Question:
Someone told me that you recently mentioned using guided imagery and Reiki together. I am very much interested in this as I am a Reiki Practitioner/Master. I would love to hear your thoughts on this and any suggestions. Is there anything available I can use as a guide?
Tonya

We got this wonderful email as part of a chain, and even though I never do this, I’m passing it along – it’s simply too terrific to miss.  Check it out:

This is 'Faith'

This dog was born on Christmas Eve in the year 2002. He was born with 3 legs - 2 healthy hind legs and 1 abnormal front leg which had to be amputated. He of course could not walk when he was born. Even his mother did not want him.

His first owner also did not think that he could survive and he was thinking of 'putting him to sleep'. But then, his present owner, Jude Stringfellow, met him and wanted to take care of him. She became determined to teach and train this little dog to walk by himself. 

Please forgive the mixed food metaphor, but if schmaltz is your cup of tea, you mustn’t miss the inspired kid stories that Celine Dion pulled together for her latest  book, currently being featured on Ms. Oprah’s show.  There won’t be a dry eye in the blogosphere, and even if you do feel a tad manipulated by the slick production values of perfectly edited video and slide show production, you still can’t deny the power of these terrific stories and the intention behind their creation.  Click here to check ‘em out.

Pathways for Healing, a Cleveland-based learning center created by psychologist Jim Kepner PhD and social worker Carol DeSanto, MSW, trains mental health and health practitioners in Nervous System Energy Work (NSEW), a sophisticated synthesis of Gestalt Therapy, Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing and the work of noted energy healer, Rosalyn Bruyere.  Their ingenious methods lean heavily on the theory of neurologist Robert Scaer, and are particularly good for targeting posttraumatic stress and releasing its debilitating patterns from mind, body and spirit. This is work that’s been described in Invisible Heroes, in the section on imagery-based therapies that work especially well for trauma survivors.

Pathways for Healing offers a variety of introductory courses  and intensive, certificate training programs, drawing people from all around the United States and beyond.  Practitioners at all levels can grow and learn through physical exercises, theory and demonstration, hands-on healing practice and experiential exercises.

Jim and Carol make this otherwise esoteric realm clear, practical, professional and duplicable. If you’re a clinician who’s been discouraged from learning energy work by an excess of “woo-woo” factor, this is the place for you; and likewise, if you’re a hands-on healer who is looking for a structured, grounded system to hang your hat on, this is the place for you.

Jim and Carol have been teaching together since 1985 and make a great team, creating a respectful, supportive, focused learning environment, sprinkled with humor and a vast mutual backlog of clinical wisdom.  Jim is a psychologist in private practice, author of Body Process: A Gestalt Approach to Working with the Body in Therapy and Healing Tasks: Psychotherapy with Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse and teaches on the faculty of the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland.  Carol is also psychotherapist in private practice, with special experience in recovery issues, energy healing and working with people challenged by cancer and chronic illness.