Many of us are constantly in stressful situations at work, demanding more of our bodies, minds, and energy. When do we pull back and say enough before we lose ourselves? Empowerment and spiritual life coach, Reiki master, and teacher Jodi Friedman tells those of us struggling, “Come meditate with me. Come do Reiki. Save your heart.” In this episode, she takes us into a world of wellness and healing. She sits down with Chris Swartz to talk about Reiki and the importance of connecting with your soul. Rediscover yourself in the process of slowing down. Tune in to this conversation with Jodi to learn more.

—

Listen to the podcast here

 

Jodi Friedman – Reiki & Connecting With Your Soul

What’s up, everyone? I am here with our guest, Jodi Friedman. Jodi, how are you?

I’m doing great. Thank you so much for having me on your show. I appreciate it.

We’re excited to have you. You’ve got some interesting stuff that I’ve got a lot of questions about. Jodi is an empowerment spiritual life coach. She’s a Reiki master and teacher. She works with meditation. She’s in Las Vegas, Sin City out there. You probably got a lot of work to do out there. Also, you focus on breathwork and all kinds of different areas of wellness and healing. She is a best-selling author. I’m going to let you unpack all that. It’s super exciting and so great to have you on.

Thanks. It would start with what I love the most, which is energy healing called Reiki. It’s universal life force energy. It found me in the ‘90s when I met my Reiki master. She was a massage therapist. I was doing a massage once a month for 10 to 12 years with her. In the middle of that, she said to me, “Come and take the Reiki workshops.”

At the time, I was letting go of my marriage. It helped me to understand deeply inside of me things that were wrong and could be righted, but on my own, it was difficult. With the additional support of doing healing on myself, because that’s where I was back in the ‘90s, it helped me do the things that I needed to do. I was in real estate at the time. I gave back my real estate license after 50 years.

That was what I wanted to talk about, too, before we go too deep into where you are. In true FUEL fashion, it is understanding the Foundation Under your Extraordinary Life, which is what we do in this show. That’s the acronym that FUEL stands for. We want to understand the journey and what led you to this. You touched on it a little bit.

As many people who tune in to the show and know me, they know my world outside of this. I own a mortgage company. There are a lot of guests that are in that arena, whether it’s real estate, mortgage, and then anybody that’s on the journey of consuming anything to level up their game in life as the audience here. A lot of people that end up in real estate or something like that are on the show. I found it interesting that you had 50 years in real estate.

It was 40 years. I decided, “I’m not doing it anymore.” I loved doing it in the early years when the interest rates were 11% but I could still sell homes then. I connect very well with people with good communication. The more I stayed in it, the more I realized I wanted to do the healing work. It was almost like I had a double career, but real estate was what was lucrative back in the ‘80s and ‘90s. When the market went crazy, I started thinking, “Is this what I want to do?”

After the boom years in Las Vegas, I made a lot of money in 2002, 2003, and 2004. When trouble hit, I started paying more attention to what was going on inside of me. That led me to do my healing work more intentionally. That’s the name of my company, Intentional Healings, which I created in about 2011 and 2012. I’ve been working on it as a practice since then. I was doing both real estate and healing until I said, “I don’t want to do the real estate anymore.” I closed the doors so I wouldn’t have any chicken exits.

You’re all in.

After I left my marriage in the ‘90s, I continued with real estate, but then, I started doing the spiritual journey. For me, I call it an awakening. With that, I traveled to a lot of different countries. I traveled to Brazil, Bali, and England. I saw Stonehenge in England. In India, I went ahead and shaved my head in the middle of being in a movie, which was a crazy thing to do.

That is wild. I can relate given that’s the other side of my industry, but life in general is stressful and demanding on our bodies, our minds, and our energy. I find that, especially in real estate, it is a high-stress career, whether it’s real estate or mortgage. Somebody had told me, “Did you know the number one cause of death for mortgage people is a heart attack?” I’m like, “That sounds terrible,” and then I’m like, “I do know quite a few people that have had a heart attack.”

I’ll go after all the mortgage people and tell them, “Come meditate with me. Come do Reiki. Save your heart.”

Especially after 2023, you could get a nice funnel of clients. The journey you described, all the places you’ve been, and the extensive work, this is not a hobby. You are all in. How did you decide to get involved with this? Tell me a little bit about that journey.

In the 1990s, I met my Reiki master. We were selling these weight reduction pills with ma huang, not knowing that that’s like ephedra. We didn’t know that we shouldn’t be doing that. We were losing weight, but it wasn’t a good ingredient. That’s how my Reiki master and I met. She would do massage on me and give me Reiki. I always felt so much better than any massage I’ve ever had before. I’d never heard of Reiki.

In the early years when she was certifying people, she said, “Come and do the work.” I went in 1996. I got certified in levels 1 and 2 at their one-day workshops. She went on to do healing touch. She went to a different modality, but I loved Reiki. I loved the way it feels. I practiced on people and felt always so good doing it.

During that time, my daughter was eleven and I was in a marriage that I didn’t want to be in anymore. I had tried for a long time. Reiki helped me find myself as I would go inward. It helps with clairs, clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, and claircognizance. What it does is it opens everything up. It clears the chakra system. There are seven spinning wheels in the body called the chakra system. As it does that, it is like talking to your soul in the future and getting feedback.

 

This is pretty wild and pretty intense. I love it because I’m sure there are a lot of people that are reading that have heard about Reiki, such as myself who’s sitting here with you. It’s this energy healing. This is interesting to hear about the process, but I had to stop you there.

No worries. I rattled that off like it was nothing. It is my journey, and it’s such a breath of fresh air. When I do get around people, a lot of times, I’ll meet somebody for the first time, and in about five minutes, I’ve got them under my arm or under my shoulder and they are sobbing in my chest. They feel safe and comfortable with me because I have been through a lot. I have a lot of compassion for others that are in trauma situations.

Even from childhood, the majority of us have some type of trauma in our systems. What happens is programs build up. We create from that place of a little five-year-old. We get triggered by things in past memories and belief systems that as an adult, we thought about it if we realized that we could get some healing and some life coaching. I empower women to help them process things that keep them from their happiness. It is that and Reiki.

I’m also a meditation specialist. I do a lot of meditations all year long in the Las Vegas Valley at a winery, which is one of the places. I go out to nature sites and people’s pools in their backyards. I’m doing meditations. The energy of water can help heal and cleanse. I worked from the perspective of how to heal a person from the inside out. It’s mind, body, and spirit.

Going back to spirit, I talk to my soul. You could think of it as divinity, God, source, or universe. People call it whatever they call it, but it’s a power higher than ourselves that created us. That’s the energy that I speak to because, to me, that’s truth and that’s the purest form of love. Reiki is love. That’s what I get. To run it through me, as an observer, I step back. I make the connection to that source. It’s like taking a light cord and putting it in the socket, and then you get light. That’s exactly what I do. I connect to a higher source. I allow myself to sit quietly, and the energy starts to flow through me.

It feels like love. Do you know how you feel when you’re in love or you’re sharing love, or you’re happy about things? It’s this happy feeling that goes through me, and I observe it. I don’t try to change it or try to insert my opinion. I step my personality back and allow the spiritual aspect or the spirit part to flow through me. It’s beautiful. There’s nothing scary about it. I talk to my clients about how they feel. It’s not religion. It’s spiritual.

That’s interesting. It’s more agnostic. It’s not religious or anything. It’s energy and healing, it sounds like. Some people, in the past, when they’ve heard of Reiki are like, “That’s more spiritual or religious type stuff. That’s something religious,” but it doesn’t sound like that at all.

It is God-based for me. Everybody has their own opinion of what God is for them. I always ask people, “How are you comfortable calling this spiritual force?” I deal with people with religion. What I’m saying is it’s not a religious thing, and yet, I deal with the purest energy. In all religions, isn’t that supposed to be about love?

Yeah. That’s great clarity for me and those that are reading to understand a little bit more about it. Describe to me how long is a session or experience. What is it? Help us understand what it looks like.

When people pay for a session, it’s 90 minutes. It’s coaching. It’s chatting. It’s finding out how a person’s feeling and what they’re presenting with. They could present with something physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual. It works through all those bodies of energy because everything is energy. It’s working with the suggestion that if you have a problem, the solution is always right on the other side of the problem.

Why don’t we deal with it from a higher perspective? You can’t fix a problem on the same level it got created. It’s already come down through the spiritual. I go up to the spiritual and then allow that energy to float down and work on whatever issue or challenge somebody’s having. The key is in the observing, the observation is that I don’t have any agenda. I ask their greater or their higher self to bring them what they need.

You can't fix a problem on the same level it got created. Click To Tweet

To me, it’s therapy because there is that dialogue, it sounds like. You’re trying to understand what they’re presenting.

Once in a while, we get somebody who’s closed but they’ve heard of Reiki. They’ve heard it feels wonderful. What it feels like is you’ve gone to the spa and you’ve had a deep tissue massage. You get in the eucalyptus sauna, and then somebody comes and gives you a facial. That’s what it feels like. When they’re done, most people are floating. They have to sit for a few minutes.

I have to get them grounded and back in their body because they’ve gone very far away and allowed themselves to heal. They let go of all their thoughts and all their concerns. They left it at the door when they came in, then they go back out. If they want, I tell them, “You can pick it up if you want or you can enjoy the process of giving yourself this amazing self-care.” Usually, they’re back in about a month or a couple of weeks.

That’s interesting to hear the difference. Correct me if I’m wrong. When you’re getting a deep tissue massage, there’s a lot of physical bodywork. With Reiki, you’re not physically doing any bodywork.

You can do the hover method. Let’s say the body is 3 to 6 inches above the body. It’s energy. A practitioner can feel the energy. Some people are more comfortable out in the energy field. If the client says, “It’s okay to touch,” because everybody needs touch, but some people prefer not to be touched but they can touch, there are hand placements. We can place our hands on the body.

In Nevada, we have to have a life ministry permit to touch as it is in Las Vegas. We’re not licensed to touch like a massage therapist or an esthetician. With everybody, I ask, “Are you okay with touch?” If they don’t give me permission, then it’s completely above the body, feeling their energy field. I can do as much above the body as I can with touch.

That’s wild to think about what you’ve described and the feeling after. In some instances, you may not have even touched the person. That is mind-blowing to me.

I’m going to blow your mind even more than that. I certify people in Reiki also. There are three levels. Reiki 1 is for self-healing. Reiki 2 is you can get a business license and do the healing, but it’s also to learn how to do long-distance healing. I teach people how to use the level 2 symbols. There are 3 Reiki symbols in level 3. The third one is a long-distance symbol. Everything is energy. That’s the concept. We can send anybody anywhere in the world energy to heal.

Send some over here. We’re going from Philly to Vegas. Let’s do a test.

Right now?

No. After this, maybe. I’m very interested in exploring this. I’ve tried a lot of things, whether it’s massage or breathing. I don’t know if anybody reading would agree with this, but I find it very difficult, especially as a driven entrepreneur type-A personality, to shut my mind down. Someone’s like, “Do some breathing exercises or meditate.” For me, I almost get frustrated meditating because I’m expecting this total Zen that it’s all shut down. People have explained to me, “There are going to be thoughts that come. Let them come. Let them go.” I’ve tried, but that whole meditation and getting into that state for myself is very difficult.

Every month, I’m doing meditations for people. I’m either at the winery or somewhere else. Some people think, “What is a meditation person doing at a winery?” We have wine afterward. I meditate, but I do enjoy some red wine with clients afterward. What I help people do is tell them, “You can’t meditate wrong.” You might like to do a guided visual imagery meditation, either in a group or you can even do it by listening to a podcast. People on YouTube do them. It is a guide where you’re listening to the voice.

You can't meditate wrong. Click To Tweet

Typically, people can let some of their thoughts go. We have between 60 and 85,000 thoughts every day. A lot of those thoughts aren’t ours. They’re thoughts that are jammed into our system. That could be from parents, our lifestyle, or people that we respect and honor but may not be so great for us. We have all these thoughts. Meditation, yoga, and breathwork are great ways to be able to release some of those thoughts. That’s the natural way to get rid of the monkey mind.

It happens over time. It doesn’t happen the first time you meditate. All those thoughts are still there. I don’t want to say it is tricking the mind, but it is telling the mind that it doesn’t have to be on all the time. The mind is used to the control of listening to all these thoughts. What I tell my clients is, “Do it five minutes a day. Get up in the morning, sit with yourself, listen to some gentle spa and relaxation music, and allow your thoughts to free flow.”

That’s the best way to start, and then you can journal what your thoughts are. This is how I trained myself in the beginning. I would journal what I was getting and then all of a sudden, I was getting information. Where is that information coming from? That information eventually will. You’ll recognize them. Some people recognize that that’s from their souls.

Your soul has information to give you, but it can’t talk to you when you’re not listening. That’s why we’re human beings. We’re not human doings. We need to take some time to allow ourselves to get valuable information for our soul’s mission, our physical body, and our mental well-being. It comes from the information of our souls. It’s a blueprint. A lot of people never get to meditation. How are they going to find out what that is?

We’re in a society that’s always going. You talk about the monkey brain. We are like a monkey society. It’s always, “Go.” I was talking to some of my colleagues about the speed of communication and how it’s evolved. It used to be like, “As long as I got back to Jodi within 24 hours, that’s reasonable communication.” It then became, “I got to get back to her the same day,” and then I had to get back to you within a couple of hours. If you text me and I don’t answer in five minutes, it’s like, “What’s wrong with Chris? He’s not answering me.” I’m like, “Wow.”

It shrunk the day. How do you put all of that in? People find that they’re much more efficient when they have a regular practice. You would be surprised if you did it for five minutes a day. If you’re committed to yourself, you’d be like, “I’m going to start a practice. I’m going to see how I feel.” Do it for five days. Start. Take the 5 minutes, and then you can increase that gently over time to 10 minutes. You could do 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes before bed.

What people find is after they’re doing that for a while, they can’t be without it. It gives you that sense of calm. Breathwork does that, too. We breathe so shallowly because it’s automatic. When we take the time at a breathwork workshop over the weekend, people couldn’t believe, in half an hour, how things had changed. It changes your physiology because you’re not taking in any information. You’re letting go of things that are painful in your body if you can imagine that.

I’m going to take myself away from this and give myself that five minutes. I want to check in with you. A lot of people tuning in to the show were in the arena of coaching, self-development, and the entrepreneurial world. The reason I wanted to have you share this information is a lot of times when you are in that space, you don’t take the time to slow down. You don’t take the time to give yourself that space. I thought it would be great to have you come on and share with our audience some ways that they can get started. You’ve mentioned taking the five minutes and putting on some spa music. It doesn’t have to be this elaborate set up right?

Not at all. It’s about you unplugging. It’s about you saying, “I’m going to take five for myself.” I have people that, for years, have come to my meditations and they look forward to it. People come to me on Friday nights. Believe it or not, that’s their special time. I have Saturdays, Sundays, and the middle of the week because we need it. We need it in order to be effective and efficient. That’s a great thing.

It sounds amazing. I’m certainly going to connect with you to learn more. We’ll see if that level 2 energy can work from Philly to Vegas. We’ll do a follow-up show. This has been great to learn more about Reiki and that self-care. Our audience that’s reading, I know a lot of us are driven and go-go-go all the time. Thank you for sharing this information and giving us a little glimpse into what Reiki can do, the other areas with the breath work, and everything that you do. It’s been so great to have you share this information.

If somebody wants to get started with Reiki or breath work, are there any resources? We’re going to talk at the end here as we wrap up about how they can connect with you specifically. In general, do you have any books or courses outside that are easy for someone to pick up and learn more that you maybe have used in your career?

If they’re interested in Reiki, they can look up either Diane Stein and/or William Rand. They have books out since the ‘90s. They’re pretty much the ones that people think of as people that have written books. Dr. Usui is the lineage of Reiki. They’ve written books about the Usui method. There’s one that I teach which is called Essential Reiki. That’s my Reiki master course. People could learn about it.

Books that I read when I was very early into it that helped me expand my mind were Hands of Light by Barbara Brennan and The Celestine Prophecy. It talks about how energy moves and how energy between people moves. It’s a fast read. It’s a fictional novel, but people will get a better understanding of what it is like to recognize that energy is everything. We’re always connecting with each other through our energy.

I agree. I’ve always heard of energy, physiology, and how you can change your state. I never had an experience with that because I was like, “This stuff doesn’t work. It is what it is.” I went to an event in December 2022. Tony Robbins has an event called Date with Destiny. It is 6 days for 12 to 14 hours a day. I remember being there in the energy and being close to, “I’m not jumping up and down with these crazy people with this loud music and lights. This is all rah-rah hoopla. Give me the info. I’m not doing this.”

After a little bit, I opened up. I’m like, “Maybe this isn’t a bunch of crazy people jumping around and high-fiving.” I felt the difference in the energy in how that made me feel and everything. I said, “Maybe this guy who’s a billionaire maybe he knows a little something. I should be a little more open.” It was interesting.

One of the things I took away from there was how quickly you can change your feelings, emotion, or how you’re being by changing your state in your physiology. Get up. Stand up. Shake it out or vent. Do something physical to change your state. It was so amazing how recharged we felt by changing our physiology. It was eye-opening to me. I’m interested to continue to explore that. We’ll connect. You’re going to help me get through some of this stuff. For our readers, how can they connect with you, continue the conversation, and learn more about what you do?

That’s great. I love it. They can check out my website. It’s IntentionalHealings.com. I’m on Facebook quite a bit. I have my events. I do Reiki certification. It would be @JodiFriedman on Facebook. From there, they can get into some of my spiritual groups if they want to. They can ask me direct questions on Messenger. I still have a few more places for friends on Facebook. I’m close to 5,000.

There are people tuning in from all over. You’re in Las Vegas, but it doesn’t matter.

I do Zoom work every day. I have coaching clients in town and all over the country, so it doesn’t matter. Anywhere and anytime, I’m here.

I appreciate it. I look forward to continuing our conversation. For everyone reading, if you want to connect with Jodi, reach out. She’s got a few slots left for some friends on Facebook. Other than that, if you miss out, you can hit her up on our website. Thank you so much for taking the time to share all this information with us.

Thank you. I enjoyed this very much.

You’re welcome. Hopefully, to everybody reading, you enjoyed the show. If you got something out of this, as always, we ask you to share it on social media. Pass it forward. If you’re tuning in on iTunes, give us a five-star rating. We’ll catch you on the next episode of the show.

 

Important Links

• Jodi Friedman
• William Rand
• Essential Reiki
• Hands of Light
• The Celestine Prophecy
• @JodiFriedman – Facebook
• iTunes – FUEL with Chris Schwartz
• https://www.Amazon.com/Sovereign-Liberated-Women-Boldly-Claim/dp/B09HG646YH

 

About Jodi Friedman

Jodi Friedman is an Empowerment Spiritual Life Coach, Reiki Master Teacher, Meditation Teacher in Las Vegas, Breathwork Specialist, Master Hypnotist, and Best Selling Author.

She worked in Real Estate for 40 years and is committed to Coaching women who are committed to their growth!

Jodi traveled to Bali, England, and India to practice Breathwork to help her clients experience a deep release that breathwork can provide. Always working on herself, she is a natural healer/teacher who teaches alignment and messages about sovereign practices to connect deeply with the Soul.

 

Tags: Breathwork, Connecting With Soul, Energy Healing, Meditation, Reiki, Slow Down