Practitioner of the Month

1. You are originally from Germany. Can you tell us what brought you to Canada and what your life has been like since you arrived here?

I could give you a very simplified answer by saying that it was my Canadian husband.

However, that would not do justice to the work that our angels had to put into making this relationship happen.

I think it was quite an accomplishment to ensure that people from different continents ended up first on the same plane and then in the same guesthouse in the Caribbean where I was island hopping with a girlfriend and my husband was on work assignment After this initial 3-day meeting we didn't have any contact for 5 years other than the occasional letter and Xmas card. Then this Canadian globetrotter arranged to go through Germany on his way back from Africa to meet with friends, including me. However, he became very sick with malaria, canceled our meeting to check himself into a hospital instead. So I drove to the hospital and got myself a job translating for the nurses and supporting them. The rest is history.

My life has never been the same since. Today, I very much see this relationship as a spiritual contract that needed to be fulfilled and because of this we received extraordinary support from the universe. You wouldn't believe how many things fell into place absolutely effortlessly, although they were most unlikely to happen, such as me getting a leave of absence from my teaching job (just in case), selling my house for exactly the price I was asking, us finding a beautiful home near Ottawa within a week... It's quite amazing how fast it all came about within a year and most of all the certainty with which both of us made life-changing decisions.

Years later, I heard Caroline Myss say that if we have the choice between a safe, easy road and one with a higher risk factor, she would encourage us to choose the risky one because then we would be rewarded by the universe for showing faith. I am living proof of this. I have been blessed with a wonderful daughter, a loving, supportive husband, a new career that I love, many friends and exciting experiences that I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams. My journey in the past 12 years has been magical and most fulfilling.

Looking back it is also interesting how the first 37 years in Germany very nicely lay the groundwork for the life I've been leading in Canada. I used to teach sports and English, which made the transition into an English speaking country much easier, as well as having lived in Britain as an exchange teacher. The excellent training that I received as a teacher and teaching skills of more than 15 years have come in very handy in my present work of offering self-empowerment workshops in the healing field.

2. You actually started your training in the holistic arts while you were still living in Germany. Can you tell us about what led you to the field and what type of training you have taken since moving here?

Back in 1986 I made my first contact with holistic health. Until then I had never heard about it. A friend of mine mentioned a naturopath she had seen and she described how he had pushed on her arm and had come up with all kinds of details regarding her health. It sounded all too weird and intriguing. Although physically healthy I wasn't feeling too good about my life so I satisfied my curiosity and made an appointment. My journey into alternative health started with this first exposure to muscle testing. I stopped coffee and tea cold turkey, went for several sessions and experienced vega testing, kirlian photography, acupuncture and color therapy.

I was fascinated, however, I didn't get serious about making real changes in my life/ relationship. So the cosmic 2-by-4 came out and I ruptured the crucial ligaments in my left knee playing basketball. After the initial operation and a 2-week stay in the hospital, I spent another 5 weeks with a cast hip to toe. That slowed down my hectic life, stopped the running around and gave me plenty of time to read. The natural practitioner, interestingly enough, had also been a Phys. Ed. and English teacher before changing careers and was very supportive in my quest. He suggested certain books that influenced me greatly, such as the ones on reincarnation, a topic that I had never given much thought. Reading about it then all of a sudden made absolute sense, gave sense to the many challenges that life was presenting me. I just knew it to be true.

Looking back this injury was the beginning of my spiritual journey and I consider it one of the best things that ever happened to me; a real blessing in disguise.

I also learnt in that phase that when the student is ready the teacher will be there. Eventually I started taking weekend workshops in Touch for Health and One Brain while working full time. However, I doubt that I would have left my teaching position to do healing work in Germany. So the move to Canada offered this incredible opportunity to do something completely new.

I had heard about Health Kinesiology (HK) before moving and actually had a contact phone number but hadn't acted on it for a year. So the universe again put things into my lap as for the first and only limited time HK classes were offered in Ottawa. To me it's the classic example of: if Mohammed doesn't go to the mountain, the mountain moves to Mohammed. The lady sponsoring the workshops also taught Brain Gym and Educational Kinesiology, so I trained in those modalities as well.

At the time I was pregnant with my now 9-year-old daughter and she sure got immersed into energy healing right from the start. This also taught me how muscle testing can allow us to get in touch with the unborn baby. We had several funny situations in workshops where she repeatedly asked for a specific flower essence and was hence nicknamed "the Orange Ruffles baby" by participants. When you work with muscle testing you can ask: is this for the mother or for the baby?

By 1994 I thought that Kinesiology was it for me. You may have heard: if you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans. I received a letter from a friend in England sharing her fascination with Reiki. I was happy for her but not interested in pursuing it for myself. A few months later she came to visit and invited me to participate in a level 1 that she was offering to her family. I hesitated as I was still nursing so she decided to teach the workshop in my home. I keep saying it's not that I found Reiki but that Reiki found me.

Before heading back to England she happened to mention that there are symbols taught in level 2. For some reason I knew that I needed to learn those. Again, easily and effortlessly, a class came my way when friends mentioned it on a Friday and I joined them the next day. After that, I was thrilled how much it enhanced my kinesiology work and again I thought, that was it.

We had just moved house and I received a phone call about an evening info session at a Wellness Centre. The invitation came at a time when I was desperate to get away from the mess of boxes. Next thing I knew one of the practitioners asked me if I'd be interested in an exchange to help with her sore shoulder. After a couple of meetings she invited me to be her guest at her upcoming Reiki level 3.

This weekend with her was another major crossroads in my life. It was with her teachings that the lightbulb went on and I gained more of an understanding of the connection of body, mind and spirit. Intellectually, it had been clear to me that the integration of the three levels was at the core of holistic health. However, the missing piece of spirituality came with Reiki and seeing it as a way of intimately connecting with a Higher Power. It truly changed my daily life, as well as my professional life since I signed up for the Reiki Master program and also started integrating Reiki into my teaching schedule.

Since then I have been guided to take other training in lymphatic massage, iridology, Metamorphic and more extensively the Science of Intuition, offered by Caroline Myss and Dr Norman Shealy.

3. You combine a great many holistic modalities in your practice including Reiki, Attitudinal Kinesiology, Brain Gym as well as herbal and flower essence therapy. How are you able to integrate all of these modalities in your work with healing people?

This is relatively easy since Spirit guides me via muscle testing which modality or piece of it to use at certain points in a healing session. The way I look at it is that I am offering my toolbox which is filled with all these different healing tools to the client's Higher Self. Then by using muscle testing I ask which tool(s) would benefit most effectively and efficiently. So the client's Higher Self chooses the procedure based on its bird's eye view. I act as an open channel to let guidance and healing energies through to facilitate healing that is right for the client according to where s/he is at in life. So each session is tailored to the needs of the individual. I never know ahead of time what the session will be like. As an additional bonus, muscle testing also allows me to plug into the universal computer, so to speak, and to access files/ receive guidance that can be a mixture of different modalities or even unrelated to any I know consciously.

4. The incorporation of spirituality appears to play a large role in your healing practice. Can you tell us your thoughts on this and how you incorporate Spirit into your work?

As mentioned, Reiki 3 was the first breakthrough to integrate spirituality into my daily life and my work. Since then the focus has been to develop and intensify a personal connection to God on a daily basis. After Reiki 3, at the beginning of each session, I started to openly invite Spirit in to guide the healing process and I end by giving thanks for the healing and insights received. I also became more open in sharing the spiritual aspects of my work with my clients, talking about working with spirit guides. It took me a while to deal with my fear of being called "weird" for acknowledging and admitting to work with the invisible realm, to understand the extent to which muscle testing is a way to connect with these invisible entities and to accept guidance from that level even if my rational mind cannot comprehend what is happening.

I believe that the more we nurture this personal connection with Spirit and the more we are willing to do our own healing, the more we can be of service to others and assist them in their journey. People characterize holistic work as integrating Body, Mind and Spirit; I have shifted to looking at Spirit, Mind, Body. Without Spirit, I believe, no real healing is possible. If we are open and allow our spirit guides to work with us and through us, miracles can happen where before there was a diagnosis of "no hope."

Spirit conveys messages to us in many different forms. It is up to us, especially as holistic practitioners, to clear up the mental/emotional garbage of our past traumas and dramas and to remove the roadblocks that interfere with perfect communication. The more we release the limiting programming in our subconscious, the more our intuition develops and the more clearly we can receive intuitive guidance for others and for ourselves.

I truly believe that I am not doing the healing. I actually have a hard time with the word "healer"as it somewhat shifts away from the client whose Higher Self is really the active part. I see myself as a facilitator who consciously focuses on connecting the dots of Spirit and Mind with the ones of the physical body. Muscle testing helps me zoom in to identify these connections as well as the blocks that hinder healing, particularly since many of these are not in the client's conscious awareness.

5. What services do you offer in your practice and what can new clients expect on a first visit?

If I just listed all the different modalities it would be very misleading because very seldom do my clients receive a typical session offering exclusively Reiki, Lymphatic massage, Metamorphic, Allergy work or even anyone of the various Kinesiologies that I have studied. Usually my clients end up experiencing a mixed pot of soup with plenty of ingredients, a little bit of this and a little bit of that, based on the results of muscle testing and intuitive guidance. I explain to new clients the benefits of working with body priority as determined by muscle testing vs. acting on preconceived ideas of what they or I think might be beneficial to do. Most people I draw to me are more than willing to let their Higher Selves run the show and determine what is of maximum benefit. Different flower essences, essential oils, crystals, Tibetan bowls and/or color (acu)puncture support and anchor most healings.

The common denominators in each session are Reiki and the use of muscle testing as the guiding tool. Often the client wants to address a specific issue, be it a physical symptom, an emotional state, a challenging relationship, nutritional questions or difficulties in making certain decisions. In that context we are frequently guided to identify limiting belief patterns of the subconscious which keep him/her from reaching the goal s/he would like to achieve. As long as those thought forms are part of the client's body computer file, decisions will be made accordingly. The benefit of this kind of energy work is that the old beliefs can easily be deleted and new, empowering ones are installed. As a result, it becomes much easier to live our full potential.

In addition to energy healing and meridian balancing I often integrate lifestyle coaching, identifying the areas in the client's life that need special attention. That could be in the field of nutrition or stress management or related to spiritual practices. Usually clients leave the office feeling lighter and more optimistic, empowered that there is quite a lot that they can do for themselves. If they are really serious about taking charge of their own health and well-being, I inform them about upcoming evening or one-day-workshops to give them further tools for effective self-care.

6. If you could offer one piece of advice to those seeking revitalized health and wellness in their life, what would that advice be?

Probably I would encourage people to look at life from a spiritual perspective. That includes recognizing the many ways that Spirit "talks" to us. Messages could come from: the animals that cross our paths; people we meet and talk to; several people mentioning the same topic or piece of information; books that jump off the shelf; fleeting thoughts; certainly anything unusual or what is frequently called "by accident." To me, there is no such thing as "coincidence." I find it important to trust that everything happens for a good reason, even if we have difficulties figuring out why. That also applies to unpleasant events and situations that really challenge us. It means recognizing events as blessings in disguise and being grateful for what initially might be seen as stumbling blocks. It also means practicing an attitude of gratitude, giving thanks for the many nice little things when they appear all through the day.

Life is a spiritual journey in which the people we interact with act as our mirrors. If we spot something in them, we got it in side of us, be it positive or less flattering qualities. The people in our lives mirror back to us what is essential for us to focus on for spiritual growth. Our biggest button pushers are our greatest teachers. They also come into our lives because of sacred contracts that we agreed to before incarnating, which to me means that we are asked to go beyond the blaming and finger pointing.

Emphasizing the spiritual aspect of life includes nurturing our own connection with the Divine, taking quiet time to be still, stopping the busyness for a while on a regular basis. It is asking how we can best be of service to others, paying attention to the answers that come and acting on them. Last but not least, we can only be of service to others if we have filled our own well. If our well has run dry, we have nothing to offer. So self-care is not an option but a necessity, an essential requirement so that we can do our spiritual work.

By Rica Gerhardt