Speaking and Communicating Podcast

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating podcast. I am your host Roberta. If you are looking to improve your communication skills both professionally and personally and improve your life overall, this is the podcast you should be tuning into. By the end of this episode, please remember to subscribe, give a rating and a review. Now a lot of the times on this podcast we talk
00:29
We are focused on how we communicate with ourselves and the impact that our non-verbal communications have on others. My guest today, Yolanda Williams, who's based in San Diego, she is a Reiki teacher, she is an energy and meditation practitioner, and she is here to help us understand how our energies communicate and what we can do.
00:57
to change and improve that frequency so that we communicate what we intend to with others. And before I go any further, please help me welcome Yolanda to the show. Hi, Yolanda. Hello, Roberta. Thank you for having me today. Thank you for being here. I appreciate you taking your time to be with us. So please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you. As you mentioned, my name is Yolanda. And...
01:24
The name of my business is the energetic alchemist. I teach Reiki, meditation, all forms of what I call energetic alchemy to support people in coming into deeper relationship with themselves for the sake of their own self-healing, realizing who and what we are beyond our stories and the things that may have held us back, our wounds. Yeah, just ways that we can.
01:52
change our lives from the inside out. So that's what I do. And how did you get into it? Did you always feel like, Oh my goodness, this is my calling, I should be doing this and helping people this way. Oh, no. Oh, no. No. If you would have told me this is what I would have been doing, I would have thought you were absolutely crazy. No. No, I used to work in finance and I was with.
02:19
the company for several years and the division I worked for, we were bought out by another bank. And so I went through a layoff and at the time I didn't want to go back into the same industry. I was in my early thirties and stress. It was a lot. And so the layoff in a lot of ways ended up being a blessing because there was like this path to freedom that I wouldn't have taken otherwise. I'm sure I felt like I was imploding because I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what new path to take.
02:49
And so oddly enough, I decided to get an astrology reading to see what was going on in my life at the time, or just to get some clarity. And the woman, she did my chart reading. She told me what was going on in my life, but she also recommended that I have a Reiki session and that I learned to meditate just to help me mitigate the stress that I was feeling so that I could then have clarity.
03:18
and make a decision from a space of clarity rather than fear. And I had never heard of Reiki. I was unfamiliar with meditation. So, you know, as we do, I went home and Googled both. Right. I found, yeah, classes. I was like, well, this sounds really strange. So instead of having a session, I signed up for a class. So I started taking classes in energy healing, Reiki, meditation, all simultaneously.
03:47
And my curiosity just really took me deeper into the practices. And I started by practicing on myself and then my friends. I was like, hey, I'm learning this thing. Can you come over? Can I try this on you? Can you be my guinea pig? Exactly. And I really had no expectation. I was just having fun. I just was fascinated by it all. And
04:12
what happened was my friends were feeling the result of the energy work so they started referring people to me and then just over time it became my work. Wow! Yeah. Based on what you just told me, remember all the layoffs that happened with COVID and lockdowns? For anybody listening and they hear you say oh I saw the layoff as a blessing.
04:37
Because usually that's not how most people would see it, especially if you have a mortgage and you have kids to take care of. Absolutely. Yeah, no, no, no. So initially I was terrified, which is why I went into complete freak out and stress and started having anxiety in a way that I never had before. Because just like you say, I had bills and I knew I had to take care of my life, but there was just something in me that I just didn't want to go back into the same industry. No, it was absolutely terrifying.
05:06
first, but because I started doing meditation and energy work, I was able to not only start to calm down the fear that I was going through, but I started learning a lot about myself. So I had this different focus. And you know, at the time I had some money saved that it was okay for me to take a little bit of time, but I still was concerned with what my responsibilities were. It was more so hindsight that I realized.
05:36
that it was a blessing for me only because I would have stayed in that job that was stressing me out. It was very stressful, but I would have stayed in it because of responsibility and because of doing what I thought I had to do, what I was supposed to do, the responsible thing to do, but it was really killing me slowly. And if I hadn't gone through the layoff, I'd probably still be working there to this day, stress beyond belief.
06:05
So it was a blessing in that it redirected my life in a way that I personally hadn't planned. And so I was given this opportunity to take a new path that I probably wouldn't have taken otherwise. Which a lot of people have found as well with the COVID layouts that I lost my job.
06:27
Yes, I'm terrified of how I'm going to pay my bills until I get another one, but I don't want to go back. I was miserable. My boss was horrible. The environment made me feel anxious, as you say. It's sort of like life is nudging me in a little different direction. But like you say, if we don't plan something, I think that's where the fear kicks in, because we're not sure what's going to happen. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think we're used to having some sense of control.
06:54
And even in our jobs or our careers, just different aspects of life, even if it's uncomfortable, a lot of times it's familiar. And just the familiarity alone will keep us in something, even if something in us is like, you need to change or do something different, but we're just so comfortable and familiar. And it can be scary to go off on a limb and try something new. So oftentimes when we're forced into it, it's scary initially.
07:24
But we oftentimes look back hindsight and see how it really may have benefited us in some way. Are you familiar with the sitcom 30 Rock? It had Alec Baldwin and Tracy and Tina Fey. Yes. Very early on the first season, I think it's around the third or fourth episode where Alec Baldwin's character, Jack Donaghy, says to Tina Fey, are you familiar with Reiki? And she says, what is that? He says,
07:52
It's a Japanese art of the laying on of hands to improve your life. And obviously for comedic reasons, she's like, do these hands give you money and whatnot? But please explain to any of us who are not familiar with Reiki, what exactly it is. Yes, it is a Japanese method of energy healing. And energy healing has been something that's been practiced by ancient civilizations.
08:21
in all different cultures, but Reiki in particular was founded in 1922 in Japan by a man named Yasui Sensei. Basically, Reiki in of itself, I mean the word is similar to what we would call a compound word and the meaning of it is divinely guided life force energy. Re is like spirit and ki is energy. So it is this way of helping us to recognize.
08:49
the life force energy, that life giving essence that exists in all living things. So this life force, it's not just within us, it's within plants, it's within animals, it's that life force that animates all forms of life. And so again, it's part of our design, it's everyone has this life force within them, but we just may not be consciously aware of it. So through the practices of Reiki and
09:17
For that matter, there are a lot of different practices that bring people in awareness of this life force. But through the practices of Reiki, you become aware of this aspect of your design, the energetic aspect of your design. And you can start to intentionally cultivate this energy where there's two sides. On one side, you become more aware of energy in general, like not just your energy, but the energies of other people, environments.
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the life force that is in existence through all living things, which in of itself gives you a different understanding and perception and respect, I would say even for life, it brings you into the state of awe because you start to recognize we're much more than what we have been taught to believe. But through this, you also start to learn and recognize the way that the flow of life force really.
10:15
contributes to our overall well-being. So just in a general sense, when you are stressed or not feeling well, you may feel low energy. Or we even say it oftentimes, I'm not feeling right, my energy is off. We point to this all the time, but we may not know what to do about it. We don't know how to get our life force back into a state where we feel
10:43
full of life, or we feel full of our own energy, or we feel in balance. So a lot of times, again, just life causes us to either feel off balance, we go through different emotions and experiences that cause congestion and blocks in how our life force is able to flow through the body. So all of this has a significant impact and influence on us. But again,
11:12
We aren't taught these things. Yeah, the technique itself brings you into awareness of all of this and overall teaches you how to manage your energy, but how the expression of your life force really has an impact not on you, but on the collective and everyone and everything that you come into contact with. Is that what they mean when they say, go with the flow of life, the path of least resistance?
11:42
The resisting of things and trying to control things is because you're not going with the flow and that's why you're frustrated. Yeah. So when we are in our resistance to things, oftentimes it's because we're in fear. We often resist a lot of things because of fear of the unknown or fear of things turning out in a way that we don't want. And just because we may not want something to go a particular way doesn't necessarily mean again that it's not for us.
12:12
And so life is always in motion. Energy is always in motion. Everything we're meant to move forward, move ahead, to evolve, to grow, to expand, to have experience. And when we are in fear and we are in our resistance, you know, we're fighting against the flow, the movement of every or anything, whatever you are resisting in particular. And so that can cause again, more stress. It can cause more concern. It can cause more worry.
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And it's not just that these fears, doubts, and worries are insignificant. They impact again, our physical wellbeing. Like your body will start taking a toll because of the fear, the worry, everything that you may be resisting or afraid to deal with or afraid to face or whatever it impacts our body and impacts our mind and impacts our emotion.
13:06
and ultimately impacts our energy, our life force. And if you think about just calling it that, our life force, it's vital to our existence, you know? And so you want your life force to be able to flow well. You want your life force to nourish the body. You want your life force to be able to be this expression of its highest potential. I mean, just for the sake of even your life experience. So your energy.
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touches every part of your life. When they refer to energy blocks, they say your body, you have energy blocks. So when you explain how you have the life force and you must flow with it, when the energy is blocked, do we cause that? Is it something that happens over time we just don't pay attention to? What are these energy blocks that we hear about sometimes? Yeah, both can be true. So,
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Say for example, again, I oftentimes use the analogy of a water hose. So imagine your life force is supposed to flow through you like a water hose that is just turned on just easily. The water is flowing through the body. But then you go through some experience in life that caused you to be hurt. Let's say a lot of us have gone through painful relationships at some point in life, right? So you go through this relationship and it was really hurtful. Now you become guarded.
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in your heart, you're afraid of being hurt, you expect now people to hurt you. So it's like you grab that water hose and squeeze it tight and don't allow the water to flow through because you're afraid if it flows or it moves, you're going to experience the same thing again. So we literally cause these, like you mentioned before, resistance. We may resist being open and vulnerable in relationship. We may resist going out on a limb and...
15:02
going after that new job, all of these things, they cause what we call an energetic block because it's causing tension and restriction in the body because of our thoughts, because of our feeling around something. And a lot of times, let's say the relationship again, let's say you were hurt 10 years ago, we will say, oh, I'm over it, I've moved on because externally in life, we have to move forward. Of course. So we think we've moved on.
15:31
And now you get into a new relationship and you're still functioning though, from the fear and the hurt from the past. So now you're not allowing this new person in your life to get close to you, cause you're afraid that they may hurt you like the other person did, or you develop these insecurities, all of these things, right? So there's a lot of life experience that causes us to decide to restrict or create certain types of boundaries and all of these different fears.
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that cause what we would call an energy block, but it's really just the emotion and the stories of the mind that caused the body to feel congested and tight and restricted. And again, we just may not feel full. We may not feel great in our being because we're just worried. So the traumatic experiences when those things happen, so they cause these blocks because the survival
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Don't step into that again, you're gonna get burned. Yes, so that's where that layer of healing comes in. And that's why Reiki is considered a healing technique. Not only is it a way of allowing energy or life force to then move through you in its natural state, but when that happens, we also become aware of what we've been holding. So once that water starts flowing again,
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It's going to bring to the surface what it is that was causing the blocks in the first place. So now you may start having these realizations of like, Oh my goodness, I'm still upset or hurt about this thing. Or this thing from the past has really affected me to now I've been functioning from this belief of XYZ. So you, you come into a deeper relationship with yourself where you start to recognize and realize.
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so many things that you don't have to hold or perceive or tell the same story again and again. You can allow yourself to start to see and understand things differently, which then allows you to carry that energy in the body differently. You start to feel more free. It would be like when I went through the layoff and initially I was terrified. I was so scared. I didn't know what I was going to do. But when I started to relax in my body,
17:52
and come out of the fear and recognize, well, that job was killing me. So this is actually a good thing for me. Just that change in perspective alone allowed me to free up some of the stress and tension in my body. Now, even though I still had to figure out what I was gonna do moving forward, just that story of, oh gosh, now my life is over. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. That.
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letting that go or changing that story was hugely impactful to allowing energy and life to move for me to be open to the possibility of a new path or doing something differently. Whereas before my fear would have kept me in that space of not being able to see the way forward clearly. Let's talk about communication with ourselves. So first we're going to talk about ourselves and how we then impact others.
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If I've had those traumatic experiences, what can I do in my own inner dialogue to have a better perspective than the usual? I'm not stepping into that again, it's gonna hurt me. What can we do to try and get to a space where we communicate better and not sabotage our potential future opportunities? Yeah, so one of the...
19:16
first things and one of the hardest things for people is one, just even recognizing our stories. Because a lot of times we have a hard time admitting that we're playing a part in what it is that we're experiencing, right? So the first thing is just really recognizing if I'm noticing this pattern where I am having a particular type of experience in relationship again and again.
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I need to pause and sit with myself and consider, well, what are my beliefs around relationship? What are my expectations? What do I believe may happen to me if I allow someone to come close? I have to start investigating and seeing what stories I'm telling myself in the first place. So a lot of times we don't even take the time to even recognize what our stories are.
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And again, that can be really hard and uncomfortable, but it's going into it knowing there's nothing to judge yourself over. You feel that way or the story came from a place of either experience or even maybe a story that your parents told you that was just from their own experience. It's not even yours to hold, right? Right. So recognizing first and foremost what your stories are.
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and then considering, well, why? Why do I feel this way? Where did this story come from? And is it true? I mean, perhaps the encounter that I had that made me afraid to be open and vulnerable is because I was dealing with another person who was also hurt. And so them functioning from their hurt caused them to behave in this particular way. It's like a lot of dissecting, kind of unraveling the story.
21:07
And then you start to recognize again, a big part of it is just change in perspective, coming to a place of understanding rather than being attached to, you know, whatever our story may have been. But then also having the openness of, is it possible that I'm not seeing this clearly? What didn't I see or understand? And how does this change in perspective allow me then to feel more free? Like, wow.
21:36
This wasn't even about me. This wasn't my fault. This wasn't my mind to hold. This was my mom's story, whatever it may be. It's a lot of self-reflection. Right. When we project that energy as well. So the story we tell ourselves, how we communicate with ourselves, but also when you talk about the other person that they might have been hurt as well.
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We usually jump into, oh, Yolanda did this. That's why I'm upset. That's why I felt this way. She did this. If she hadn't done this, I'd be okay. Yeah. One of my teachers always says when something happens in an exchange with another person and they push a button for us, they were only able to do that because we had a button to push in the first place. So it's more about our button than it is the fact that the person pushed it. Right.
22:28
So it's like you're being a mirror for me. And if you're doing something, let's say, say I think I feel you're disrespectful and how I take that in, it's a reflection of what's going on with me as well. My response to that, my feeling to that, my trigger around that. Maybe it triggers me in a way that it wouldn't trigger another person because maybe I felt disrespected in my childhood.
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So this is a really sensitive thing for me. So when you do it and it triggers in me, I can pause and recognize like, wow, what Roberta said, why did that hit me that way? Or why did I feel so offended by that? What was going on that hurt me and what it is that she said? It comes back to some self-reflection and it doesn't mean it's all about me. I mean,
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you spoke to me in the way that you did. I could also have been raised the wrong way in talking anyhow. Yes, there has to be like, again, like willingness and openness to understand both sides of the fence, so to speak, but then also it can open us up to this compassion of understanding like, wow, like, I don't know what's going on with Roberta, but you know, maybe she's been through some things too. And so that may allow me to respond to you in a way.
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that doesn't add fuel to the fire, but instead helps both of us to see or navigate the conversation differently than if we were both just functioning from that space of trigger and hurt. As you know, we can either add fuel to the fire or sometimes we can soften communication with helping the other person also be seen and heard. They probably also come from the space where they were never heard. Exactly, yeah.
24:20
those little things sometimes that we tend to overlook, they're very impactful. Speaking of compassion, you know when we do this forgiveness exercises, you know, I forgive you, Alanda, I forgive my parents, I forgive the friend from high school and whatnot. Why do we struggle to forgive ourselves the most? I think we're the hardest on ourselves and a lot of times it's hard to accept
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what we may consider a mistake, you know, because we can be very hard on ourselves in terms of like, I should have known better, or I should have seen X, Y, Z. I think we get so disappointed in ourselves, we may even be embarrassed or ashamed of whatever our mistakes may have been. So again, it's like one of those things where you have to decide, I can have compassion for me too.
25:16
The version of me when I was 21 didn't understand what I understand today. So that version of me in the past handled things or dealt with things the best way I knew how then, or that version of me was dealing with and acting from the wounds and the hurt and the repressed emotion that I was unconscious of that now I understand. So I can look back and instead of being like, God, I was so stupid when I was 21.
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you know, we say these things, but instead I could look and say like, wow, well, I was hurting back then or I didn't understand. So that way of looking at it gives me some compassion and even having some gratitude for, wow, I've really grown and I'm thankful. I know what I know now, but I also recognize I'm still learning. I'm still going to make mistakes. I'm still going to not understand or be triggered or
26:16
whatever the case may be, but they're all opportunities for me to learn. They're all opportunities for me to grow and recognize what hurt I still may be holding or functioning from. So for me, the work has always been, I see it as a gift in that we don't have to hold onto these ideas and self-criticisms and all of the things that we hold onto, you actually have a choice.
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and how you see and perceive you and the way that you're communicating with you. You mentioned a moment ago, sometimes people, they just wanted to be seen and heard. And that's true for a lot of us. We oftentimes in our frustration and communication is because we don't think the person sees us, hears us or understands us. But interestingly, if we back up.
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A lot of times we're not even listening to ourselves. No. Again, we're stuffed, we're pressed. I'm not going to look at that. I'm not going to think about it. If you're going to want to feel seen and heard, I mean, start with you. You need to listen to you. You need to see you. Have that compassion for you. That's another hard one. You know, when you say to people, just sit at home and quiet and self-reflect, some people are afraid of that.
27:33
It's better to go out into the club and be in the noise and be in a crowd. Some people will literally tell you, I'm afraid to look. I'm afraid to look inside. Yeah, and that's understandable because it's uncomfortable. It's really uncomfortable because those emotions that you've been avoiding or the things that you said, I'm over it, but you're really not. You know, if you sit in silence, you're going to be confronted with it. I think a lot of times we're afraid to even feel.
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Am I going to be so taken over by the sadness? Am I going to be so taken over by the emotion that I don't recover? Right. I think even culturally, like it's been so ingrained in us. Like pick yourself up and move on. Like nobody has time for that. Carry on. Stop crying. The world doesn't owe you understanding. That's the one they throw a lot. The world doesn't owe you understanding. Not that I'm saying it owes you anything, right. But that statement alone tells you.
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Forget your feelings, go to work, do this, take care of your responsibilities. Your feelings are not something you should have time for. Right, and so if you've been trained to literally not acknowledge you, how well will you be at acknowledging others and their feelings or their words or their point of view? It all has to come back to us first.
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Another thing though is it can be intimidating. Like people think like, oh, I can't meditate or sit in silence. It's going to be uncomfortable. That's something you can practice. I mean, baby steps, right? But you can also observe yourself in interaction with other people. So again, if Roberta and I go out for tea, and all of a sudden, something she talks about bothers me, I can be
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observant enough of myself to recognize like, Oh, what she said, I did. Oh, that made me, it triggered me. Yeah. So that starts to even show me and reveal to me what it is that I'm holding onto or what my stories are, what my emotions may be. It's just being an awareness of yourself in all encounters and then questioning that being curious about why.
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Did that bother me? Why did that hurt me? Why? Whatever it may be. But yeah, you don't have to just sit at home and silence. And being in the discomfort. Yeah. Yeah. But it is uncomfortable. You got to start somewhere. Because on the other side of it is, you know, the water hose just flowing and you going with the flow of life. Yeah. So we mentioned.
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Reiki and you brought it back to self-reflection, energy work, you brought it back to self-reflection, meditation, everything. It seems as though the common theme is self-reflection and the conversations we have with yourself. Why is that so key? Why is communication with yourself the very first starting point? Yeah, because the way I communicate with me is going to impact the way I communicate with you.
30:43
And not just what I say to you, but how I perceive and translate what you say to me. So if internally my story is not good enough, I'm constantly criticizing myself, I'm constantly afraid of what people may think of me, then anything you say, I may be overly defensive. I might take the wrong way. My ability to really hear you.
31:09
will be impacted because my fears are triggering on the inside because of my stories to myself. And then because I'm taking everything in and being, you know, potentially taking it the wrong way, then my response to you may be that of being defensive or not being clear or responding from a space of emotion because I wasn't able to fully hear you because of the noise of my own internal stories.
31:39
So it's very impactful in the layers of communication in terms of how we understand people in the world, how we perceive and translate everything, but also in how we communicate back out. Because I think that's why we have what we have now with all these misunderstandings, the divisions among us. It's a very foundation is the lack of communication and the lack of understanding of one another.
32:09
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, just even on the other side of the fence, if I stop being so critical and start having more understanding of my own view of me, and if I am willing to have compassion and understanding for me, then when I'm speaking with you, I can have that same compassion and understanding for you. So instead of just being triggered, I could think like, Oh, I wonder why this is Roberta's point of view, or I wonder what she actually means.
32:38
when she's communicating this way or what it is that she's saying. So again, it opens me up to curiosity where then I may ask you, like, what does that mean? Or what do you feel about that? Or why do you feel that way? Now I'm more open to investigating with you because I've been in the practice of investigating even myself. And so that in of itself allows more room for not just hearing and actually seeing you.
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but it allows more room for understanding rather than assumption. So yeah, it can be very supportive of our externalized communication to change the way that we communicate with ourselves internally. Can you give us one example, one results that one of your clients had after doing the energy work with you, what they came back to say, hey, Yolanda, you really helped me with this.
33:35
Yeah, a lot of times one of the most common is in relationship. Again, people a lot of times bump heads in communication and our most intimate relationships, I think just because they mean the most to us and we are most impacted by the way the people closest to us perceive us or what they may say or think about us. So those tend to be very influential to us. So a lot of times when people get into this work.
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they recognize the hand that they are playing in their communication within their partnerships rather than just pointing the finger and blaming the other person. He did this. Like you said, yeah. Like, well, I did this because he did that or I did this because she said, da, da, da, da, da. Like we're quick to point the finger, right? But when you start doing this work, you do recognize again, like which button was pushed in me. So my partner said this and it brought back
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my insecurity from childhood. My partner did XYZ and now I recognize that they were actually stressed. So I was able to have a conversation with them about what's been going on with them and I found out they were stressed from work. And so it takes people out of fighting to be seen and heard and instead softening and allowing themselves to see, hear and understand themselves.
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and the other person. So that's one of the most common things that I hear is people's minds just become more open to actually giving each other the benefit of the doubt. Which we don't do anymore. If you look at how exhausting everybody says dating is, the divorce rates are high. It seems to me if everybody took the time to follow the steps that
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drastically reduce that. Yeah, and the change perhaps even in communication with the social media and these, it's interesting where you see the way that people are so judgmental of each other, the way that people just jump in to criticize. I don't know, this just came to mind. There was the actor, the main actor in Black Panther. Shadrish Boseman? Yes.
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And remember he was really sick and nobody knew. He didn't tell anyone that he was really sick. He had, I think there was a video of him. He was with Kevin Hart at Kevin Hart's office and he was really skinny. Yes, he was really skinny. He was really sick. How do people even say something? But that was the thing. No one knew that he was sick, so he didn't say. And so on social media, people attacked him. How do you do that? All of these assumptions.
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And then when he passed away and people found out why he looked the way he did, then people felt so bad. But why did they jump on their keyboards to say something mean? I will never understand. First of all, you don't know this person. You'll never meet them in your lifetime. Why do you always have to say something? Yeah. But that's again, that's like a reflection of people's personal hurt, their personal.
36:55
self-criticism, self-judgment, a lot of times that deflection makes people in some odd way they think it makes them feel better to point out the flaws and the talk about someone else, but that also is a reflection of how hard they may be on themselves. So again, it's like if we're more compassionate with ourselves, more softer and kinder with our own self-talk and how it changes the way that we perceive everything.
37:24
So instead of me looking at you and looking for a flaw that I could point out or looking for a criticism because I grew up being criticized or I have my own insecurity, now I'm again looking at you from a different lens of what is going on with Roberta? Maybe I have concern like you seem like you have something going on love, like is there something you wanna talk about? I'm gonna come to you from a different space than I would if I were still in a space of
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overly criticizing, looking for what's wrong, which a lot of us, I mean, again, like culturally, and it's really blown up with social media. The fact that everybody has to have an opinion on everything, I think is really messing up our civilization. Yeah. And that's the thing too, why our relationship to ourselves is so crucial because if we are stuck in that pattern of like criticizing and judging ourselves, we will stay in the
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fear of what will other people think of me or what are other people saying about me, which again comes back to our overall well-being. That's going to affect your body. You're going to be stressed out. You're going to end up with ulcers, back pain, this, that, and a third, all because of this fear of what someone else may think or say or do. Whereas if I come into a relationship with myself and I'm okay with who I am, I'm okay with mistakes that I've made, I understand that I'm learning, I have compassion for myself.
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If someone else criticizes me, I recognize, again, it's more about them, like what their hurt may be, I can have compassion for that. And even though it still may bother me, it's not going to bother me at the degree that it would if I were in a pattern of taking in other people's criticism as truth because I'm already criticizing myself. The button is already there. Yeah.
39:17
Yolanda, if you can give us one or two tips, if there's something we can do at home on a daily basis to change the narrative and the perspectives we have and to change the internal dialogue, to do the things we were talking about today, is there something we can do to keep checking? Yeah, so one of the things is a lot of people like to use mantras as a way to interrupt those patterns and stories that we've become so used to.
39:45
sometimes people will just say something as simple as every day reminding themselves like, I love myself as I am. I love myself as I am. And when we say it, there may be some resistance, there may be some part of us that even feels like it's not true at first, but the beauty is it will reveal what my condition is around loving myself. If I say I love myself as I am,
40:10
but then a story starts to come in of like, yeah, but you could be better at X, Y, Z. I start recognizing where it is I'm criticizing myself and what aspect of me I may need to forgive or have more compassion around. So just acknowledging yourself every day, like catching yourself when you are saying stories or being hard on yourself, catching yourself in the moment and then recognizing like, but it's okay, I'm learning.
40:38
It's okay, I'm trying to understand. It's okay, I'm working through my heart, right? Those acknowledgments of self are really, really huge. Also, gratitude. I know a lot of people hear about this, about people writing down what they're grateful for, but it's also one of those interrupters to redirect our mind. You don't keep focusing on what's wrong. Bring your mind and attention to, at least a couple times a day,
41:06
what all I do have to be thankful for. That softens us. That gives a different lens of like who I am and what I can appreciate and all the beautiful things that are in my life. So a lot of it is direction of mind, recognizing what you're giving a lot of attention to, and then also being softer with yourself about the stories and the criticisms that you may recognize you hold.
41:35
Words of wisdom from Yolanda Williams, the Reiki teacher and energy and meditation practitioner. Thank you so much for being on our show today of talking about self-reflection, which I think all of us need to constantly be working on. Yeah, I am so thankful to have come. Thank you very much for having me here today, Roberta. Thank you for being here. And before you go, where can we find you so that we can continue? If we're looking for help, we'll be able to find you.
42:05
Yeah, I actually have a lot of free content to help guide people through these processes. You can find me on my website, TheEnergeticAlchemist.com, or you can find me on Instagram at Reiki Radio. Okay, I'm going to put that on the show notes for anybody who's looking for help with their energy, with their self-reflection, and how to have...
42:29
a healthier internal dialogue. Thank you so much, Yolanda Williams. Thank you, love. Don't forget to subscribe, give a rating and a review, and we'll be with you next time. Yolanda, when it comes to people who do this energy work, what are some of the challenges that they face? One of the biggest challenges people face in this realm is, interestingly enough, communicating what it is that they do. Energy work, it's not.
42:58
new, but it's new in that a lot of people are starting to offer it as a service. There's an attempt to integrate it in more with Western medicine. So a lot of hospitals will offer Reiki and energy work to patients, especially in oncology, usually on a volunteer basis. But a lot of people who are practitioners now have a really hard time communicating what it is that they do because there's a fear of judgment. A lot of people don't understand.
43:28
A lot of people still have a fear around this work and the different components and elements that fall within it because they think it is something spooky or witchy or, you know, like, yeah. Like the Halloween type stuff. Exactly. Yes. So there's a lot of misconceptions around this work and what it is that people are actually practicing. So it does bring up a lot of fear around communicating, you know, what it is that we do, what it is
43:58
may be, but fortunately it is becoming a more common conversation. So I think people are doing better with putting themselves out there, but it definitely has an impact on the offerings. This work I think is so beneficial to all of us for so many reasons, but it'll be hard to find it or connect with people who practice these things if we don't get more clear in the communication.
44:27
Right. I'm intrigued by the fact that you say even in hospitals, they are incorporating it now. Obviously, like I said, it's voluntary. So health insurance is not going to pay for it. No, no, not yet. Not yet. Of course, there's hope because for a very long time, even something like acupuncture wasn't covered by insurance, whereas now some insurance policies will cover acupuncture. So yeah, there's a lot.
44:56
being looked at differently now with alternative healing, alternative medicine, but I've had clients and students who are nurses who work in Western medicine, also psychologists and therapists who all are looking for ways to integrate in alternative healing to support the overall wellness of their patients and clients. But again, even for them, they kind of have this broader scope of being
45:26
and communicate the work that they do. And there may be more of a sense of validity because of their other title. Right. That people who are just doing energy work and anything that falls under the realm of spirituality, we're definitely working on communicating what the work is, what it's about and its benefits.
45:48
And maybe the more they see the results and the transformation that happens, then it's going to gain more traction. Absolutely. And unfortunately, you know, there's even research being done now with energy work, a lot of practitioners have gone out of their way and are paying out of their own pockets or having donations. So that testing and we can have results that scientifically prove the way that this
46:17
has an effect on the physical body, calming the nervous system. There are already so many testing and scientific studies that have been done just even around meditation. Yeah, we're definitely seeing change, but hopefully the communication around all of this does become more comfortable for those who are providing the services.
46:38
Yeah, it certainly is getting there because you know when it comes to the word science everybody's in. Yes, as soon as you mention the word science. So I'm glad that it is gaining that traction. Thank you very much for sharing that and I hope it helps anyone who's a practitioner right now who's facing those challenges to have more hope.