Valerie Oula: [00:05:24] So Reiki very simply is an energy balancing technique. It’s a Japanese modality and it’s really great for anything from physical aches and pains to, emotional, upset, to stressed or anxiety or even to support any goals or projects that you have going on. I mean, it’s a very gentle modality. It’s very, very simple and very, very gentle.

Valerie Oula: [00:06:06] No problem. Yes. So if you’re having a session in person, it would be a very light. Hands on, touch on or off the body.

Valerie Oula: [00:06:34] Yeah. So the thing is, everything’s connected, right. And so when we look at quantum physics, there’s something called quantum entanglement. And basically, there’s so much that the science is, you know, just coming to surface. And I know people are still skeptical. So I always say the best thing to do is actually just experience it. And once you experience it, then you’re like, OK, I don’t know what happened, but something happened. So essentially, it’s energy. Everything’s energy, right. So if we think about everything, even if it’s solid, when we break it down to its smallest molecular particle, it’s vibrating. It’s moving its energy. So it’s tapping into this energy form, this frequency, which is how we can do distant sessions from New York to Dubai and actually feel a shift.

Valerie Oula: [00:07:53] Well, and here’s the thing we think about. Oh, the space around us is empty. It’s not empty. It’s filled with energy. It’s filled with Wi-Fi waves, Bluetooth waves, microwaves, radio waves, all different forms of energy. So when we do something like energy healing, we’re just tapping into a different frequency.

Valerie Oula: [00:08:22] So the lineage that most people learn Reiki nowadays is from Mikao Usui, who was Japanese. He wasn’t a monk. He was a lay person – monk. So that means like, you know, on weekends he would go on retreats and he would serve at the temple. But he wasn’t a full time monk and he was just a regular guy in the early nineteen hundreds and just started going on a spiritual search, and he finally decided to go on this retreat up the mountain because he was looking for enlightenment after years of practicing Buddhism. So Reiki comes from this Japanese lineage, a mix of Buddhism. Shinto is it’s a light hands on healing. But that’s the basic, you’ll find, if you Google Reiki, people will say, oh, it came from Egypt or it came from Tibet. You know, all these other civilizations and countries have different forms of hands on healing. But Reiki, as we learn it and teach it and share it nowadays is Japanese. Reiki means universal life force energy. So Mikao Usui goes up a mountain looking for enlightenment. And, you know, does this fast for twenty one days meditates and on. The very last day, I think on the 21st day, basically he’s meditating and he gets struck by lightning or he feels like he’s struck by lightning and he passes out.

Valerie Oula: [00:09:56] And when he wakes up, he feels like he receives this answer to his seeking, that everything’s connected, that everything is one. And he’s so excited about this revelation of oneness that he starts he’s racing down a mountain because he wants to get back downstairs, downstairs, back down the mountain to tell everyone how, you know, everything is connected and everything is one. And as his running racing down the mountain, he trips and he hurts himself and automatically he puts his hands on his foot, to help himself. And that’s when he discovers that his hands are activated with healing energy. And so when he makes it off the mountain, he shares his good news with everyone, that the whole world is one and everything’s connected. And suddenly he has this Reiki energy in his hands to share. And he starts doing, these healings and he opens a clinic. And there’s actually a full on Reiki clinic in Tokyo in the early nineteen hundreds. And it becomes very, very popular.

Valerie Oula: [00:11:32] It’s energy. But it’s also it’s human touch. Right. It just touch. Automatically, when we stub our foot or like bump into something, you naturally just put your hands on your body. To hold that part. And I think that’s what we’re already tapping into, is that everyone has this healing energy within themselves. But, you know, we need to be guided to open it up, to activate it and to connect with it. So we need to be able to basically open our awareness to it. And once your awareness is open, suddenly you’re gonna notice all kinds of things about energy.

Valerie Oula: [00:12:56] Yeah. So basically when we do distant sessions, you want to set yourself up in a relaxing space. You don’t want to be driving. If if you can avoid it. But of course, if you have to you can still receive the benefits. But it won’t be obviously, as relaxing as if you set yourself up and basically get into a meditative space just to receive whatever it is you need to receive. So the way I like to do distance sessions is three days, ideally three days in a row. But obviously our schedules weren’t lining up to the line it up completely. But we got two days and then we just did our third day today. And we start with an intention and believe your intention was to be more grounded.

Valerie Oula: [00:14:07] And so then once I have the intention, you know, you on the other end, you’re just sitting, relaxing, receiving. And on my end I’m just sharing Reiki from where I am. And as you share Reiki, sometimes you receive messages or you see certain things and it’s up to the Reiki practitioner to discern what is meant to be shared and what can just be like passing stuff, you know. And I think the last session we just finished up with. Are we fully discussing your session?

Valerie Oula: [00:15:51] Yeah. For us, I think everything feels so linear. Right. Like consciously we’re like, well, if this then that this is logically how things work. Right. But when we get in to actually like quantum physics, you’ll see that there’s so much crazy stuff that we can’t even possibly imagine. And when I first learned distance healing, I was like, how is this possible? And then I just let it go because things started happening and people started feeling things. And I started when I was sharing, I would feel things. And then the other person you would share with the other person halfway around the world and they would say, oh, my God, I felt something similar, you know, and it’s just through these learned experiences because I’m a major skeptic. I’m the biggest skeptic. And it’s through these shared experiences that I know that this stuff works, you know, that something is happening, that energy is being opened up and shifting.

Valerie Oula: [00:17:41] Well, I mean, I believe it, you know, and I feel like the very first session that we did, I felt like something came through. I heard Bloom where you’re planted. And that just felt so right. Because, you know, when you think about Bloom where you’re planted, it’s like I saw like tree roots and like, you know, moving through this resistance to like settling in to where you really are. And even, you know, our last session just before felt a lot of resistance and any any residual doubt or fear, anxiety just being burned through like through the navel area, through your core. And it was just this burning. And it’s almost like I saw these little slips of paper. You know, I don’t know. I don’t know. This is you know, and sometimes, you know, not everything is something, but it’s it’s just how I see the energy. And it may or may not resonate for, you know, whomever I share it with. But I saw like little slips of paper, you know, when you write things and you want to burn them to like clear them out. That’s what I saw happening was like all these little slips of paper that felt like self-doubt or any anxiety or any residual resistance like burning, actually burning through from your core, like activating that fire and burning through it.

Valerie Oula: [00:20:10] We cause our own stress. It’s really how we see things and when we can shift, how we look at things. You know, there’s that whole quote, like when you change, how you look at things, everything changes. Something like that. Right. But you know, the Reiki energy. It’s very gentle, but it’s also it’s very supportive. And the way I like to think about it is that it just brings you what you need. Right. So sometimes we think we need very specific things. But once you do a session, you just you trust that you get what you need anyway, you know? And when we have like technology issues or it feels like there are roadblocks going on in our life, you know, I know this probably isn’t popular, but it’s usually our energy. It’s usually our own resistance somewhere that is creating these roadblocks. And you can almost use it as a way to go, OK, what do I need to do for myself? What do I need to look at to reset because something’s off? Right. And so when we run into roadblocks, you know where such a do do do society, we want to just power through it. But, you know, there’s resistance in us for some reason. And it’s something that we need to look at. And it could be like some kind of old limiting belief that is starting to show up or it’s some kind of, you know, just anxiety that’s starting to show up. But all these things that show up just means they need attention and we need to pay attention to our like our inner awareness, what’s going on inside. And I love that that’s what Reiki brings to people, because suddenly you’re like, all right. You feel like you have a little more breathing room. Right. It doesn’t cure it. Right. It’s not like, oh, suddenly everything’s fine. It’s that it helps you look at things differently. It helps you reset in a way.

Valerie Oula: [00:23:10] So the five principles of Reiki were actually, you know, the actual teaching that Macao Asui gave to students. And there’s many different variations of it. But it’s very simple for today. Don’t worry. Just for today, don’t anger. Please accept everything. Give thanks and strive to achieve the teachings in action and be kind. So for a long time, when I first learned Reiki just for today, don’t worry was the thing that stayed with me the most because I was literally the biggest worrier. As my guy used to say, I was the manager of the worry store. So the word store is always open and I was always managing it because I was super anxious. And what Reiki brought to my life was not just like this innate sense that we all are connected, but just that very first line just for today. Don’t worry. All I did was like, remember it? And it really helped me to shift.

Valerie Oula: [00:24:37] It’s so much more manageable. And even if you don’t want to do just for today, you can say just for this hour, just for right now, just for this actual. In this moment, I can let that go.

Valerie Oula: [00:25:10] Sure. So Reiki is energy bouncing, right. And I like to say it’s like acupuncture, but without the needles. So we’re just using what we call universal life force energy to basically open up any blockages in your system or clear out any stale old energy, things like that. And so when you think about doing any kind of clearing, any kind of detox, in a sense, you’re going to maybe not feel so great sometimes. You know, sometimes people get nauseated or sometimes people will break out into a full on like cold or something. And it’s a way of your body, like just clearing stuff out. Right. And I’d like to say that when you’re going through something uncomfortable, if you’re like full on sick after Reiki or something, it’s your body’s way of like physically clearing it, getting rid of what it needs to get rid of.

Valerie Oula: [00:26:20] Oh, absolutely, absolutely. There’s a book called The Body Keeps the Score. And it’s we hold trauma in our body. Plenty of people have gone to yoga classes and come into a pigeon pose and then burst out into tears because things are getting opened up. Things are getting released from your body. And so it can absolutely happen that after Reiki, you might not feel so great.

Valerie Oula: [00:27:09] So water helps the clearing process. As with anything. And when we think of our bodies, as these energetic systems, water is the thing that helps to move energy. It’s a conductor of energy. So when we are in a clearing process or whatever it is, our body needs water, that our system needs water. Our energetic system also needs water. So water is key. I used to do Reiki at the Wild Bird Fund, which is in New York City, and they rescue all kinds of if you find any wildlife like injured pigeon or squirrel, you can take it to the wild bird fun and they will help to rehab and save these animals. But I used to volunteer Reiki there. And inevitably, every time after I was done working with the birds, you know, we’re working with them through the cages. They would fall asleep in the middle of it. And then after I was done, they would go drink water. I didn’t have to tell them to drink water. They would just go drink water.

Valerie Oula: [00:28:19] Yeah. So innately they know.

Valerie Oula: [00:28:34] Sure. You know, Reiki is so popular nowadays because it’s super simple and I think that’s what makes it so accessible for people. I like to say that for myself at least, I would want to work with someone who has been practicing for some time. Because nowadays you can do Reiki one, two and three in one weekend, which is not how I teach Reiki. I like to teach Reiki in a more traditional way, which is, you know, at least 21 days between Reiki 1 and Reiki 2 and at least 21 days between Reiki 2 and Reiki 3, which is the master level. But different teachers teach it in different ways. But I think what’s important is you ask your practitioner how long they’ve been practicing versus looking at the level of, oh, well, they’re a Reiki master. Sometimes it’s just I’d rather go with the timing. Like how long they’ve been actually working with energy?

Valerie Oula: [00:29:35] Because essentially, that’s what it really is. You need to make sure you don’t check out their Instagram, see if you like their vibe and then talk to them, have a conversation, check out their Website. That kind of thing.

Valerie Oula: [00:30:11] Sure. You know what? My clients run the gamut of like actual physical issues. I get a lot of clients with fibroid issues. And I also have clients who, you know, are looking for a partner. But then I have clients who are in between jobs and they don’t know what they’re doing. And they’re feeling like they need a career change. So it’s really. Or, you know, then you have clients who are super anxious all the time. It really, I mean, it’s New York City runs began.

Valerie Oula: [00:30:56] Well, it’s going to sound really trite, but, meditation. Meditation is key because meditation is what brings you this space to begin to get some awareness around what’s going on in your life. And when you create that space for yourself, you can actually hear what’s going on.

Valerie Oula: [00:31:47] Absolutely. I mean, you have to you know, the Reiki helps you get into a more meditative space as well. You know, it’s Reiki energy. It’s the energy help. You know, essentially, the energy brings you what you need. So somebody else might have like a session where they feel super anxious. But at the end of it, it clears, you know, so everyone has all kinds of different experiences as well.

Valerie Oula: [00:32:20] Yeah. Because we always think we know what we need. But it’s not actually what we need sometimes.

Valerie Oula: [00:32:36] So my website is www.modernritualnyc.com. I teach at Mindful. I will be soon at the well when the world opens in New York City. I also hold small meditation classes in my space on Twenty Sixth and Broadway. I’m on Instagram @valerieoula. And the book is also in stores at Barnes and Nobles and everywhere else. It’s called A Little Bit of Reiki. Yes.

Valerie Oula: [00:33:12] Thanks so much.