November Reflections — Fear, Fireworks, and Finding Calm Within

As I sit by the window, watching the soft hues of autumn fade, I’m struck by how gently the season shifts. The trees are letting go of their leaves — one by one — as if releasing their stories back into the earth. There’s a quiet beauty in this surrender, but also a melancholy that stirs something deep inside.

Over the past few days, our house has been anything but calm. Bonfire Night is upon us, and while many look forward to the sparkle and spectacle, for my dogs it’s a time of terror. The moment the fireworks begin, their world changes. The loud cracks and unpredictable bursts send them trembling, panting, and desperately seeking safety.

We’ve tried everything — thunder shirts, Rescue Remedy, frankincense diffusing in the room, calming treats, soothing music, Reiki. Sometimes it helps for a while, but last night the fear reached a level beyond anything I’d seen before. My heart broke watching their bodies shake, their eyes wide with panic. I could feel their energy field contract, their entire being caught in survival mode. And as I laid my hands on them, offering Reiki, I found myself thinking about the parallels between their fear and our own.

The Mirror of Fear

So often, we humans do the same thing. When faced with the unexpected — the loud, frightening, or inexplicable moments of life — we instinctively want to run. Fear tightens in the chest, the stomach knots, and the body readies itself for flight. It’s a natural response, an ancient mechanism designed to protect us. But when the threat isn’t physical — when it’s emotional, mental, or spiritual — that energy has nowhere to go.

And what happens then?

If we don’t process it, the fear stays with us. It becomes embedded in our energy field, buried deep in our tissues, blood, and nervous system — frozen in time. These unprocessed emotions, like the echoes of fireworks long gone, reverberate through our being.

Every time a similar situation arises, the body remembers. It thinks the danger is happening again. And so, we relive the old trauma, over and over, until something within us finally softens enough to release it.

I see this so often in my clients — beautiful souls carrying years of unexpressed emotion. Sometimes it’s grief that was never allowed to surface; sometimes anger, guilt, or shame; sometimes fear itself, trapped in layers so deep we’ve forgotten where it began. But the body remembers. The energy remembers. And it quietly asks to be seen, felt, and healed.

The Language of Energy

In my work, I use many different tools — Reiki, sound, tuning forks, crystals, and sacred geometry. Each of these modalities helps bring harmony to the subtle layers of the body where these emotions live.

Recently, I’ve been drawn more deeply into my sound healing practice — particularly my crystal bowls and tuning forks. The more I work with them, the more I understand that they speak directly to the body’s own frequency. Every organ, every emotion, every cell vibrates at its own tone. When something falls out of harmony — through stress, shock, or trauma — sound helps bring it back into resonance.

The tuning forks, in particular, have become dear companions. Their vibration feels like light moving through water — clear, cleansing, and alive. When placed near or on the body, the sound travels through the tissues, reminding them of their natural rhythm. It’s as if the body sighs in recognition.

There’s a wonderful woman named Eileen Day McKusick, who has dedicated her life to studying this relationship between sound and the human energy field. She’s written two remarkable books: Tuning the Human Biofield and Electric Body, Electric Health. Her research and insights have confirmed what healers have sensed for centuries — that our emotional experiences leave measurable imprints in our energy field, and that sound can literally tune us back to balance.

Eileen explains that unexpressed emotions generate stress, and that stress — left unchecked — is the root of most chronic illness. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that up to 85% of all disease is stress-related. That’s a staggering number. But when we understand that stress isn’t just about workload or deadlines — that it’s the body’s emotional response to unprocessed experiences — it begins to make sense.

It’s not always what happens to us that causes harm, but how we hold it inside. The emotions we never speak, the tears we swallow, the fear we suppress — all of these create subtle ripples that, over time, become waves.

Working in the Field

When I’m giving a treatment — whether Reiki, sound therapy, or tuning forks — I can often feel these ripples in someone’s energy field. Sometimes there’s a heaviness, a dense patch of vibration where energy feels stuck. Sometimes it feels fizzy or fragmented. Each sensation tells a story, and my role is simply to listen — not with the ears, but with the hands, the heart, and the inner awareness.

When I encounter a block, I’ll often stay with it for a while — gently using sound, intention, and breath to help it move. Other times, the energy shifts quickly, like a sigh of relief.

It always feels like sacred work — to help someone’s energy remember its natural state of flow. Because when energy moves, life moves.

Fireworks, Fear, and the Frequency of Freedom

The fireworks, for all their chaos, have been an unexpected teacher this week. They’ve reminded me how deep fear can go — and how powerfully it can control us. Watching my dogs tremble, I could see in them the same instinct that lives in all beings — the urge to flee from what feels unbearable.

But what if, instead of running from fear, we learned to sit with it? To meet it with compassion, the way we would comfort a frightened child or a trembling pet? What if, in those moments of inner panic, we allowed our breath to be the anchor that reminds us we are safe?

That’s what Reiki teaches us — to soften into trust, to open to love even when the world feels loud and uncertain.

As I placed my hands over my dogs last night, I called in the Holy Fire energy — a refined, luminous vibration that heals deeply yet gently. I could feel their breathing slow, their bodies settle just a little. It didn’t stop the noise, but it helped them feel safe within it. And isn’t that what true healing really is — not removing all the storms of life, but learning how to find calm within them?

The Body as a Map

Every healing journey begins with awareness. When you start noticing the ways your body responds — the tension, the breath, the racing thoughts — you begin to see where fear still lives.

Sound and Reiki both offer a language for this awareness. They bypass the thinking mind and speak directly to the energy. When the vibration reaches the areas of density, the energy begins to open, like sunlight melting frost.

Over time, these gentle waves of sound can shift not just emotions but physical patterns as well. I’ve been experimenting with using my tuning forks on myself, and I’ve noticed remarkable changes — not just in mood or energy, but even in my physical body.

Recently, I’ve released some weight I’d been holding for years — and I truly believe it’s connected to the emotional layers I’ve been clearing. The tuning forks seem to help dissolve old emotional imprints — the heaviness we carry when we don’t know how to let go. As those energies lift, the body naturally begins to lighten too. It’s as though the physical weight mirrors the energetic one.

Releasing the Unspoken

So often, healing begins not with doing, but with allowing. Allowing ourselves to feel what’s really there — the sadness, the grief, the fear, the joy. When we stop judging these emotions as good or bad and simply witness them, they begin to move.

In Reiki, we talk about energy flowing like a river. When the current is blocked, stagnation occurs — like a puddle that grows murky over time. Sound and energy work help turn that puddle back into a river. The movement brings life.

And that’s the invitation of November, isn’t it? To slow down, to let go of what no longer serves, to allow ourselves to move inward. Just as the trees release their leaves, we too are asked to release the energetic debris that we’ve gathered throughout the year.

The Season of Stillness

As the nights draw in and the air grows colder, there’s a sacred stillness in the world. Nature rests. The earth begins its descent into renewal. It’s a powerful time for introspection and healing — for tending the inner flame that will guide us through winter.

This is when I feel most connected to the work I do — the quiet sessions in the soft glow of candlelight, the hum of crystal bowls filling the room, the fragrance of frankincense curling through the air. These moments remind me that healing isn’t a grand gesture — it’s a daily act of love. A moment-to-moment choice to soften rather than harden, to listen rather than avoid, to breathe rather than hold.

Finding Peace Amid the Noise

So, as the fireworks continue for another few nights, I’ll be here with my dogs — creating as much calm as I can. Reiki hands, tuning forks, soft music, gentle words. I’ll remind them they’re safe, even when the sky feels like it’s falling.

And I’ll remind myself too.

Because fear is universal, but so is love. And every act of calm we bring into the world — every vibration of peace we cultivate within — ripples outward.

So perhaps that’s the lesson of this November. To sit with our fear, to love ourselves through it, and to trust that even the loudest explosions of life eventually fade into silence.

In that silence, healing happens.
In that stillness, we return home to ourselves.