TSM Episode 33: A Reiki Journey with Mari Okazaki

Welcome to Episode 33 of Triggers And Spiritual Medicine with Laura Bonetzky-Joseph, your host and special guest, Mari Okazaki talking about her Reiki journey.

In this episode, Mari shares her story of how she discovered Reiki in her life. As a Japanese woman living in Canada with a very sick infant, she talks about how Reiki changed her life and how she continues to share her journey and teachings now that she lives in Japan.

So, join us as Mari shares not only her wisdom but also three practical tips for bringing Reiki into your life. Let’s embark together on this journey of transformative healing energy!


About Mari

Mari is a full-time Reiki practitioner who has been offering Reiki sessions in her home studio on a daily basis since 2006. She also regularly teaches Jikiden Reiki® Shoden (Level 1) and Okuden (Level 2) Certification classes, as well as Shihankaku (assistant teacher) classes upon request.

Originally from Nagasaki, Japan, Mari now resides in both Chilliwack, BC, Canada, and Nagasaki, Goto, Japan.

She is one of the office staff at the Jikiden Reiki Institute and has been working as an organizer and translator for the Jikiden Reiki® Vancouver seminar since 2008, traveling to Halifax with Mr. Tadao Yamaguchi, the Co-founder of the Jikiden Reiki Institute. She continues to use Reiki to help her family, friends, and herself.

Since 2023, Mari has been living in Japan and helping to spread the teaching of Reiki in its birthplace.


To learn more about this podcast, Triggers and Spiritual Medicine, click here.

TSM Episode 31: Journey with Plants & Plant Medicine

Welcome to next episode of Triggers and Spiritual Medicine with Laura Bonetzky-Joseph, your host, with our amazing guest, Leah Drew.

In today’s episode we dive into plant medicines, but it is more than that. We embark on a transformative journey with a focus on holistic healing.

Together, we’ll delve into the powerful realm of plant-based healing, exploring its profound impact on our well-being. Leah shares her journey into wellness, healing, and transformation beyond just plants.

Stay tuned as Leah also shares 3 tips to get you started today.

About Leah,

Leah is a trauma-informed Mind|Body healing guide, women’s empowerment coach, and host of the Mindful Evolution Podcast. Her mission is to empower others with the awareness & tools needed to optimally support their physical, mental & emotional health & healing. Her goal is to help people heal from the past, be more grounded in the present moment, own their power, and create the life they dream of while making a bigger impact on the world around them.

She help others turn their wounds into wisdom and pain into power so they can catalyze their healing & growth, enhance their relationships, step into their fullest self expression, and reclaim their quality of life.

Social Links: https://blinq.me/pZUi2v3uK3F9Yb7eGQep

Website: www.LeahD

The Mindful Evolution Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mindful-evolution-podcast/id1700364363

Resources: Building awareness around the toxic patters & limiting beliefs holding you back from healing, growing & expanding as you journey forwards. Awareness Seeker Workshop: https://www.leahdrew.com/awareness-seeker-workshop Plant medicines: – https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/11/health/psilocybin-brain-changes-life-itself-wellness-scn/index.html – https://maps.org/our-research/

Trauma: – It Didn’t Start With You:https://a.co/d/16aOGi6 – The Body Keeps The Score: https://a.co/d/16aOGi6 MBSR techniques: https://www.dcu.ie/sites/default/files/students/mindfulness_based_stress_reduction_handbook.pdf

Testimonial With Dr. Adrienne McClain – Shifting Beliefs, Healing Trauma Roots, Dragon Magic

Unsure if working with Laura is right for you?

This recording was NOT planned as you can see in the video. Dr. Adrienne McClain offered to share in the raw what she experienced after 2 sessions working with Laura as she found them to be quite powerful.

In this brief 6-minute video, she shares:

  • Her experience working with Laura.
  • What she didn’t anticipate would happen.
  • What shifted that landed her a job offer and new clients.
  • Why to work with Laura.
  • What separates Laura’s work from others.
  • Why others should work with her.

To learn more about Laura’s work, social justice work, podcast and more scroll through this website or visit: https://linktr.ee/HealingWithSpirit

 

Facing the Shadows & Healing During COVID19


This is an invitation to hope, healing and guidance during some very challenging times of cocooning.

I want to tell you a story that is relative to what is happening all around me with the growing mental health crisis I am witnessing before my eyes. I hope it will shed light for someone who needs it.


The year is 2005. I don’t always have a smile on my face.  Some days are just darn right difficult.

I say bad things about myself. I sabotage my efforts and tell myself that there must be something wrong with me. I say things from …  “who do you think you are? Are you nuts? No one thinks you have anything to offer.”

To things like “You’re tainted. No one will ever love someone like you and who could blame them after what you been through.”

I developed complex post-traumatic stress disorder as well as traumatic brain injury due to several co-occurring factors including … Domestic abuse, domestic violence by proxy, multiple concussions, car accident, rape etc etc.

I went from buying my first house at 19yo to building a successful business in finance to losing it all to point of homelessness due to an abuse from a man whom I was married to for 9yrs but endured 11yrs of court battery w/ over a $300k legal bill. He hoped it would kill me so he could cash in the life insurance policy. I wasn’t going away and I was not giving up fighting for the safety of my children.

I fought back, becoming a fierce advocate for family court reform in custody cases involving domestic violence. I collected 20 credible cases of severe injustice and gross judicial abuse against one judge.

My naivety thought the TRUTH WILL PREVAIL … I was even contacted by a 20/20 reporter about my work. I thought. “Wow. If this happened, I must be onto something.” So, I pushed harder. At one point I had 12 interns helping me.

Well, when one of my interns pushed too hard to access public information about a judge who was PAID by certain groups to help incarcerated abusers gain custody, I suddenly had a target on my back and suddenly thrown into prison shortly there after.

PTSD is a fucked-up thing.

Do you know what was WORSE than that which I endured?

Good people … Every day neighbors, so called friends, etc who did the unthinkable … who judged and shamed me vs the abuser. They turned a blind eye. I am sure if I were someone famous or someone in a position of power, I would have been treated differently.

What I could not understand is WHY “good people” could easily ignore and turn a blind eye to the astounding fact of 58,000 American children being legally trafficked to abusers and pedophiles EVERY year was staggering to me.

It was the mindset that if it wasn’t their kid, who cares.

In the domestic violence world, we call this “bystander abuse”

I was trying to make a difference in this world especially for those without a voice, and I failed. I failed my children and I failed all the US children being abused.

In Dec 2014, I stopped doing that work after the MA Supreme Court ruled in favor of a documented abuser to gain custody for financial reasons ignoring the best interest of the child statute.

There is now in 2020 a PENDING Supreme Court Case in Ma to make a history of domestic/child abuse inadmissible as evidence in a custody case. So the systemic abuse and oppression has NOT stopped.

The harder I fought the injustice, the bigger hole I made for myself. So I changed my focus. I shifted to speaking and healing trauma associated with abuse. I felt my efforts were more useful here.

Why am I airing all this out NOW?

Things are different NOW. OR are they?

YOU DECIDE.

That was then, BEFORE I understood WHY I endured such horrors.

Why it has taken me 15yrs to heal and regain my life again.

Why the very year I was supposed to put the last part to my healing journey and recovery into play … buying a house again. Build my business with 2 locations. Travel internationally AGAIN … This year Ireland & Japan …. All came to a screeching halt thanks to the COVID shutdown.

I am sharing this, because I recognize that many people’s reactions to what is currently happening with COVID19 as to how I was then and  as to what I was faced then.

I see things differently from a different lens.

There’s more to “THIS STORY” than the public is told. I have LIVED this level of institutional gaslighting and abuse before.

I am not sharing this to gain sympathy. I’m inviting you to a view what is happening from a DIFFERENT lens.

PLEASE HEAR ME OUT.

I’m seeing a lot of parallels to my experience in 2005 to now. The difference between then and today?

Then … it was targeted towards victims of abuse/rape on average depending on stats 1:3 with higher numbers in BIPOC* communities.

Today EVERYONE is impacted. 100%

Nature doesn’t discriminate.  Humans do.

This pandemic is full of a LOT that I won’t go into at this time outside that we are NOT being given all the facts. I find the current narrative to be highly problematic with visible gaslighting/abuse perpetrated upon the people. Scientists who challenge this narrative have either been discredited or murdered. Freedoms of speech highly censored as ordered by governments and there have been doctors who have committed suicide. There is something happening here that is MORE VIRULENT than COVID19.

Most Americans do not have any frame of reference to calm their fears about the sudden life changes and about dying from THIS infectious virus. Most are not aware of the annual normal deaths associated with cancer, flu, overdoses, nor car accidents. This has created a shock.

I want to focus on the growing contagion of trauma and mental health crisis that is happening that is RARELY addressed or talked about.

I know gaslighting.

I know false narratives.

I know trauma.

I know being silenced.

I know being censored.

I know being discredited by persons in power.

I know the harm & oppression perpetrated by the system.

I know panic.

I know being defensive.

I know chaos.

I know loss.

I know fear.

I know having everything stripped away from you, powerless to act or do anything, knowing I did everything right … the best I could.

I know isolation and helplessness.

I know the “pinch me” factor, wondering if this is all a bad nightmare that I will wake up from.

I know the feeling of questioning what’s real and what’s not.

I know the hypervigilance.

I know the desire to flee.

I know the blame game.

I know the feeling of ‘how am I going to survive’

I know the feeling that I didn’t belong on a planet so cruel.

We are ALL cocooning. Evolving. Changing in ways unseen by the logical minds eye.

The Invitation

I invite you to step out of fear and put our freedoms to work as a sovereign Be-ing. I invite you to make healthy choices and put in place everything we know about how to be healthy and strong in the face of life’s critical moments.

I invite you to be open to another narrative. I invite you to be open and be that curious child.  I challenge you to BE skeptical.  Healthy skepticism is good.

For me, there’s a BIG difference between how I am responding NOW vs THEN.

I spent 15yrs working on myself incessantly healing, purging, letting go, befriending my shadows, looking at the darkness within, finding SOLID credible teachers to help support me … all to heal, let go as well as build a healthy spiritual immunity and resiliency.

I’ve harnessed my super powers to sniff out corruption, gaslighting and abuse when I see it.

I have dared to be brave.

I faced fears.

I questioned the narratives.

I stepped up.

I have worked on improving my language understanding that language has spiritual power – ‘kotodama’.

I have faced my ‘white privilege’ and still do.

I addressed my own toxic infectious colonized mindset and still do.

I have maintained the mindset of a student.

I’ve avoided multiple major surgeries by employing spiritually based integrative holistic health practices.

I got off medication cuz they were no longer needed.

I avoided the need for antibiotics.

I changed my diet naturally without much effort eating things I would normally have found gross like spinach …

My body started to heal.

My mind started to heal.

I learned how to tap into the body’s magical powerful way of healing itself.

I’ve had to learn what self-love looks like.

I had to redefine what safety looks like.

I removed toxic relationships and inserted healthy boundaries with ones I wanted in my life.

If I wanted a different external situation, I needed to work on the internal one FIRST.

I became my own superhero. Is it easy? FUCK NO.

However, today I am pausing.

I pay attention to the inner cues and whispers like clues on a treasure map.

I am reflecting on how far I’ve come and that I am actually alive.

I empathize with all of those who are being highly triggered right now. I’ve been there.

I empathize with all of those who are being hypervigilant right now. I’ve been there.

I empathize with all of those feeling of anger, frustration, and feeling trapped. I know these emotions

I have learned some serious mad skills over the years to help me adjust.

I’m now really realizing how far I have come because of how I am responding to this crisis.

I want to share them with you.

I invite you to learn something different … to learn my “how” to become your own superhero especially during times of crisis.

I extend an invitation into self-discovery learning how to build healthy spiritual immunity and resiliency.

Let me show you.

I’ve invested in you. Will you invest in you?

There is light in the darkness.

There is possibility in times of chaos.

Can you see beyond the chaos?

Can you see beyond the obvious?

Our souls hold the wisdom we seek.

Our souls wait for us to be heard.

There is a way to master the calm within the storm.

I am here.

I’ve spent 15yrs building and acquiring an arsenal of tools to share with those who are ready for THIS medicine that is ministered to the human spirit.

How we look at the world is crucial. The world is as we see it.

This invitation is NOT for those who are already set in their ways and beliefs. I am not trying to convince anyone of anything.

This invitation is for those who are struggling with searching for a new narrative knowing there is a different way but may not know the what or how.


Please join us May 17th while we explore and journey into self discovery over a period of 5 weeks.  Learn how to not only be an empath survivor, but an empath thriver while building a stronger spiritual immunity and resiliency during times of crisis. Click here.


Am I making sense or do I sound like a crazy lady?

Thank you for reading.

Below is a list of resources to help you navigate these changes.

To book a private 1:1 virtual session with me, click here.

With appreciation,

Laura

Spiritual Medium, Healer, Speaker, Writer, Metaphysician, Advocate, Holistic Health Practitioner, Facilitator, Trauma Specialist, Empowerment Specialist and Spiritual Badass.

For more information about classes, click here and our events calendar, click here.

To book a private session, click here.

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*BIPOC = Black Indigenous Persons Of Color

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