February 15, 2023 • 54 mins
Join me on this week's podcast as I sit down with the lovely Julie Boyer, host of the Wake Up With Gratitude podcast and author of 30 Days of Gratitude: The Gratitude Program That Will Change Your Life, to discuss the vital Reiki Ideal - Just for today, I will be grateful.
We dive deep into how gratitude can be incorporated into your daily life. Julie also shares her expertise in cultivating an attitude of gratitude, which can lead to profound shifts in perspective and overall well-being.
But that's not all - Julie also leads us in a powerful gratitude experience, allowing listeners to tap into the transformative power of gratitude firsthand. We explore the ways in which this practice can help us connect with ourselves and others on a deeper level and the immense benefits it can bring to our lives.
If you're interested in learning more about the practice of gratitude and how it can enhance your life, this episode is a must-listen. So tune in as we delve into the power of gratitude with Julie Boyer on this week's podcast!
Julie's contact info:
Free Gratitude Meditation download: http://bit.ly/GratitudeLoveLetter
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@juliecmboyer
Facebook: https://facebook.com/juliecmboyer
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliecmboyer/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliecmboyer/
Pam's ICRT Classes:
Book a Reiki, Animal Reiki, or Animal Communication session:
Order The Reiki Business Book here:
- Amazon.com The Reiki Business Book
- Amazon.ca The Reiki Business Book
Pam Allen-LeBlanc is a scientist, a businesswoman, and a Licensed Reiki Master Teacher with the International Center for Reiki Training. She is the author of "The Reiki Business Book" and a co-author of ICRT Animal Reiki training. Pam teaches Reiki, Animal Reiki, and Animal Communication online and in person in Canada, the US, and Australia.
thank you to Music from Pixabay for the intro music and to Nate Miller for the meditation music
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Pam (00:07):
Hi, and welcome to the Reiki from the Farm Podcast,
brought to you by me, Pam AllenLoblaw from Hidden Brook Farm.
I am a scientist, abusinesswoman, and a licensed
Reiki master teacher with theInternational Center for Reiki.
each week in this podcast,you'll be entertained as you
learn about a wide variety ofrelevant Reiki topics helping
(00:30):
you become a more knowledgeableand effective Reiki
practitioner.
We caution you though thispodcast may also dramatically
improve your life.
And we are so happy that you'rehere.
(00:57):
On this week's podcast, I'mspeaking with Julie Boye, who is
a podcaster with Wake Up WithGratitude.
She has a book about gratitudeand you're also a landscape
photographer, Julie, withgorgeous.
Are those your, for thosewatching on YouTube, are those
your shots behind you?
Yeah.
Yes, absolutely.
I saw your calendar.
(01:17):
It's it's stunning.
And I wanted to invite Julie tothe podcast to just talk about
one of the Reiki concepts orprecepts, which is gratitude.
So welcome.
Thank you for coming.
I'm excited to be here.
Thanks for having me, Pam.
I'm so glad you're here.
Before we begin, I just wannalet you know that I will soon be
heading to Australia.
(01:38):
For those of you who are there,I've got five days of the the
classes that contribute towardthe professional membership and
the Reiki MembershipAssociation, a Level one and
two, and masterclass.
And when you take those from alicensed teacher, you qualify
for professional membership.
They are available in person andI'm investigating whether they
(01:59):
can be online.
So if.
Go ahead and reach out if that'ssomething that you're thinking
about, but it definitely will bethe Australian time zone.
I'm also teaching I C R T AnimalReiki there, and in April I've
got a full lineup of classeshere at the farm, which you can
also join online if you wouldlike.
And please consider joining usfor that.
(02:19):
But I do look forward to seeingmy Australian friends in
Australia.
Again, we'll be teaching justoutside of Canberra in a little
place called Royalla.
Beautiful farm there surroundedby kangaroos and horses and the
most beautiful birds I've everseen.
So it couldn't be love.
Before we go too far in, did youhave anything you wanted to let
people know about Julie?
(02:40):
Anything going on that theycould like your calendar, I
realize we're in February now,but anything like that?
My calendar's sold out actuallybefore the end of December, and
you can always keep me in mindfor next year.
It's all, I live on VancouverIsland, which is off the west
coast of Canada, and I'm verylucky to live within driving
(03:03):
distance of several beautifulbeaches where I get to watch the
sunrise.
So my calendar's VancouverIsland sunrises.
That's my favorite way.
How I combine gratitude and thesunrise practice, wake up with
gratitude, right?
I love to watch the sunrise.
Welcome a new day, and justwelcome it in with gratitude and
then take pictures and sharethem.
(03:23):
I love that.
We're just gonna inviteeverybody.
Julia's also a Reiki level onepractitioner, and maybe going
further with Reiki, I don't knowyet.
But I'm gonna invite everybodyto go ahead and bring your hands
in Gassho and just go ahead andactivate your Reiki energy
today, and we'll just remindeach other of the Reiki ideal.
(03:47):
asked us to chat with our mouthand speak with our heart every
morning and evening with ourhands in prayer or in Gassho.
Just for today.
I will not be angry.
I will not worry.
I will be devoted to my work.
I will be kind to others, and Iwill be filled with gratitude.
(04:11):
and just feeling the energy ofgratitude wrap around us and
through us just thinking aboutsome of the things that you're
grateful for in this moment andsome of the things you are
grateful for yesterday, lastweek.
(04:37):
Last month and even last year,there's something about shifting
into gratitude.
It changes everything.
And when we remember to be ingratitude.
(05:02):
We bring to ourselves morethings to be grateful for what
we focus on expands, and that iswhat makes up our lives.
Just for today, I will begrateful and just for today, I'm
grateful for you, Aho awesomeand Namaste mistake.
(05:30):
thank you.
Oh, that was a beautiful way tostart the podcast, Thank you.
I just love there's somethingabout grounding myself and my
guest in the Reiki energy andalso the listener, and that way
the Reiki energy flows throughus the whole time that we talk.
And I can get very excitable.
(05:53):
And this keeps me grounded.
And I think it flows through thelistener as well.
And I just believe that's, thathelps them hear the parts of the
podcast that they need on anygiven day.
And so thank you Julie, tell mea little bit about you.
You feel so strongly aboutgratitude, that you wrote a book
(06:14):
about it, you have a podcastabout it.
What in your journey broughtthis focus to gratitude for you?
It's interesting.
The first time I was.
Formally introduced to usinggratitude as a practice was many
years ago with the movie TheSecret.
Oh, I dunno if you rememberthat.
(06:34):
Yeah.
And the book and the book.
And they also had secretgratitude journals that you
could write in.
And in these journals, on oneside of the page, it asked you
to write in the present tensewhat you were grateful for that
was already happening in yourlife.
And on the other page, it was agratitude intention.
So things you wanted to manifestinto your life that had not yet
(06:56):
occurred, but you were acting asif you were using gratitude in
advance for something that hadyet to come into your life.
So that was where I began mygratitude practice.
And I did that for a few years,but, I don't know.
It didn't seem to work.
It wasn't really, I liked it,but it seemed like it was just
not quite working the way that Iwanted it to, and I stopped the
(07:17):
practice like many people do.
That's normal.
Just like I'm sure with a Reikipractice, right?
They go through the same,they'll go through times in
their life where it's reallyimportant and a priority, and
other times when it's not.
Yes.
So I paused my practice and fastforward a couple years, I was at
an event, a convention event,and I went to a workshop with a
(07:40):
gentleman, his name is SeanAker.
He wrote the book, the HappinessAdvantage.
He has a great TED Talk, so wecan share that.
And the book.
Yeah.
But he talked about how tochange your mindset in 21 days.
So if you had, the negativemindset to switch to more
positive, and he gave all theseideas of what to do, and one of
(08:01):
them was a gratitude practice.
And what I liked about hisgratitude practice is so at the
time, this is 2011, he's writeyour gratitude in your phone,
which today seems obvious, butin 2011 it was not.
We weren't all walking aroundwith smartphones, right?
We had our little blackberriesor whatever.
But you write three thingsyou're grateful for that are
(08:23):
specific to that.
And then you're not repeatingit.
So you're doing somethingdifferent every day.
For 21 days, I know it takeslonger than that, but at the
time, he recommended for 21days.
So I thought, this is reallygreat, you know this, I think I
could do this.
And then I went back to what I'dlearned from this secret and
started adding a gratitudeintention.
So I started that practice thatnight.
(08:45):
I started writing, actually aBlackberry tablet that I had,
which they don't even make thoseanymore, but I started writing
it.
Three things I was grateful forspecific to that day.
And then a fourth gratitudeintention.
And my gratitude intention wasto reach a business goal.
This had been in a businessconference and.
12 weeks later, I achieved thisbusiness goal in my network
(09:07):
marketing business, and I waslike, oh my gosh, this gratitude
thing.
It's like it's working.
So that's where the journeybegan.
There's lots of other, stepsalong the way, but that's really
where it started was thoseinfluences in my life.
Oh, I love that.
And it's just expanded for you.
It turned into a book.
Can you tell us a little bitabout your first book and then,
(09:30):
maybe segue into the one you'reworking on right now?
Sure.
Yeah.
So I continued this practiceevery night and started
implementing it with like myteam training.
So every team training therewould be some gratitude included
in some of the work that we weredoing.
It was teaching about gratitudeintentions.
Actually 12 weeks after that wemanifested our first family
(09:50):
home.
So I was like this, this isworking.
So I have a daughter, she's 12.
Great girl.
She's doing fantastic.
And when my daughter was two anda bit, I got pregnant for the
second time.
And at 15 weeks of gestationwhere you think that everything
(10:11):
is going to be fine.
I had a very traumaticmiscarriage.
Oh.
I miscarried at home.
I was in the bath, definitelynot the waterbirth that I had
planned.
It was I was home alone.
I had to call.
9 1 1 police broke down my door.
Then the paramedics took me tothe hospital and I ended up
having emergency surgery cuz itwas an incomplete miscarriage.
(10:34):
So I had to have, A D N C and itall happened so fast and the
whole thing happened in aboutfour and a half hours.
And then we went to pick up mydaughter at daycare Wow.
It was just, This unbelievablyhorrible, traumatic experience.
And then we get in the car andgo pick up my daughter at
(10:54):
daycare after I've had surgery.
So I got home that night and Ihad developed this practice of
writing in my gratitude journal.
So I, I wrote in my gratitudejournal that night, and I wrote
that I was grateful that mydaughter had been at daycare.
Yeah.
And I was grateful that thepolice were able to break down
the door.
and then I wrote that I wasgrateful that my husband and one
(11:17):
of my best friends had been atthe hospital with me.
And so I thought to myself, if Ican find gratitude on what was
then the worst moment of mylife, then I need to share this
with people.
And that's where my first book,30 Days of Gratitude, the
Gratitude Program that willchange your life began.
I started writing.
(11:39):
in February, so that was the endof January.
I started writing it in Februaryand.
My sister is a high schoolEnglish teacher who offered to
edit for me, so she helped me.
So I was writing as she wasediting, and the whole book was
finished by the beginning ofApril, launched.
Unbelievable.
At the end of May.
And then, yeah, we did an Amazonbestseller campaign before those
(11:59):
were.
those were a cool thing to do,it was a pretty incredible
experience for me and I reallythought that was like the
culmination of my gratitudejourney, but it turned out that
it was definitely just one partof my journey.
Oh.
Like just the beginning, justthe beginning.
Where did that, and I seethere's some noise in your
background.
Don't worry.
That's why it's called Reikifrom the farm.
Our listeners are very generouswith us I homeschool that
(12:22):
beautiful 12 year old daughterand she's, even though she's
aware that I'm recording, cuz asa podcaster I record often, she
just, I think she just forgotthat I'm recording.
Oh my, my family can forget veryeasily too.
And especially the dogs butdon't worry.
That's amazing.
And your book, is your bookstill available?
(12:43):
Is there a link that we can put?
It is the podcast for it.
Okay.
Yeah, for sure.
And you can order it.
Through your common websites,but if you are in Canada, you
can order it directly from meand then I'll sign the book for
you.
Absolutely.
So that you can order through mywebsite.
I have a few copies on hand, andthen yeah, you mentioned another
book.
So this, yeah, this year, 2023will be the 10th anniversary of
(13:07):
the book.
And so having now.
Been through this whole journey,podcasting for three years,
interviewing people aboutgratitude.
I thought it'd be a really goodopportunity to release an
updated and revised edition.
So the first book still sells.
I just sold a bunch over theholiday season and it's still
great.
So even if you got the book thatI have right now, the new book
(13:30):
is different.
It's not, you're not gonna feel.
You missed out because youbought the first one.
You can get a lot from the firstone.
I just wanted to expand it andshare.
I have so many stories to sharenow because of the number of
people I've interviewed for thepodcast.
Having conversations aboutgratitude, right?
Yeah, exactly.
And so what can people expectfrom the first book, like the 30
Days of Gratitude?
(13:51):
It, it is life changing.
I know because with Reiki it'sled me to just be in gratitude.
the majority of the time I'm notgonna say all of the time, but
probably 75, 80% of the time I'mlooking around me just noticing
the things that I'm grateful forand it just brings more things
to be grateful for.
(14:13):
And so what was the, what wasyour, the theme and what was
your first book about and whatwill the second one be about?
So the first was really focusingon basic, simple gratitude
habits to help you shift yourmindset.
So a lot of the first, it'swritten in three sections and
it's 30 days.
Like each day has a differentexercise and it's very simple
(14:33):
and precise to what to do eachday.
So you're guided every day.
The first section is reallyabout your mindset, so shifting
your mindset, what you can do tohelp stop the negative mindset,
what you can do to feed yourpositive mindset with things
like affirmations.
The second part of the book isabout designing your life, so
things like vision board andgoal setting and 90 day plans
(14:57):
and all that stuff.
Because when I wrote it, I wasreally.
In growing my business, andthese are strategies that I was
using to grow my business.
So it was like, these areworking, these make sense.
And then the last section of thebook is about different ways to
use gratitude in your life.
Gratitude and kindness.
Gratitude in children, gratitudein faith.
So that's the first book.
(15:19):
The new book that I'm working onalso has three sections in 30
days.
And the first section is reallymore, it's still about d it's
about developing your gratitudepractices.
So sharing I've, cuz I'velearned so many different ways
to pa that's what I love is youand I recorded a podcast
recently and you shared agratitude practice, with your
(15:40):
dinner and the gratitude rockthat I had not.
Thought about.
So I was like, I love that.
I'm always learning.
So I use, I'm using a lot ofstories of other people of what
they do to practice gratitude.
And then the second section ofthe book deals with how to, how
gratitude supports us during ourmost difficult times.
So things like going throughcancer mental health challenges,
(16:03):
difficulties, with chronic pain.
So specific because again, a lotof my guests shared their
personal stories of how they gotthrough these difficult times
with gratitude.
And then the last section of thenew book are just about
different ways to connect withgratitude to change your life
cuz that's the book.
Of gratitude, the gratitudeprogram that will change your
(16:24):
life.
So how gratitude can change yourlife.
So it's a bit similar likeconcepts to the first book, but
in a lot more detail and with alot more stories.
Yes, because you've had so muchexperience with it now.
and it, and tell me about it ledto your podcast.
And so tell me a little bitabout your podcast that you've
been doing for three years, juston gratitude and some of the
things that you've.
(16:46):
So the podcast is interestingbecause the podcast began when I
was going through a personaldifficult time.
I just wasn't feeling, I wasdoing all my gratitude
practices, but I just wasn'tfeeling very good about myself
and I was struggling with my ownself-worth and self-love, and.
I was trying to think of what todo next.
(17:07):
And I was at the beach with myfamily one afternoon and you
know how people paint rocks?
Yes.
And they paint words and theyleave them wherever.
And so I went to the beach andright by the like bench where we
sat down, there was a rock thatwas painted that said self-love.
And I thought, huh.
And I was like, this is it.
30 days of self.
(17:28):
That's just what I meant to do.
And what I decided to do forthis 30 days of self-love is I
interviewed friends, people thatI was already connected with
directly about what self-lovemeant to them.
And then I would ask them abouttheir personal gratitude
practices.
And I did this as a videoseries.
Mostly on Facebook.
So every day for 30 days, therewas a new video that was posted,
(17:49):
but I had also recorded theaudio through Zoom, kept the
audio and said I'm going toeventually turn this into a
podcast.
So I did this sort of in thefall of 2019, and then in
December of 2019, I launched thepodcast with the interviews that
I had done for 30 days of self.
(18:10):
So I started the podcast alreadyhaving a bunch of interviews on
hand, which was really cool.
Nice.
And that really helped.
Yeah.
Okay.
So it started in that way andthen, you've been podcasting for
a while, like the changes andevolves and grows and the
different ways that, that Iinterview people on the ways
that I connect.
I connect.
a lot more with people that arespecifically in the gratitude
(18:31):
community now, because, once youmeet one person, then they
introduce you and on.
And it's cool that it's acommunity actually So I love
that.
And tell me about how you feelgratitude and Reiki in your,
you've spent so much timefocused on gratitude, studying
gratitude, learning aboutgratitude, how.
(18:52):
how do you feel that it goestogether with Reiki?
I think it's this, it's theenergy of it, right?
Like gratitude itself is energy.
it's the way that we show up inthe world.
It's the way that we share ourenergy.
It's becomes like our defaultpractice.
So something like Reiki, and Idon't have nearly as much
(19:13):
experience as many of peoplethat you've had on the podcast
or as other people that might belistening.
But when we open up those energychannels through Reiki, when we
allow our energy to flow more,freely, gratitude becomes easier
to find, I think.
And I really feel that, you knowwhat, if you're a Reiki
(19:36):
practitioner right now, or evenif you're practicing just for
yourself, if you choose to tapinto that energy of gratitude
through your Reiki practice oras part of it, right?
As bringing it into my practice,like you said, what am I
grateful for today, last week,last month?
bringing that in.
You develop this muscle overtime.
(19:58):
And so what happens is when badstuff happens, because it's
going to happen to all of us.
you can tap back into thatenergy of gratitude a lot more
easily, even if somethingnegative has happened.
And I think for those that arealready skilled with re.
It's like that can bring youinto a head space and a body
(20:20):
space and an energy space topractice gratitude and allow it
to flow a lot more easily.
Oh, I love that.
I think that makes perfectsense.
And so what are some things,because gratitude is a part of
Reiki and some people aredisciplined enough to go into
Gassho every day and growthrough the Reiki ideals, but
(20:43):
many of us, even though we thinkof them from time to time, We
don't necessarily have that as adaily practice.
And it is possible even as aReiki practitioner, even though
gratitude is a big part of whatwe do.
To get off track, you had saidabout the the practice with the
dinner with the rock, and I'lljust expand on that.
(21:03):
I noticed that Reiki can reallyhelp change my perspective and
that when my perspective is in aplace of love and appreciation
or gratitude it just brings moreand more things into my life to
appreciate and to be gratefulfor.
And so gratitude did become,Very much a part of my life.
(21:25):
Early on I write I think Julieand I found we both write three
pages every morning calledMorning Pages.
It's something that JuliaCameron recommends in order to
allow your creativity to flow,because we're both writers and
creatives and.
During those three pages, notonly do I is it a bit of a mind
(21:48):
dump where you just allowsolutions to come together for
things that you're thinkingabout or wondering about, but
it's also I always wind up mymorning practice with gratitude
and it just changes.
Flavor, of my day.
It just makes it that mucheasier and more pleasant and
(22:09):
lovely to within my life.
And so I thought, I need to findmore ways to bring gratitude in.
And so in addition to going on awalk in nature every day and
just being conscious of lookingaround me, even if I'm caught up
in my thoughts sometimes, as Isometimes am, Taking the time to
look around me at one point andjust be grateful that I'm able
(22:33):
to walk my dogs in the woods ona trail in nature.
That it's easily accessible tome here in rural New Brunswick,
Canada.
Grateful for the sunrises thatcomes in.
Come in and I usually end my dayin my Reiki practice thinking
through the things.
I was grateful for that day, butI thought, how do I include my
family in this?
(22:54):
Because I thought it made such abig difference to me.
So I heard about, I don't evenknow where I heard about it.
But I heard about this practiceof taking a rock.
So we found a very special rock.
The children weren't very old atthat time.
They're all grown now.
And We we actually even lost itat one point and we had to get a
substitute gratitude rock.
(23:15):
But and then we found it, so nowwe have two.
But we found this very specialrock and it's just a lovely
green rock.
I think we found it on a beachand it's, it just fits nicely in
your hand.
Even when your hands are little.
It fit not too badly.
And so we.
At the end of every mealtogether, we would one of us
(23:37):
would pick up the gratitude rockand.
Hold the rock and say the thingsthat we were grateful for.
And while you were the oneholding the rock you were in
charge.
And it was, it's neat becausethere were times when the kids
were little, they were prettyinto it and they would grab the
rock and they would think aboutthings they were grateful for.
And a lot of times their dad andI were things that they were
(24:00):
grateful for and the dogs and.
Different things.
And then as they went throughtheir teenage years, they
sometimes would roll their eyesand have a little harder time,
thinking And even my sonsometimes would've, maybe he was
bullied at school or he'd had arough day and he'd say, I can't
think of anything today.
Mama I'd say, buddy, there'sgotta be one thing.
(24:22):
You can't pass the rock on untilyou think of one thing and.
they would say it and then passthe rock along.
And do you know that rock hassat on our table for at least 15
years and now the kids what?
We don't get to eat together asmuch anymore because the kids
live different places and so on.
(24:43):
But whenever we do sit down atthe table for a meal, which is
few and far between, somebodysays who's got the gratitude?
Rock And they'll, they're intheir mid to late twenties now,
early, mid, and yeah, latertwenties.
And they still look for thegratitude rock and say what
they're grateful for.
So I just love that practice.
(25:04):
But what are, so you've beenexposed to this so much.
What are some of the things thatyou would recommend to people?
Before I answer that question,I.
Believe that I may recall wherethe gratitude rock is about 15
years ago is that's when themovie this came out and there
was a scene in The Secret whereone of the people talked about
(25:26):
having a gratitude rock that youwould put in your pocket for the
day and you find a nice riverrock or whatever.
And that was your specialgratitude rock and you would put
it in your pocket in themorning, think of something
you're grateful for, and you'dput it back on your dresser at
night and you would think ofsomething you're grateful for
again.
And it, I don't know and youdon't remember, but it probably
is because I did work that seemsthe timing and read the book and
(25:46):
Yeah.
But the fact, what I love isthat you kept that going for so
many years.
And I'm probably gonna use thatstory in my book because I have
a chapter about findinggratitude at home.
That right there.
So we walk around our house allday long.
And just take it for granted.
We take for granted that we havea roof over our head.
(26:08):
I live on Vancouver Island, as Imentioned.
It is one of the, it is thewarmest place in Canada.
However at the time of thisrecording, it is below zero
degrees Celsius and there's 20centimeters of snow on the
ground.
We have a high population ofunhoused people here that don't
have anywhere to go are, wedon't have a lot of shelters.
(26:29):
We just don't have this space,and some of them don't want to.
So they're.
they don't have a roof overtheir heads.
They are not sleeping in a bed.
They don't have warm blankets.
They're not, I write about in mymorning pages, I write about
being grateful that I have awood stove and then I have fuel
for that wood stove.
Because we f heater home withoil.
(26:49):
And oil is.
Very expensive at this time, andso we're trying to make it work
with the wood stove, with woodthat we chopped and my husband
chopped.
And I'm grateful that my husbandchopped this wood, and I'm
grateful that I have a fridgefull of foods.
I don't have to go out when theroads are bad.
I'm grateful that my pantry hasfood in it.
I'm grateful that every tap inmy home has clean drinking
(27:12):
water.
Again.
easy to take for granted.
talk to some of your friends inyour local indigenous
communities or your provincialindigenous communities about
drinking water.
right?
This is, we take this forgranted, so just even being in
your home and recognizing whatyou're taking for granted.
(27:33):
Like every time you flush atoilet, you're flushing drinking
water.
I think about.
right?
I think about that too.
I'm like, I want a gray watersystem for my, yes.
Some of my, for my sinks, right?
Yeah.
To reuse that water.
We've been in droughts, so allof these things, but most people
just aren't thinking about it,and it's not because we're not
grateful people, it's just thatit's so easy to not be grateful
(27:53):
for this stuff that's obviousthat's right in front of our
faces and I just find that if weremember to just look around
where we are right now.
Are you in your car drivinggratitude for your vehicle?
Are you out for a walk rightnow?
Gratitude that you can use yourlegs and your feet and walk.
Gratitude that you have a phonethat you can listen to, a
(28:17):
podcast on gratitude for theenvironment that you live in
that makes it safe for you towalk outside.
They just, it's endless noticingand little reminders and.
because my business is calledWake Up with Gratitude.
My favorite thing, of course isto help people to figure out how
they can wake up with gratitude.
So I'll give you a couple ofsimple ways to wake up with
(28:40):
gratitude.
So one, if you're using yourphone, a zero alarm, which most
people are, you can name youralarm.
So you can change the name ofyour alarm to say, I am grateful
or grateful for this day, or,thank you for this gift.
So that when.
Pull your alarm and turn it off.
Grateful gratitude.
I am grateful first thing,right?
(29:02):
I do recommend your phone is onairplane mode before you go to
bed, so you don't get all theother notifications, you just do
your alarm.
That would be great.
And then another really simpleway to wake up with gratitude is
simply when your feet first hitthe ground.
Just say thank you.
And I have a mantra that I use.
It was inspired by Wayne Dy.
And I just say this, thank youfor this gift of another day and
(29:26):
the opportunity to be of serviceto others and to make a
difference in this world.
Wow.
That's it.
I love that.
And one of the things that inReiki that a lot of us have
adopted from William Rand isplease guide me and heal me so
that I may be of greater serviceto others, myself and to others.
(29:46):
And, I love that addinggratitude.
And although now I'm gonna dothe alarm, my phone is named
Love.
So whenever, you go to connectto somebody's car or whatever it
says, oh, who's love?
Oh, that's me, That's awesome.
And I probably should havecalled it Reiki Love, but my
friend Camie did it for me and Idon't know how to change it.
Yeah, those are some greatideas.
(30:08):
And I love the idea of waking upwith gratitude and a lot of
Reiki practitioners wake up andthat's when we begin doing Reiki
is first thing in the morning.
And so it might be even possibleto go through.
As Yasui asked us to do just fortoday, I will not worry, I will
not be angry.
I'll be devoted to my work.
(30:29):
I'll be kind and I'll be filledwith gratitude, but I just, I
love that.
That's those some great things.
How can Reiki and gratitude doyou feel be used together just
to help in those stressful,challenging.
I think what you just sharedabout starting the day, going
through like with Reiki onyourself personally combining
that with a gratitude body scan.
(30:52):
So it's when you start at yourfeet.
and you just think about whyyou're, being grateful for your
toes and then move them aroundand grateful for your feet.
They carry you where you wannago and grateful for your knees
that allow you to bend down andgrateful for your hips that
allow you to, spin that hulahoop and do so many things.
So it's going through your body.
(31:12):
It's just a gratitude body scan.
So you can do that as part of.
if you're doing the Reikimorning practice already in bed,
and then just taking it one stepfurther and then just bringing
this gratitude body scan justthrough your whole body.
And if you don't have time andyou're in a rush, at least just
pause in gratitude for yourheart.
that has kept beating all night,right?
(31:34):
It is a gift that you woke up.
Yes.
Your heart beats, right?
You don't, we don't do anything.
The heartbeats and beats and itbeats until it just doesn.
and then grieve.
Yeah.
And we can, great.
So just grateful for a fewthings.
The body contains our soul, thebreath, the heartbeat.
(31:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gosh, I love that.
Easy.
Yeah.
Are there any others and I'mjust thinking of some of the
stressful and challenging times,how were you, do you feel able
to get to a place of gratitudeafter such a difficult day?
I just, last week I didsomething really, I did, I made
(32:16):
a really bad choice and I wasmeeting someone outside and I
didn't tie my boots up, so myleases were loose and it was
clear like no snow, nothing.
So just walk out with my boots.
Give the person what they werepicking up, turned around to get
the dogs and the eyelet of myone boot.
(32:36):
The lace from the opposite bootgot caught in the eyelet, and so
I was already going forward andbecause there was nothing I
could do, I knew it washappening, but I couldn't stop
myself from falling forward andslamming onto my driveway.
And I caught myself with myhands and Pretty hurt, but not
like enough that I was like notgetting up for a moment.
I saw stars and stuff and myphone had been in the pouch of
(32:58):
my hoodie and it slammed down.
And as a person who uses theirphone to do all the photography
and yeah, I was really quiteupset.
And then my husband, helped thepeople.
They left and then he picked meup, picked me up, brought me a
house, and I was just I was likereally upset, like just.
I haven't, I don't know the lasttime I've been that upset or in
that much pain.
I was just so not enough to goto the hospital.
(33:20):
So that was like, okay, I'mgrateful I don't have to go to
the hospital.
And so I.
I'm grateful my husband can behere to care for me, but I am
like so upset.
I'm like crying so hard and I'm,having trouble breathing and I'm
just like, little things arelike popping up.
And then even by that night, Iwas having trouble writing cuz
my hands just hurt so much fromtaking the brunt of the fall and
(33:42):
I was trying to hold my pen andI just wrote, I'm grateful I can
hold the pen and write a couplethings in my journal.
and the next morning again, Iwas just more things that I
could be grateful for.
I'm grateful that I, it wasn'tworse that I didn't break my
wrist, that as much, even thoughI'm sore, like it could have
been so much worse.
I'm grateful that my phone isstill usable.
So even though the screen isquite spider shattered, I can
(34:05):
still use it cuz sometimes whenyou break your screen it gets
sharp and you can't use it.
So I can still use my phone.
That's how quickly for me it isa reflex.
Interesting what you said aboutbuilding a muscle, like it's a
muscle.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
It's just a reflex for me now.
(34:25):
There's always, I'm just, itcomes up.
Whatever situation we're in, I'mlike, I can just.
Find something to be gratefulfor.
Even in, and that's not, I meanI could share a lot more
difficult ones, but I thoughtthat's just a really good
everyday example of, yeah,something that was really not
good.
Very upsetting at the time, andI can still like find gratitude.
(34:50):
I love that.
And it, and I like how you said,it is a muscle, so it becomes a
reflex because yeah, you've usedit so much.
And so basically using thegratitude pa or just being in
gratitude so much strengthens.
your ability to be in gratitude,is that right, Yeah, for sure.
(35:12):
And it doesn't mean that badthings don't happen to me cuz
they do.
No, and it doesn't mean I don'tgo through difficult times cuz I
do.
think the last five years thatwe've lived in BC we moved from
across the country in Ontario,have been really hard for me and
my family and, but gratitude hasbeen there with me the whole
time.
So it's.
gratitude doesn't stop the badstuff from happening.
(35:34):
What it does is it helps us toframe things in a different way
and move through them as opposedto spending more time there.
Combine that with a Reikipractice, especially your own
practice.
and that just helpstremendously.
Again, it's not that we.
Gonna have these moments ofdifficulty in these challenging
(35:54):
times, but these two practicestogether can just make it easier
for you to go through.
Instead of getting stuck.
Instead of getting stuck.
That's right.
Yeah.
And it's like a reframe yousaid, and Tony Robbins talks
about there is good around usevery minute, every second,
every nanosecond of every day.
(36:16):
And.
there is positive and good, orthere is negative and things
that we would classify as notgood or bad.
And he said, you have a choiceof what you wanna focus on.
Do you wanna focus on the thingsthat aren't working or the
things that are, and when you,and kinda like what you said,
this muscle as you focus on whatis working.
(36:38):
And that's what I've noticed,especially with Reiki.
Reiki seems to accelerateeverything.
So as I focus on what isworking, more things that bring
me love and joy and that areworking, more of those seem to
show up and almost know I saidat one point, talking with a
friend I said, life has got sobeautiful.
(36:58):
I don't know if I can contain itall.
We've just recently had so manywonderful and beautiful things
happen and I was sitting at ourbeach house looking out at the
water, just thinking wow.
And I, I've often said to myhusband, pinch me.
I just can't believe.
But I feel looking back, it is aresult of just noticing the
(37:20):
positive and it bringing morepositive, I think the secret and
some of the things that you weretalking about earlier, about
manifesting, like you manifestmore of these wonderful things
in your life when you noticethem and focus on them because
the universe really responds toyour thoughts and your beliefs
and yeah.
I love that, Julie.
(37:41):
My gosh.
What are some commonmisconceptions about gratitude
or gratitude with Reiki?
Is there anything you can thinkabout there?
I think this kind of points alittle bit to toxic positivity,
uhhuh, where it's like you'reusing gratitude to whitewash a
situation or to not address yourfeelings.
That's dangerous.
(38:02):
So for me, gratitude is not, I'mnot grateful that I fell and
smashed my phone and hurtmyself.
No, definitely not.
But I can find gratitude fromthat situation.
And that's where, to me,gratitude is more important.
addressing your emotions.
You can even be grateful to beangry or frustrated in a certain
(38:24):
time.
Like you can be grateful foryour emotions.
Gratitude doesn't always have tobe positive.
you can be grateful.
for negative things because I'mgrateful that I'm angry.
That's good.
I have something to be angryabout.
Or that you're living in asociety where you can express
anger.
Yeah.
That's, you don't have tosuppress it or whatever.
Exactly.
So I think just staying clear oftoxic positivity and knowing
(38:47):
that gratitude doesn't, andtoxic positivity they're not
connected.
Gratitude is very, it'sdifferent and it's, Being aware
in a situation of there are somany things to be grateful for,
even in the darkest of times, inthe darkest of moments, even
amidst negativity, but not, butbeing aware that the negativity
(39:07):
may still Yeah.
Is still there.
Yeah.
And yeah, and not ignoring itor, or pretending that it's not
there.
So I love that.
How does like Reiki andgratitude and how.
Relate to other spiritual ormindfulness practices in in your
opinion?
I think any practice thatconnects you back to yourself
(39:29):
and brings you into your body.
Is a spiritual practice.
So whether using Reiki on itsown, Reiki and gratitude on its
own, any other prayer,meditation, any practice that
brings you back into your body,I think is how you make that
connection.
It is how you change and shiftyour vibration.
It doesn't happen when you'refocused in your head.
(39:50):
You're jumbled in your thoughts,getting caught up in ego.
It's bringing yourself into yourbody, into your heart space,
and.
is how I think all thesepractices really connect, and
then it's finding the one thatyou resonate with or that you're
curious about to follow and toexplore more of and learn more
(40:10):
of.
So whatever that is for youpersonally, and again, that's
being in tune with your heartand where that's leading you and
that.
That's what's fun about this isthat just like with gratitude,
there are endless ways toexplore Reiki.
You yourself, you have so manydifferent ways to use Reiki,
whether it's following yourheart towards exploring the ways
(40:32):
that Reiki allows you to beopen-hearted and, use your
energy in a beautiful, positiveway, or following the gratitude
path to put you in that morepositive mindset and allow you
to have that reflex muscle whenyou're faced with challenges.
I love that, that muscle.
And we would say, connectingwith our authentic self in with
(40:52):
Holy Fire, Reiki, that's a bigpart of just connecting with who
we are, authentically that lightinside of us that.
Can sometimes, not be present.
And I think gratitude is a partof uncovering that light and our
authenticity as well.
So I love that.
And what are some things youwould suggest to us about how
(41:15):
Reiki and gratitude could beused to help promote personal
growth and self-improvement?
What would you say?
That's an interesting questionbecause I have been on a
personal development,self-improvement journey for a
really long time, and I'mgrateful for all of the work
(41:38):
that I've done.
And I've also, and yourlisteners might not wanna hear
this, but sometimes in personaldevelopment, self-development,
there are promises that are madethat.
don't happen.
And you feel like you work sohard and you do what you're told
and you follow the instructionsand you're still not manifesting
(42:03):
as you had desired.
And you don't, you haven'treached your goals and your
financial goals and all of thesethings.
And what I've learned is that Ithink coming back to myself,
coming back to my, like yousaid, authenticity and
understanding my ownvulnerabilities is the direction
(42:26):
to go for personal growth andfor where I am exploring my
journey now.
So that is where I am at in myown personal development
journey.
After being a personaldevelopment journey for 16, 17
years.
It's coming back.
(42:47):
Remembering that your body hasall the answers, and so these
practices that bring you back toyour body and listening to our
body, I know that I'm not theonly woman in her forties who
is.
Just finally waking up toactually listening to my body
and not just following whateverybody else says and coming
(43:07):
back to that.
So I'm in a space of personaljourney, personal development,
so I don't have an answer foryou right now.
That's okay.
But what I know what's workingright now is coming back to my
body and actually payingattention to my body.
And both, Reiki and gratitude dothat.
They bring you back to the bodyas I mention.
That's right.
And it is so easy, I think ofhow many times my body said I'm
(43:30):
hungry, and I said, no, you'renot.
I'm busy, I've, I'll get to youlater.
Or I'm tired and it's but I havethis project to finish Yeah.
So we'll sleep later.
and I, so I think even myself,I, I don't do that as much
anymore, but certainly in mythirties and forties and my
career.
(43:52):
How often do you not listen?
And the answer was for me,personally, quite a lot.
I didn't listen So I love that,that bringing us back.
And Julie, is there anythingyou'd like to share with us
before we move into ourmeditation today?
I think it's just a reminderthat gratitude practice doesn't
(44:15):
have to be d.
it and it's free.
doesn't take a lot of time todo, and you don't need any
special skills to do it.
You just need to do it.
And the more you do it, theeasier it becomes.
The more ways you develop tofind, to practice gratitude, and
you'll just never run out ofways to be grateful.
And that's what's amazing is.
(44:36):
There's just endless ways toexpress our gratitude, and so if
you're feeling stuck in yourgratitude practice, I maybe pop
on over to the podcast for, justlisten to any episode and you'll
just get a new idea and a newway to connect back to yourself,
your body, and to yourpractices.
Absolutely, and we'll put a linkto your book and your podcast
(44:57):
and your website in the in thethe podcast notes.
So you can easily do that if youwould like to check that out.
Thank you.
I wonder you have a gratitudeexperience or meditation.
I've actually downloaded it, butI haven't had a chance to listen
to it yet.
But I wonder if you would leadus in that to end our podcast
(45:18):
today.
Yeah, absolutely.
And we can link to the, ifpeople wanna download that
meditation, they can so thatthey just want the meditation
bit.
They can have that and they canput it on their phone.
So we'll make sure they link tothat one as well.
Absolutely.
So I'm gonna take you through ashort gratitude meditation.
I call it my sunrise meditation.
So we're just gonna, I'm justgonna take you to the sunrise
(45:39):
with.
So thank you.
Okay, so wherever you are, aslong as you're safe and you're
comfortable, you can close youreyes or just look down at the
floor, make sure you're sittingor lying comfortably.
Whatever feels good for you andyour body, and bringing your
(46:02):
attention back to your breath.
Noticing what it feels like whenyou're breathing in, allowing
your body to relax into anexhale.
(46:26):
Anytime you feel like your mindis wandering away from what I'm
sharing, just come back to yourbreath.
Allow yourself to notice the airbreathing in through your nose,
filling your lungs, allowingyour belly to expand, and
(46:54):
noticing how your belly fallsand your lungs drop.
Shoulders relax on the exhale.
You can always bring yourselfback to your breath.
You're gonna come with me towatch the sunrise at the beach.
(47:19):
So we arrive at the beachtogether.
You can hear the sounds of theocean.
The waves gently lapping theshore.
Calls of the seabirds and younotice the pre dawn light,
(47:44):
there's still some blue in thesky, but you notice some color
on the horizon.
It's not quite dark, not quitelight yet.
The horizon is lit up in a deeporange color and above it
(48:07):
overhead.
The sky is going from a dark,deep indigo to a lighter daytime
blue.
A few stars still speckle thesky as you notice the contrast
between the horizon.
And the sky above you.
(48:31):
As you walk towards the shore,you hear the sand and the
pebbles underneath your feetmaking a gentle crunching noise.
As you step, you find acomfortable place to sit.
(48:56):
Leaning back on a piece ofdriftwood and allowing yourself
to gaze off into the horizon.
As the colors start to change,dawn is upon us.
(49:17):
You notice the colors becomingbrighter and different shades of
now red and pink.
You place your hand over yourheart in a moment of gratitude
before the sun rises and yourepeat to yourself.
(49:39):
Thank you for this gift ofanother day, and the opportunity
to be of service to others andto make a difference in this
world.
And together we open our eyesagain and keep our eyes focused
(50:00):
on the horizon, watching as sealife swims by us or overhead
grateful for the eagle thatglides above us, or the gulls
that squeak and squawk.
Sharing their breakfast of seastars.
(50:27):
You close for your eyes for amoment again.
And breathe deeply grateful forthe air entering your lungs,
nourishing your body with muchneeded oxygen, smelling that sea
air as it comes through yournose and exhaling to release any
(50:48):
tension.
In your body as you melt intothe beach and that piece of
driftwood, when your eyes openagain, you notice the sun has
started to peak over thehorizon.
Together we stand up, move rightto the shore where the waves are
(51:12):
just tickling the edges of ourtoes.
We stand beautifully placing ourhands over our hearts, looking
out as the sky makes its wayover the horizon and lights up
the morning sky in beautifuloranges and reds and yellows.
(51:40):
There are just enough scatteringof clouds that it creates a
beautiful canvas for this risingsun.
You feel a tear trickle downyour cheek as you're in awe of
the beauty of the natural worldand what a gift it is to be able
to watch the sunrise.
(52:04):
Together we breathe.
Breathing in the ocean, air,breathing in the gratitude in
this moment and this gift ofanother day, and we turn to look
at each other.
Smile, hug.
(52:29):
And reach our hands to the sky.
Enjoy to say thank you.
Thank you to the sunrise forwelcoming another day.
Come back to where you are.
Find me in your breath.
Let my voice bring you back tothe room that you're sitting in
(52:53):
right now.
And when you're ready, take onelast deep breath in.
And on the exhale, I invite youto open your eyes and come back
to us here.
That was delicious, Thank you.
(53:13):
I hope you were there with me.
I could see you.
I could see you, and I was, andholding your hands and giving
you a big hug.
I sure was.
And I could feel the Reikiflowing through me, through us
and through.
all of the listeners.
Julie, thank you so much forthis deep dive into gratitude
(53:35):
and for your ideas for themeditation.
I really can't wait to dive intoyour book.
So I will be ordering the signedversion, please, Awesome.
And thank you for being herewith us.
It was truly my pleasure.
I'm so grateful to yourlisteners for listening in, and
I just wanna remind everybody tochoose to wake up with
(53:57):
gratitude.
I couldn't have said it better.
Thank you.
And thank you also to thelisteners Namaste.
Hi, and welcome to the Reiki from the Farm Podcast,
brought to you by me, Pam AllenLoblaw from Hidden Brook Farm.
I am a scientist, abusinesswoman, and a licensed
Reiki master teacher with theInternational Center for Reiki.
each week in this podcast,you'll be entertained as you
learn about a wide variety ofrelevant Reiki topics helping
(00:30):
you become a more knowledgeableand effective Reiki
practitioner.
We caution you though thispodcast may also dramatically
improve your life.
And we are so happy that you'rehere.
(00:57):
On this week's podcast, I'mspeaking with Julie Boye, who is
a podcaster with Wake Up WithGratitude.
She has a book about gratitudeand you're also a landscape
photographer, Julie, withgorgeous.
Are those your, for thosewatching on YouTube, are those
your shots behind you?
Yeah.
Yes, absolutely.
I saw your calendar.
(01:17):
It's it's stunning.
And I wanted to invite Julie tothe podcast to just talk about
one of the Reiki concepts orprecepts, which is gratitude.
So welcome.
Thank you for coming.
I'm excited to be here.
Thanks for having me, Pam.
I'm so glad you're here.
Before we begin, I just wannalet you know that I will soon be
heading to Australia.
(01:38):
For those of you who are there,I've got five days of the the
classes that contribute towardthe professional membership and
the Reiki MembershipAssociation, a Level one and
two, and masterclass.
And when you take those from alicensed teacher, you qualify
for professional membership.
They are available in person andI'm investigating whether they
(01:59):
can be online.
So if.
Go ahead and reach out if that'ssomething that you're thinking
about, but it definitely will bethe Australian time zone.
I'm also teaching I C R T AnimalReiki there, and in April I've
got a full lineup of classeshere at the farm, which you can
also join online if you wouldlike.
And please consider joining usfor that.
(02:19):
But I do look forward to seeingmy Australian friends in
Australia.
Again, we'll be teaching justoutside of Canberra in a little
place called Royalla.
Beautiful farm there surroundedby kangaroos and horses and the
most beautiful birds I've everseen.
So it couldn't be love.
Before we go too far in, did youhave anything you wanted to let
people know about Julie?
(02:40):
Anything going on that theycould like your calendar, I
realize we're in February now,but anything like that?
My calendar's sold out actuallybefore the end of December, and
you can always keep me in mindfor next year.
It's all, I live on VancouverIsland, which is off the west
coast of Canada, and I'm verylucky to live within driving
(03:03):
distance of several beautifulbeaches where I get to watch the
sunrise.
So my calendar's VancouverIsland sunrises.
That's my favorite way.
How I combine gratitude and thesunrise practice, wake up with
gratitude, right?
I love to watch the sunrise.
Welcome a new day, and justwelcome it in with gratitude and
then take pictures and sharethem.
(03:23):
I love that.
We're just gonna inviteeverybody.
Julia's also a Reiki level onepractitioner, and maybe going
further with Reiki, I don't knowyet.
But I'm gonna invite everybodyto go ahead and bring your hands
in Gassho and just go ahead andactivate your Reiki energy
today, and we'll just remindeach other of the Reiki ideal.
(03:47):
asked us to chat with our mouthand speak with our heart every
morning and evening with ourhands in prayer or in Gassho.
Just for today.
I will not be angry.
I will not worry.
I will be devoted to my work.
I will be kind to others, and Iwill be filled with gratitude.
(04:11):
and just feeling the energy ofgratitude wrap around us and
through us just thinking aboutsome of the things that you're
grateful for in this moment andsome of the things you are
grateful for yesterday, lastweek.
(04:37):
Last month and even last year,there's something about shifting
into gratitude.
It changes everything.
And when we remember to be ingratitude.
(05:02):
We bring to ourselves morethings to be grateful for what
we focus on expands, and that iswhat makes up our lives.
Just for today, I will begrateful and just for today, I'm
grateful for you, Aho awesomeand Namaste mistake.
(05:30):
thank you.
Oh, that was a beautiful way tostart the podcast, Thank you.
I just love there's somethingabout grounding myself and my
guest in the Reiki energy andalso the listener, and that way
the Reiki energy flows throughus the whole time that we talk.
And I can get very excitable.
(05:53):
And this keeps me grounded.
And I think it flows through thelistener as well.
And I just believe that's, thathelps them hear the parts of the
podcast that they need on anygiven day.
And so thank you Julie, tell mea little bit about you.
You feel so strongly aboutgratitude, that you wrote a book
(06:14):
about it, you have a podcastabout it.
What in your journey broughtthis focus to gratitude for you?
It's interesting.
The first time I was.
Formally introduced to usinggratitude as a practice was many
years ago with the movie TheSecret.
Oh, I dunno if you rememberthat.
(06:34):
Yeah.
And the book and the book.
And they also had secretgratitude journals that you
could write in.
And in these journals, on oneside of the page, it asked you
to write in the present tensewhat you were grateful for that
was already happening in yourlife.
And on the other page, it was agratitude intention.
So things you wanted to manifestinto your life that had not yet
(06:56):
occurred, but you were acting asif you were using gratitude in
advance for something that hadyet to come into your life.
So that was where I began mygratitude practice.
And I did that for a few years,but, I don't know.
It didn't seem to work.
It wasn't really, I liked it,but it seemed like it was just
not quite working the way that Iwanted it to, and I stopped the
(07:17):
practice like many people do.
That's normal.
Just like I'm sure with a Reikipractice, right?
They go through the same,they'll go through times in
their life where it's reallyimportant and a priority, and
other times when it's not.
Yes.
So I paused my practice and fastforward a couple years, I was at
an event, a convention event,and I went to a workshop with a
(07:40):
gentleman, his name is SeanAker.
He wrote the book, the HappinessAdvantage.
He has a great TED Talk, so wecan share that.
And the book.
Yeah.
But he talked about how tochange your mindset in 21 days.
So if you had, the negativemindset to switch to more
positive, and he gave all theseideas of what to do, and one of
(08:01):
them was a gratitude practice.
And what I liked about hisgratitude practice is so at the
time, this is 2011, he's writeyour gratitude in your phone,
which today seems obvious, butin 2011 it was not.
We weren't all walking aroundwith smartphones, right?
We had our little blackberriesor whatever.
But you write three thingsyou're grateful for that are
(08:23):
specific to that.
And then you're not repeatingit.
So you're doing somethingdifferent every day.
For 21 days, I know it takeslonger than that, but at the
time, he recommended for 21days.
So I thought, this is reallygreat, you know this, I think I
could do this.
And then I went back to what I'dlearned from this secret and
started adding a gratitudeintention.
So I started that practice thatnight.
(08:45):
I started writing, actually aBlackberry tablet that I had,
which they don't even make thoseanymore, but I started writing
it.
Three things I was grateful forspecific to that day.
And then a fourth gratitudeintention.
And my gratitude intention wasto reach a business goal.
This had been in a businessconference and.
12 weeks later, I achieved thisbusiness goal in my network
(09:07):
marketing business, and I waslike, oh my gosh, this gratitude
thing.
It's like it's working.
So that's where the journeybegan.
There's lots of other, stepsalong the way, but that's really
where it started was thoseinfluences in my life.
Oh, I love that.
And it's just expanded for you.
It turned into a book.
Can you tell us a little bitabout your first book and then,
(09:30):
maybe segue into the one you'reworking on right now?
Sure.
Yeah.
So I continued this practiceevery night and started
implementing it with like myteam training.
So every team training therewould be some gratitude included
in some of the work that we weredoing.
It was teaching about gratitudeintentions.
Actually 12 weeks after that wemanifested our first family
(09:50):
home.
So I was like this, this isworking.
So I have a daughter, she's 12.
Great girl.
She's doing fantastic.
And when my daughter was two anda bit, I got pregnant for the
second time.
And at 15 weeks of gestationwhere you think that everything
(10:11):
is going to be fine.
I had a very traumaticmiscarriage.
Oh.
I miscarried at home.
I was in the bath, definitelynot the waterbirth that I had
planned.
It was I was home alone.
I had to call.
9 1 1 police broke down my door.
Then the paramedics took me tothe hospital and I ended up
having emergency surgery cuz itwas an incomplete miscarriage.
(10:34):
So I had to have, A D N C and itall happened so fast and the
whole thing happened in aboutfour and a half hours.
And then we went to pick up mydaughter at daycare Wow.
It was just, This unbelievablyhorrible, traumatic experience.
And then we get in the car andgo pick up my daughter at
(10:54):
daycare after I've had surgery.
So I got home that night and Ihad developed this practice of
writing in my gratitude journal.
So I, I wrote in my gratitudejournal that night, and I wrote
that I was grateful that mydaughter had been at daycare.
Yeah.
And I was grateful that thepolice were able to break down
the door.
and then I wrote that I wasgrateful that my husband and one
(11:17):
of my best friends had been atthe hospital with me.
And so I thought to myself, if Ican find gratitude on what was
then the worst moment of mylife, then I need to share this
with people.
And that's where my first book,30 Days of Gratitude, the
Gratitude Program that willchange your life began.
I started writing.
(11:39):
in February, so that was the endof January.
I started writing it in Februaryand.
My sister is a high schoolEnglish teacher who offered to
edit for me, so she helped me.
So I was writing as she wasediting, and the whole book was
finished by the beginning ofApril, launched.
Unbelievable.
At the end of May.
And then, yeah, we did an Amazonbestseller campaign before those
(11:59):
were.
those were a cool thing to do,it was a pretty incredible
experience for me and I reallythought that was like the
culmination of my gratitudejourney, but it turned out that
it was definitely just one partof my journey.
Oh.
Like just the beginning, justthe beginning.
Where did that, and I seethere's some noise in your
background.
Don't worry.
That's why it's called Reikifrom the farm.
Our listeners are very generouswith us I homeschool that
(12:22):
beautiful 12 year old daughterand she's, even though she's
aware that I'm recording, cuz asa podcaster I record often, she
just, I think she just forgotthat I'm recording.
Oh my, my family can forget veryeasily too.
And especially the dogs butdon't worry.
That's amazing.
And your book, is your bookstill available?
(12:43):
Is there a link that we can put?
It is the podcast for it.
Okay.
Yeah, for sure.
And you can order it.
Through your common websites,but if you are in Canada, you
can order it directly from meand then I'll sign the book for
you.
Absolutely.
So that you can order through mywebsite.
I have a few copies on hand, andthen yeah, you mentioned another
book.
So this, yeah, this year, 2023will be the 10th anniversary of
(13:07):
the book.
And so having now.
Been through this whole journey,podcasting for three years,
interviewing people aboutgratitude.
I thought it'd be a really goodopportunity to release an
updated and revised edition.
So the first book still sells.
I just sold a bunch over theholiday season and it's still
great.
So even if you got the book thatI have right now, the new book
(13:30):
is different.
It's not, you're not gonna feel.
You missed out because youbought the first one.
You can get a lot from the firstone.
I just wanted to expand it andshare.
I have so many stories to sharenow because of the number of
people I've interviewed for thepodcast.
Having conversations aboutgratitude, right?
Yeah, exactly.
And so what can people expectfrom the first book, like the 30
Days of Gratitude?
(13:51):
It, it is life changing.
I know because with Reiki it'sled me to just be in gratitude.
the majority of the time I'm notgonna say all of the time, but
probably 75, 80% of the time I'mlooking around me just noticing
the things that I'm grateful forand it just brings more things
to be grateful for.
(14:13):
And so what was the, what wasyour, the theme and what was
your first book about and whatwill the second one be about?
So the first was really focusingon basic, simple gratitude
habits to help you shift yourmindset.
So a lot of the first, it'swritten in three sections and
it's 30 days.
Like each day has a differentexercise and it's very simple
(14:33):
and precise to what to do eachday.
So you're guided every day.
The first section is reallyabout your mindset, so shifting
your mindset, what you can do tohelp stop the negative mindset,
what you can do to feed yourpositive mindset with things
like affirmations.
The second part of the book isabout designing your life, so
things like vision board andgoal setting and 90 day plans
(14:57):
and all that stuff.
Because when I wrote it, I wasreally.
In growing my business, andthese are strategies that I was
using to grow my business.
So it was like, these areworking, these make sense.
And then the last section of thebook is about different ways to
use gratitude in your life.
Gratitude and kindness.
Gratitude in children, gratitudein faith.
So that's the first book.
(15:19):
The new book that I'm working onalso has three sections in 30
days.
And the first section is reallymore, it's still about d it's
about developing your gratitudepractices.
So sharing I've, cuz I'velearned so many different ways
to pa that's what I love is youand I recorded a podcast
recently and you shared agratitude practice, with your
(15:40):
dinner and the gratitude rockthat I had not.
Thought about.
So I was like, I love that.
I'm always learning.
So I use, I'm using a lot ofstories of other people of what
they do to practice gratitude.
And then the second section ofthe book deals with how to, how
gratitude supports us during ourmost difficult times.
So things like going throughcancer mental health challenges,
(16:03):
difficulties, with chronic pain.
So specific because again, a lotof my guests shared their
personal stories of how they gotthrough these difficult times
with gratitude.
And then the last section of thenew book are just about
different ways to connect withgratitude to change your life
cuz that's the book.
Of gratitude, the gratitudeprogram that will change your
(16:24):
life.
So how gratitude can change yourlife.
So it's a bit similar likeconcepts to the first book, but
in a lot more detail and with alot more stories.
Yes, because you've had so muchexperience with it now.
and it, and tell me about it ledto your podcast.
And so tell me a little bitabout your podcast that you've
been doing for three years, juston gratitude and some of the
things that you've.
(16:46):
So the podcast is interestingbecause the podcast began when I
was going through a personaldifficult time.
I just wasn't feeling, I wasdoing all my gratitude
practices, but I just wasn'tfeeling very good about myself
and I was struggling with my ownself-worth and self-love, and.
I was trying to think of what todo next.
(17:07):
And I was at the beach with myfamily one afternoon and you
know how people paint rocks?
Yes.
And they paint words and theyleave them wherever.
And so I went to the beach andright by the like bench where we
sat down, there was a rock thatwas painted that said self-love.
And I thought, huh.
And I was like, this is it.
30 days of self.
(17:28):
That's just what I meant to do.
And what I decided to do forthis 30 days of self-love is I
interviewed friends, people thatI was already connected with
directly about what self-lovemeant to them.
And then I would ask them abouttheir personal gratitude
practices.
And I did this as a videoseries.
Mostly on Facebook.
So every day for 30 days, therewas a new video that was posted,
(17:49):
but I had also recorded theaudio through Zoom, kept the
audio and said I'm going toeventually turn this into a
podcast.
So I did this sort of in thefall of 2019, and then in
December of 2019, I launched thepodcast with the interviews that
I had done for 30 days of self.
(18:10):
So I started the podcast alreadyhaving a bunch of interviews on
hand, which was really cool.
Nice.
And that really helped.
Yeah.
Okay.
So it started in that way andthen, you've been podcasting for
a while, like the changes andevolves and grows and the
different ways that, that Iinterview people on the ways
that I connect.
I connect.
a lot more with people that arespecifically in the gratitude
(18:31):
community now, because, once youmeet one person, then they
introduce you and on.
And it's cool that it's acommunity actually So I love
that.
And tell me about how you feelgratitude and Reiki in your,
you've spent so much timefocused on gratitude, studying
gratitude, learning aboutgratitude, how.
(18:52):
how do you feel that it goestogether with Reiki?
I think it's this, it's theenergy of it, right?
Like gratitude itself is energy.
it's the way that we show up inthe world.
It's the way that we share ourenergy.
It's becomes like our defaultpractice.
So something like Reiki, and Idon't have nearly as much
(19:13):
experience as many of peoplethat you've had on the podcast
or as other people that might belistening.
But when we open up those energychannels through Reiki, when we
allow our energy to flow more,freely, gratitude becomes easier
to find, I think.
And I really feel that, you knowwhat, if you're a Reiki
(19:36):
practitioner right now, or evenif you're practicing just for
yourself, if you choose to tapinto that energy of gratitude
through your Reiki practice oras part of it, right?
As bringing it into my practice,like you said, what am I
grateful for today, last week,last month?
bringing that in.
You develop this muscle overtime.
(19:58):
And so what happens is when badstuff happens, because it's
going to happen to all of us.
you can tap back into thatenergy of gratitude a lot more
easily, even if somethingnegative has happened.
And I think for those that arealready skilled with re.
It's like that can bring youinto a head space and a body
(20:20):
space and an energy space topractice gratitude and allow it
to flow a lot more easily.
Oh, I love that.
I think that makes perfectsense.
And so what are some things,because gratitude is a part of
Reiki and some people aredisciplined enough to go into
Gassho every day and growthrough the Reiki ideals, but
(20:43):
many of us, even though we thinkof them from time to time, We
don't necessarily have that as adaily practice.
And it is possible even as aReiki practitioner, even though
gratitude is a big part of whatwe do.
To get off track, you had saidabout the the practice with the
dinner with the rock, and I'lljust expand on that.
(21:03):
I noticed that Reiki can reallyhelp change my perspective and
that when my perspective is in aplace of love and appreciation
or gratitude it just brings moreand more things into my life to
appreciate and to be gratefulfor.
And so gratitude did become,Very much a part of my life.
(21:25):
Early on I write I think Julieand I found we both write three
pages every morning calledMorning Pages.
It's something that JuliaCameron recommends in order to
allow your creativity to flow,because we're both writers and
creatives and.
During those three pages, notonly do I is it a bit of a mind
(21:48):
dump where you just allowsolutions to come together for
things that you're thinkingabout or wondering about, but
it's also I always wind up mymorning practice with gratitude
and it just changes.
Flavor, of my day.
It just makes it that mucheasier and more pleasant and
(22:09):
lovely to within my life.
And so I thought, I need to findmore ways to bring gratitude in.
And so in addition to going on awalk in nature every day and
just being conscious of lookingaround me, even if I'm caught up
in my thoughts sometimes, as Isometimes am, Taking the time to
look around me at one point andjust be grateful that I'm able
(22:33):
to walk my dogs in the woods ona trail in nature.
That it's easily accessible tome here in rural New Brunswick,
Canada.
Grateful for the sunrises thatcomes in.
Come in and I usually end my dayin my Reiki practice thinking
through the things.
I was grateful for that day, butI thought, how do I include my
family in this?
(22:54):
Because I thought it made such abig difference to me.
So I heard about, I don't evenknow where I heard about it.
But I heard about this practiceof taking a rock.
So we found a very special rock.
The children weren't very old atthat time.
They're all grown now.
And We we actually even lost itat one point and we had to get a
substitute gratitude rock.
(23:15):
But and then we found it, so nowwe have two.
But we found this very specialrock and it's just a lovely
green rock.
I think we found it on a beachand it's, it just fits nicely in
your hand.
Even when your hands are little.
It fit not too badly.
And so we.
At the end of every mealtogether, we would one of us
(23:37):
would pick up the gratitude rockand.
Hold the rock and say the thingsthat we were grateful for.
And while you were the oneholding the rock you were in
charge.
And it was, it's neat becausethere were times when the kids
were little, they were prettyinto it and they would grab the
rock and they would think aboutthings they were grateful for.
And a lot of times their dad andI were things that they were
(24:00):
grateful for and the dogs and.
Different things.
And then as they went throughtheir teenage years, they
sometimes would roll their eyesand have a little harder time,
thinking And even my sonsometimes would've, maybe he was
bullied at school or he'd had arough day and he'd say, I can't
think of anything today.
Mama I'd say, buddy, there'sgotta be one thing.
(24:22):
You can't pass the rock on untilyou think of one thing and.
they would say it and then passthe rock along.
And do you know that rock hassat on our table for at least 15
years and now the kids what?
We don't get to eat together asmuch anymore because the kids
live different places and so on.
(24:43):
But whenever we do sit down atthe table for a meal, which is
few and far between, somebodysays who's got the gratitude?
Rock And they'll, they're intheir mid to late twenties now,
early, mid, and yeah, latertwenties.
And they still look for thegratitude rock and say what
they're grateful for.
So I just love that practice.
(25:04):
But what are, so you've beenexposed to this so much.
What are some of the things thatyou would recommend to people?
Before I answer that question,I.
Believe that I may recall wherethe gratitude rock is about 15
years ago is that's when themovie this came out and there
was a scene in The Secret whereone of the people talked about
(25:26):
having a gratitude rock that youwould put in your pocket for the
day and you find a nice riverrock or whatever.
And that was your specialgratitude rock and you would put
it in your pocket in themorning, think of something
you're grateful for, and you'dput it back on your dresser at
night and you would think ofsomething you're grateful for
again.
And it, I don't know and youdon't remember, but it probably
is because I did work that seemsthe timing and read the book and
(25:46):
Yeah.
But the fact, what I love isthat you kept that going for so
many years.
And I'm probably gonna use thatstory in my book because I have
a chapter about findinggratitude at home.
That right there.
So we walk around our house allday long.
And just take it for granted.
We take for granted that we havea roof over our head.
(26:08):
I live on Vancouver Island, as Imentioned.
It is one of the, it is thewarmest place in Canada.
However at the time of thisrecording, it is below zero
degrees Celsius and there's 20centimeters of snow on the
ground.
We have a high population ofunhoused people here that don't
have anywhere to go are, wedon't have a lot of shelters.
(26:29):
We just don't have this space,and some of them don't want to.
So they're.
they don't have a roof overtheir heads.
They are not sleeping in a bed.
They don't have warm blankets.
They're not, I write about in mymorning pages, I write about
being grateful that I have awood stove and then I have fuel
for that wood stove.
Because we f heater home withoil.
(26:49):
And oil is.
Very expensive at this time, andso we're trying to make it work
with the wood stove, with woodthat we chopped and my husband
chopped.
And I'm grateful that my husbandchopped this wood, and I'm
grateful that I have a fridgefull of foods.
I don't have to go out when theroads are bad.
I'm grateful that my pantry hasfood in it.
I'm grateful that every tap inmy home has clean drinking
(27:12):
water.
Again.
easy to take for granted.
talk to some of your friends inyour local indigenous
communities or your provincialindigenous communities about
drinking water.
right?
This is, we take this forgranted, so just even being in
your home and recognizing whatyou're taking for granted.
(27:33):
Like every time you flush atoilet, you're flushing drinking
water.
I think about.
right?
I think about that too.
I'm like, I want a gray watersystem for my, yes.
Some of my, for my sinks, right?
Yeah.
To reuse that water.
We've been in droughts, so allof these things, but most people
just aren't thinking about it,and it's not because we're not
grateful people, it's just thatit's so easy to not be grateful
(27:53):
for this stuff that's obviousthat's right in front of our
faces and I just find that if weremember to just look around
where we are right now.
Are you in your car drivinggratitude for your vehicle?
Are you out for a walk rightnow?
Gratitude that you can use yourlegs and your feet and walk.
Gratitude that you have a phonethat you can listen to, a
(28:17):
podcast on gratitude for theenvironment that you live in
that makes it safe for you towalk outside.
They just, it's endless noticingand little reminders and.
because my business is calledWake Up with Gratitude.
My favorite thing, of course isto help people to figure out how
they can wake up with gratitude.
So I'll give you a couple ofsimple ways to wake up with
(28:40):
gratitude.
So one, if you're using yourphone, a zero alarm, which most
people are, you can name youralarm.
So you can change the name ofyour alarm to say, I am grateful
or grateful for this day, or,thank you for this gift.
So that when.
Pull your alarm and turn it off.
Grateful gratitude.
I am grateful first thing,right?
(29:02):
I do recommend your phone is onairplane mode before you go to
bed, so you don't get all theother notifications, you just do
your alarm.
That would be great.
And then another really simpleway to wake up with gratitude is
simply when your feet first hitthe ground.
Just say thank you.
And I have a mantra that I use.
It was inspired by Wayne Dy.
And I just say this, thank youfor this gift of another day and
(29:26):
the opportunity to be of serviceto others and to make a
difference in this world.
Wow.
That's it.
I love that.
And one of the things that inReiki that a lot of us have
adopted from William Rand isplease guide me and heal me so
that I may be of greater serviceto others, myself and to others.
(29:46):
And, I love that addinggratitude.
And although now I'm gonna dothe alarm, my phone is named
Love.
So whenever, you go to connectto somebody's car or whatever it
says, oh, who's love?
Oh, that's me, That's awesome.
And I probably should havecalled it Reiki Love, but my
friend Camie did it for me and Idon't know how to change it.
Yeah, those are some greatideas.
(30:08):
And I love the idea of waking upwith gratitude and a lot of
Reiki practitioners wake up andthat's when we begin doing Reiki
is first thing in the morning.
And so it might be even possibleto go through.
As Yasui asked us to do just fortoday, I will not worry, I will
not be angry.
I'll be devoted to my work.
(30:29):
I'll be kind and I'll be filledwith gratitude, but I just, I
love that.
That's those some great things.
How can Reiki and gratitude doyou feel be used together just
to help in those stressful,challenging.
I think what you just sharedabout starting the day, going
through like with Reiki onyourself personally combining
that with a gratitude body scan.
(30:52):
So it's when you start at yourfeet.
and you just think about whyyou're, being grateful for your
toes and then move them aroundand grateful for your feet.
They carry you where you wannago and grateful for your knees
that allow you to bend down andgrateful for your hips that
allow you to, spin that hulahoop and do so many things.
So it's going through your body.
(31:12):
It's just a gratitude body scan.
So you can do that as part of.
if you're doing the Reikimorning practice already in bed,
and then just taking it one stepfurther and then just bringing
this gratitude body scan justthrough your whole body.
And if you don't have time andyou're in a rush, at least just
pause in gratitude for yourheart.
that has kept beating all night,right?
(31:34):
It is a gift that you woke up.
Yes.
Your heart beats, right?
You don't, we don't do anything.
The heartbeats and beats and itbeats until it just doesn.
and then grieve.
Yeah.
And we can, great.
So just grateful for a fewthings.
The body contains our soul, thebreath, the heartbeat.
(31:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gosh, I love that.
Easy.
Yeah.
Are there any others and I'mjust thinking of some of the
stressful and challenging times,how were you, do you feel able
to get to a place of gratitudeafter such a difficult day?
I just, last week I didsomething really, I did, I made
(32:16):
a really bad choice and I wasmeeting someone outside and I
didn't tie my boots up, so myleases were loose and it was
clear like no snow, nothing.
So just walk out with my boots.
Give the person what they werepicking up, turned around to get
the dogs and the eyelet of myone boot.
(32:36):
The lace from the opposite bootgot caught in the eyelet, and so
I was already going forward andbecause there was nothing I
could do, I knew it washappening, but I couldn't stop
myself from falling forward andslamming onto my driveway.
And I caught myself with myhands and Pretty hurt, but not
like enough that I was like notgetting up for a moment.
I saw stars and stuff and myphone had been in the pouch of
(32:58):
my hoodie and it slammed down.
And as a person who uses theirphone to do all the photography
and yeah, I was really quiteupset.
And then my husband, helped thepeople.
They left and then he picked meup, picked me up, brought me a
house, and I was just I was likereally upset, like just.
I haven't, I don't know the lasttime I've been that upset or in
that much pain.
I was just so not enough to goto the hospital.
(33:20):
So that was like, okay, I'mgrateful I don't have to go to
the hospital.
And so I.
I'm grateful my husband can behere to care for me, but I am
like so upset.
I'm like crying so hard and I'm,having trouble breathing and I'm
just like, little things arelike popping up.
And then even by that night, Iwas having trouble writing cuz
my hands just hurt so much fromtaking the brunt of the fall and
(33:42):
I was trying to hold my pen andI just wrote, I'm grateful I can
hold the pen and write a couplethings in my journal.
and the next morning again, Iwas just more things that I
could be grateful for.
I'm grateful that I, it wasn'tworse that I didn't break my
wrist, that as much, even thoughI'm sore, like it could have
been so much worse.
I'm grateful that my phone isstill usable.
So even though the screen isquite spider shattered, I can
(34:05):
still use it cuz sometimes whenyou break your screen it gets
sharp and you can't use it.
So I can still use my phone.
That's how quickly for me it isa reflex.
Interesting what you said aboutbuilding a muscle, like it's a
muscle.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
It's just a reflex for me now.
(34:25):
There's always, I'm just, itcomes up.
Whatever situation we're in, I'mlike, I can just.
Find something to be gratefulfor.
Even in, and that's not, I meanI could share a lot more
difficult ones, but I thoughtthat's just a really good
everyday example of, yeah,something that was really not
good.
Very upsetting at the time, andI can still like find gratitude.
(34:50):
I love that.
And it, and I like how you said,it is a muscle, so it becomes a
reflex because yeah, you've usedit so much.
And so basically using thegratitude pa or just being in
gratitude so much strengthens.
your ability to be in gratitude,is that right, Yeah, for sure.
(35:12):
And it doesn't mean that badthings don't happen to me cuz
they do.
No, and it doesn't mean I don'tgo through difficult times cuz I
do.
think the last five years thatwe've lived in BC we moved from
across the country in Ontario,have been really hard for me and
my family and, but gratitude hasbeen there with me the whole
time.
So it's.
gratitude doesn't stop the badstuff from happening.
(35:34):
What it does is it helps us toframe things in a different way
and move through them as opposedto spending more time there.
Combine that with a Reikipractice, especially your own
practice.
and that just helpstremendously.
Again, it's not that we.
Gonna have these moments ofdifficulty in these challenging
(35:54):
times, but these two practicestogether can just make it easier
for you to go through.
Instead of getting stuck.
Instead of getting stuck.
That's right.
Yeah.
And it's like a reframe yousaid, and Tony Robbins talks
about there is good around usevery minute, every second,
every nanosecond of every day.
(36:16):
And.
there is positive and good, orthere is negative and things
that we would classify as notgood or bad.
And he said, you have a choiceof what you wanna focus on.
Do you wanna focus on the thingsthat aren't working or the
things that are, and when you,and kinda like what you said,
this muscle as you focus on whatis working.
(36:38):
And that's what I've noticed,especially with Reiki.
Reiki seems to accelerateeverything.
So as I focus on what isworking, more things that bring
me love and joy and that areworking, more of those seem to
show up and almost know I saidat one point, talking with a
friend I said, life has got sobeautiful.
(36:58):
I don't know if I can contain itall.
We've just recently had so manywonderful and beautiful things
happen and I was sitting at ourbeach house looking out at the
water, just thinking wow.
And I, I've often said to myhusband, pinch me.
I just can't believe.
But I feel looking back, it is aresult of just noticing the
(37:20):
positive and it bringing morepositive, I think the secret and
some of the things that you weretalking about earlier, about
manifesting, like you manifestmore of these wonderful things
in your life when you noticethem and focus on them because
the universe really responds toyour thoughts and your beliefs
and yeah.
I love that, Julie.
(37:41):
My gosh.
What are some commonmisconceptions about gratitude
or gratitude with Reiki?
Is there anything you can thinkabout there?
I think this kind of points alittle bit to toxic positivity,
uhhuh, where it's like you'reusing gratitude to whitewash a
situation or to not address yourfeelings.
That's dangerous.
(38:02):
So for me, gratitude is not, I'mnot grateful that I fell and
smashed my phone and hurtmyself.
No, definitely not.
But I can find gratitude fromthat situation.
And that's where, to me,gratitude is more important.
addressing your emotions.
You can even be grateful to beangry or frustrated in a certain
(38:24):
time.
Like you can be grateful foryour emotions.
Gratitude doesn't always have tobe positive.
you can be grateful.
for negative things because I'mgrateful that I'm angry.
That's good.
I have something to be angryabout.
Or that you're living in asociety where you can express
anger.
Yeah.
That's, you don't have tosuppress it or whatever.
Exactly.
So I think just staying clear oftoxic positivity and knowing
(38:47):
that gratitude doesn't, andtoxic positivity they're not
connected.
Gratitude is very, it'sdifferent and it's, Being aware
in a situation of there are somany things to be grateful for,
even in the darkest of times, inthe darkest of moments, even
amidst negativity, but not, butbeing aware that the negativity
(39:07):
may still Yeah.
Is still there.
Yeah.
And yeah, and not ignoring itor, or pretending that it's not
there.
So I love that.
How does like Reiki andgratitude and how.
Relate to other spiritual ormindfulness practices in in your
opinion?
I think any practice thatconnects you back to yourself
(39:29):
and brings you into your body.
Is a spiritual practice.
So whether using Reiki on itsown, Reiki and gratitude on its
own, any other prayer,meditation, any practice that
brings you back into your body,I think is how you make that
connection.
It is how you change and shiftyour vibration.
It doesn't happen when you'refocused in your head.
(39:50):
You're jumbled in your thoughts,getting caught up in ego.
It's bringing yourself into yourbody, into your heart space,
and.
is how I think all thesepractices really connect, and
then it's finding the one thatyou resonate with or that you're
curious about to follow and toexplore more of and learn more
(40:10):
of.
So whatever that is for youpersonally, and again, that's
being in tune with your heartand where that's leading you and
that.
That's what's fun about this isthat just like with gratitude,
there are endless ways toexplore Reiki.
You yourself, you have so manydifferent ways to use Reiki,
whether it's following yourheart towards exploring the ways
(40:32):
that Reiki allows you to beopen-hearted and, use your
energy in a beautiful, positiveway, or following the gratitude
path to put you in that morepositive mindset and allow you
to have that reflex muscle whenyou're faced with challenges.
I love that, that muscle.
And we would say, connectingwith our authentic self in with
(40:52):
Holy Fire, Reiki, that's a bigpart of just connecting with who
we are, authentically that lightinside of us that.
Can sometimes, not be present.
And I think gratitude is a partof uncovering that light and our
authenticity as well.
So I love that.
And what are some things youwould suggest to us about how
(41:15):
Reiki and gratitude could beused to help promote personal
growth and self-improvement?
What would you say?
That's an interesting questionbecause I have been on a
personal development,self-improvement journey for a
really long time, and I'mgrateful for all of the work
(41:38):
that I've done.
And I've also, and yourlisteners might not wanna hear
this, but sometimes in personaldevelopment, self-development,
there are promises that are madethat.
don't happen.
And you feel like you work sohard and you do what you're told
and you follow the instructionsand you're still not manifesting
(42:03):
as you had desired.
And you don't, you haven'treached your goals and your
financial goals and all of thesethings.
And what I've learned is that Ithink coming back to myself,
coming back to my, like yousaid, authenticity and
understanding my ownvulnerabilities is the direction
(42:26):
to go for personal growth andfor where I am exploring my
journey now.
So that is where I am at in myown personal development
journey.
After being a personaldevelopment journey for 16, 17
years.
It's coming back.
(42:47):
Remembering that your body hasall the answers, and so these
practices that bring you back toyour body and listening to our
body, I know that I'm not theonly woman in her forties who
is.
Just finally waking up toactually listening to my body
and not just following whateverybody else says and coming
(43:07):
back to that.
So I'm in a space of personaljourney, personal development,
so I don't have an answer foryou right now.
That's okay.
But what I know what's workingright now is coming back to my
body and actually payingattention to my body.
And both, Reiki and gratitude dothat.
They bring you back to the bodyas I mention.
That's right.
And it is so easy, I think ofhow many times my body said I'm
(43:30):
hungry, and I said, no, you'renot.
I'm busy, I've, I'll get to youlater.
Or I'm tired and it's but I havethis project to finish Yeah.
So we'll sleep later.
and I, so I think even myself,I, I don't do that as much
anymore, but certainly in mythirties and forties and my
career.
(43:52):
How often do you not listen?
And the answer was for me,personally, quite a lot.
I didn't listen So I love that,that bringing us back.
And Julie, is there anythingyou'd like to share with us
before we move into ourmeditation today?
I think it's just a reminderthat gratitude practice doesn't
(44:15):
have to be d.
it and it's free.
doesn't take a lot of time todo, and you don't need any
special skills to do it.
You just need to do it.
And the more you do it, theeasier it becomes.
The more ways you develop tofind, to practice gratitude, and
you'll just never run out ofways to be grateful.
And that's what's amazing is.
(44:36):
There's just endless ways toexpress our gratitude, and so if
you're feeling stuck in yourgratitude practice, I maybe pop
on over to the podcast for, justlisten to any episode and you'll
just get a new idea and a newway to connect back to yourself,
your body, and to yourpractices.
Absolutely, and we'll put a linkto your book and your podcast
(44:57):
and your website in the in thethe podcast notes.
So you can easily do that if youwould like to check that out.
Thank you.
I wonder you have a gratitudeexperience or meditation.
I've actually downloaded it, butI haven't had a chance to listen
to it yet.
But I wonder if you would leadus in that to end our podcast
(45:18):
today.
Yeah, absolutely.
And we can link to the, ifpeople wanna download that
meditation, they can so thatthey just want the meditation
bit.
They can have that and they canput it on their phone.
So we'll make sure they link tothat one as well.
Absolutely.
So I'm gonna take you through ashort gratitude meditation.
I call it my sunrise meditation.
So we're just gonna, I'm justgonna take you to the sunrise
(45:39):
with.
So thank you.
Okay, so wherever you are, aslong as you're safe and you're
comfortable, you can close youreyes or just look down at the
floor, make sure you're sittingor lying comfortably.
Whatever feels good for you andyour body, and bringing your
(46:02):
attention back to your breath.
Noticing what it feels like whenyou're breathing in, allowing
your body to relax into anexhale.
(46:26):
Anytime you feel like your mindis wandering away from what I'm
sharing, just come back to yourbreath.
Allow yourself to notice the airbreathing in through your nose,
filling your lungs, allowingyour belly to expand, and
(46:54):
noticing how your belly fallsand your lungs drop.
Shoulders relax on the exhale.
You can always bring yourselfback to your breath.
You're gonna come with me towatch the sunrise at the beach.
(47:19):
So we arrive at the beachtogether.
You can hear the sounds of theocean.
The waves gently lapping theshore.
Calls of the seabirds and younotice the pre dawn light,
(47:44):
there's still some blue in thesky, but you notice some color
on the horizon.
It's not quite dark, not quitelight yet.
The horizon is lit up in a deeporange color and above it
(48:07):
overhead.
The sky is going from a dark,deep indigo to a lighter daytime
blue.
A few stars still speckle thesky as you notice the contrast
between the horizon.
And the sky above you.
(48:31):
As you walk towards the shore,you hear the sand and the
pebbles underneath your feetmaking a gentle crunching noise.
As you step, you find acomfortable place to sit.
(48:56):
Leaning back on a piece ofdriftwood and allowing yourself
to gaze off into the horizon.
As the colors start to change,dawn is upon us.
(49:17):
You notice the colors becomingbrighter and different shades of
now red and pink.
You place your hand over yourheart in a moment of gratitude
before the sun rises and yourepeat to yourself.
(49:39):
Thank you for this gift ofanother day, and the opportunity
to be of service to others andto make a difference in this
world.
And together we open our eyesagain and keep our eyes focused
(50:00):
on the horizon, watching as sealife swims by us or overhead
grateful for the eagle thatglides above us, or the gulls
that squeak and squawk.
Sharing their breakfast of seastars.
(50:27):
You close for your eyes for amoment again.
And breathe deeply grateful forthe air entering your lungs,
nourishing your body with muchneeded oxygen, smelling that sea
air as it comes through yournose and exhaling to release any
(50:48):
tension.
In your body as you melt intothe beach and that piece of
driftwood, when your eyes openagain, you notice the sun has
started to peak over thehorizon.
Together we stand up, move rightto the shore where the waves are
(51:12):
just tickling the edges of ourtoes.
We stand beautifully placing ourhands over our hearts, looking
out as the sky makes its wayover the horizon and lights up
the morning sky in beautifuloranges and reds and yellows.
(51:40):
There are just enough scatteringof clouds that it creates a
beautiful canvas for this risingsun.
You feel a tear trickle downyour cheek as you're in awe of
the beauty of the natural worldand what a gift it is to be able
to watch the sunrise.
(52:04):
Together we breathe.
Breathing in the ocean, air,breathing in the gratitude in
this moment and this gift ofanother day, and we turn to look
at each other.
Smile, hug.
(52:29):
And reach our hands to the sky.
Enjoy to say thank you.
Thank you to the sunrise forwelcoming another day.
Come back to where you are.
Find me in your breath.
Let my voice bring you back tothe room that you're sitting in
(52:53):
right now.
And when you're ready, take onelast deep breath in.
And on the exhale, I invite youto open your eyes and come back
to us here.
That was delicious, Thank you.
(53:13):
I hope you were there with me.
I could see you.
I could see you, and I was, andholding your hands and giving
you a big hug.
I sure was.
And I could feel the Reikiflowing through me, through us
and through.
all of the listeners.
Julie, thank you so much forthis deep dive into gratitude
(53:35):
and for your ideas for themeditation.
I really can't wait to dive intoyour book.
So I will be ordering the signedversion, please, Awesome.
And thank you for being herewith us.
It was truly my pleasure.
I'm so grateful to yourlisteners for listening in, and
I just wanna remind everybody tochoose to wake up with
(53:57):
gratitude.
I couldn't have said it better.
Thank you.
And thank you also to thelisteners Namaste.
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