Writing Together: Elise Brenner and Nancy Spatz

January 28, 2022 | By | Reply More

On the writing process for Reiki: A Self-Practice to Live in Peace with Self and Others

Before we met, we were each separately benefiting from our practice of self-Reiki healing, meditation, self-inquiry, and reflection.  We were also both envisioning pathways of presenting self-Reiki practice as a mainstream practice for everyone and anyone—all of us with challenges big and small, personal and systemic.

Elise Brenner, PhD, Reiki practitioner and teacher and Mindfulness Instructor, was doing outreach, bringing mind-body skills based in Reiki practice to the community.  Brenner was especially concerned with wellness equity, as the so-called “Wellness Industrial Complex” was becoming the exclusive domain of people with privilege, especially people who are white.  To that end, Elise began doing outreach efforts to introduce mind-body skills based in traditional Japanese Reiki practices and teachings that were egalitarian, accessible, acceptable, and user-friendly.  Among the settings in which Brenner offered these mind-body practice workshops are cancer support groups, domestic abuse survivors support groups, career support groups, settings in which elders gather, and even corporate settings.

As a medical resident, Nancy Spatz, MD, Reiki Master Teacher, witnessed the ongoing hardships that people experience with medical and emotional illness. Nancy found that the combination of her medical knowledge and Reiki practice helped people calm the mind, settle the body, and heal.  Nancy’s care for others became the impetus to get the word out so all of us can experience the benefits of Reiki self-practice. Nancy has been involved in advocacy work for children for several decades.  Early in her training, Nancy realized that childhood experiences shape children’s ability to cope and advocate for themselves. After working with abused children, Nancy noticed how vulnerable and exposed children can be when they’ve suffered adverse childhood experiences. Nancy understood that for the children to feel safe and empowered, the adults around them must model stability and calm by practicing Reiki mind-body skills.  

We first met at one of the annual Celebration of Reiki Conferences in Massachusetts, and from there, at one of the trainings offered by the Celebration of Reiki, Inc.  We discovered we lived in neighboring cities and had multiple overlapping commonalities in our life experiences and backgrounds. We shared a commitment to facilitating the healing process with as many people as possible despite the many hardships they encounter. When we realized that the way we could easily reach people would be by writing an accessible book for all, the process naturally began

It was the co-authoring process of Reiki: A Self-Practice to Live in Peace with Self and Others itself that turned out to be what it was all about.  We experienced openness, trust, and deep connection, including when we each held firm opinions and perspectives on any given topic.  The collaboration, the working together, the partnering in creating the book all became the ignition for growing our practice, our relationship, our book, and also how we walked in the world. 

Writing a book with ‘living in peace with and others’ in its title, cannot be just an academic endeavor.  The process of writing about self- Reiki practice and teachings, in which we had been immersed for nearly two decades for one of us, led to far-reaching self-inquiry and insight for both of us.  Insight emerging from self-inquiry optimally brings one to greater awareness, especially meta-awareness, about one’s self and one’s relationships to all beings.  Following this, ideally, one experiences ever more shifts in one’s speech and behavior.  Each of us became more skillful as we became more aware of the consequences on self and others of unskillful words and actions.  We woke up to ourselves more and more over the course of writing Reiki: A Self-Practice to Live in Peace with Self and Others

Elise got more in touch with the body signals that “told” her that she was becoming reactive by an encounter, experience, or the overall uncertainty of life.  This awareness of her self-alert signaling system allowed Elise to really put into practice more effectively the intentional pause presented in Chapter 4 of Reiki: A Self-Practice to Live in Peace with Self and Others.  It became very clear to Elise that a Beginner’s Mind was necessary at all times, and that the path to authentic inner and outer peacefulness is surely ongoing.  A lesson Elise knew intellectually, but did not always embody day-to-day.  The changes in speech and behavior that resulted for Elise and those around her simply from Elise taking a few hara breaths and an intentional pause became their own self-reinforcing system of rewards. 

In a sense, turning off her own reactivity and, more often than not, the reactivity of others, so the cycle of potential escalation was gently reversed as all of those involved were able to access a measure of emotional self-regulation.  While we cannot control the reaction of everyone all the time, we can certainly control our own most of the time when we incorporate the mind-body practices described in Reiki: A Self-Practice to Live in Peace with Self and Others.

We laugh even now while we recall the numerous occasions of spending 15 or more minutes on one word choice.  We may have agonized about any one word, yet we also shared genuine laughter and joy about that very process. 

About the Author

Elise Brenner (Pronouns: she/her), PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health at Simmons University in Boston and is an instructor in the Department of Anthropology at Bridgewater State University in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Brenner is a Reiki Master Practitioner & Teacher, Mindfulness Meditation Teacher is committed to wellness equity in all of the services she provides. The owner of Brenner Reiki Healing in Newton, Massachusetts, Elise provides comprehensive training in all levels of Reiki, having trained physicians, nurses, social workers, physical therapists, teachers, and people of all ages and backgrounds. Brenner has provided Reiki training for staff at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center staff, Edith Nourse Rogers Veterans Administration Hospital in Bedford, MA, and Tufts Medical Center in Boston.

Twitter https://twitter.com/BrennerReiki

Nancy Spatz, MD, Reiki Master Teacher, graduated from Boston University School of Medicine in 1990. Nancy’s training continued at Beth Israel Hospital-Harvard Medical School, where she completed her Psychiatry training in 1994.

After witnessing the ongoing hardships that people experience with medical and emotional illness, Nancy found that the combination of her medical knowledge and Reiki practice helped people calm the mind, settle the body, and heal. Nancy’s care for others became the impetus to get the word out so all of us can experience the benefits of Reiki self-practice.

Reiki: A Self-Practice To Live in Peace with Self and Others

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Category: On Writing

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