Energy Is Everything: Balance Your Energy With Reiki

Meet today’s special guest, my Reiki Teacher and friend, Barb Keshen. 

For over 20 years Barb worked as a Paralegal and Legal Assistant. But when that got too stressful and she wasn’t enjoying her work anymore she decided to pursue the holistic field full-time and became a Reiki Master Teacher and Hypnotist.

Join us as we discuss the incredible power of Reiki and do an on-the-spot reiki-inspired laughter game!

Transcript

Lauren 0:10

Welcome back to the Law of Happy Podcast. I'm your host, Lauren Ner. I'm an attorney and I teach laughter as an exercise. When we laugh, we feel good, and we raise our energy. This allows more good fun things to flow into our experience. This is the law of happy, so let's laugh, have fun, and practice the law of happy together.

0:34

And very excited to introduce you to today's special guests. My Reiki teacher and friend Barb Cashin. For over 20 years, Barbara worked as a paralegal and legal assistant. But when that got too stressful and she wasn't enjoying her work anymore, she decided to pursue the holistic field full-time and became a Reiki master teacher and hypnotist. When Barb took the level one Reiki course, she felt like she was home and in the right place, it felt so natural and empowering for Barb to connect with this energy and to help others do the same. Teaching Reiki became the focus for Reiki practice. And over the years, she introduced hundreds of students to this wonderful energy work. I was so fortunate to be one of Barb's Reiki students. Barb such an amazing, intuitive, gentle, and caring teacher. I did all of my reiki trainings with bar because i knew that i too wanted to incorporate reiki Into my own wellness arts practice it was so happy to have this chat with barb about energy and to do an on the spot reiki inspired laughter game my two favorite things discussing energy and laughing Please join me in giving a warm welcome to barb cashin

Lauren 1:39

Barb, I I'm so excited you're here. Welcome to the Love of Happy podcast, and thank you so much for being our special guest today. Pleased to be here. This is meaningful to me for so many reasons. And I just, I'll get right into it. I'm just so excited. When I first looked into the wellness arts the holistic practices you, were my first Teacher as an adult. My first teacher, because you are a Reiki master teacher and a consulting hypnotist, and I found you when I when I had first moved to Toronto back in 2000, around 2014 is when I moved. So shortly thereafter, I, wow. Was so thankful that I found you and did my reiki training with you and became. Reiki master teacher through your training. So this is so, special for me that you're here. So thank you. Like loud and hugs and kisses, and I just

Barb 2:34

Absolutely. And we became friends too, which is lovely.

Lauren 2:37

Yes. So there's so many things that I just want to get into and say, but I, would love to hear from you about your. Y your personal journey, how you got into the the holistic arts or holistic

Barb 2:51

practices, how it, was really interesting because from a young girl, I was always interested in alternative stuff even though it wasn't invoked. So when my mom would ask me what I want for Christmas, I always wanted these books about paranormal stuff. And, my family was very very British, very mainstream. And I think they thought I was really weird. But I was always interested in psychic stuff and Edgar Casey, my mom, indulged me and bought these books and I just love that sort of side of things, but you could make money out of that. So I went the regular route and I eventually became a par paralegal and a legal assistant and a law office manager. And I loved. The law. I really enjoyed it, but it became so stressful. And so I did that about 20 years I think, and I had but in the meantime I also taught yoga and meditation at night, during weekends. So I kept my foot in that world but also in the legal world. And then it started to get so stressful in the legal world. I was not enjoying it anymore. I was actually coming home and throwing up. And my husband Richard, said to me, you can't do this anymore. You're not in the right place anymore. It's just the fact you're having a physical reaction. And I thought, yes, so what am I gonna do? So I took a deep breath and said, okay, I'm gonna let go of the familiar, my regular salary dependable work life and go into the holistic. I actually took a lot of different courses. I could paper my off this whole room with diplomas because I was trying to figure out what. Really appeals to me. And I loved some of it, but none of it grabbed me like reiki. So I be, and then I became a reiki master. Cause I thought, I wanna teach this.

Lauren 4:50

Ah, that's amazing. Can you tell us for cause I perhaps some of our listeners are not familiar with Reiki. How would you Sure describe Reiki? What it is?

Barb 5:00

Reiki is a Japanese practice of keeping your energy field balanced and a lot of times people don't recognize that. Yes, we have the physical, we really focus on the physical cause we feel it we have an ache in our arm or a headache or whatever. But your energy field is also very affected and people will usually be able to connect with it. If you think, okay, you go into a room, say a party, and there's just a part of that space where you don't feel comfortable, but you don't know why in some way your energy field. Has told you. Red alert. Red alert, this is not a comfortable space for you, and especially maybe people who get panic attacks or so on, and they, it'll come under the blue. It's because the energy that they're in doesn't feel right to them. So Reiki works with balancing our energy fields. Now it's helpful if someone has something physical in that it helps, it's not a, replacement for Western Mass It's an adjunct to it. So if a, and I've worked with people in Reiki who have had cancer going through chemotherapy, but they come for the reiki sessions to help their energy field feel calm. And to feel positive and to give, it gives after an en an energy session, the person feels calmer. They have more energy, they just feel more at peace with themselves. It takes a person into present moment. It's very much like a meditation in that you go into present moment where time just becomes. One, and you're in a state where you can create positive change and it's only through that present moment. That's the thing with Angie, that's what I love about the energy world. And I was talking to my friend the other day cuz she was having a challenge about something. I forget what, but I said, if you put it in terms of energy, it's always solvable, right? But if you say this circumstance is happening or it makes it solid and we feel really confused or we feel really. We can't change this, but if you put it in terms of energy, everything's energy. And energy's constantly changing. You and I right now are gonna be different in five minutes from now. You know what I mean? And our energy field is constantly changing, and you can change it by being in present moment and putting out moment, putting out into the future from the present, our energy that we want to achieve.

Lauren 7:32

Thank you for breaking it down this way. It's, just so helpful to to understand to know how to be in the present moment to, have these tools to get into the present moment and to bring more of what we want into our lives. I've always been also so fascinated with with energy work and everything related to this. Spiritual realm and energy. Yeah. In general. We are all energy and everyone has different beliefs and everything. But for, me this form of relaxation and a wellness practice is just is incredible because it's so gentle and so effective. Yes. I did my reiki trainings with you. They were, yeah. It was such an amazing experience. And, then I've also had Like sessions with you when I would come to see you for just general relaxation and then they were in person until Covid started. Yeah. Yeah. And I reremember calling you because I was going through at that time the, process to Right, the fertility journey to have be a solo mother by choice. And it was Yeah. An exciting time, but very, can be very stressful, to say the least. Yeah. The whole journey of trying to conceive and then when you do and in the early stages of pregnancy and throughout, and I remember, and it was covid, like there were the lockdowns That's right. Shut down. Yes. So I remember calling you and, when I, when you told me that you were doing remote sessions like. I can be, in my home. And you're in, yeah. Your home. And we, set up a time for you to do the yeah, the energy work, the reiki remotely. I just remember the session with you was Incredible. I was going to say. Yeah. And I will say miraculous. It just it, helped me physically e emotionally just in every way. Literally my, mind body and just the whole spirit. The pregnancy went well and and I have my, my beautiful twin, girls sweet girl. Yes. And, but all this to say, I am so, thankful that you were I was able to have these remote sessions with you during that time,

Barb 9:38

and remotely is a little harder for people to understand. But what, you actually do is you connect with the person energetically, and you do it by arranging a time. They lie down, I lie down in a dark room, I go into a meditative state. And I connect with their energy field. So at that point, I'm not connected directly with physical. And actually in some ways, sometimes the sessions are stronger. We're such a doing universe in world rather. And with reiki you just have to be right. And for the practitioner, All we have to do is be, it's not, you don't do reiki. So what I would always do at the beginning of a session, and even if I'm doing self reiki for myself now, I do the same thing where I just give intent cuz I'm putting my self aside and I'm allowing the energy to flow through me like a,

Lauren 10:35

a vehicle. Yes.

Barb 10:37

So I'm not part of it. The physical me is not part of it at all. People would say, what if I'm working on somebody who has bad energy? Will I get the bad energy? No, because you're not connecting. I. Physically with that energy, you're allowing the reiki energy to flow through you, and I see this coming through the crown chakra coming through you and out your hands into the person. So it's in effect the Reiki energy or the higher energy working with the person, not you physically. It's you have to put your ego aside because it has little to do with you

Lauren 11:09

personally. We're just a, channel and yeah, exactly.

Barb 11:14

If you rub your energy rub your hands together rather you're, creating energy and if you just hold your hands a little bit apart and really focus on that space in between, and actually, if. Whoever's watching this is with someone else. They can actually have that person hold their hands like this and have them, you hold their hand, their hands above

Lauren 11:39

theirs, right? And if people are tuning in audio only, we're rubbing our hands, like where our hands are,

Barb 11:45

hands together to create energy and then bringing them apart about three, four inches maybe. And we're focusing on the space between our hands. And you'll feel some sort of energy there, but it takes real focus. You have to really put your attention on

Lauren 12:04

this case. I find when I close my eyes, I can tune into it more. Exactly.

Barb 12:07

Closing eyes is a great idea. And it may feel a little bit like a swirling feeling or a magnetic feeling. You might even have sensation of heat or cool. But the key is to really bring the focus there cuz at any given time our focus is. All over the place, right? So what you really need to bring that attention to that space. But yeah, that's, and as I say, you can do it on, do the same thing. Rub your hands together, have another person hold their palms up and you place your hands just above their palms, right? Cause you're gonna feel their energy, you're gonna feel their energy field.

Lauren 12:47

Yeah, it's amazing. I'm just always fascinated with Yeah. That everything's energy I mean it's, science. If you break everything down it's all energy. And quantum

Barb 12:55

physics really talks about, and it's funny, I, as I say, I came from a British family, was very mainstream. And my brother, my older brother, who's 11 years older than me, he heard on the ra, no, he didn't want ever ask me about reiki too weird. For my family. They used to call me the witch or that

Lauren 13:15

witchy stuff you do as a joke. Yeah

Barb 13:19

But he heard a quantum physicist talking on the radio about long distance reiki, about remote reiki. Wow. Because he heard that from a scientist. He then opened up and he actually I took

Lauren 13:33

my course. Really? Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. It's something that has always been part of my, life. I, realized when I was a child, I was doing, I didn't know this, what I was doing at the time, but just, I, intuitively, instinctively I was doing remote reiki with my grandfather when I was about 13 years old. He was in the hospital and I didn't know the details, but I just knew it was serious. But I didn't know the details cause I was a child. So the doc people weren't telling me what was going on, but I just remember. Doing remote energy work with him, visualizing things and focusing on his wellness and, different things like that. And he, ended up being discharged from the hospital he was so inspired and, determined and motivated to to heal as well. But all this to say, it was something I did intuitively instinctively as a child. Yeah. And then when I did your course, Barb, and you were teaching us about reiki and remote reiki, I, it, the light bulb went off and I was like, oh my gosh. Now what I was doing as a child makes sense. Like it was just so much fun to learn the I guess the theory or the breakdown of it, how it. Works in the way that you, would, you taught it. It just was so great to connect the dots and, make sense of what I knew already

Barb 14:54

as child. Yeah, that's so important what you're saying because children, people would say, oh, sh should I have my child come and learn reiki? I'd say they know how to do it already because Reiki, by the way, is a form of energy. It's no different than any other energy work. So it really bothers me when people say, oh, Reiki is better than this energy worker. No. You know what energy's energy? The universal healing energy is universal healing energy. Reiki or reflexology or whatever we wanna say are simply the terms of how we apply it. It's all the same. And we like to have names of things, so we call reiki, which means universal life force energy. That's the, definition of it from Japanese, but it's really just the energy. But we, in North America, probably in most of the world, to have a name for something. Children don't need to name it. They just know how to connect with the energy. And I had so many students who were parents who would call me and say, you know what? I was doing reiki and my little one came over and put their hands on. They could feel them giving me reiki. I go, yeah, because. They watch what you're doing and go, oh, I know how to do that. I know how to connect. And when I used to do sessions sometimes and I was always glad the clients had their eyes closed cause I get tears in my eyes because it was such an honor to work with someone's energy field.

Lauren 16:25

Barb, I wanna know if you're open to this, cuz I love. Reiki for as a tool to relax and feel good. Yeah. Same thing with with hypnosis and guided meditation and breathing techniques. There's so many techniques. So many, yes. Cuz laughter is another yeah. Form of exercise or technique to just like Absolutely. To feel good and get into alignment with with our inner being and our Line up her energy. Absolutely. So it's using laughter as an exercise to get the benefits. Yeah. And so it I'm, having this desire to do this laughter exercise game called Sure. The the laughter cream. So it reminds me of, reiki in a way, because what we're gonna do, and I can demonstrate for a second Yeah. Pretend that I've got this bottle of cream, so I'm gonna mime or pretend that I'm. Yeah. Squeezing this. Yep. Laughter cream from from one hand into the palm of my other hand. Squeeze out the the cream. Yeah. And then I'm gonna rub my hands together. Yeah. Rub the cream, the laughter cream together. And then I'm gonna place it on a part of my body where I want to ease. Tension or stress. If I'm, I, I hold a lot of it in my shoulders. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna choose to put my I'm gonna rub my head and I'm gonna place my hands, the laughter cream on my shoulders. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm gonna laugh and it's gonna help the everything just relax and feel better. Okay. Alright. Okay. I'm ready. Okay, so we'll rub the cream in our hands again, rub the cream together. Together. Place your hands on your shoulder, wherever you wanna, ease the tension and then laugh. Oh, rub it in. I laugh. Oh, that

Barb 18:20

would be good to do when you put body cream on. Yes. My neighbors might think little crazy in the condo here, but that and I, we talked before about laughter. Laughter is as you said, that it releases hormones, so they're really important for feeling good and you know what, it's an another to me, stress release, laughter.

Lauren 18:43

Yes, it really is. Thank you for doing that exercise with me and sharing everything that you've shared and oh my God, I just wanna keep talking to you. I could do this for hours. Yes. You're amazing. Thank you so much for everything, Barb. You're welcome. And I wanna ask you, this is what I like to ask. Yeah. My my guess. I don't if there's something that I didn't get a chance to ask you, but you feel that I should have what would it be or what would you like to share with, people as we as we conclude our chat?

Barb 19:16

I think of anything that we didn't get to. We talk pretty well about energy. I just think I would like to share with people be open that there's. There's more than what in front of you to help you deal with stress. The world is so stressful right now. It's, gotten worse. As far as the news. People watch the news or whatever, and they feel so stressed and they feel that they don't belong in their world. And there are so many, whether it's reiki or laughter therapy or yoga, there's so many avenues out there, And there's something out there for everyone. Mindfulness, meditation, and the good thing about doing these kind of. Podcasts are you're doing is people can hear about things and maybe then do some more research online. But I just really recommend the holistic therapies. They're, they've kept me going all this time and they're keeping me going and happy and peaceful and able to deal with the stress of life.

Lauren 20:19

Yes. Thank you for sharing that. And it's a great reminder that it's also a. An exciting time too, because there are, I feel that there are so many wellness modalities that are that are becoming more and more known and practiced. And taught. And shared. Yeah. And so it's exciting and, it's can be like a buffet, you can try Yeah. Different things. See what you like, see. Yeah. What you prefer and, go with that. And just something for everyone. Yes. Yeah, definitely. So thank you for sharing that and everything that you've shared. Barb Again, thank you so much for for having been a guest for your time and for everything,

Barb 21:00

and thank you for the, laughter. That was the first time I'd done that kind of exercise. I love it. I'll, oh, I'll continue it.

Lauren 21:07

Oh, I'm excited. Yeah, thank you for being open-minded and, joining me with that, was a lot of fun. So thank you so much, Barb. Big hugs and and love and, we'll speak soon. Take care. Okay.

Barb 21:20

Bye.

Lauren 21:21

Thank you for having tuned into this Law of Happy episode. If you smiled, laughed, or felt inspired, please subscribe, rate, review, and share the Law of Happy podcast with someone you'd love to have fun with. And if you'd like to laugh with me as a guest on the show or in a customized program, you can email me at lauren law of happy.com. I look forward to laughing with you soon.