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My name is Donna and I am a sociologist. Better know for my work on youth suicide, alienation and popular culture, an interest in holistic healing grew organically out of my own process of recovery in 1997. Now an Usui Reiki Master Healer/Teacher, Certified Hypnotist and NY State Licensed Master Social Worker, my healing practice integrates all the tools I’ve learned to use on a daily basis to live a serene, balanced and happy life. Self-care is the centerpiece of all recovery, the foundation of clean, sober living and holistic health. When we are willing to work towards wholeness, completely committed to the process of our own healing, anything is possible.
Reiki Energy Healing:
In 1997, early on in my recovery from childhood trauma and cross-addiction, I found in Reiki a gentle, non-invasive, yet powerful tool of self-healing that can be taught to anyone. Similar to acupuncture but without needles Reiki energy can enhance our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellness. Spiritual but not religious, Reiki is compatible with all healing modalities and religious practices. Reiki can be administered anywhere—in person or through distance sending to people, places and things. Animals too, can benefit from the soothing effects of a Reiki treatment.
Workshops and Individual Coaching:
Creating Sacred Space: Developing a Spiritual Toolkit for Daily Self-Care
Integrating a variety of healing tools and practices is a cornerstone of self-care. But how do we create our own sacred space? Our capacity for self-healing and regeneration is within us but often we’re overwhelmed, we have no clue how or where to begin. Whether individually or in a group setting, a short-term supportive, structured program for spiritual health and wellness will help you tap into your own power.
Drawing from a wide variety of holistic healing modalities including Reiki, Hypnosis, Guided Meditation, Prayer, Creativity, Astrology, Mindful Walking, Tarot and Trance Dancing a we can transform the way we live by developing a customized toolkit that optimizes wellness and joy. Whether used alone or in conjunction with psychotherapy, medical treatment, acupuncture, detox, recovery, or spiritual counseling, an organized spiritually-based holistic healing practice can reduce stress, lower anxiety, remove phobias and clear emotional blocks.
As we accelerate our own healing process we are engaged as agents in our own recovery. Holistic healing affirms our desire to grow, to break self-sabotoging behaviors and beliefs, to free ourselves from old, self-defeating habits, a negative mindset or the bondage of the past. We can aid in our own pain management and help deepen our capacity for relaxation, enhancing our spiritual development by tapping into our own healing power.
Healing Through Writing: Journaling, Memoir and Storytelling
Writing is a creative process that helps us integrate our own experience and polish our skills. Like music, art, dance or drama writing can also be therapeutic. Writing connects us to our inner guidance, to ourselves, each other and the world. By tapping into the core of who we are, we become more integrated, self-aware, and confident—we begin to hear our own voice. Explored as a personal journey a healing modality, a calling, a career, or a tool of advocacy writing unlocks the heart then sets it free in the world.
As we examine journaling, memoir, and story-telling, we are better able to identify our ministry, polish our skills, and identify who are reader is. We can take it on the road—or treasure it as our own go-to for spiritual and emotional growth.
Informational and Training Workshops:
Informational workshops are tailored to the specific needs and interests of health professionals, caregivers and clergy seeking to integrate holistic healing into existing practices– chiropractors, psychotherapists, massage therapists, yoga teachers, drug and alcohol counselors, nurses, and people working in ministry. Creating Sacred Space and Healing Through Writing workshops can be beneficial to people in a variety of settings including drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers, VA hospitals, shelters, hospitals, schools, churches and university health care systems.
A Healing Ministry:
Drawing from a variety of sacred and secular traditions It has been my joy to perform traditional, interfaith, “rock & roll”, “renewal” and atheist marriage ceremonies all over the country, including the blessing of same-sex couples, animal companion life celebrations, family adoption ceremonies, and sacred unions grounded in Twelve Step recovery. “Spiritual not Religious” I have also officiated at rituals of renewal and baptisms for people who feel estranged or systematically marginalized from traditional organized religions.
My second book, A Misfit’s Manifesto: The Sociological Memoir of a Rock & Roll Heart was an auto-ethnography, a reflexive exploration into my own alienation and addiction. I found my redemption in streetlife, music, sociology, and eventually, recovery. Manifesto ended with the vague awareness of a Higher Power I called “Big Pink.” Well, books are written, but spiritual journeys last a lifetime.
As a card-carrying Buddheo-Christian with a green heart and a passion for social justice, I believe spiritual paths are like the multitude of rivers and streams flowing into one great ocean; there are infinite paths that lead us to the Divine. Whether higher power speaks to us through people, social action, the ocean, music, our kids or the animals we care for, we are one. One love, one soul. Faith is grounded in the rituals and traditions of every day life. When we live in loving-kindness with an open heart, we are walking in the sunshine of the Spirit.
“If religion has given birth to all that is essential in society,
it is because the idea of society is the soul of religion.”
—-Emile Durkheim
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