160. Healers Healing Healers: The Power of Community with Jeff Yukikazu Sera

Welcome to Mind Power Meets Mystic. The show where practical mind power and mystical wisdom collide with humor and wild curiosity. Yeah, we're not here to play it safe. I'm Cinthia Varkevisser, your resident spiritual shit disturber. I stir things up with mystic power and bold action. And I'm Michelle Walters, coach and Hypnotherapist. I bring strategy and transformative hypnosis to help you turn subconscious blocks into unstoppable momentum. Let's shake up your thinking, dive into your soul and make bold moves in your life. We'll take you on a journey of breakthrough and aha moments, exploring spirit, business, love relationships and self expansion. We're connecting you with your highest self and flipping fear into strength. So buckle up. We're doing this one wild, transformative conversation at a time.

Let's go. Welcome to another episode of Mind Power Meets Mystic. I am Michelle Walters. I am the mind power part of our equation. I am a Clinical Hypnotherapist, and I am joined today by the lovely, the beautiful, the fabulous, Cinthia Varkevisser, our show mystic. She is an intuitive healer and a strategic intuition coach. I think that's the latest. We are excited to have a special guest today as someone that Cinthia met along the way. Jeff Yukikazu Sara is a Reiki Master Teacher and a self demand, self development. Sensei, whose healing work focuses on supporting spiritual awakening, self development and emotional intelligence in order to fast track the process of healing your body, mind and spirit, Jeff uses Reiki, self awareness and sound to support you with the journey of healing. Welcome, Jeff, thanks, guys, great to be here. Excited for our conversation today.

You're muted. We can't hear you. Cinthia, how often am I ever I'm never muted? No. So yeah, you love to talk.

That is true. We got to meet Jeff at a it's called

spiritual. What the fuck or spiritual, WTF, fair. And I thought it was very interesting. He was one of the people leading an experience, and so you could go to booths and get readings, get Reiki, and then they also had something set aside for experiences. And I was very interested in the experience that you were leading, because there were so many people who were interested in going, right? You actually had a group of people walking to us like, Who the hell is this person that all that these people are walking in for your experience, right? I'm curious. I want to go. And when I met you, you are a bundle of positivity and healing. So I want to let you know that that's that was my first impression of you. And then I heard that you lead this group. And at that time it was fairly new, called healers. Healing. Healers, right? Yeah, we call it h3 for short. But right.

So can you tell us the type of work that you do, how that you know, how that came to be, and then I'll stop there, because then we'll talk about h3 in a little bit.

So I support people with healing in a variety of different ways, and it really depends on the individual, where they're at in their journey and what they want to achieve.

For me, it started in: 2020

development world, and looking at how, how that space was so beneficial in terms of like knowledge and things that I learned that was not taught to me in any institution, right? So I didn't learn any of that stuff in school. Granted, I may not have been paying attention, but

it was the most kind of impactful information that I came across in my life that made such a drastic improvement with things. And so as I began that journey, I dove into psilocybin and also covered kind of the energy where I would just feel things like, what is this and what can I do with it?

And that led me to exploring Reiki and then eventually integrating it into my business, where people will come to me for Reiki sessions, and during that session, will also talk about kind of self development and how whatever they're experiencing, whether it's physical pain, stuck emotions, energetic stuckness, that it's something they've created themself. And we can choose to be a victim of everything in the circumstances, or we can be responsible for how did we create that reality for ourselves? And what can we do to then change?

You

on the other side, people will come to me for self development because they're frustrated, or they hit a wall and feel stuck, and then they want to kind of overcome that. And as we're having these discussions, we may hit a point where they have an energetic block, and then we can use Reiki to clear that or support them with whatever they're going through. So I take take people from both sides, and I merge the two to look at the energy of a person as well as their mindset going into it

pretty fab. I dig it. I'm so down for it. Well, I'm also down. I also love that you are willing to just experiment with pretty much anything along the way. Is that how you you know, is that how you started h3 just experimenting and having a bunch of people, or was it an intentional, an intentional thing that you created? So it started where we have, in San Jose, there's a place called a healing place, and it's a open space that people can rent the room and use it for a variety of different activities. So I was going to one that was a channeling and healing kind of event that happened every week or every other week,

and it was the group was comprised half of people that were offering healings, and then half of the general public that was just coming to receive and with that group, there's a set amount of time that they rent the room for. And at the end of it, we would always work on the other people that were coming from the public. And if there was time, then we would work on each other, but we would often run out of time, and it's like the healers wouldn't receive healings. So then what we would do was, okay, well, let's just go to my house afterwards, and we won't have the time time restraint, and we can just kind of hang out and work on each other. So we started to kind of do that and set time for it. And the first gathering, I think there was, like seven of us that was just kind of from that group, where we pulled it and said, hey, just come into the house and we're just going to do healings

on each other. And we we thought it was something kind of cool, and so we continued to just kind of expand that and invite other people that were in the space, that were healers. And as we grew bigger, we kind of just developed the process and a cadence. And so we meet twice a month, and the one rule that we have is, before you go home, you have to receive a healing, because a lot of us in the healing space are so used to just giving, giving, giving and having output, but it's

unless we're conscious of it. You know, we have to really pause, slow down and receive as well. And so the space exists for us to fill our cups. And you're not required to always give a healing in that space, but you are required to receive one, because if you're not feeling the greatest, or if you're in your shit, you can show up and still receive

that's kind of the point of the space. So it's funny, when people are like, Oh, I can't make it because I'm sick, it's like, well, if you're not contagious, then you should be here. And if you are contagious, then we have a virtual space. And so

it kind of just evolved over time, and we're at we have over 100 members that we've kind of gone through. So our vetting process really is just, I connect with the person, and we do an exchange. So they share their healing modality and I share mine. And if they're an energetic match, then we kind of, we go from there and we invite them into the space.

I look at it as it's really just we host this in my home. And so the vetting process is, are you an energetic alignment? And am I comfortable inviting you, me, inviting you into my home? And if you meet that criteria, then really, that's all we're looking for. There are times and occasions where people don't align with that, or, you know, there I meet people and it's, here's the information, how we set up the exchange, and if they're not willing to travel, or if the time doesn't work out, then they're most likely not going to be willing to travel for the group anyway. And so it kind of has a filtration process. And Cinthia, you and I have talked about that, where there was a stressful period where I was like, How do I like, who am I to make this decision? But you mentioned that, you know, there, there's a protection in place, and my guides are involved. Where this the group has a natural filtration where people will be magnetized to it and repel from it automatically. And that's been the case. So it's been, it's been very easy to kind of manage where we have the set time and date, and we just, we gather, and people know about it, and they come when they're able to and when they need to receive a healing or if they want to share. And every so often, other members will kind of open up their home or their space, and we'll do it over there. But otherwise, typically, the events are always here at my house.

You've been listening to Mind Power Meets Mystic with me. Michelle Walters and my co host, Cinthia Varkevisser, we want to tell you about a special gig the two of us have going on. It's called mind power meets mystic, the project, and it starts off on a zoom call with Cinthia. Cinthia tell everybody what they can expect. So for the first half of our session, you will be with me and Michelle will be very quietly in the background preparing to.

Do her work. What we will do is that we will talk about the one thing that you either want to amp up or that you want to release. And through the intuitive work, I help you get boil it down to its essence, and then give you an RX of three practical things to do to set you on your way. And then Michelle magically appears. What is it that you do that? Michelle, I have been listening in but not participating in the first half of the call. I have an excellent idea of what Cinthia means when she says something, and I have an excellent idea of quickly getting to what my client is all about and his or her individual strengths. I turn all of this into a 20 to 30 minute hypnosis session on the second half of the call, which, when we're done, I strip off and send you as an mp three that you can listen to over and over again. You also will have cinthia's Three point recommendations and the recording of the Zoom call. It is a fantastic one hour, offering a great gift for yourself or for someone you don't know what to get such insights, and we've gotten such great reviews. So if you're interested, send me or Cinthia an email. You'll find our contact information in the show notes, and we'll tell you how to get started.

And they we every space, every inch is used.

Very cool. Jeff, I think this is kind of brilliant, how you came up with this, and it's such a needed thing, because you're absolutely right. There are so many people in the healing world who who don't prioritize self care. They don't they don't take anything for themselves, and they need to the greatest part about it has been the community, because so many of us, I think, are the black sheep, or kind of outcasts, and we feel isolated where it's like we have ourselves and then our clients, and then coming together in this space, where it's like other people that are doing the same work, we can have conversations that I'm not able to have with other friends. And there's a there's a there's a level of validation, right? Because it's like, if I'm picking up this on something intuitive, and someone else is getting the same thing, it's like, oh, we're feeling the same thing. And it's it validates, especially at the beginning of, kind of like someone trying a new modality. So we have a lot of people that will experiment or play around with stuff that's like, Hey, this is something new. I'm experimenting with and trying. And then when you're working on someone else that's energetically sensitive or intuitive, you get so much different feedback than your average individual that's just receiving the healing. Yeah, yeah, I can see that too. Jeff, tell us some success stories, some some things that people have walked away from your group with that they didn't have before.

I can use myself as an example here. So earlier this year, I had two herniated discs and pretty severe sciatica. And I definitely received support from the community where they, you know, people were coming to visit me at home in the hospital, and like giving me healings, where I had not just the physical side, but there was a lot of stuck ancestral things and a lot of generational trauma. And so having that community that helped me to clear that definitely got me back on track a lot quicker. One of our other kind of founding members, or original people that was in the group, Carolyn Morimoto, she had fractured a hip after falling, and they told her it was going to take, you know, like, a year and a half to kind of get back on her feet and recover from this. But you know, several of us were going to see her almost every day, or as often as we could, and she was back on her feet like three months. And so, you know, things like this, where we're able to really get each other back into a healthy space so that we can continue to do the work.

And, you know, none of us are perfect, and we're all human. So even as healers, it's kind of funny, right? Like the healer got injured, but it's a real thing. We we have very human limitations.

Yeah, I actually have a testament

to that as well to for me to get to Jeff's space is an hour, and, you know, my night vision is not so great, and they finish at 10 sometimes. And you know you're, they're having, you're having such a good time, it's hard to leave at that at the time. You know that it's not like you have to leave at a certain time. I don't kick you guys out at 10. Never. Does not kick out anybody. And so the the drive back tends to be a bit long. And, you know, I get pretty tired quickly these days. So one day I texted and I said, Hey, I'm not really feeling well, and you know, so I don't think I'm going to come and Jeff says, Well, you know, this is what the community is for. So I threw it out to the community say, I'm not feeling well, and I got a group healing, and it's something that, as healers, we don't ask for. I mean, how many times have you asked for help? Michelle, right? And to be honest, not enough. Yeah. And I kind of know that, but it's i.

Mean, we, we're all sort of, I think, raised to think, like, you know, just give, just give, don't ask. But you know what? Like, the cycle doesn't happen if you don't have askers and givers, right? The both, right? Yeah, that's actually my very first time going to the group. My my stress was about receiving. It was, I was like, I don't know how to ask, so I don't and I don't even know what I want. And so, you know, there's all this stuff, but, but Jeff's really welcome and open and really makes you feel at home. You know, we have a pretty simple format, where at the beginning of our sessions, we give people about 30 minutes to arrive and settle in, and people are usually kind of chatting and conversing. And then when we begin, we start with the grounding. And then after the grounding, everyone goes around the room and they share their name, what they are sharing that day, like what modality they're offering, if it's reading whatever, whatever they've got in their tool bag, and then what they would like to receive that day. And so we're all sitting there and listening to be like, Okay, I can support that person with that thing, or, ooh, I want to try that modality. So afterwards, it's like, we go and approach each other be like, Hey, I heard what you said. I think I can support with that. Would you like your healing? And it makes that kind of aspect of, like the asking a little bit easier, because we're all kind of listening with like, okay, I can help that person. And we all have that little like hesitation of the ask, right, right? I want to switch gears a little bit, if that's okay with you. Michelle, I know Jeff's fine with it. Go ahead. Go ahead. Another way that I got to meet Jeff is he sent out a Facebook post saying, Hey, I'm in Japan, and anybody want to chill with me for a little bit? Right? And I thought I looked I happened to be going to Japan. We missed each other, but it was an opportunity to talk, and I asked why you were there, and so I'd love to hear about your Japan experience, as well as why you go to the Japanese Museum, because those are two things that I find very important, that also adds to community. Yeah, so

the trip to Japan was the first trip that we call Reiki origins. And it's a trip where we go to visit kuramayama, which is Mount Kurama, the birthplace of modern Reiki. It's where Usui sensei went to meditate for 21 days, received the downloads for what Reiki is and how to share it. You got struck by lightning. So we went to visit that place with

some of my master's students, and then, as well as a Japanese master and her students, and we got to stay in the same Airbnb and kind of have a cultural exchange to understand how Reiki is being practiced here in the west and as well as in Japan. And there's

it's very interesting, kind of the depth of it and how different and similar it is. So in Japan, they have Western Reiki and they have traditional Japanese Reiki, and there is a difference in the formality and the process for kind of passing it on and handing it down, whereas in the West, it's very kind of open, ended and up for interpretation, and that's why there are so many different modalities. There's, you know, holy fire Reiki, there's Karuna Reiki, there's angelic Reiki, and the list goes on and on, because people have taken it and added their own kind of

flair or their own gifts to it. And so it was interesting to kind of have that conversation and see what the overlap was and how distinctly different it was as well. And I think that's only something that we could do in Japan. And so that was that trip and that intention. And now what I've done is I've incorporated that into my training for my students, so anyone that wants to graduate into a master under me. The final step is to go with me to Japan and visit that site.

Now here in San Jose,

there's only three remaining J towns, and so San Jose has one of them, and in our Japan town, we have the Japanese American Museum of San Jose. And in that space, I've been able to collaborate with them, where, I think every quarter, we do

a sound bath inside of the museum, and we get to use their kind of floor space, and typically we'll have a panel discussion about something related to Japanese culture or healing. And it's been really cool to kind of introduce this modality to that space and to the people that are regulars there.

It's not common knowledge that Reiki itself is actually Japanese healing modality. There's been a huge disconnect where a lot of Japanese people are unaware of it, and that happened because it was actually forced to go underground in Japan after World War Two,

the US occupied Japan saw what they were doing and didn't understand it, so they outlawed it, made it illegal for them to practice. So it became an underground modality that was taught to somebody that lived in Hawaii, who then went back to Hawaii and from Hawaii, it spread kind of to the mainland.

Us and all over the world,

but in Japan itself, it became kind of this lost modality. And so kind of the work is to some of the work, than the intention I have is to reintroduce it to the Japanese communities, to let them know, Hey, this is something that is in our lineage. It's in our blood. And that was kind of the connection I had to it, where as I was training, my master would teach me something, and it was like, oh, like, there was an intuitive thing where I just started doing that last week. And so it feels very connected, and something that I've kind of been pushed toward my whole life without realizing it and then discovering it later in my 30s. So that's the tie to J town and the work in Japan.

I want to remind everybody that we're here to talk about the fourth chakra as it relates to your community. And I've been so fascinated with you, I forgot to talk about the fourth chakra, right? So here we are halfway in, and I'm like, Oh, shit, forgot. So the fourth chakra is really about about being present. It's about love. It's about, you know, but not just love for one person. It's love for the greater picture. What is your you know, what? What is it that you want to contribute to humanity? What is your thumbprint on this earth? So I know we talked about your Reiki and how you came across with the and the personal development. Were you the type of person that would create communities beforehand? Is this something that you just discovered? Or were you always the guy that that would organize or would create the group and ask people along? Was it always in you, because it's a fourth chakra, you the ringleader in high school or not?

Yeah, I think it's always been in my nature to bring people together, and I've had a lot of experience along the way in just different ways, a lot of success, a lot of failure that I've learned from in high school, I would have poker games at my house in my parents house, and it was interesting to learn that different groups sometimes can interact and sometimes can't, and learning kind of the social aspect of that. So I've always been kind of a social butterfly, where I have different groups and different areas for different things. And so I learned in high school you can't always combine them, just like cold with no introduction, no warming up, and sometimes you can and over time, you know, I've been involved in different organizations. So in college, I was in a fraternity, and we are, origin was at San Diego State, which is where I went. And during that time, we also expanded. So I was responsible for the expansion to UNLV, and as well as

another school that we're no longer at, so I'll leave that one out of names, but

that was another experience, kind of creating groups and bringing people together. And then we also, at the time at San Diego State, there was only one Japanese club, and it was JSA, and so a lot of it was international students and people that were really into anime, and that didn't quite fit my demographic as a Japanese American. And it's interesting, because the cultures are similar, but they're different. And so what we did was we found a club that was at other schools, but they didn't have one at our school, and so we charted it on campus, and we brought together the Japanese Americans on campus to create that club called Nikkei student union, or NSU, and they're still active and thriving today on that campus.

So things like this gave me a lot of experience being on boards and kind of the ins and outs of what it creates to bring something like this to life.

And so it's been kind of cool to have all that just be social and fun things, to now bring it into the work that I do today, and just bring a group together. And it can be very simple or can be very complex. And I think for this, I've learned to simplify it and step away from kind of the corporate side of it, where, you know, we don't need a board of directors. We don't need executives and this and that to make decisions. It's like, it's a very simple community, right? We get together and we heal each other, and that's all it needs to be.

Now, as it grows and other things with the virtual space, I do have a board because the intention is for that space to grow indefinitely. We don't have the restrictions of like in San Jose. We've gathered all the healers we know of, and slowly it expands. Right? Cinthia, you're not in San Jose, and it's an hour away, but we do have members driving from Sausalito, Alameda Oakland, just to gather with us, the intention being that it grows where we have pockets, right? We can have an H3 in Southern California. We can have H3 in Florida and New York. And before we get to the point of having the in person groups, we've branched out into the virtual space. And with that to scale it, I created a board.

Because I don't want to be the only one that has to do all of the calls. Right now, we have two calls every month, but we're working on developing a third time and day for it, because we want to make it inclusive for people in other time zones. And as that grows, then ideally, we spark the idea for somebody to open up their home, or whatever space they're responsible for to invite healers in their area to do the same thing we're doing in San Jose.

I love that. Think of me. I'm happy to be your Oakland connection. I know you got a bunch of Oakland connections. So, I mean, we just need someone with space that says, hey, let's do it, and then you just do it. I'll send a video. You can tell me if it's enough space. Yeah, there's all that. So hey, what have you? You're fascinating. We could talk forever.

I want people to be able to connect with you and the community. So what do you have coming up for yourself, for the community?

Yeah, yeah. So a couple events in San Jose, Japantown. So the event I was talking about at the Japanese American museum will be on November 7. We call that Kiku. And in Japanese, Kiku means like listening.

And so that will be November 7 in the evening. I believe 6pm or so is when we start, and that's a sound bath that is held inside of the museum. So it's a pretty cool experience. We usually have anywhere from three to five different sound healers, and we just move around in the space. And so you find a spot, you lay down, and you receive the healing. And it's a pretty cool experience.

The intention in that space is that we're giving the people in the participants that come healing, as well as the artifacts that are in that building, there's a lot of relics and replicas from the time during World War Two, when the Japanese were interned, and so there's a lot of heavy energy in that space that we're working to kind of heal at the same time, keeping it where you can feel that energy without it being overwhelming. We're not trying to clear the energy, but just offer healing to the individuals that are still carrying that generational trauma.

And then the other event we have is the first Saturday of every month. So November 1 will be the next one is, we call it sonic flow. And this is a sound bath that we hold in the Akiyama Wellness Center, and that's the Japanese American Senior Center activity space. And so this is another sound bath. It's not in the museum, it's just in an open kind of area. And so this is another event we offer to the community, and the proceeds from that one go to UI Kai to propose the Senior Center as well as the Japanese American Museum of San Jose. So we split the funds we raised with them,

and then, yeah, we have the communities, both the in person h3 group, and then we also have a virtual community. And the virtual community, we have kind of a vetting process, and so people are interested in learning more about that, then they would just connect with two of our board members for healing trades virtually,

and I can share a link for that. It's on my website. I have two websites, one for the self development side and one for the Reiki side. It's hosted under food, the number four thought and then 408, calm, backslash, H, 3v, so that's the link to find out information about the virtual group, as well as the application process

with the in person group. That's something you would connect with me one on one for. So any healers that are interested in the area or virtually, then please reach out and get in touch with us. Thank you so much, Jeff, this has been great. I mean, I knew a tiny bit about you, but now I feel like I know a whole lot more about you. And like, oh, maybe I need to get in on this gig. This sounds like a pretty good gig. That was my thought at the very beginning of this was we got to get we haven't met Michelle yet.

Well, thank you so much for being on mind. Power meets mystic. We really appreciate you. We also appreciate all of our listeners, thank you for being here with us for this week's show. We would love it if you would subscribe and give us a rating or review. It helps enormously in terms of helping this show to reach others. If you think our wisdom has been helpful, or if Jeff could maybe provide a little light in someone's life. Please share this episode with them. We would most appreciate it. Thank you. And bye, bye from another episode of Mind Power Meets Mystic.

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