the patient is the cellphone. The same way your cellphone produces a signal to find a tower, then the tower a signal to your phone, then they communicate with one another through frequency of the electromagnetic spectrum for your phone to connect and receive or make calls, text, etc… is similar to how Reiki energy is transferred through the airwaves. The process of using the cellphone analogy may be explained in much more detail and technical terms, however, I am using it briefly to give a description for a better understanding of how the distant Reiki process works.
What is involved in a Reiki session? Whether in-person or distant, the session will be the same other than the obvious which is in distant Reiki the patient is not present. The session will start with the patient and practitioner talking about anything that the patient would like worked on holistically. If present, this will be done face-to-face, then the patient will lie down on a massage table; if distant, the conversation will take place on the phone, then the call will disconnect, and the patient will lie down in a comfortable, quiet room in their home with no interruptions. In the case of distance, the practitioner will use a picture of the person or a surrogate. The practitioner will then set intentions and say a prayer for the Reiki to work in the highest good for the patient and the session will begin. After the session is over, the practitioner and patient will talk about anything that was experienced during the session.
I am offering distant Reiki sessions at the moment.
60 minutes is $50.00.
90 minutes is $75.00.
If you are interested in booking a session with me, please reach out to me at tracylynn614@hotmail.com
Here are some links below to help with any further understanding regarding Reiki.
I can’t believe we are only about four weeks away from Christmas. Some of you may have already started your shopping, some may have not. Over the years, I have changed the way I thought about the gift giving part of Christmas. The commercialization around this holiday is something I am sure we are all aware of. Unless I am forgetting about how this operated in years past, I think this year, the Christmas process started even earlier than ever before. Sorry, if I sound like Scrooge.
The day after Halloween, in the shopping center near where I live, Christmas wreaths were on the light poles and giant Christmas balls displayed on the lawn dividers. I mean, we were not fully out of pumpkin season with Thanksgiving still being about three weeks away at that point, and here comes the Yuletide decorations.
Within the first few days of November, stores started playing holiday music and Christmas trees were up and decorated, getting everyone prepared to spend. In my travels, I noticed so many homes decorated early too. Is it possible the enticing atmosphere retail stores created was the cause of this??? Soon, we really will have Christmas in July as it seems to get earlier and earlier each year. I am not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing.
Having a longer preparation time is good to alleviate some of the holiday stress we put on ourselves. The strain and feeling of obligation; worrying how you will look to others if you do not hand out elaborate gifts or any gifts at all for that matter. Anyone who truly loves you and has their own priorities in order, would never look at you wrong for the gift you give or do not give; they will be appreciative no matter what. In my opinion, family traditions and making memories with loved ones is much more important.
Gifts come in many forms. For adults, (those of you visiting from out of town this may not be doable) I was thinking how nice it would be, if instead of exchanging presents, gift cards and/or money, make a service coupon giving your time and one of your talents to a family member or friend to use anytime throughout the year. Services could be: doing some housework, tutoring, babysitting, cooking a dinner one night when someone needs it most, cleaning, helping out with home or car repairs. Of course, when the family member or friend would want to redeem the coupon they would need to provide enough notice. I think you get the picture.
I know families that started doing the ‘Secret Santa’ exchange with a set limit of about $20. This avoids each person feeling like they have to buy for everyone, yet no one goes home without a present, not to mention it is fun. You could start at your Thanksgiving gathering or set up another time to write out each participants name and wishlist tailored to the set amount, place papers folded in a hat and each person then draws a name. Presto! Life has just got a little easier. Now there is more time to enjoy the other aspects of the holiday. You could also do a cookie swap. The idea is to be creative and fun without being broke and stressed.
I learned over the years, our children do not need to have everything they think they want or ask for. When we always give in, we do a disservice to them and us. I remember purchasing toys my children put on their Christmas list when they were very young, to find not too long after, the toys they asked for were of little to no interest to them. I realized I was throwing my money down the drain. I did not have to give in to their every request. I needed to make better decisions for them and myself, teaching them more valuable lessons. I could have invested some of that money in a college fund or another type of investment that would have held more value later in life; teaching them principles that would better serve them once they were older to understand. Ouchhhh hindsight can hurt! Live and learn! Older and wiser!
My whole point in all this is to keep the spirit going, however, do not get yourself too stressed and in debt. That is not what the season is about. I hope you to take some things I’ve mentioned into consideration. Research others inexpensive ways to share this holiday with your loved ones.
Enjoy all the food and gatherings this season brings with the ones you love. I wish you a peaceful, healthy and happy holiday, filled with love and beautiful memories that will last a lifetime.
My relationship with food is a unhealthy one consisting of love and hate. I have loved food ever since I can remember. When I was five years old, I asked for my first two cookbooks. Yup, you read correctly…five years old! As a little child I loved looking at recipes. I would scan the pages of pictures with the completed dish or baked good and read over the ingredients like if I were reading a romantic novel. As I got older, the love for cookbooks never left me. I use to joke around and say I was addicted to cookbooks (which in reality, was no joke; I truly was addicted to cookbooks).
Here they are! This is where my cookbook addiction all began at the tender age of five.This is what I wrote on the inside cover of my Humpty Dumpty Cookbook. I am so glad my penmanship changed drastically as I got older!
I would always say I am going to go to Cookbooks Anonymous. “Hello, my name is Tracy. I am addicted to cookbooks.” I never used the 12 Step Program to get out of my addiction, however, I did overcome it on my own. Simply because I bought so many cookbooks that I had about five HUGE storage containers filled with them. I said to myself one day, “This is crazy! I barely even use these! I just have them for my viewing pleasure and I keep collecting more and more. I need to stop this!” And I did; I donated four of my five bins. It was hard for me to decide which books to keep, and which ones to donate, but after much reluctance and contemplation, I did it!
The only bin left out of the five I had filled with cookbooks.
My family always cooked. My grandparents never went out to eat. I only ate out at restaurants with my mom when we went shopping at the mall. Otherwise, we ate at home. I was always surrounded by food; delicious food at that! I believe this is where it all started for me.
Growing up, I was very active so I never really struggled with my weight. I could eat whatever I wanted and not worry too much about how I looked. I never took into consideration in my younger years how this would later affect me, or how it was affecting me at the moment even though I may have not have noticed or correlated any health symptoms to my eating habits at the time, or felt my issues were not crucial enough to make me calm down.
I liked my sweets, but I ate very healthy mostly all the time. I was not a Junk Food Junkie by any means. The problem was not what I ate, but how much of it I could eat; which is probably just as bad. I use to say that I could eat some men under the table. My grandfather would watch me eat and say, “God love her! Where does she put it all!?” As I got older and started to experience all different cultural cuisines from all over the world, food became the vehicle that transported me to the geographical location the fare I was eating was associated with. Just like how a book is a cheap vacation, well food was my palate excursion.
After giving birth to my children, losing the baby weight was never an issue. I put on 40lbs with my son, and 50lbs with my daughter. Yeah, they ate very well while in my belly. It was not until I got into my glorious 40s that I started to notice as my life became more hectic, and my exercise decreased, that my body started changing. I found I could not consume the same amount of calories, not exercise, and still be a desirable weight. This is when the battle began! I wanted to look good and still eat whatever I wanted to like I always could have up until this point. Now the two were conflicting with one another, and I had to choose: food or look good. It was a hard choice because never before have I needed to decide between the two. My desire for food always won. Then the insanity started, just like the quote says, I was doing the same thing, and expecting to get different results.
I would look in the mirror and see some fat that decided to find its way on my body, and get frustrated with myself because I knew my consumption of food needed to change, but I could not control it. Then, after being too consumed with life to exercise and eating habits out of control, my high level of frustration would give me the spark I needed to somehow find time and energy to workout for about a week, but I could not do overnight in one insane week of working out what took months or more of damage to do.
Now that I am almost 50, the battle of the last decade still continues. I am actually writing this now because I have been having digestive issues as well as going back and forth with losing weight. I have about 20lbs to lose. I start off all gungho knowing what I need to do, and I make progress, only to divert back into old habits and find myself picking up the pounds I just lost, only to have to start all over again. What a vicious cycle! I have the head knowledge, I just need to gain enough willpower to put it into play.
I recently been reading up on gut health and how important it is to our overall health. Many of our health problems come from our digestive tract due to the foods we eat and not expelling the waste consistently. I realize more and more how I need to change my habits in order to lose these pesky 20lbs and fully regain my health. I am always researching these topics so I am very knowledgeable on the subjects. My issue is putting everything into practice, which I realize I need to do ASAP. I am planning on beating this by learning to eat intuitively, being mindful of what I am about to put in my body and portion size; slowing down when I eat, chewing my food slowly and savoring all the flavors and textures instead of shoveling it all in and eating mindlessly. Something else I have been studying that has been shown to be very beneficial and healthy on so many levels is intermittent fasting, which I start and do good with for a little and then POOF, off it goes to the wayside.
I know I am not alone. There are millions of people out there struggling with these same issues. We will get to where we need to be. It takes time. We fail more times than we can count before we are sick enough of the same results that we do something about. Then it will become permanent instead of a temporary fix. Like any addiction, it is being aware, acknowledging it, learning the tools you need to be proactive, then implementing which leads to being victorious. We shall overcome!
I stumbled upon something I never heard before and I had to share.
Here is the link to hear the performance https://genius.com/Larry-groce-junk-food-junkie-lyrics
Today, I was sitting and thinking how we allow the smallest things to bother us, and we take on the stress of other people’s issues. I think it is safe to say we all have been guilty of doing this. There is so much we should let roll off of our back. Instead, we allow the nastiness of others to penetrate our being until we are all stressed and frustrated about something that was never ours to begin with. Do not take ownership for something that is not yours! When you do, your whole day will be ruined because most of the time we keep the incident on repeat inside of our head. I am sure you’ve experienced this before, trust me, I have too. As I am typing this, the words are boomeranging off of the page and hitting me as a reminder to self. This does not go for the boss you have to deal with everyday that is horrible…no! Get yourself out of that situation asap. I am talking about people we all come in contact with for a small amount of time each day.
I occasionally drive for an on-demand driving service for extra money -you know you have to keep at least one side hustle going in order to have multiple streams of income. I remember one of my riders, we will call him Joe, telling me about a cooking show he always watched until the chef pronounced the word herb in a way that bothered Joe. It bothered him so much, that he no longer could watch the show. I thought to myself, “how sad!” He gave up something he enjoyed; something that could have taught him a new cooking technique and delicious recipes all because of the pronunciation of a word???? There are many of his type out in the world that are judgmental and allow the littlest thing to bother them, then wonder why they have high blood pressure and acid reflux.
How many times has someone lashed out at us and we took it personally instead of thinking how they must be having a bad day or have some unresolved issues they are dealing with and just let it go? It does not mean the behavior is acceptable, just don’t internalize it, otherwise we let their drama and issues ruin our day. How many times have we used an innocent person for our target practice, jumping down their throat?
My granddaughter just started working at a fast food chain. One day while working the drive-through, she handed a female customer the soda she ordered. The lady yelled at my granddaughter telling her she could have filled the soda cup all the way. My granddaughter was not the one who filled the cup, another co-worker did, she was just taking the orders. Either way, my granddaughter nor her coworker deserved to experience this type of behavior…what a bad example! If the lady was dissatisfied with the level her beverage was at, she could have nicely asked if it could be filled closer to the top. She was so furious, she ended up spilling the soda all over her, the inside of her car, and then peeled out of the parking lot. Whatever originally had the lady’s panties in a bunch just got bigger because now she had sticky soda all over her and her car, not to mention she could have caused an accident the way she sped off out of the parking lot.
Things like this snowball all the time. It is causing health problems because we have not learned how to change our thinking, attitude and to manage our dilemmas. There is a saying from Alice and Wonderland that goes, the hurrier I go, the behinder I get. We rush around only to get things more messed up through our frantic frenzy. There should be a saying that says, the madder I am, the worser my day gets. This could very well be a saying, I have no idea, but you get my drift. The negative thoughts and attitude just create more of the like until it is totally out of control.
This lady could have possibly ruined my granddaughters day due to the way she snapped at her. It was uncalled for! You may be having a bad day, but you have no clue as to what the person you are snapping at is going through. The way you deal with someone could be the maker or breaker for them.
My granddaughter is young and she has a million life lessons to learn yet regarding how people act and the correct way to deal with situations. Heck, some adults have not mastered this yet which why I am writing this. I know it did not ruin her day, because as she was telling me the story about the soda flying everywhere, I could hear a sinister tone expressing how the lady got what she deserved!
Another one of my riders we will call Roxy, told me while she was driving the other day, a car behind her was riding her tail and clearly in a rush. Roxy did not want to start speeding past the limit just because the driver behind her was impatient. What happened next is terrible. Roxy said the driver was so furious, they went around her and did not see another car coming and BOOM! An accident! So, how far did they get in all their road rage??!! Possibly to the morgue while taking innocent people with them. It is ridiculous how we let our impatience, frustration and anger get to us so much that this can be the end result.
I give you these examples in hopes you learn not to let little things bother you that really don’t matter, do not waste your energy on other people’s negativity. Remember, you never know what someone else is going through, however, do not own and take on anyone else’s mess, or fall into the trap and cause your life to snowball out of control because of anger and frustration that is a result of others. Lastly, get your own anger in control or it could be a matter of life or death.
Don’t let people, places and things determine your moods. Take charge of how you want to feel each and every day. Michael Barbarulo
You can let your smile change people, but don’t let people change your smile. Unknown
I have been off balance for a couple of weeks now. Not practicing my morning routine as I wrote about in my post Peace Among The Trees, has really caught up with me. I have been feeling a lot of frustration and anxiety going through the daily grind without taking my “Om” time as I call it. “Om” time is the quite time I take in the morning to pray, meditate, say my mantras, state my intentions, listen to something uplifting and think positive thoughts.
If I do not take this time out to start my day, I feel I am off to a bad start. I know in order for me to be healthy and have healthy relationships with my loved ones, I need to revamp when my mind is feeling chaotic. When I am tired, filled with worry, and overwhelmed, I can get snappy. I need to get back to being centered in order to maintain my physical and mental well-being which has a ripple effect on everyone around me.
This short post, is also to remind you to nurture yourself. Take time throughout the day to close your eyes, take some deep breaths and clear your mind. Set aside 30 minutes each day to do an activity you love…exercise, read a book, chill at a coffee shop, go for a leisure walk in the park…whatever it takes to make you feel rejuvenated, balanced and alive again!
Balance your life and enjoy your journey!!
I learned a few years ago that balance is the key to a happy and successful life, and a huge part of achieving that balance is to instill rituals into your everyday life – a nutritious balanced diet, daily exercise, time for yourself through meditation, reading, journaling, yoga, daily reflection, and setting goals. Gretchen Bleiler
