lways a little trepidatious about the comments on my videos, I opened this one with an eye closed, pirate style, as if that would make hurtful words less impactful (maybe that’s why pirates wore patches… they were very sensitive and couldn’t quite face the words of trolls?).
“What the f*#k did I just watch?” was what the person, whose YouTube handle identified them as a “gamer,” had to say.
There was a time — not too long ago — when I would have found that comment very upsetting. I wish that weren’t the case, but it’s true. I’m autistic and extremely sensitive, and my ‘oddness’ has made me the subject of ridicule my entire life — beginning in my own household when I was a little child.
So why then would I open myself up to more ridicule, on a potentially global scale, by posting the absurd videos I make on a nearly daily basis?
What I am is what I am
There was not a lot of joy in my life until recently. I can put a timeline to my happiness — it began in 2020, as the world, ironically, crumbled. I can’t with certainty say whether the two events were causal were correlational, but they will be, for me, inextricably linked forever.
So I’ve been happy for roughly 8% of my 51 years. In a way, that’s a good thing…there’s a whole lot of room for the second half (if I’m lucky) of my life to outshine the first.
Another good thing about discovering happiness later in life: I can sympathize, big time, with those who’ve never found (or are yet to find) peace. I was miserable for long enough, and my personal renaissance has been so thorough, that I can trace the lines in my life, the veins that connect misery to joy, and I can see where the bends in energy happened.
Now my mission in life is to help other people benefit from what happened to me. I want to help everyone empower themselves, but not just themselves in a utilitarian way. Their magical selves are what I’m seeking to assist to empower — that part that is joyful and curious and enthralled with the experience of being alive.
That’s what led me to Reiki.
Lemme Help
Since my renaissance, I’ve utterly relinquished goals that aren’t truly mine. Like having a “successful career’.
I kid. Sort of.
My mission, as I said before, is to help people empower themselves. The magical part of themselves. To that end, I’ve written hundreds of Medium articles, started a podcast, offered a free class, and created many free meditations. I’m always looking for ways to reach people who would benefit from my message — people who are now where I was not too long ago.
And I kept being drawn to Reiki.
So I invited Susan Chiocchi, the founder of Reiki Colorado Academy, to be a guest on my podcast. That’s when I started learning from her, and I reckon I’ll continue to learn from her for a long time.
Last month, I took Reiki 1, and now I’m raising funds to continue my Reiki education under Susan’s tutelage. I have a lot to learn.
Which brings me back to the video.
Learning can be hard
I love learning. It’s kind of my thing. But I’ve come to realize, especially since being diagnosed as autistic, that I’ve only truly enjoyed learning when it’s come easily. For me, that means history and literature. Since early childhood, I’ve had an almost savant quality when it comes to those fields, but I struggle with anything out of that realm.
For instance, throughout my youth, I longed to be a dancer, but couldn’t for the life of me learn a single step of choreography. I still can’t, but now I dance wildly on my own every day, following only the steps of my soul.
That learning difficulty made memorizing the Reiki sequence problematic for me. While the other students in class picked it up after a go or two, I was dripping sweat and mentally transported to every mortifying dance class I’d ever tried. My struggles and determination prompted the creation of “Reiki P. Fakey”, the mannequin I made to practice the Reiki sequence on.
And the video on which the “gamer” commented.
My REIKI person
And yeah, I know it’s a goofy video.
The thing is that I like being goofy. I like goofy people. I went for decades being terrified that people were going to see me as “goofy,” and it nearly killed me.
So when the gamer person commented on my video, “what the f#ck did I just watch?” it gave me pause. More correctly, it gave the unhealed, ego-led “me” pause. It made Spike, my guard dog ego, wanna bark and even bite.
Then the “me” I’m becoming took over. Maybe the gamer was confused. After all, I’m autistic…human behavior confuses me daily!
So I made another video, this one to explain what Reiki is.
I’m not a Reiki master. I’ll tell you what I’m able to, which is probably not a lot more than you could learn from a Google search, but it’s what I know.
So, what IS Reiki? Tell Me Like I’m nine
Everything is, as you may know, energy. You, me, the internet, the earth — all energy moving at different speeds/frequencies.
Reiki is healing energy. It can never be bad or used for ill because it simply is pure healing energy.
One becomes a Reiki practitioner by learning Reiki from a Master (like Susan Chiocchi), and classes consist of learning to tune into that specific channel (like a radio station) of energy and transmit it to the being on whom you’re working.
You may hear that Reiki was “invented” by a Japanese gentleman named Usui who lived from 1865–1926, but that’s not correct. Master Usui “invented” reiki in the same way Ben Franklin “invented” electricity; he didn’t. Both men “discovered” the respective energies they mastered. Reiki, like electricity, was always there. Usui himself said Reiki had been handed down from Master to student for 18,000.
So he definitely didn’t “invent” it.
A Reiki session is conducted with the client/patient lying on a table, fully clothed (Reiki is not nakey), while the practitioner moves around the table, sensing and manipulating the energy.
Those are the Reiki (very very very) basics.
As Susan says, simple, but not easy.
Healing My Achy Reiki Heart
I’ve always been a grateful person — even when I was planning my own demise. At that point, the fact that I had so much to be grateful for made me even angrier at myself — how dare I consider throwing everything away? How dare I be depressed?
I’ve also always been a spiritual seeker. But in retrospect, I was consuming so much spiritual fruit and never digesting them — certainly never absorbing them. I was instead mentally filing them away for a time when I could get out of my own way, when I could use them to help not only myself but others as well.
Life has improved since my diagnosis. I follow what I call my soul-lit and I focus, for the most part, on better understanding and integrating the various parts of myself — then helping others do the same.
Trusting my soul’s wisdom has led me to Reiki, and I’m grateful. At 51, my path is just beginning.
So I’ll continue making videos and trying to reach people who need help — even if some of them are trolls under bridges.
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