Suffering Through Cold Showers and What I Learned

After several attempts over the last few years to maintain a cold shower practice through the winter months, I finally succeeded this year, and since we’re into the spring months it will be a little easier to keep the practice going through the rest of this year and into the next winter. Now to be clear, the entire shower I take is not cold. I do still enjoy a nice warm shower, but at the very least 30-60 seconds of the shower uses no hot water at all.

Thirty seconds of cold water may not seem like much to you especially those of you that live in LA like me, but I’ll challenge you to take a 30 second cold-water-only-shower in Pittsburgh between Christmas and New Years. That cold water is icy cold, yet it was somehow easier than the cold water in LA. I think it’s because it was so cold that it numbed my skin, and I couldn’t really feel how cold it was. Whatever the real reason is I was able to do it and keep up with the practice.

For those of you that might be wondering, “Why would you torture yourself like that?” there are many physical and mental health benefits that come from a cold shower routine.

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You Can't Get Away From Your Shadow

You’re finally doing it. You’re booking that dream vacation, the one you’ve been wanting to go on for years. You go online to book your tickets, and you start weighing your options. Do you go with a non-stop flight for convenience or save money by choosing one with a layover? Do you choose your itinerary based on departure or return time? So many choices.

You’re getting more excited as you continue thinking about this trip and before you make your final decisions, it happens… 

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Using Music and Comedy to Get Out of a Funk

We all know that life has its ups and downs, peaks and valleys, or as I like to refer to them, peaks and pre-peaks, but when you’re in that deep, dark valley it can be challenging to recognize and celebrate the fact that you’ll be heading up to one of those beautiful peaks soon enough.

The time scale between the peak and pre-peak cycle is not as consistent as the phases of the moon or the seasons of the Earth, and when you’re heading into that valley it can be difficult to ascertain how dark it’s going to get and how long your stay will be.

One way that I deal with life in those dark places is…

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What's Your Word for 2019?

Let’s just start this off by saying that my word for 2019 is ROUTINE as in I need to get some routines in place so that I can achieve what I wish to achieve over the next 12 months. Also, it will help me get my newsletters and blogs done in time for my personal goal of sending them on the first of every month. I failed to reach that goal for the start of this year which makes it even more obvious to me that my word should be routine.

Picking a word for the year is a practice I’ve been using for at least 4-5 years. At the end/beginning of each year I reflect on what I was able to do and what I would like to do over the next year. After a good brainstorming session I step back and look at the list. I also pay attention to my personal Numerology and Astrology for the coming year, and I summarize it all in one word. I guess this is similar to what we do in the Reiki Circles at the end when we close out with one word to sum up what we are grateful for in that moment.

This helps me simplify the process of making New Year Resolutions and gives me one concept to focus on by choosing one word. If you make resolutions, take a look to see if there is a word that can summarize it for you. It’s easier to remember one word than a longer phrase or concept. Try it out.

Another thing is that today is a New Moon which is a good time to set intentions for the coming month. If you haven’t made a resolution for the year, today would be a good day to think about it and formulate one. Go that extra step and simplify it to one word.

Share your word in the comment section below. That way you can look back at the end of the year and see how you did in keeping up with that intention.

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Protecting Your Energy During the Season of Lights

Over the last couple of months I’ve noticed a lot of clients needing to do some energy cord cutting so I thought that I would share and explore this topic with you in hopes that you may benefit, especially heading into all the family and friends’ holiday events where you might walk away with a slew of cords attached to you leaving you completely drained. Before we get into the actual cord cutting exercise though, let’s first discuss the people that attach their cords to us, energy vampires.

Now I know that Halloween was over a month ago, but energy vampires are in season all year ‘round. If you’ve never heard of an energy vampire, it’s pretty much what it sounds like. It’s someone that feeds on other people’s emotional and psychological energy without explicit conscious permission.

An energy vampire could be that cousin of yours that is always controlling and criticizing you, that friend that always needs you to help her out because she’s always a victim of circumstance, or that coworker that talks so much you can’t ever get a word in edgewise and everything seems to be about him and his drama.

An energy vampire can take on many different forms and identities…

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Thanksgiving is Once a Year But Gratitude Should Be a Daily Practice

“You should never go to bed at night without being thankful and celebrating at least one thing in your life.” - Rev. Michael Bernard Beckwith

Ever since I heard those words in March 2011 I’ve had an alarm programmed in my phone that goes off at 10pm every night that reads “Be Thankful and Celebrate One Thing.” All of my friends know about my gratitude alarm, and I make sure that everyone around me at 10pm, no matter where I am, takes a moment to be grateful for something in their life.

The benefits of a gratitude practice come from the consistency of it (as with just about everything). From the moment I heard Rev. Michael say the quote above, I knew I wanted to incorporate that into my life, and I immediately grabbed my brain’s external hard drive, aka my phone, and programmed an alarm that would repeat daily. If I didn’t do that I knew I would forget about it in just a few minutes.

If you really want to feel the benefits of a gratitude practice…

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Takata's Cleansing Elixir

This month I filmed a video for you all describing four different things you can do first thing in the morning to help keep you hydrated and your gut healthy. I have used all of these and believe it has helped maintain my overall health and happiness. I was inspired to make this video after reading the article "Takata's Handouts" from the Reiki News Magazine posted where Hawayo Takata listed one of these practices as a way of "cleansing out the system."

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Seeing Jury Duty as a Divine Intervention

“God loves you!” exclaimed Dustin to the commuters in the Metro Red Line subway car while standing next to me with his hand just above mine on the rail, and I started to laugh a little inside for several reasons. For one, the fear of being pulled into his performance as an unwitting volunteer being in such close proximity when I was hoping to enjoy an uneventful ride home was challenging the stoic poker face I was desperately holding onto, but the main reason for my internal chuckles was that the message he shared was one that I had received directly though the events of the day and felt that truth deep into my core.

You see, that morning I was summoned downtown to the Stanley Mosk Courthouse to appear for jury duty which had thrown a big monkey wrench my work and family plans for the day, and I was stressing out about finding time to learn a few songs for gigs I had coming up over the next few days. Being called into jury duty did not fit well into my schedule, however it turned out to be the best thing that could have happened for me.

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Making Sense of Freud's Tripartite Theory of Personality

In last month’s post I started talking about the ego/identity and how we have to dismantle parts of it to grow and develop into a closer version of our higher self, however I never really formally studied the psychoanalytical origin of the word ego. I use the word often enough thinking that I understand it having heard others use it in psychological and spiritual teachings and books, yet I never took the time to look it up. With all of the “fake news” and unverified stories circulating these days I felt it was time to make sure I knew the original definition of that word and how it has been updated since its debut into our lexicon before flinging it around in my stories.

When I looked into it I found the the English word “ego” comes from Latin meaning “I, myself,” and it turns out that there is no universal agreement as to what the “ego” is. To save myself from getting too lost in the research of “ego” and how the concept has evolved through different people’s perspectives, I decided to focus on Sigmund Freud’s tripartite theory of personality involving the id, the ego, and the super-ego.

In Freud’s The Ego and The Id published in 1923 he described three aspects of the human mind. After looking up many different explanations and interpretations of these concepts, this is how they make sense to me.

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Death of the Ego (A Gift from My Son)

On June 6th I welcomed my son into this world, and within one week’s time I had broken a toe, chopped off the tip of a finger, and fell into a depression the depths of which I had only experienced twice in my life before (and those two experiences were doozies… life-changers). This was my big entrance into the world of parenthood.

The first few days were nice while the three of us were huddled together in the hospital room getting to know each other, but the decline started when we got home. I guess the mix of hormones running through my system kept me going during the hospital stay, but once they wore off my experience started to change. The exhaustion started to set in and my clarity and coordination started to head out.

It was the day after we arrived home that I tripped in my backyard and broke my toe. A simple accident that could’ve happened at any time, but it was my first warning…

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Reiki during Pregnancy

With our son’s expected due date coming up on June 6th, I thought I’d share with you a little bit about how reiki has been a big part of the pregnancy. For starters I would say that it was after a reiki session last summer that we conceived him.

Once a month my partner Joei and I get together with a friend and practice Shu Chu Reiki on each other. (Shu Chu Reiki is the Japanese term for multiple practitioners giving reiki to one person at the same time.) For several months Joei would ask for reproductive health in hopes that she and I would conceive a child. We had already talked about trying to get pregnant and were open to the possibility if we were lucky enough to win that jackpot, however it wasn’t until the reiki trade in August 2017 that I realized I was still a little hesitant. She had been all in for almost a year, and although I said I was, I was still afraid of taking that next step in life and becoming a father. During that day of reiki I truly felt her intention and desire to go through the challenging and traumatic experience of pregnancy and delivery and most importantly that she wanted to do this with me.

I felt honored to be the guy she wanted to have a child with and from that point on I was all in. Months later after learning the due date and doing a little back-calculation I discovered that we must have conceived shortly after that day.

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Reiki Healing Summit Spring 2018

I'm happy to tell you all about the Reiki Healing Summit Spring 2018 put on by Reiki Rays University featuring interviews with Reiki Practitioners from all over the world including Pamela Miles, Walter Lubeck, and yours truly. This FREE online event will run from May 21-26 with topics including Reiki Research, Reiki Drumming, Distant Reiki, Reiki as a Spiritual Practice, and Reiki in Cancer Treatments. Over 30 leading Reiki Practitioners offer their knowledge and expertise to the worldwide Reiki community to help us develop ourselves and deepen our practice.

I am deeply honored to be a part of this global event as I share about my experience working with “Reiki and the Cancer Community.” Register now and tune in on May 24th to listen to my interview or UPGRADE and listen to it at anytime along with all of the other insightful interviews.

I registered for the Full Access Pass for the Winter 2018 Summit and thoroughly enjoyed listening the interviews at my leisure, and I even had the option to download the mp3’s and transcripts of each of the sessions. Choose which option suits you best and enjoy the summit.

Read more about the Reiki Healing Summit HERE.


Aside from the summit, I have a few other things going on this month that I’d like to share. The first weekend of the month is jam packed full of goodness. On Friday May 4th I’ll be playing bass for the Atma Bhajan and the Sounds of Truth Kirtan Soundbath Experience at The Yogi Tree. It’s been a while since I’ve played a Kirtan in SoCal, so I’m looking forward to sharing in the vibe with you all there. (Sign up for it here.)

On Saturday May 5th, I will be presenting a talk on “Implementing Mindfulness in Schools” for the Burbank Unified School District’s First Annual Wellness Symposium which is open to all staff, parents, and community partners in Burbank. The event runs from 8:30am-12:30pm at John Burroughs High School and has a wide variety of topics ranging from “Addressing Bullying and Cyberbullying” to “Zumba!” If you’re a parent in Burbank or know someone that is, please pass on this information to them. There’s something for everyone there, plus they’re giving away prizes. :-)

I also have a Reiki I class on Friday May 25th for anyone that wants to get their certification at the start of Memorial Day Weekend.


With the birth of my son expected at the beginning of next month I will be cutting back on seeing private clients in June and I won’t be teaching any other classes until mid-July at the earliest. If he decides to join us early I may even have to cancel the May 25th class, but one thing is for sure. I will be focusing on his and his mother’s health after he arrives so if you reach out and don’t hear from me that is why.

I wish you all a wonderful month and hope to see you at one of the events in May.

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Channeling Money

With tax day coming up this month we all seem to have money on our minds this time of year, and I thought I’d share with you my journey though navigating my finances once I decided to pursue a career in the healing arts.

After I resigned from my teaching career I knew I had to be very careful with money because I did not have the stability of a steady paycheck anymore and needed to make sure I had enough money to pay my bills each month. I watched a financial prosperity workshop with Edwene Gaines online where she talked about the importance of tithing and how by removing 10% of your income off the top to be given to the people and organizations where you are spiritually fed you create space for more money to flow into.

Imagine that you have a jar that contains all of your money. If you try to hold on to all of your money then your jar is full and there’s no room for more money to flow into it. But, by consciously creating the space for more money by giving it away you keep the energetic flow of money in your direction to fill the void in your jar.

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Death is a part of Life

Two-thousand eighteen was already looking to be one of the most memorable years of my life with the upcoming birth of my son in June, and in addition the universe conspired to add tragedy to this year ensuring that 2018 will forever be tattooed onto my heart. On February 7th at 3:49pm EST my father, Bob Kukan, passed away in a Pittsburgh hospital surrounded by his children and siblings. No one saw this coming, and it was only a little more than a month ago that we all got together along with his closest friends to celebrate his 70th birthday.

This is one event in my life that I could never have prepared for. Similarly to becoming a parent (so I hear), the feelings associated with losing a parent are only understood once you experience it, and now that I’ve experienced the latter I’m even more curious to experience the former.

You can listen to other people’s stories and read up on grieving the loss of a parent, but until you’ve gone through it, it’s all a mental exercise. The emotional and physical pains that were present for me were overwhelming at times and still tend to come and go, and from what I hear they will continue to come and go for a long time.

Through this loss however, I see a silver lining. I am reminded of the fragility of this precious human life that we have and the finite quality of it.

The truth is that we are all going to die one day, and we must not turn away from that truth. Many of us fear it and never want to talk or think about it which prevents us from ever truly accepting and embracing it. By doing so we may be holding ourselves back from saying the things we want to say and doing the things we want to do with the expectation that we will live another day and get to do those things sometime in the future. Without exploring and accepting this truth how can we ever truly live our life to its fullest potential?

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Rolling into 2018 Late

For those of you that have been receiving my newsletters for awhile, you know that I’ve been consistently delivering them to your inbox on the first on the month for quite some time, however you’ll notice that this one is a day late. The funny thing for me is that although this wasn’t intentionally done, it reflects they way that I brought in the new year… a little late.

I missed the countdown to midnight and it wasn’t until 10 minutes past that my partner announced to the four of us at our NYE dinner, “It’s 2018. Happy New Year.”

This was the first time in a long time that I haven’t been aware of the strike of midnight on NYE and celebrated in this traditional way, and I could can easily label this tradition (in my mind) the “right” way to celebrate the new year. By doing so my shadow could then use this missed opportunity to celebrate at midnight as ammunition to make me upset about not doing it “right” and find a way to ruin the evening by sending my thoughts down a rabbit hole of negativity all because of one missed moment.

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Achieving a Year Long Goal in the Nick of Time

I recently looked at my list of actions for 2017 that is posted on my bathroom wall and noticed that one of my goals was not going to be met. And I did not have a good reason as to why it was not accomplished by now. The goal was to post 12-15 blog articles this year, and since I had the habit of writing an article for each monthly newsletter, I figured this would be an easily attained goal. However at the beginning of the year I could not see that far into the future to know that I would not manage to write one for the December newsletter and in doing so create a challenge for myself in attaining this goal.

That did not sit well with me since I was the only person responsible for it, and I could not blame anyone else for mismanaging my time and preventing me from writing the article. Part of me was looking at this as a failure which could have easily been avoided if I would have found a way to write the article in time for the December newsletter. At the end of November, I was able to find (what I thought were) good reasons for justifying my inability to write it, but now I see that choice has now made me work harder at the end of the year to accomplish my original goal. It just delayed the work. It didn’t make it disappear.

I could choose to take the easy route. Do no work and be okay with calling myself a failure. Or I could do some work and achieve the goal.

Relax and fail. Work and achieve. Relax or Work. Fail or Achieve. The choice is mine.

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Connecting with The Other Side

We are all reminded at this time of year to be thankful since we have Thanksgiving coming up, yet I’m reminded of another day this month that holds a special significance to me, the day my grandmother passed away. I’m not going to try to bring your spirits down in any way by telling you about Grandma Chuma’s death, but rather I’m going to tell you about how it impacted and deepened my relationship to her and “the other side”.

This all happened 5 years ago.

It was 2012, and I had just resigned from my teaching position at the high school and became a Reiki Master. I was diving head first into spiritual living and learning as much as I could about the healing arts, intuitive development, and other topics that were far removed from the linear thinking and rational modeling that mathematics had provided me for more than a decade.

I was regularly listening to a podcast called Psychic Teachers which was hosted by two women that were college professors for their day jobs and psychics on the side. One was a medium and Reiki Master, and the other was a tarot card reader and an intuitive.

Each week they would discuss a topic like mediumship, astrology, and oracle cards, and it was a great way for me to start opening up my own intuitive abilities and pull away from the need to be able to explain things logically and scientifically. The Psychic Teachers often talked about connecting with loved ones who have passed, and the techniques they discussed helped me on the days that followed my grandmother's passing.

After I got the call that she was gone I grabbed my copy of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying and read aloud some prayers to help her soul transition from her physical body into the afterlife. When I finished the prayers I sat in meditation and watched an incredible scene unfold in my mind.

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10 Years Ago Reiki Showed Up (Not the Way You Would Think)

Coming up on the 10th anniversary of my first Reiki attunement I want to share with you the real story of what got me into Reiki. Last year I wrote the story of the first Reiki class I took (you can read that story here), but I didn’t go into detail of what my impetus was in studying Reiki in the first place. I’ll admit that I’m a little frightened of what you may think of me after hearing this story, but this is something I share with all of my Reiki students to help break the ice in the beginning of class. Plus, it’s my chance to shine light on my shadow side so that I can take its power away. I see the fear. I recognize the fear. I act anyway.

And here we go with the real story of what attracted me to Reiki.

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Reflections on 10 Days of Silence

This month's article is a long one, and I'm not really sure how many of you will want to endure it. It's a description of my experience during a 10-day Vipassana Course that I took in August 2014. For those of you that aren't familiar with it, it's a ten-day silent meditation course. It was an incredible experience and quite difficult for me to summarize it without going into the depths and importance of some of the insights that I had during those days.

For those that want the highlights, the themes of the days were as such:
Day 0 Carpool
Day 1 Frustration
Day 2 Anger
Day 3 Distractions
Day 4 Sacral Chakra: Creativity and Sexuality
Day 5 I'M NOT ENLIGHTENED!
Day 6 Energy of an 8 year old boy
Day 7 Death
Day 8 Re-birthing Ideas
Day 9 Visitation
Day 10 Scorpio

If you want to take a journey through my experience, I invite you to continue reading the detailed account below.

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Getting Good with God

I started house shopping in September 2010 when I realized I had enough money for a down payment and thought I better jump at the opportunity to purchase a house in Los Angeles before the market picked up again and the opportunity slipped through my hands. By March 2011 I had looked at dozens of houses, written several offers, and still had nothing to show for it. In the meantime I had taken three Reiki classes in less than four months time with my second Reiki Master, Marla Mervis, (Check her out www.marlamervisreiki.com. She’s incredible!) and all the energy spun me into a deep depression.

I was easily irritated, unhappy at work, and felt like I was spread to thin with all the obligations and responsibilities I had.

Upon recognizing this, I pulled back from socializing with friends and knew that I had to analyze my situation and do some soul searching, and then a friend of mine invited me to attend a service at Agape International Spiritual Center.

I had never been to Agape and I was excited to go because I had heard so many great things from others about it.

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