Self-Care Saturday: Self Reiki with Chona

For Compassion or Sending Energy to Someone Who's Sick: 

Begin by sitting comfortably in a space where you will be undisturbed for 15 minutes or so. You may make this space your sacred space by clearing it before you begin by burning some sage. When you are ready, breathe deeply. You may or may not close your eyes, whatever you feel comfortable with. Next, ask that ______ (name of person) receive this healing you wish to send by the grace of Source Creator. Ask for the person’s healer guides, healing angels, etc. you wish to use to support this healing. Next, ask for healing energy to be sent to this person and that it is in alignment with their Higher Self. When you feel relaxed, imagine this person is happy and healthy. Do not imagine them sick (even though they are). Imagine they are full of positive energy. Once you hold that vision, imagine healing energy flowing down from the Divine above you and flowing up from the Divine below you. Then imagine it flowing out and away from you and into that person. Hold that for as long as you wish - it doesn’t matter how long you do this – just trust that the healing energy has been sent and will work in the way that is best for this person. Conclude with a prayer of thankfulness.

Resource: www.passagestoinnerjoy.com

Chona offers Reiki on a donation basis on Thursday evenings at the studio. You can sign up on our workshops page. 

Self-Care Saturday: Self Reiki with Chona

For Love: 

Place both hands over the heart chakra, the left hand underneath and the right hand on top. The heart chakra is the place of compassion, and a balance between giving and receiving love. Breathe in white light through the nostrils, down the spine to the base. On the out-breath push the white light up the spine a little, then out to the heart center and exhale the energy into this center. Do this exercise for no more than 21 out-breaths. Conclude with a prayer of thankfulness and then detach.

Chona offers Reiki on a donation basis on Thursday evenings at the studio. You can sign up on our workshops page. 

Self-Care Saturday: Self Reiki with Chona

For the Morning, or Before Going to Sleep: 

If you just want general healing to recharge and balance your energies, place both hands over the solar plexus chakra, just above the navel, the left hand underneath and the right hand on top. The solar plexus is the life energy battery of your body. Breathe in white light through the nostrils, down the spine to the base. On the out-breath push the white light up the spine a little, then out to the solar plexus center and exhale the energy into this center. Do this exercise for no more than 21 out-breaths. On completion of the healing you may conclude with a prayer of thankfulness and then detach.

Chona offers Reiki on a donation basis on Thursday evenings at the studio. You can sign up on our workshops page. 

Self-Care Saturday: Self Reiki with Chona

For Self Healing: 

Place your hands where you would like the healing to take effect. For example, if you need healing for your knee, place both hands on the knee, one above and one below. Continue breathing in white light but, on the out-breath, allow the energy to flow down the arms and hands as well as the heart chakra. Feel the healing energy leaving the palms of your hands and entering the affected area. Spend about 10 minutes on each body part that needs healing. The energy centers in the palms of your hands are your healing tools.

Chona offers Reiki on a donation basis on Thursday evenings at the studio. You can sign up on our workshops page. 

Self-Care Saturday: Self Reiki with Chona

To Harness the Energy:

Sit upright with the head in line with the spine and both feet on the floor (or cross legged), and hands gently placed on your lap. Close your eyes. Become relaxed by slowly breathing in and out for a few minutes. Now, visualize the universal life force as a glowing ball of light from the sun, and draw it into your body as you breathe in. See it as a white light and direct it from the crown of your head down the spine all the way to the base of the spine. On the out-breath, bring the white light back up the spine but push it out through the heart chakra. Allow the heart chakra to be charged with this white light. You are now charging yourself with universal life force or prana.

Resource: Amma Magi, http://www.ammamagi.com/freebook/index.htm

Chona offers Reiki on a donation basis on Thursday evenings at the studio. You can sign up on our workshops page. 

Get Well Soon! Love, Your Teachers

Cold and flu season are upon us. Feel a sniffle coming on? Here are some tips from your teachers to help you get well soon.

Epsom salts ease muscle pain and encourage rest. 

I usually do oil pulling with coconut oil at the first sign of a sore throat (*Instructions below!*) Tons of vitamin C. Ample sleep and rest. Lots of hot herbal tea and local raw honey. Neti pot with Alkalol added. Oil of oregano can knock out most bugs, and if you can't handle the taste try colloidal silver instead. Keep up with the probiotics. Restorative yoga is great when you get sick! - Matthew 

I take lots of ashwagandha, vitamin c, and some wellness formula. A nice Epsom salt bath can be very helpful, and truly give myself good time to rest. - Shoshana

Healing myself from a sickness is a practice in itself. The moment I feel symptoms, I go to Eagle Rock Juice Co. and get myself a "Flu Shot" (2 oz. of cold pressed lemon juice, ginger, oregano oil & cayenne). Then I ingest foods high in probiotics such as kombucha, miso soup, sourdough bread and take probiotic pills with every meal. I take echinacea and goldenseal herbs with colloidal silver. And drink all kinds of fluids- ginger tea, licorice & marshmallow root tea (for the throat), hot water with apple cider vinegar, and lots of alkaline water. If that wasn't enough I see my Traditional Chinese Herbalist and gives me these herbs tailored to knock the symptoms out almost immediately. Last but not least, I always give myself Reiki while I'm resting. - Chona

Ingest probiotics like those in Health-Ade Kombucha 

When I get sick I feel like the world is coming to an end. I like to be active and outdoors so being sick really interrupts my day to day life. I have found that nothing cures an illness like rest. I try to get as much sleep as I can, coupled with as much water as I can drink. If it's an upset stomach I limit my food intake to just bread, rice, apples or applesauce, and tea. These are very easy for me to eat and help to settle my upset stomach. - Steve

This is a "when I think I'm getting sick" or "when my allergies are bad," remedy. I make a healing juice (*recipe to follow!*) My other go-to for sinus troubles is raw garlic. All it takes is chewing and sucking on a single raw clove to get my nasal passages nice and open-- it's nature's spicy, mean lozenge. I do usually spit it out, as raw garlic can be a little rough on the digestive system. Lastly: zinc. Whenever I'm feeling run down, I take a zinc after dinner-- 9 times out of 10, I wake up feeling back to normal. In addition to nutrients and liquids, the best possible thing really is rest. It took me many years of trying to "work through" being sick, only to realize that if I take just one day of rest (usually the first day of symptoms), my sickness doesn't last nearly as long. Oh, and by rest I mean actual sleep-- if I am dying to watch netflix, I opt for something monotonous that might put me to sleep. Okay that's my 2 cents :) - Ani

When I start to feel as though my health is suffering, I use it as an excuse to downshift. I curl up on the couch with my dogs and a mug of tea and read books for hours. I do this a lot even when I'm perfectly healthy, but it's nice to take the time to mindfully relax and let the rest of the world fall away. - Jamie

Start the day with hot water, honey, lemon and apple cider vinegar. Sleep a lot, snuggle your pets, and call your mom if it gets really bad! - Bethany 

Ani's Killer Cold Kicker

• 4 oranges
• 2 lemons
• 2 cucumbers
• 1 palm-sized piece of ginger
• turmeric (to taste, I shook it maybe ten times)
• cayenne (to taste)
• 4 drops oregano oil
• 1 tsp raw honey

From Ani: FYI this juice is no joke and will really burn-- but it really opens up the sinuses and cleans everything out.

Matthew's Oil Pulling Secret

Teacher Feature: Chona Bernardo!

Hometown?

I’m from Long Beach, CA.

How long have you been practicing yoga and Reiki?

Yoga 3 years, Reiki 6 years

How did you know that these were things that you wanted to pursue?  

I moved from home and didn’t have the convenience of my chiropractor, so that’s why I first started yoga. I wanted to try something different for my spinal alignment, and yoga has been that alternative healing.  Not only has it helped my back, but it's helped my spiritual and personal growth as well.

After I got laid off from my first career job, I was going through a rough time figuring myself out.  I met an intuitive healer at a gathering and she could sense my need for some energetic healing.  So she laid her hands on me (doing Reiki) and I could feel the old negative energy shaking out of me.  After 10 minutes of this I felt so much lighter, like a load was lifted off my body.  That’s when I realized there was something beyond this physical reality that can’t be seen, and wanted to learn Reiki to heal myself.   

What do you hope people will take away from your sessions?  

I hope people can see that energy is a real thing.  When we go through stress, trauma or any negative emotions, if we don’t process them thoroughly, the energy stays in our bodies and develops into diseases over time.  That’s why it’s important to practice self care to process our roller coaster of emotions.  I hope after a Reiki session, my clients will be mindful of their whole self, and strengthen their self care practice. Some great ways to practice self care are cultivating a regular yoga practice, meditating, or journaling on a regular basis.

What advice do you wish you could give your younger self?

1. Be  your most childlike self as you are because when you get older, you’ll work on remembering who your inner child was.
2. Be as weird and wild and unique as you can.  In the art world, originality is what is sought after.
3. Start meditating.

What do you do when you are not in the studio?

I like to do many things when I’m not at the studio.   Generally, I tend to nourish my introverted self by journaling, drawing & painting, connecting with trees, or going to Korean spas.  I value my alone time and would feel drained and ungrounded if I don’t do that for myself. Sometimes I go to coffee shops to read, or put shades on to secretly sketch the people in my view.

What two or three books would you always recommend to a friend? Women Who Run With The Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Life You Were Born To Live by Dan Millman, Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda

Do you have a favorite place to meditate? I usually sit in front of my altar filled with crystals at home.  But if I want change it up, I drive up to Self Realization Fellowship in Mount Washington. Or anywhere in nature I can sit down and tune in.

Where is your favorite place to go camping?

Camp Navarro in Mendocino County.  It has a lot of redwood trees with a river that runs through.  That forest makes me feel like I belong there, as if the trees are my aunts and uncles opening their limbs for hugs.  

What is something that most people would be surprised to learn about you? I aspire to open my own wellness community center that offers energy healing, acupuncture, massage, art therapy, yoga, and so much more. Once that’s well established, I hope to open another one in the Philippines so my family there can have easier access to holistic health care.

Chona Bernardo holds weekly reiki healing sessions for the community on Thursdays from 6:30-7:45pm for students that need to restore, heal and balance their subtle energies.
Chona’s sessions are donation based and suggested donation ranges $40-$80, cash only.