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July 2, 2025 25 mins

"Chaotic magic" might be the perfect way to describe how two neurodivergent Reiki Masters approach their energy practice and teaching. In this candid conversation, we pull back the curtain on our personal journeys with ADHD and how it fundamentally shapes our relationship with Reiki.

For decades, we operated without understanding why our brains seemed to work differently. The revelation of our neurodivergence came later in life, bringing clarity to lifelong patterns. As one of us puts it, "I'm a computer with 150 tabs open on a given day" – a reality that many with ADHD will recognize immediately. While this constant mental activity can be challenging, we've discovered it brings extraordinary gifts to our Reiki practice.

The neurodivergent mind notices everything – the shifted picture frame that's been moved after three years, the subtle energy shifts in a room, the connections between seemingly unrelated concepts. This heightened awareness creates a natural affinity for energy work. We can hyper-focus when needed, accomplishing more in short bursts than seems humanly possible, while also bringing a creativity and intuition that enhances our healing approach.

We've transformed our teaching method to honor how neurodivergent minds actually work – breaking content into digestible pieces, shortening meditation times, and creating an environment where students don't need to process information in a neurotypical way. The result? A more accessible approach to Reiki that welcomes everyone, especially those who've been told they "can't sit still long enough" for spiritual practices.

Reiki itself becomes a powerful tool for managing ADHD symptoms – bringing scattered attention back to center, creating a sense that time expands when needed, and reducing the anxiety that often accompanies neurodivergence. If you've ever felt your brain works differently and wondered if energy practices could be for you, this conversation offers both validation and practical insights for turning your "neurospicy" nature into your greatest spiritual asset.

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Reiki 4 Real life. If you would like more info on any of our classes we talked about or other offerings, please visit our website, www.reiki4reallife.com.

And if you enjoyed today’s episode, please consider sharing it with friends or leaving us a review. Your support helps us continue this journey with you!


Thank you for joining us on this enlightening journey! We hope you found inspiration and insights in today's episode. As we explore ideas and share knowledge, we want to remind our listeners that all content presented in this podcast is the intellectual property of Reiki 4 Real Life™ and is protected by copyright laws.

We encourage you to share the wisdom you’ve gained here, but please ensure that you attribute the source and respect the original ideas shared here. Together, let’s foster a community of creativity and respect for intellectual contributions.

Until next time, keep shining your light.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi Beth.
So today we're talking about abig topic.
I feel like we always talkabout big topics, but this one
is one that's kind of near anddear to us how we work, how
we've learned to develop ourReiki practice and style and
teaching and all that kind ofstuff.
And we were talking inpre-recording about how this is

(00:23):
kind of like a buzzword topicand we don't want to feed off
the buzzword topic that we'retalking about, adhd.
It's something that weliterally work with and work on
every day, and we had kind of along road to realizing that we
operate that way.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, that's kind of an understatement.
You know, here I am 59 yearsold and it's just been in the
recent years that I understandthat I am clearly neurodivergent
, definitely ADHD, and who knew?

(01:03):
I didn't know.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
I mean I still remember you coming into my
booth at Seaglass and going I'mADHD and I'm like duh.
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Well, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
But I understand it was a big moment for you.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Well, it was a big aha moment for me and you know I
ran through the inventory of.
Well, you know, like in myrelationships, like in my
upbringing, like looking at allthe places where I struggled so
hard, I made it through.

(01:39):
But, looking back on it, itwould have been helpful to have
some of the tools that I havenow, or even just my own
personal understanding, beingable to say, hey, I need a
minute, you know, or I'm extraspicy.
Today my mind is going downfive rabbit holes at once
instead of just one.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Sorry, it still makes me laugh I'm not laughing at
you that while they can look ata word like neurodivergent as
something real, adhd is amade-up thing by a doctor.
But it's how your brainprocesses.
So you know there are all thejokes about.

(02:39):
You know, I'm a computer with,you know, 150 tabs open on a
given day.
It might be 150.
It might be 305.
I mean, it's never just one.
No, I don't operate thinkingabout just one thing Same.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, and I feel like in women, I guess typically
it's we think of ADHD, we thinkof like the hyperactive kids who
can't sit still and stuff likethat, whereas typically in women
, but in all people, adhd canshow up in the mind only Like
it's hyperactivity of the mind,not just your physical energy,

(03:15):
and I think that's where thatwasn't studied.
You know, when I was growing up, when you were growing up, that
wasn't a thing like that,wasn't ADHD.
So that's why you know we'regrownups now going wait a minute
, I do have that Like I.
That is how a thing Like thatwasn't ADHD.
So that's why you know we'regrownups now going wait a minute
, I do have that Like I.
That is how I operate andyou're right, like if we would
have known, growing up, thetools and how our brains work

(03:36):
and not being ashamed of it, notbeing because it was a bad
thing to be so quote unquoteunfocused or focused on the
wrong thing, that we buried thator we hid it, and then that
makes it worse because itconstricts the energy.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Right, exactly, yeah, I mean I think of a
neurotypical.
A neurotypical person is nevergoing to understand fully what a
neurodivergent person thinks.
For a long time I've said and Iwould say this to my son, who
is also neurodivergent I wouldsay people just don't think like

(04:15):
us, other people don't thinklike you.
You have to just understandthat not everyone thinks like
you and just move on.
And that was my copingmechanism for my whole life.
People didn't think like I did.
It also was part of why I neverfelt that I fit in, because
people didn't think like I did.
I would walk into a room, Iwould see things that nobody

(04:36):
would see and I still do and itblows people's mind.
I'm like you know, you movedthat picture from three years
ago and they're like how do youknow that?
Yeah, a neurotypical brainthinks from point A to point B,
the highway, using the map andjust going where they're going.
A neurodivergent brain thinksabout driving the country road.

(04:59):
Which detour can I take?
I'm going to look at the cowsin the pasture.
I'm going to look at the sky inthe pasture.
I'm going to look at theskyline.
What's the weather doing?
I wonder what color that balloonis on the inside, like it just
like it never stops.
And then I need to go to thegrocery store and did I make my
doctor's appointment and youknow I need to pick up paint,

(05:21):
and did I feed the dog, and likeit just never stops, it never
stops, it never stops.
And then the list of if someonetells you that you didn't do
something right, that thoughtstays on for a long time the
list of what I should have doneor how am I not going to do that

(05:42):
again.
Like you come up with 50 waysto Sunday of how you're not
going to do something again thatyou probably never would do in
the first place.
Again, you know what I mean,yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
No, it's that overthinking, that
overstimulation of the brain inso many ways, so many more ways
than you know.
We think, like it, just theneurodivergence controls
everything.
But it's not control, it'slearning that it can be a
superpower and not just adistraction.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
I can get more done before 8 am than most people can
get done all day long, becauseI hyper focus in the morning.
I do personal reading, writing,art, I walk the dog, I, you
know, do some chores around thehouse, all before I sit down at
my desk to work, and that's anatural thing.

(06:32):
And then if and that's not evenbeing like hyper-focused, okay,
but if I turn on thehyper-focus, the amount of stuff
that I can get done ismind-blowing and it's just
natural and like I have friendswho will be like you did all
that in like two hours, yeah,yeah we were cleaning today.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
it just reminded me we were the kids.
We woke up at like 8 30 andthey're doing the lawn and all
this other stuff and I'm likeyou know 10 o'clock.
I'm like I'm gonna go jump inthe shower and strider's like
already we haven know we've, westill have stuff to do and I'm
like I've been up since sixo'clock, I've been cleaning
since six o'clock.
You're behind Like I've alreadydone all my stuff.

(07:15):
Yeah, my list is done baby.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yeah, I'm on to the next thing.
Now I'm going to work.
But it was funny the way he waslike we just started and I'm
like, no, you just started, yeah, well, and I think there's okay
.
So there's the creativityaspect, there's the intuitive,
sensorial aspect that shows up.
So a lot of people not all, buta lot of people who are in the
energy world or intuitive worldor empathic abilities, the
clairs and things like that, arepeople who probably, although

(07:53):
I'm not diagnosing areneurodivergent in some way,
because it is an ability to usemultiple parts of your brain in
a very sensorial way, where youpick up on so much stuff.
I mean I am super creative andI mean I problem solve for
people just like I will.

(08:15):
I have a friend who tells methat's enough ideas, because
I'll say, hey, what do you thinkI should do about that?
And I'm like well, you could,you know you could do this, you
could do that, you could.
Hey, you know you could, and Ilike, and they're like okay,
thank you, it just happens.
And there's a variety inpeople's abilities.

(08:35):
Like my neuro divergence isdifferent than yours and yours
is different than my son's.
And, however, when we, when weget together than my son's.
And, however, when we gettogether, it's like chaotic
magic, it is.
It is Well okay.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
So that chaotic magic is a lead-in to why are we
teaching the way we're teaching,so mainly to honor our own
brains and our own energy.
So, through our journey andthrough connecting with our
authentic selves, we realizedthat we are not like everybody
else.
We do not practice Reiki likeeverybody else and we don't need
to teach Reiki like everybodyelse, because we, our brains

(09:16):
work differently and we want tohonor the other people that work
their brains work differently.
So we do teach together, whichgives two perspectives.
It gives two different thewords not coming in just two
different energies.
And we, I feel like wehyper-focus on different things
at different times for whateverthe class needs.

(09:37):
I feel like and that's part ofthe magic of working together
and having two neurospicy peopleteaching you because we're
going to teach you a variety ofthings and we're going to have a
variety of energy.
Whatever you need, you know,and we pick up on that.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
Right, yeah, I think it's.
The combination is theassessment of what's going on in
the classroom.
It's also breaking it up the waywe do, because, while a
neurodivergent person can handlea lot of information, they can
handle a lot of information ifthey're interested in it, and

(10:13):
it's not that students aren'tinterested in all the
information, but there's someinformation in a class that
needs to be taken in smallerbites and that's why we record
the history, for example,because that is a ton of
information and when that waspresented to me, by the time we
got to the quote unquote goodstuff my brain was on overload

(10:36):
and then learning symbols orlearning technique or something
like that, and I was just like Ihave no place to put these
grocery bags down because it wasso much information.
Breaking it out the way we doand sending it out ahead of time
, the student has time to takeit in and bite, break it up.
If they need to, they go backto it, and then the interactive

(10:59):
part is where we can keep themengaged, because now we can get
them hyper focused.
Not that everyone who comes tous is neurodivergent, but you
know you attract your students,so yeah we tend to attract and
it helps our energy too as we'reteaching.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
So it's not too much for us because we want to honor
how we operate too.
So if we were to teach ittraditionally, like two, three,
eight hour days by the time weget done teaching all of the
quote unquote, mundane, slowerstuff.
We're spent energetically.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
Right, yeah, because you use your energy to create
the container for the classroom,and then you have the
information energy, and then youhave the relationship energy of
the students in the room andthe students with you, and then
the nervousness of learning.
There is that anxiety thatshows up because it's something

(11:58):
new, and when anxiety shows upin a group of neurodivergent
people, it amplifies.
Yes, it's an energy, it's asensorial energy.
It's not that a person who isanxious is creating chaos there.
However, the energy is chaoticand it creates that resonance in

(12:25):
other people that creates thisvibration and so, breaking
things up into pieces, reducingthe anxiety.
And then, of course, there'salso the rabbit holes in the
time blindness that go intoconversation, and you want to
allow for that.
You want to allow for people tobe able to have their
experience.
And if you're watching theclock because you have to get

(12:47):
all this stuff in, yeah, nowthere is a component.
We've talked about this before.
We both do this a little bitdifferently Length of meditation
times and length of attunementtimes, and I don't even know
that.
I want to record this, sayingthis out loud.
I am a brief meditator, briefin the experiences and things

(13:08):
like that.
I'm not one to get lost in theethers.
You know I got stuff to do.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
I don't know, I could spend all day in there.
It's my favorite place to be?
Not really, but yes, it is.
Yeah, everybody has theirdifferent styles as far as the
meditation goes, and we do cutdown the meditation time.
I know my brain just stopped,but there again, not everybody
meditates the same, experiencesthe same.

(13:35):
Not everybody sees and has thesecrazy journeys for, I feel like
, is the same.
Not everybody sees and hasthese crazy journeys for I feel
like, especially in theneurodivergent crowd, it's not
the 20 minute journey.
Like I didn't start that way.
I had to work up to being ableto journey and meditate for that
long because I definitely couldnot in the beginning.
So when you have a brand newclass of people, they're nervous

(13:56):
, they're anxious, and you sendthem on a journey for 26 minutes
or 30 minutes or however long,I feel like a majority of the
time they are thinking aboutother things.
They're worrying about ifthey're doing it right, if
they're experiencing it right,because they're not seeing or
not experiencing it the same wayas everybody else.
So if you hyper focus thatattunement or meditation to 10

(14:19):
minutes, I feel like itamplifies the energy and allows
for more magic to come throughafter.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
Well, and if we reference back to our previous
podcast on Reiki integration,the Reiki is going to integrate
with the person as the personneeds, and it's going to stay
working with that person for aslong as is needed.
Now, that's not a cop out,that's just saying I am not in
the driver's seat, so here I'm,bringing you to the place where

(14:53):
you are going to interact withthe Reiki energy, and the Reiki
energy is going to have its waywith you, so to speak, and there
you go, and it's going to haveits way with you, so to speak,
and there you go and it's goingto walk out that door in the
classroom with you and it'sgoing to be with you forever.
So I don't want to say that Idon't respect the time of the
practices.
I just I don't know whateveryone individually needs, so

(15:17):
I'm going to let it.
I'm going to let Reiki takethat one.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
I feel like we respect the energy, how it comes
to us, how we feel it, how weintegrate with it, and we are
going to attract and teach thepeople that need to learn it our
way.
And so we are not shortchangingor cutting the meditations or
the attunement.
You know it's not going tolessen the energy anymore, Like
you said it's.
It's there, it's attuning toyou, and just because you don't

(15:44):
sit there for 26 minutes doesn'tmean that it's not going to
work.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
Right, and you know, the thing is is that if you look
at our format, where wepre-record information, we send
it to you, you take that time.
Well, you should take that time, Let me say it that way, to do
that.
We talk about the recordingswhen you come into the class and
then the interactive time isreally a healing process in

(16:10):
community and it comes togethervery quickly because the focus
is all on those healingpractices.
There was something else thatwas there that wanted to come in
.
I think that breaking it up itgives a focus and it gives the
hyper focus too.
Like we get to use focus andhyper focus at the same time,

(16:34):
which I kind of dig.
Best of both worlds.
Kind of dig best of both worlds.
Yeah, but now let's let's goback to our personal experience
with neurodivergence, and how doyou think reiki has helped you
with your neuro spiciness?

Speaker 1 (16:51):
Reiki.
It helps me to focus the energyfor me.
It helped me to align my energyto right here, right now, and

(17:22):
stop that overthinking and stopthe overactive brain and stop
worrying so much about what'sgoing to happen and just focus
on me now.
The energy and the Reiki helpsto amplify that.
I want to say peace.
That comes with that.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
Yeah yeah, I think that for me it's funny because
you know I have to go.
Well, how did Reiki help me allthose years that I didn't know
that I was neuro-spicy?
I can see where it would kindof guide what was important on
the the list, so to speak,because I can think of 10 things

(17:58):
that I have to do at once and Iwill try to fit them all into
that one moment.
So I feel like and I don't meanthis in a flip way to Reiki,
but it was almost like the uh,you know, it was my time
management thing, because, whileI would drop into that time
blindness, I am a person who isperpetually early.

(18:21):
Okay, I know it drives somepeople crazy, but I show up at
least.
If I'm not 15 minutes early, Iam late.
I would have these experienceswhere, whether it was in a
session with a client or it wasneeding to get stuff done, that
time would expand or time wouldslow down and somehow everything

(18:43):
would get done.
When I was working in thehospice setting and dealing with
people with significant painand things like that, and I was
only allotted, you know, say, 15, 20 minutes per person in the
hospice home, I could do whatwould be viewed from the outside

(19:04):
as almost a full session, likea full hour session on somebody
in a short amount of time, and Ifeel that it was truly Reiki
managing and expanding orslowing, like giving me the time
that I needed to do the work,but it slowed the clock and
sometimes when I think aboutneeding more time, I invite that

(19:28):
idea in and I can get thingsdone.
And it does calm me downbecause I can trust that I'm
going to get the things donethat I need to get done, because
perfectionism is something thatI'm still working on letting go
and it's a stumbling block forme.
We talked about this before,about or in off of camera, about

(19:51):
validation, and that is stillsomething that I work with
camera, about validation, andthat is still something that I
work with.
So my perfectionism and needingvalidation for doing things
right or getting something doneor hitting all the points, is a
place where I think my neurospicy brain really kind of takes
a hold of me.
And so inviting Reiki into thatplace and allowing myself to

(20:15):
settle into doing the best I canwith what I have, with where I
am, because you know I'm not,I'm efficient and I'm also
distracted, so I can get a lotdone in a short amount of time.
But then I have this other timewhere sometimes I don't want to
do anything.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
Executive dysfunction .

Speaker 2 (20:37):
Yes, yeah, yeah.
And that is such a like thathits my solar plexus.
Yeah, because I think I'mcheating somebody or I'm not
working up to my full potential,but yet I can run circles
around somebody when I'mhyper-focused, you know.

(20:57):
So I figure the math.
It levels out.
You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
It even felt the energy.
It does Go ahead.
I totally get it because it'salmost like learning how to work
with the neurodivergence.
I set myself up for that.
I know that I'm going to hyperfocus for the first four or five
hours of the day, but then comefour or five o'clock, I know

(21:23):
that I'm probably going to bequote, unquote, useless or that
there's going to be times.
You know I stack my schedule sothat I have those times of
hyper focus but I also havethose times of rest, Because as
much as we work in those four orfive hours and get it done, you
need just as much time to resetthe system.
But it's knowing that thatperiod is coming.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Right.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
And setting yourself up for allowing it.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
Well, you know, the pressure of last minute really
does motivate things.
It does, yeah, pressure of lastminute really does motivate
things.
It does yeah We've talked aboutthis before that we can get
right up to the end of somethingand all of a sudden produce
this great work where you mighthave had time in the schedule to
build it out, and then you justkeep putting it off and you

(22:12):
just keep and then then all of asudden it's like I have to get
it done and there is somethingin the neurodivergent brain that
you know loves those hits ofadrenaline and dopamine.
I mean, it's both of those.
It's like we love the push tomake us have to get something
done, whereas if we just did itin the pace it wouldn't be as

(22:34):
rewarding.
But yet, if you put a littleReiki in between those two
things, you can get the rush ofenergy with the Reiki to be able
to work with you without havingto set yourself up for the
procrastination and the stressof running late.
Yeah, it's true, I think we'vehit all the points there.
I mean, I could go on aboutbeing neuro spicy.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
Yeah, I feel like a takeaway I just want to leave
everybody with because it wascoming into my brain while we
were talking is that I hear somany people say, when I say you
know, I'm a Reiki master, Ipractice Reiki, they're like I
couldn't do that, I can't focusthat much or I can't sit still
that much.
I can't, I don't have thatattention span.
I guess what we want to leteverybody know pretty much

(23:19):
through this episode, thispodcast, is that you don't need
to, you don't need to sit stillfor 20 minutes, you don't have
to do any of that.
There is room for both ADHD,NeuroSpicy and Reiki, and they
can work magic together.

Speaker 2 (23:34):
Absolutely Well.
And going back to theintegration episode, he's going
to integrate with you where youare, and so I feel that Reiki
needs to be, if not witheveryone, at least in every
household.
Someone in the house needs tobe offering up some Reiki.

(23:55):
You know for themselves, first,which, by offering, by working
with Reiki for yourself, youaffect the environment that
you're in, and imagine what thatwould be like and I think that
you know for younger people whoare diagnosed with ADHD and
things like that, if they weregiven the simple tools of Reiki

(24:18):
to help them help themselves andset the boundaries and
guidelines of their energy.
I mean, my heart just feels forthe people who struggle with it
and didn't you know?
Don't know that there's a waythat they can manage through it,
reduce the anxiety, balance outthe adrenaline, all of that

(24:43):
kind of stuff, through simplepractices that don't take an
hour.
Yes, all right, we're lookingat neurodivergent, all right.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
Until next time, elaine, until next time.
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