Healing from the Heart

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Welcome! Healing from the Heart came to be in 1995 as I was having lunch with a good friend. I was trying to come up with a name for my company and she said, Kathie, you have such a big heart and you help so many people, let the name describe what you do. Thus Healing from the Heart was born. She was also an artist and gifted me by creating my logo two hands holding a heart.

Healing from the Heart is about healing on many levels: Physical, Emotional, Mental and Spiritual. Healing from the Heart serves to empower others by providing the knowledge, skills and support that allows them to tap into their inner wisdom and make informed and healthy decisions for themselves.

As a wholistic nurse, my work is about empowering people to balance and heal their lives. I believe that everything we need is already within us and that various tools or healing techniques such as Reiki and hypnosis, can help one to access that inner wisdom and harness the power of the body-mind.

The body and mind are intricately connected and cannot exist without the other. The mind and body constantly communicate with each other. Every thought we have, every idea, every belief has an effect on our body. Every sensation we experience has an effect on our mind. Thoughts and ideas are chemically transmitted to the rest of our body. By simply changing our thoughts or beliefs, we can bring about changes in our lives and our bodies.

Healing from the Heart has as its foundation, the belief that the human body is the ultimate healer: it possesses the ability to heal itself. Our job as healing facilitators is to assist the body in that process.

Modalities such as Reiki and hypnosis, harness the power of the body-mind, allowing the person to become their own healer. They work to remove or decrease blockages in the body or the mind, which then facilitate the healing process.

Healing from the Heart offers various services, which allows us to individualize each session, and tailor it to your specific needs and goals.

Healing from the Heart is a perfect description of what I do. As a nurse of more than 30 years, my journey began as an Intensive Care Nurse, moved quickly through Critical Care Coordinator and Nursing Administration into Diabetes Nurse Educator. I left hospital nursing in 1984 to complete my graduate studies and was able to take care of my father as he battled stomach cancer. In 1988, I started working as a Diabetes Nurse Educator in Private Practice and began to incorporate guided imagery and stress management into my client sessions.

My journey with Reiki began when Reiki found me in 1992. I had studied Healing Touch and loved the experience of working with energy. A good friend then told me about Reiki and I said, If it's anything like this, show me the way! I was able to find a Reiki teacher through the Occupational Therapist that had been taking care of my mother who had Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS). Anne had been bringing Reiki into my home and giving it to my mom every chance she got! I like to think that Reiki found me in my darkest hour. I was able to take a class in May of 1992; three weeks after my mother had made her transition. I began to treat myself every day and I believe that Reiki helped me heal after losing my mom and best friend.

Not sure of what to do with this new healing energy, I was guided to enroll in massage school to help me continue to develop my healing skills.

When I started my private practice, "Healing from the Heart," I found that combining Reiki with massage therapy was a way to give skeptics a comfortable way to experience energy healing. I also noticed that as my practice grew, my ability to sense or feel people's emotional pain as well as their physical problems, began to develop.

I continued to study Reiki and became a Reiki Master Teacher in 1994. I then met Laurelle Gaia, a teacher with the International Center for Reiki Training, and was so impressed that I began studying with Laurelle and entered the Center's Licensed Teacher Program. This included the studying of Karuna Reiki in August 1995 with William Rand, the founder of the International Center for Reiki Training. I then began teaching Reiki full-time and found myself traveling to different states as people contacted me to learn about this wonderful healing energy.

During this time, I also wrote many articles for local metaphysical newspapers, Reiki News, and lectured to various groups on the healing powers of Reiki and as well as other complementary therapies. Laurelle and I started United in Healing, an organization of Reiki practitioners with the intent to unite the Reiki community and spread the word to the public.

Since then, I have taught Reiki to approximately 2000 people. This includes children, young adults, seniors, doctors and nurses, dentists, massage therapists, and athletic trainers. One of my personal goals is to help health care practitioners incorporate Reiki into their professional practices and to help them learn to nourish and replenish themselves through the use of Reiki's restorative energies (see my articles "Reiki and the Health Care Professional" Part I and II, on the Articles page).

One of my passions is to "Make Reiki Real." I believe that we are all born with the ability to bring in healing energy and anyone can do Reiki! I love teaching Reiki to everyday people with the hope that they can share it with everyone they come in contact with. Reiki is the way of the compassionate heart, and in these stressful days, we all need it!

One of the highlights of my teaching career came in August 1999 when I had the opportunity to teach Reiki at Stony Brook Nursing School on Long Island, New York. It was a class of Nurse Practitioners and they all received college credit for the course. Then after 9/11, I was invited to teach at the College of New Rochelle, in Westchester, New York, teaching Level I and II, and later Advanced Reiki Training and Reiki Master Teacher, as a three credit college courses for Nurse Practitioners. I have also taught Reiki to the Operating Room staff at Mid-Hudson hospital, Queensborough Community College, and various massage schools. I have also been a guest speaker at various support groups, holistic events, Stony Brook School of physical therapy, as well as many health fairs.

In October 2002, what started as a networking meeting of Reiki Masters, quickly evolved into a non-profit organization now known as the Long Island Reiki Connection www.reikiconnection.org. I became the Founding President of the organization, which is dedicated to spreading the joy of Reiki, educating the public, and offering networking and support for Reiki practitioners.

I completed my Hypnosis training in 2003 through the National Guild of Hypnotists (www.ngh.net) and am an active member of the Long Island Chapter. I have also studied Past Life Regression with Brian Weiss, author of "Many Lives, Many Masters."

I have been an annual presenter at the Reiki Retreat; an annual event hosted by the International Center for Reiki Training (www.reiki.org), and am a contributing author for Reiki News Magazine. I also wrote the chapter on Reiki in "Conversations in Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Insights and Perspectives from Leading Practitioners," Norma Cuellar, Jones and Bartlett publishers, March 2006.

My private practice is an integration of all my studies and skills. I offer my clients and students a wholistic view of healing. My goal is to empower my clients and my students to become all that they can be and to heal and balance their lives.