Sense of Soul - Reiki Energy Healing

Episode Date: May 14, 2021

We had the pleasure of talking to Danielle Sunberg a Reiki Master and Conscious Transformational Coach. Formerly a successful attorney and startup executive, she left the traditional definition of success behind to pursue a life in alignment with her true calling.   Through her transformation, she realized a deep truth about who her soul really was and begun to experience a life of alignment and deep resonance with happiness, truth, and satisfaction,. She simply just had to be her true self. This is where she found her power.  We had a very informative and insightful conversation about Reiki and the Chakra system and Danielle leads us in a beautiful meditation.  Learn more about Danielle at her website below. http://www.daniellesunberg.com/ Please Rate, Comment & Subscribe!  Hey ladies, join us in our Sense of Soul Sacred Circles over the next few weeks, support and be supported with a new theme each circle, visit www.mysenseofsoul.com and go to the menu and click on Sense of Soul Sacred Circles, use this code in (SOSCIRCLE) to join free to any circle of your choice, hope to see you there!

Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Today we have with us Danielle Sundberg. She is a Reiki master and conscious transformational coach. From attorney to Reiki master, she began to live and experience a more authentic, aligned life. Through her transformation, she realized a deep truth about who her soul really was and started to live in alignment with that purpose. Today, she helps people align their lives with their true purpose. And she is with us here today to talk about Reiki, which is one of my favorite topics. And at the end of this episode, she's going to do a meditation with us, which we are super excited

about. Thank you so much, Danielle, for being with us. It is such a pleasure. We can't wait to find out more about you. Sure. I'm so excited to be here, Mandy and Shanna. Thank you so much for having me. And I'm so excited to share about what I do and Reiki and coaching with you and all of your listeners. So yeah, so that's what I do. I'm a Reiki master and a transformational coach. And my approach to it is essentially creating a really safe space for people to tap into their own inner wisdom and allowing that connection to guide them forward and transform their lives. And the way that I've come to this approach is essentially

from my own experience of life, of course. And I used to be an attorney. I was a corporate, a commercial litigator, really, for a firm in Washington, DC. So I very much am familiar with and have walked the path of that really traditional, rational oriented, minded way of achieving success and moving through life. And I'm sure a lot of your listeners are in that space too. And what I found was, I was very concerned with creating this external sort of appearance of the perfect life because I had been taught this algorithm. You work hard, you get the job, you make a lot of money, you have financial stability, and then you are happy. And what I found was that algorithm didn't work. We talk about that. I like how you call it an work. Yeah, we talk about that.

I like how you call it an algorithm. We talked about that a lot. Yeah, I mean, because it's the same formula and you just sort of plug it in for your own life of what that means for you. And for me, it was becoming an attorney. And when I was working at this firm, I got pretty depressed

because I didn't really want to be there. But I was having that dissonance without understanding it. And so when I would see myself reflected in everybody else's eyes, I would see, you know, they were impressed. They respected me. They thought I had, you know, achieved what we had all set out to achieve. And I felt that respect and, and validation. But when I looked in the mirror at myself, I didn't feel any of those things really. I mean, I felt that I had achieved things, but I didn't feel the awe and the wow and the good for me. I felt, why am I doing this? And so I went to

a doctor and I went to a therapist and as the West does, it was pathologized that I had depression and I was offered a, you know, antidepressants. And it was really this moment of holding the prescription in my hand that I understood that what had been pathologized as depression wasn't a problem to be dealt with, to be suppressed. It was my inner wisdom calling to me through our emotional guidance system, which is the easiest way for us to tap into our inner wisdom. And it was telling me, no, Danielle, this, this, you know, Mount Everest that you climb that you achieve to get to the top of the legal world as, as an attorney, like good job, that's great, but that's not it. You're not done. You have to keep growing. There's more for you.

And to feel truly fulfilled in life, there's another, you know, mountain or two or three or four for you to go climb. I had a big trial with a client who we were defending against a $6 billion judgment. And the day the jury verdict came in and we had won, and there was this incredible relief. Partner on the case called me and said, I'm taking a huge vacation, leave me alone. I'll see you in two weeks. Good job. And I said, actually, I quit. And he was really confused. He was like, you know, this is like a capstone achievement in your career at a very early on stage as an associate. And you know, this is going to make your trajectory

to becoming a partner. And why the hell are you doing that? And to me, it was like, this is the perfect time to quit. I had a great achievement and now I can go. Kind of like John Elway in Denver. Our quarterback, everyone always talks about it. He did it the right way. He retired after he finally got his Super Bowl ring. Exactly. That's exactly a perfect analogy for it. And I didn't know what I was going to do. I had no idea, which I think prevents a lot of us from leaving the stability of what we've achieved because the fear of the unknown is like really freaking scary. And I had no idea, but I knew that

it was riskier to stay and to leave a life 20, 30, 40 years into the future. I could see it where I was just so deeply unhappy and unfulfilled. And that was way riskier than leaving and facing the unknown. And what happened after I left is I married my husband a month later, and we packed our bags, we left Washington, DC, and we backpacked around the world for about a year and a half. And the first place we went to was Southeastern Asia. And what I found there was a deep connection to energy. And I owe it, you know, in large part to the fact that those cultures not only allow energy to be a part of their religion, their culture, their lifestyle, but it's so seamlessly integrated into everything that they do that it's almost obvious and hiding in plain sight for them. And so when I got to tap into that, I recognized all of these capacities that I have and that we all actually have for facilitating energy and understanding who we are underneath our thinking mind,

that there's this whole other layer, two, three, four, beyond simply what it is that we think all day that makes up who we are. And that to me was this like rush of fulfillment and satisfaction. And so that sort of kept leading me down the line to then study Reiki to study coaching and become a facilitator of these things for other people who might be in a similar position that I was in, whether in their career or somewhere else in their life that they feel just maybe stuck or ready to expand beyond and are looking for that, you know, that inflection point, that catalyst, that thing to take them to the next stage. Now, that's great. I love that. So how, when you came here to back to the States, after all of your backpacking journey, which I'm so jealous, that sounds so fun. That's

definitely not in my life, not in this one, but I'm envious. But you, um, were you just like, okay, now what do I do? And, and, and then you were like, did you, did you specifically choose Reiki for some reason? Or, you know, what, where were the different options that you were looking at as in how to help people heal? So, yeah, first of all, in like our COVID life, like backpacking, going anywhere, it just seems like a really sexy exotic thing to do right yeah so for for me Reiki came in as the easiest route because westerners are familiar with it to a certain extent you can find it at a lot of spas massage therapy yeah exactly so it was just kind of a, a access point that I was already fairly familiar with. Yeah.

Okay. And what happened for me is interesting actually, in that it was facing imposter syndrome that led me to become a Reiki master. And what I mean by that is I had already tapped into facilitation of energy way before I decided to study Reiki because it was the tapping in that inspired the Reiki. So I was already doing it. And I realized that I'd already been doing it my whole life. So why go ahead and then get trained in Reiki if it's something that I already do? Well, as a lawyer, I had all of these diplomas and achievements and validations and certifications behind me at my old office, right?

Things that would, you know, slam down credibility of who I am and what I offer. So to then go into a career and have none of those things, I felt like, who am I to offer this? Who am I for someone to trust in me? And so partially I wanted to become a repeat master in order to give myself some safety of feeling like, okay, there's a diploma here. There's something that I can lean on and say, see, I know what I'm doing. And I think a lot of us go through that in one way or another with feeling like we are in full embodiment and trust of our own natural facility. And so we look outside for something to give us the certification. And partially it's because a lot of places require it, you know, quote unquote, for us to be able to do things. So that was part of it.

The other part of it is having that organization. For me, I'm still a linear person. And so having an organization for skills and techniques and understanding what I'm doing is really helpful and beneficial to then organize and understand, deepen, broaden, and continue learning. Because it's like, it's like if Harry Potter never went to Hogwarts like he's still a wizard and he still has the ability to do magic and cast spells or whatever but it's going to Hogwarts that kind of trains you and how to do it focused and effective and efficiently one thing I love about Reiki is that it seems to be out of all the modalities that I've taken, the one that has you look at yourself first. Yeah. I'd love to hear more when you think about that, because that's so true,

but I'm not familiar enough with another, uh, other modalities to be able to compare them in that way. Oh, okay. Well then I'll tell you my experience of how I compare them because, um, prior to Reiki, I had, um, under my belt, like acupressure, cranial sacral therapy, and was, and was a massage therapist and being very empathic. I had ended up unknowingly with probably about 20 different symptoms that weren't mine because I was carrying them from my clients. So in cranial sacral, in a lot of these modalities that you learn or the way that I was taught and most people here in Colorado anyways, we weren't taught to protect ourselves. It's just, here's how you do it. Here's

your manual, you know, and, and practice on each other. And I, I was always very drawn to the energy modalities and, you know, people always had really good response to it. So it was something that I, I did often even before Reiki, but yeah, I was so unprotected. So I was getting, you know, and I thought it was crazy because people would say, oh, my jaw hurts. And then later on my jaw's hurting or my knee. And I'm like, what the hell? This is nuts. Like why? Psychologically, is there something wrong with me that I keep, you know, having the same symptoms as people? And I mean, it got me very sick to the point where eventually I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and I had no idea what was happening until I understood my own energy, which is kind of why I actually took Reiki was to understand my own energy. I was a person who

didn't have a ton of self-love, but was working on that at the time. I'm like, oh my gosh, you want me to heal me first? Me? Like really? Okay. It was probably one of the first things healing wise as in a tool under my belt for myself that I ever did. Yeah. You know, that makes me think of is, is when clients have a really powerful session and, and they, you know, they come back from their session and we're chatting a little bit and they're like, are you okay? Because that was a lot. I felt that was a lot. Like, are you drained? Like, are you okay? And I'm like, I'm so great because the way Reiki works is that we get to come home just the way our clients get to come home. And so it is healing of ourselves when we facilitate for others. Yeah. And it can be very dangerous and

very exhausting. There would have been no way I could have done several clients in a row of say any of those other modalities, the way I was taught or with Reiki, I could do it all day. And if you can't do it that way, then you're doing something wrong. Yeah. I have to center myself and I have to ground myself and I have to connect myself. And I'm just that faucet, just like Reiki practitioners are. We're not helping them. We're just teaching them on how to help themselves. We're that faucet of that energy.

So, you know, I think in a lot of them, you have to be aware of your energy first in order to have a successful session with your client. Now, I say that because I was lucky enough to be introduced to Reiki by Shanna. So if I would have gotten into doing hypnotherapy before I knew about Reiki, I don't know what that would look like. So it's interesting to think about. For example, when I worked at Cedar as a addiction counselor, I was doing my CAC hours there. The reason that I ended up quitting was because the same thing Shanna was going through. I was taking on their, their shame and their guilt and their sadness and their depression. And even though

I was in recovery and I was sober, I didn't know how to not take work home with me because we're not taught that right. Then once I learned Reiki, it's like, if I were to be able to go back to now, I am confident that I could still do that job now happily because I'd be able to separate my energy from theirs and know what's theirs and what's mine and take those moments to heal myself. And I don't know about for you, Danielle, but besides being able to separate that, the protection piece, just the intention of not only just protection with your clients, but I mean, that's a part of my everyday hygiene or my spiritual hygiene. And I started to notice such a difference. And you can very much tell, like on a day that I don't do that,

I might, something might happen. I'm like, oh, oh yeah, I was too busy this morning. That's so critical because for all of us, especially, you know, through the year 2020, we all felt the weight of the world. We all felt the shift in our general mood. And that is, you know, on some level, we're all clairsentient or empathic and absorb or sense the feelings of things that aren't us. Because so for me, for example, I didn't lose my job in COVID. I didn't, you know, contract. Well, I did actually get COVID, but I was one of the people who had no symptoms. So I didn't contract it in a way that it was causing any suffering. My life pretty much was great. Like I had pretty much a really good 2020. And yet I felt, you know, the heaviness,

the density, the burden that the world was feeling from this global situation. And so for all of us, whether you think that you're empathic or clear sentient or not, or have never even thought about it before, on these huge, massive things that happened to us with 2020, especially in COVID and Black Lives Matter and the election, you know, there's this huge brewing of energy in the world. And to some level or another, you probably felt an impact by it. And you may have an innate way of dealing with it that protects you from absorbing it, or you may not. And just understanding what you do in order to protect yourself from these types of emotions and things that are going on so that you don't have to absorb them is so important.

Do you practice Reiki on yourself daily? What is your routine for yourself look like? Because in the past, I remember having a conversation with the lady who cleans my home. She was like, you know, I clean homes all day long and mine's a mess. And then this kid that details cars down the street, he says he details cars all day long and his car is always a mess. They're giving so much of themselves as their occupation that they're not actually taking the practices and using it for themselves. So what does yours look like? That's a great point. Mine has changed over time for me because I think that spiritual practices can become somewhat rigid, which can be a great thing if they work for you and is just so dynamic. And every day I sort of wake up and it's a little bit different. And so the amount of time I have is different or what I'm inspired to do is different. But ultimately what it always comes back to for me is kind of, Mandy, what you were saying a little

bit earlier of connecting with myself, of just coming home to that own, to my own place of where my soul resides, my, my empathy, my connection, compassion, nonjudgment, all of that. So when I was pregnant, I did Reiki with my daughter inside of me, and I would send her energy and knowing that it's going through my own body first. And that was a really beautiful experience. I would just put my hand on my belly and close my eyes and just send this beautiful baby growing in me all the love in the world. And now that she's born, sometimes actually in the mornings, and when I get her if we if we're together, right when she wakes up, I'll give her her morning bottle. And she snuggles with me. And so I still send her Reiki and I send it through me through my arms

out my fingertips into her body. And that's just a beautiful morning practice. And you can do that, you know, with your partner or your children too. If we're seeing in the morning, you just have a quick hug, really like 20 seconds is all you really need for this to take some really effective impact on our day and just send that love to whatever you're touching, whoever you're touching, because it has to go through you first. Another thing that I do is I have a gratitude practice in the morning that I like, because sometimes I don't have the motivation to sit and give myself 10 minutes to meditate, I just can't, because all these things are grabbing for my attention. But what I have been able to dedicate, you know, five minutes to do every morning is actually write a physical card to someone telling

them what they need to me and put it in there. Because I know that it actually gets delivered to someone and has impact on someone else's life, which is what motivates me. And after I do it, I'm on top of the world because it just felt so good. And then it kind of creates this really cool feedback loop because sometimes I get a text or a card in the mail too, from that person. I love how powerful small acts of kindness are. Reiki of all the different practices that I do, the more Reiki I I join other people and the more classes I teach, the more I am giving to myself. So, and the more I'm healing myself, the more I'm working with people. I mean, just recently, I've taught a lot of Reiki classes. I had like this huge realization that blew me away. So even

through teaching, I'm learning so much as well. So I love that part of this journey. But I mean, for our listeners, I'd like to just, I mean, a lot of people are like, Reiki what? And they always make fun of my brother. God forbid he ever listens to my podcast. But when he found out that I was doing Reiki, he asked me if I did it with a rake. Like he thought maybe it was some sort of like small rake tool that I was using in massage. So you do teach and facilitate the original Yasui Reiki. So if you could just kind of

briefly describe what Reiki is for anyone who doesn't know what it is. Sure, I'd be happy to. So in my understanding of Reiki and the way I practice it it is simply the facilitation of energy and the rei in Reiki just means universal life force or universe rather sorry and then the in Reiki is energy so when I said universal life force to me, the life force is energy. So we could, we could analogize that to chi in Chinese or prana in Sanskrit. If you're more familiar with either of those concepts, I also like to analogize it to acupuncture because a lot of people tend to be familiar with that. And the reason that it's similar is because you get on your table, you lie down, and what you're asking for is for balance and flow to be restored to the body to move out anything that's stuck and allow space to come in for inspiration and what we're wanting to shift into in life. And that can be

physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, all of those options are available with acupuncture and with Reiki. And the difference is that with Reiki, we're using hands and it doesn't actually require touching and it doesn't actually require being in the same room as opposed to acupuncture, where what we're doing is putting those very small needles into the nadis or the little energy pathways in the body to help unblock their past. And with Reiki, we're simply doing it through the flow of intention and the practice of the facilitator. So, you know, there's other modalities like healing touch or even like cranial sacral therapy that are very very similar but the one thing that makes reiki unique

is the achievement process that is like a huge thing when people they hear that they're like what the frick is that and i'll be honest my first achievement i'm sitting in this chair and i hadn't even researched it and like oh my god what have i got myself into what's happening to me. It sounds like you're taking your car in for an oil change. Can you explain that process? Yeah. So first of all, it's different for everyone. So I'm sure all three of us have had quite different attunement processes. And I know for some people, you go for your first attunement and then there is a lot of time and training between one and your second attunement. And then again, there's time and training between your second and your third.

And for others, it's not that way. It's collapsed. And sometimes you can even get your first and your second attunement at once. So the process isn't that rigid and it really depends on the lineage that you come through. And the reason that I really like that is because there's no dogma in Reiki. There's no, it's not the way religion is in the sense that there's particular prayers you say at this moment in this moment in your life. And you have to say it in this order and there's these hoops you have to jump through and there's just none of that. And to me, that is a foundational pillar of spirituality is there is no dogma. It's more about intentions. And that's why I always try to tell my students and like, I know it's this really difficult symbol,

but it's not even about getting it perfect. It's more about what it means and the intention of its purpose for healing. I'm like, worry about the drawing of it later. Yes. I have found that many people do things different. I've added things to my practice. Like you said, it's there is no right or wrong. There's like this almost like frame, right of like a home and then then you make it your own, right? And it's an art. And I think it's beautiful. I think that it's a platform to other healing gifts that you may have start to kind of like blossom out of you. Because what happened to me, I mean, right now, it's hard for me even to teach a Reiki class without adding some of those things, because I see them to be so useful. So I have. So I can see that how this transforms between different masters and the way it's taught. Yeah, that's such a good way of putting it. You know, what you're saying is making me think of an analogy of learning to play the piano. Or any musical instrument.

But for me, it's the piano. Because that's what I know how to play. And you can think of an attunement. Like learning to play the scales. music getting those foundational basics so that then you can go play jazz right and you might be able to sit down and play some amazing jazz music without ever ever having learned how to read music or play the scales and that's totally possible but what learning the scales does is gives you that foundation to always come back to if you're ever feeling stuck. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Like one thing I

added into mine was I always lay out like a hundred stones on like a sheet and I just have them before I even give them Reiki, pick out one that they're drawn to. And it has never failed that after the Reiki is done, they've always picked out one that aligns with a chakra that was unbalanced. And so it kind of gives them, it always gives them kind of some validity. You know, it's also interesting that I'll ask them what colors they've been drawn to, to decorate their home in or shirts, colors they're picking out at the stores, what kind of fruits they're eating. And it always ends up aligning with that as well. So I think sometimes they go, Oh, wow, that that's interesting that I picked this stone and

my solar plexus is, you know, unbalanced. So it's kind of cool. I was going to ask you some pretty basic questions. Who does the healing in Reiki? That's a great question. Oh, the client, the client, it's always the client. Yeah. That's such a great question because we want to disempower ourselves so badly because we've been trained to give all the power away. The doctor is the one who heals us. You know, the teacher is the one who teaches us and the Reiki master must be the one who heals us.

Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope. It's always you. I love that. Yes. How often do you recommend receiving a Reiki treatment? I give different answers to different clients, depending on what's going on for them and how quickly and open their body is to receiving the Reiki. But like as a general guideline,

it's probably good to wait at least a week between sessions because the Reiki isn't done just because the session is over. Because what we've done is create this incredible flow of energy inside of you and it's still going and it's still moving and it will continue to move at that same rate and with that same clarity as long as you can keep it going. And that's kind of the trick that I think a lot of people don't know, or understand is that like, technically, you can just have one session and be done forever. If you can keep it going that way, then awesome. But for most of us, it's something that we need a couple times, sometimes more than a couple times, or sometimes I have clients who just come regularly once a month. And it's just that quick tune up to remind their body and their

energy what it's like to be in that space so that they can carry it forward. Yeah, one of my clients and friends had asked me, why would I ever even go see Reiki for myself? And the way that I look at it, and I don't know if you do, but it's kind of like when you go work out and, you know, you have a trainer and they push you just a little bit further, you know, where you might need to look a little deeper and experience a little bit longer. Sometimes I feel like maybe I'll rush through my healing sessions with myself or possibly not sit long enough to be able to discover stuff that someone else might be able to for me. How do you feel? That's so true.

I totally agree with you, Shanna. So a lot of things that come for me are through clairvoyancy and illustration and visuals. So as you're saying this, a visual comes through for me of, if you can imagine kind of like a pie diagram or so like a circle and, you know, we want to cut wedges into it to ascribe to like certain pieces of ourselves. And so there's the circle of us, and then there's a pizza wedge, and that pizza wedge is all the things that we know. And then there's another pizza wedge next to it. And that's all the things that we don't know. And then the rest of the circle are all the things that we don't know we don't know.

Right? That's so true. And so how can we tap into the rest of that whole circle? Well, sometimes it's better and easier and more efficient if we just allow someone else to help. Yeah, that's awesome. What we don't like it. I don't use the word block. But it doesn't mean that it's a wrong word. And I totally get that. It's easy to understand. But what I use more to explain it is inefficient communication between parts of your body, and parts of your body, not just physical, but your emotional, mental and spiritual parts of your body and parts of your body, not just physical, but your emotional, mental, and spiritual parts of your holistic human system that there is sort of a, instead of it

being that nice, efficient, clear, straight up and down that we think about like on the spinal cord where our chakras are, it's kind of like a loop-de-loop straw or something. It's just like really thin in one spot. So there isn't the same potential for the velocity of the energy to flow in that same capacity as it does in other places. I just call that inefficient communication because to me, a block, people think that they're blocked and that there's a problem and it's bad and it has this negative connotation. And I just like to kind of shift our attention away from it being so negative. I believe that energy has no distance.

However, a lot of people doubt distance Reiki and its humans. Do you have an opinion on that? It's really common for people to prefer to come in for in-person Reiki. I think when we are so immersed in believing what we can see with our eyes is what is real. And when we see that this computer that I'm looking at you through is seemingly solid, it's in front of me and my husband in the other room, he can't see my computer. He can't feel it, he can't touch it, he can't see you guys on it. So how can he interact with it, then the same would apply to

energy, it just seems like a very logical analogy. But what's actually true is that we're all operating on this quantum field of energy. And the atoms that make up you, that make up the chair I'm sitting in, that make up the tree outside, that make up the computer, ultimately come down to the same component parts. And so in actuality, we're all connected in this same field of energy. And so with Reiki, what we're able to do is simply tap into that universal stream and flow of energy that has no separation and so when we can actually identify with being part of this ocean that we're all one instead of our separate islands of of our physical form then we understand that concept in a way that feels true underneath our mind, underneath our thinking mind and in our body. And we connect to that place of us being this

ocean of energy that extends beyond our physical body when we do things like Reiki or Kriya Segral or meditate or dance or listen to music, when we get lost in a flow state, we have that feeling. And so sometimes we just don't realize that's what it is. So I guarantee that pretty much almost everyone has had that feeling of being connected to the greater ocean of oneness than just their physical form. And we've had a lot of practice over the past year. Yes. Yeah. But the trick is that you do have to believe it and know that that's true for it to work. So if you're like truly a non-believer that Reiki can work across distance and you get a remote session, you won't feel the impact of it. What will happen,

what I like to call is it'll go into an escrow account for you, sort of like a universal holding space where the healing just takes its place in waiting. And as soon as you are ready to allow it to come through it will. I love that, an escrow account love that. That's hilarious. It always makes me mad. I'm like, I need that money now. Why is it just sitting there? It doesn't make sense to me. Thinking about things on an energetic level, God, our world would be such a beautiful place if we could walk around and just see each other as energy, right? You know, I'm going to dive into something really deep and personal. I read your article about your, was it a miscarriage? It wasn't. It was a termination.

A termination. Okay. And man, it shook me up. First of all, for you to be brave enough to share such a personal story. And then second of all, the beauty around you sharing your experience on thinking of that baby inside of you on an energetic level, and even the nickname that you gave the baby, it was a beautiful writing. What inspired you to share that? And how did understanding energy help get you through that? Wow, that takes me back, Mandy. Thank you for asking that. Just to set the context, I got pregnant with my first

child and found out that the baby had inherited genetic abnormality from both me and my husband. And ultimately the child's life would be a lot of suffering and our lives as parents would be a lot of suffering. And our lives as parents would be a lot of suffering. My husband and I decided at 16 weeks to terminate the pregnancy. But before the termination, I remember sitting at, just sitting outside, looking out into the mountains. We were in California at the time. And when we decided that termination was the right choice for us, this shift in energy and answering your question, my sort of attunement and having that nuance to be able to feel and connect and sense shifts in energy was life-saving because what I could sense was the agreement that this child had made with me and my husband that she was meant to come in

to the physical world for 16 weeks and that was the purpose. And then she would leave. And so I felt her leave, I felt the soul of this baby leave while the physical body of the baby was still in me. And so the change to my own understanding of what I was carrying inside of me changed because I was no longer carrying my daughter. I was always, you know, and I still am very pro do what's right for you. And I knew this was right for me, but it doesn't mean that when you make a choice like that, that you feel good about it. It's still very complicated choice. And so a lot of other feelings can come into that. Like guilt and shame and anger and resentment and frustration and anxiety and fear and all these things, right? understanding that we have actually no capacity to kill someone is something that I know, you know, spiritual gurus teach. I hear it. I, one of my favorites and is Ram Dass and he always talks about it. It's one of his central pillars is that we cannot take a life because in the end, when we die,

it's not the, it's not really the end, right? There is just a shifting and transformation of energy. And so I got to experience that on the most intimate level of it really happening inside of me. And there's no other way that I can prove it or explain it. But if you have experienced something like that, whether through, you know, an actual similar decision that you made with with a fetus, or a near death experience, or, you know, even a highly stressful experience where you've disassociated, you know, even a highly stressful experience where you've disassociated, you know, that you are not confined to your physical form and that it does not complete or define you. You know, I have to be honest. Part of me was like, Oh God, I'm so sorry to bring it up. But I also knew you publicly put it out there for a reason. And this story was just, it got me really teary. Actually, I'll be honest because it was sad, but it was also so beautiful. And in that story explains how understanding energy can give you

such a beautiful understanding of life and challenges and troubles and, and how it can also bring healing. And it was a beautifully written article. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you for putting that out there. And I think understanding energy can bring so much understanding. For example, I just said this in another podcast, but I was asked to go to a hospital to see a gentleman's mother and Shanna and I went and we knew that she wasn't there and he was so distraught about it, whether he should take her off life support or not. You know, Shanna just simply said, yeah, I'm not feeling that she's present. And he didn't even end up having to make the choice. It just happened. But it brought this comfort to the room, knowing that he wasn't ending a life and that this energy was going on.

Yeah, I have like a really intense chills right now. That's really incredible. Yeah. I thank you so much for sharing that with me. Even for myself, I don't know, I very much connected to that. And I just appreciate your vulnerability completely. Thank you. It was very touching. Can you tell Shanna the nickname that you gave this little energetic baby? It's so apropos, right? And how could could I have known but the nickname that we gave

her was oh the resounding sound of the universe yeah I love that and then now you have a one-year-old at home with you yes we do I didn't know that so congratulations thank you you know i don't know if you've ever read a lot of like brian weiss but a lot of stories that he's told of his clients have said like a lot of times these babies will come back to you when the time is right um it could even be like as a grandchild you know um I've even read that but do you think that she came back to you that one came back to you or in the form of my daughter yeah uh no I don't think that but I'm totally open to um coming through in another body of another child or a grandchild or, or, you know, a dog. Yeah. So for me, it's still a spiritual guide that I, that I speak with. Yeah.

When I was going to ask you that, I know that Mandy and I both, and a lot of my students, we do end up getting to a place where we start to depend more on our spiritual gifts than we do the Reiki manual or anything we were taught. And I'm also clairvoyant. And so a lot of my sessions are either full of color or I actually receive a lot from their spirit guides or angels and stuff. So almost a guarantee every session. So it's almost now I, if I haven't seen you, I will usually say, you know, sometimes things happen. I see things. Do you want me to let you know if I do? Cause nine out of 10 times

I do. I don't actually think there's been many times that I haven't. Do you have that? And I've seen a lot of guides actually in form of children who actually they lost. That's so cool. We all are just so chock full of these incredible gifts. And I love hearing about yours and other either Reiki masters or people who spend time in the spiritual world and what there's kind of has manifested to be and for me in I'll say at this moment because what I know is that it's going to change um is things come through for me in story in visual story through um each chakra will tell a story for me. It'll show me something. It'll either have the person that I'm working with as, you know, the protagonist

and the story, or sometimes a spiritual guide or someone can come through instead as the protagonist. And what happens often is I used to do each chakra in order and go through them. And now what happens is I follow inspiration and I'm drawn to one or the, you know, some one of the seven to start with. And I let it tell me where to go. And so often I don't even get through all seven or I do, but it's just kind of in a random order, except it's not when you learn the story. And that's required a lot of trust on my part to deviate from what you're saying from that manual. Okay. I'm going to, if I do it this weird way, is the person going to kind of feel discombobulated? Nope. Never the case. They always feel awesome. But yeah. And then these really

cool stories come through and I get to relate them to the client afterward. And there's always some really beautiful wisdom that comes out of it for them. So one of the things that I found is the most remarkable one. It's actually not a practice of original Yusui Reiki, but it's the chakra system. I feel like it has, it is such a timeline of our lives and that anybody can, you know, understand the colors of the rainbow. I mean, my daughter who is now nine has a very extensive knowledge of chakras. I mean, her whole life she's been, you know, around it. But when I think about explaining to someone about the different acute points that are connected to the bladder and this and that, it's a little confusing. So that's why I love the chakra system because it's very simple

and yet very, very useful. And, you know, everybody can relate to it throughout their lives. Tell me what you think of the chakra system. Do you use the chakra system? Because I know some people don't even use it so much. I do. I find it to be really great organization for what the energy is saying and interpreting it. Because for me, they're really symbols of stories of our lives, like you said, and so they each relate to a different aspect of who we are and how we've developed. And so when I am drawn to a particular chakra, and something comes up around it, I know how to interpret it based on the chakra and what it's telling me. So if an emotion comes up and I'm at the heart chakra or I'm at the sacral chakra, it can mean two different things.

So I sort of use it as maybe the soul map or whatever that Mandy said there, they are sort of a way of that. Yeah. You know, at least guiding them too. And that's why I love it. It's like, I don't know what's going on with you, but I'm going to let you know, like this area is connected to this, to this, you know, Oregon and this timeline of your life. And this, this and that, you know, as of developmental stages. And so, and I feel like anybody can like take that little bit of wisdom and use it to help discover more about themselves where they maybe wouldn't have gone, whether it's physical,

emotional, or mental. So we actually put out to our group to ask some questions or see if they had any questions. One question that someone asked, her name is Jennifer, her chakras go in the opposite direction. So that's the question. People are working in different ways. Some of them are going right, left left some of them go off every other one how do yours go that's such a cool question because I don't know and I don't know because it's not important to me flow is important peace is important connection feeling okay feeling embodied feeling grounded feeling inspired feeling self-worth those are what's important and whatever route your chakras and your system takes to get there it is perfect so I don't really look for for that I love that answer

it's like should I be concerned is there something wrong with my chakras? Why are they going the wrong way? But I love that. There's no wrong way. I mean, again, that takes us back to the dogma situation. There isn't a right way to do it. And the way that your chakras flow is the way that your chakras are designed. As long as they're flowing. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I like that. I really like that answer. And you know, I feel like that with a lot of things. And I think people just overthink stuff, not saying that Jennifer did on that question, because that was a great question. But you know, we get so hung up on why is mine not like everybody else's? Or why am I not experiencing what somebody else experienced? Or why does that Reiki master do it

differently than this Reiki master? Am I still learning the same? Or am I receiving the same? And it's just like, you know, we're so caught up worrying about things rather than just experiencing them. I think that's so true, Shanna. And I don't remember exactly the quote, but it's just basically that each of us are here to experience life, like God is incarnating himself to just have different experiences of the world. And so if we all experienced it the same way, then what would be the point of having all of us? We're all different. And that is what is special about us. And to be the same is, it makes things easy. Cause I guess you have a pattern, a blueprint, but it's not actually true. And I think that if you talk to all people who you think are the same and you're not, and you got into the nitty gritty with them, you'd learn that there are some vast differences among them too. I love that you just said that. And it kind of reminded me a lot of your Instagram.

You have a lot of stuff on there about the mind versus the heart and that the mind is the veil to the heart because our mind wants to label everything and analyze everything and give everything these thoughts and this meaning. And it kind of blocks us just from experiencing it and feeling it and accepting it for exactly the way it's supposed to be with our heart. Yeah. You know, I think that's something that we forget that we do because it's just so innate and obvious and we do it constantly with every single thought is we give it meaning. The thought itself has no inherent power or meaning. It's simply a collection of words, of symbols. And we decide what it means by imbuing the meaning into it.

Our mind and our body is nothing more than a tool for us to filter and for our soul to use here. This body, this mouth, this language, it's just all tools for my soul to use. Yeah. The mind has, has become the master instead of its intended use as a servant. Yeah. We are super excited. You were going to maybe do like a meditation. Yeah. I've been excited about it because I could use it today because this tool, my mind, was messing with me this morning. So I need to ground myself. Perfect. This is perfect. Yeah, let's do the meditation.

Okay, well, perfect. Then let's just get comfortable. I recommend sitting if that's an option. Because what we're going to do is both find grounding and inspiration. Just close your eyes and start relaxing into your body and find your connection to your breath. Maybe notice the air coming in, tickling your nostrils and filling up your belly as you inhale. And then your belly pushing the air out back through your either your nostrils or your mouth.

It's really okay either way. There's nothing to change about the way you're breathing. We're just connecting with ourselves in our natural state. And then at the base of your tailbone just imagine a little red ball it doesn't need to be any bigger than a pinprick and as you breathe in allow that ball to just expand slightly just grow a little bit. And with each inhale, let that little ball get a little brighter, a little bigger, a little more vibrant,

a little bolder. And if it hasn't already started doing so on its own, tell that ball to start moving, just like spinning kind of on an axis of its own. And then we're going to take that ball and bring it down through our legs so it can split into two, down into our feet, spreading into our ankles, into our heels, over the arch of our feet, into our toes, along the outsides of our feet, in between our toes, and just feel that ball moving around there leaving that red trail

of bright energy behind it as it moves sliding up your feet and then the ball is going to come out of your feet into the ground and meet again and become one ball. And you can feel that energy pulling downward as the ball moves down through the ground. And it's going to go downward into the earth, past the floor, into the grass, into the dirt, deeper, deeper, deeper into the rocks. And it's being pulled by the gravity, by the magnet of the core of the earth

as it keeps getting pulled downward, downward through the mantle, through the earth's crust and deeper, deeper into the dense core of the earth. The heat is pulling it inward until it connects with the core of the earth. And here, take a deep breath as you're anchored firmly, deeply to the safety of this earth. And you feel grounded, stable, secure to this planet that is holding you here. And with each breath, just allow that energy to come through

that red ball up to you, up into your body, filling you with this grounding energy, the secure attachment of having this physical form on this earth, being able to live life out on this planet. Then that red ball is going to detach from the core of the earth and come back up

and start raising itself up through the core into the crest again coming back up drawn by your intention to bring it back to you almost like a yo-yo it's coming back up to you up through your feet back up to the tail the tail of your spine. And then that ball moves up through your body, up through your chest, your neck, your shoulders. And as it gets to the top of your head, it changes into a white ball. And this white ball is now going to move up through the top of your head. It kind of pops out kind of like a flower blooms up through the grass, and this white ball is going to go upwards now, and we're going to connect upwards into the sky. So let this ball soar past the roof of the building you're in, and you can almost look down as if you were that white ball

and see yourself sitting there below. And the white ball keeps growing higher and higher, up into the clouds, past the birds, up past the atmosphere into space, and you can look down and see Earth below you as you keep climbing higher and higher past the sun, past the Milky Way, past all the stars and connect to this big white everything.

And as this white ball connects to the everything, you get to inhale peace, calm, serenity, inspiration, understanding, motivation, ideas, greater perspective. And let that white ball send this energy back into your body like a satellite beaming down to you. And take a few breaths here. And now let this white ball disconnect and start moving backwards, floating downward through space, past the stars, back through the Milky Way. You can see our solar system, past Venus, towards Earth. You can see the sun and this ball keeps going downward into our atmosphere and now into the sky, into the clouds. You can see your state starting to come into view

and then your city and then the building that you're in. And you pop through the roof back above your head. You see yourself sitting there in that chair and then that white ball pops back into the top of your head and sends this amazing calming loving energy through your body integrating with all of that groundedness, that security, that confidence that we have from our red ball. Just to take a few breaths here and allow all of this energy to integrate, to mix. You can see it visually as this red and white energy moving through you almost like smoke, tickling every part of your body, reaching your fingertips, your kneecaps, behind your shoulder blades, in between your toes, behind your ears, between your eyes.

It's all mixing. And as we start to come back into our awareness of our bodies, you know that you are taking this energy with you through your day, and that it is always here in your body for you to connect with at any moment that you need it. So we'll take another breath here to close out the meditation. And we're back thank you for that that was beautiful yeah that was that was beautiful I loved the smoke throughout the body it reminded me of like those fourth of of July little smoke bombs. And I just, I can imagine it in every ounce of me. And I saw triangles.

I saw lots of triangles. What a cool meditation, like taking us from all the way that far above and coming in with that like Google Maps, bird's eye view down back into ourselves. Thank you so much, Danielle. Thank you for just being here with us today. Where can our listeners find you? And I know you offer coaching. Can you tell them about what you've got going on right now?

Yeah. So you can find me the easiest way is just on my website, which is my name, daniellesundberg.com. And I just say sunberg, like iceberg, but with a sun, that's how you spell it. And so what I offer is Reiki, and coaching. And what I'm really leading into and what people are really seeking me out for is what I'm calling the power duo, which is the combination of those two. So it's getting that amazing energy work and the channel comes with it combined with now let's move back into our conscious minds, our rational minds, and let's use it to really consciously move forward and take big quantum leaps in life. Because integration is everything that we can go and climb the summit of a mountain and take the selfie. But then what do we do when we come back down the mountain? So I like the coaching aspect and bringing that in,

because it helps integrate everything that we want in life, that we are doing without reason that brings us to energy work. And it gives us some conscious integration of what we're doing and how to move forward. And then the other way around too, I like it for people who are actually more mental focus and like talking and having that verbal conversation to understand concepts, because, you know, I am that way too. I mean, as a lawyer, words, and you said this before, I think Shanna, you said this, that words are key and language is key. So getting the chance to frame our perspective and talk through things is so critical. So I love combining the two. I agree. That's great.

And then, you know, you can also find me on Instagram and there's a link there to go to my site too and my Instagram is your genius within because that's really my approach is that you have this inner wisdom in you and let's just connect to it and let that lead us forward in your transformation I would highly recommend your Instagram it It's beautiful. Thanks, Katie. And now it's time for break that shit down. Okay. Happy to.

What comes up for me as you say that is really, it's kind of an affirmation. And that affirmation is simply that you are not broken. You do not need fixing and you don't need healing. And the word healer is really a misnomer because what you're really doing is connecting to the wellness, the perfectness, the okayness, the wisdom that already exists within you and so it's really a subtractive experience to connect with that place inside of ourselves it's not needing to go achieve something or fix anything or add anything to your life what we're doing with Reiki with coaching is connecting you to that place that already exists within you. And it's often really just the mind that tricks us into believing that we are broken because we

have these insecure thoughts that take up a lot of our bandwidth and that's normal and that's okay. It's just not the truth of who we are. Absolutely. That's great. Thank you so much for reminding us of that thank you so much for having me you both are so lovely to speak with oh you too and I mean I feel so relaxed right now thank you so much thank you yes thank you Danielle it was such a pleasure I love that you remind us that we're exactly how we're supposed to be. Thank you for that. It is my pleasure. And I hope to chat with you again soon and connect.

For sure. Thank you. Many of our listeners have asked how they can support sense of soul podcast. You can now buy Mandy and I a cup of coffee by going to www.mysenseofsoul.com and go to the coffee fund. You can also take one of our many workshops or classes online. We love to meet our listeners and work with them. Thanks for being with us today. We hope you will come back next week if you like what you hear don't forget to rate like and subscribe thank you we rise to lift you up thanks for listening