Episode 54: WTF DOES OLIVIA ACTUALLY DO FOR A LIVING?!
“Big black boots. Long brown hair. She's so sweet with her…get-back stare.”-Are You Gonna Be My Girl (the new theme song of Sunday Nights Are For Hopeless Romantics)
YOUR UNIQUE MEDICINE!!! ROCK & ROLL JUXTAPOSED WITH OLIVIA CALMLY EXPLAINING HOW THINGS WORK!!! SO WHAT THE HELL IS REIKI?!?! AND WTF IS HEARTMATH®?!?! Olivia talks about her day job. HOLDING SPACE!!!! I love, I care, and I am kind to people for a living. You might be thinking, “What? That’s not a job. Who appointed you Disney Princess of the year….” Well in my world, it is a job. HOW YOU LIKE ME NOW?!?! SEXOLOGY!!! NON-JUDGEMENT!! SELF-REGULATION!!! IMPERFECT AND LEARNING!!! I am teaching my medicine. MORE ROCK & ROLL!!! THETA WAVES!!! HYPNOSIS!!! FLOATING ON A CLOUD!!! A DEEPER CONNECTION TO THE RUSHING TIDES OF THE UNIVERSE…. WEIRD BOAT METAPHORS (classic)!!! & I’ll be here, holding down my corner. You know, like I do.
Excerpt 1:
“So,
What, exactly, on earth, do I do for a living?
Well… I love, I care, and I am kind to people for a living. You might be thinking, what? That’s not a job. Who appointed you Disney princess of the year?! Well, in my world, it is a job. It’s called Reiki, and self-regulation strategies. It’s learning how to relax, clear the mind of extra clutter, allowing for the body to heal itself with its own natural processes. It’s learning how to focus on gratitude; how to approach the world in a different way. It’s simple and subtle and vastly wildly profound. And really, to me, it’s everything. Now, remember how I’m always telling you, where your wound is, where your pain is, that is also where your unique medicine lies. If you are an addict, you can get sober and help other addicts get and stay sober, you have this unique medicine now. What you have been through and overcome, makes you uniquely who you are. And I’m not saying that medicine will be for everyone. Actually, it shouldn’t be, because then you would just be people-pleasing all the time and that’s not genuine. But for those people you have the right medicine for, you will get to watch this miraculous thing: a person becoming, in front of your eyes, everything they were always meant to be. Until one day they walk out of your door, on their way, to becoming that medicine for someone else. Because healing is regenerative agriculture. If planted properly it will continue to grow, to expand, to nourish outwards. More and more with each passing year.
So, what on earth do I do for a living. Well, it’s not sit and listen to rock music… although I considered wanting that to be my job for a long time. No, it’s even more fascinating. I get to sit with people and watch them change, evolve, learn and grow. And somewhere along the line, I get to relieve little bits of suffering along the way, or I should say, the Reiki does. In my world, through my modalities, there is one singular truth: you are the only one that can heal yourself, your body, your mind. I can tell you what I think might be useful, but ultimately, we always have choice, always have intuition, and therefore we are the only ones who know what is right for us, deeply on a very very individual level. Now, this gets tricky, when sometimes people have been abused or conditioned in such a way that they don’t even know how to ask for what they need — how to vocalize what would help them. And that is where the Reiki comes in. This energy — it goes where it’s needed. I’m not going into your body with energy and poking and prodding around to try and dig something up and purify it or whatever. I DO NOT DO THAT. And I’m not knocking that either. But it sounds like it would run the risk of having some backlash on me, maybe even hurting you and me in the process. Actually, I know that for sure… Once I accidentally cracked someone’s walled-off heart open, and they obsessed over me for the next 3 years. It was all bad. ALLL BAD. It hurt me and them. It was nothing but hurt. But I was young and powerful and naive. So, I’m not going in there to “fix” anything. NO. I am tapping into a frequency, an electrical current if you will, that brings balance to the cells in the body. And if you really want to get esoteric with it... That’s the frequency of unconditional love. Or universal healing energy.
So, I’ll read you the descriptions straight from my website, which explains exactly what it is I do. But first I’ll say this, it is like being a therapist, I am listening and holding heart-centered space, but I am not a therapist. It is like seeing a doctor, who explains the workings of your nervous system and prescribes something to help with self-regulation, but I am not a doctor. I prescribe meditation instead of medication. It is like seeing a massage therapist, but you don’t get naked, and I’m not manipulating your body in any way. Simply applying gentle touch to your head, arms, stomach legs, and feet. It is like seeing a spiritual counselor, but I am not here to tell you what you should be experiencing or what to believe in. It is like seeing a coach, but I am not here to fix your life, only you can do that. I am merely a facilitator, a witness, a channel (I hate that word but it’s true). I practice what are called supplemental therapy modalities. This means that what I do complements everything already in your life.”
Excerpt 2:
“Well folks it seems that’s our whole show for the evening… turns out it takes me a whole show to explain what on earth I do for a living. And someone once asked me what qualifies me to have a radio show about sex, love, romance, spirituality, time portals, healing, suffering, and joy. And I said, '“Well NOTHING except a whole lot of suffering… a whole lot of lost love, a whole lot of therapy (14 years, if you want to get into the specifics….) My training on interpersonal relations and communication. Working with hundreds of people, and holding a whole lot of space. And, well, this show is pretty much about the only thing I’m really an expert on… my own personal experience! Ha yeahhh…. So there’s that. Other than that, I’m not all that qualified. But I have studied love — my whole life. And I am not on a quest to perfect it or even understand it. I am here to live it. And to translate that experience to you. Whoever you may be. One day at a time. So I’ll take us out with one final song, a deviation from our crunchy sexy Rock & Roll, to a mellower mood. Here’s “Not Much” by Hailaker.
And remember one thing, if you consistently align yourself, with the joy already in your life, the pure pleasure here. You will, in fact, find more of it — because what you focus on expands — until it pours out of you, like water, the tide of peace. Cutting through everything in its path, not by resisting, but by yielding, by flowing where there is space.
So here’s “Not Much” by Hailaker. Followed by “Fame” By Ocie Elliot… both rambling and beautiful songs that I stand around in my kitchen in a kimono and drink tea while listening to. Or tidy the house, or cook a good meal to. Blissed out, in my own little world. With this magic thing that only music can do. The soundtrack to my life. Creating romance out of thin air. That I have with myself of course…”
Excerpt 3: (ohh just go listen to the show already, it’s great!)
“And I hope you learned one thing tonight. And it is that there are few things I believe can’t be healed with love, patience, practice, reverence, pleasure, support, and joy.
And since my life isn’t exactly filled with a lot of romance lately (comes with the territory of having a partner all the way across the country), but I’ve had a whole lot of work… I figured it was time to clarify some things. You know, so that when I make fun of myself and the work I do you’re in on the joke with me.
And I’ll say one final thing, about my practice. To me, as a Master Reiki Practitioner… yes it’s ironic to think we’ve mastered anything at 27 years old… But that’s what it’s called and I’m here for the contradictions. Well, as a Master Reiki Practitioner, to me, everything is reiki. There is no good, no bad energy. It is all reiki. I am not just doing reiki when I’m sitting with someone at my table. I am always doing reiki! I am reiki! You are reiki! And we are all together! Anyone get that bad Beetles reference? No? I am the walrus? Anyways. The master level teaching asks of us, that “Reiki is in every breath.” There becomes no separation, between talking with a client and having your hands placed on them. It is all Reiki, you are holding that space, in Reiki. My studio is reiki. It’s literally written on the walls; I scrubbed it into the floorboards with my hands before we even put a piece of furniture in there. I wrote down one note (of the very very few notes I took during my Master Practitioner teaching. Which was this: No more Reiki does you, you do Reiki.
And I can sure say, Reiki DID me for a long time. It did me HARD. It trainwrecked my life and put it back together again. It purged everything that wasn’t serving me, so that I could be in service. So, on that note…. I think it’s time I finally release you from this weird class.”
