Boots Knighton has a candid conversation with Kari Potter on how Reiki, sound healing, and acupressure helped Boots remain calm in preparation for open-heart surgery as well as how it helped her process her grief when she learned she had been born with several congenital defects. Kari uses Suzanne, Boots's first name, to refer to Boots throughout the episode.

Website: The Heart Chamber (theheartchamberpodcast.com)
Transcript: Joyful Beat | The Heart Chamber (theheartchamberpodcast.com)
The Heart Chamber (@theheartchamberpodcast)
Thanks to Michael Moeri for being my right hand man. Michael Moeri - Audio Editor, Podcast Producer and Marketing Director
Thanks to Denise Hardy for your support and believing in me. linkedin.com/in/denise-hardy-30a51086
Music by AudioCoffee

Show notes
1:20 How Boots came to know Kari.
2:30 Boots’s “why” for today’s episode with Kari.
3:00 Kari shares the birth of Greenhouse Yoga and the benefits of what she and her husband bring to their practice each day.
5:30 Boots’s experience during a Sound Bath at Greenhouse Yoga.
6:20 Kari explains what Sound Baths do to the body and why it is so beneficial.
7:00 The parasympathetic nervous system and how Kari supported Boots in preparation for her open-heart surgery.
9:00 What is Reiki and how Boots was buoyed by it.
12:00 Boots was not feeling safe in her body waiting for heart surgery but Kari was able to help her calm her nervous system.
13:30 Distance energy work - what is it and how Kari used it to support Boots post open-heart surgery.
14:30 If listeners struggle with the word “intention,” substitute in the word “prayer.”
15:30 Since heart surgery, Boots feels as if she is a barometer now.
16:50 Kari offers the idea that we all have superpowers to heal ourselves and shares several ways to help yourself.
17:30 How to calm the nervous system through several simple exercises (acupressure points) you can do anywhere (while driving, in the hospital, waiting in a doctor’s office, at work). These exercises can help you get to sleep or calm you when you find yourself stressed from a conversation or while sitting in traffic.
21:40 Boots shares that the most difficult part of her heart journey were the medical bills and dealing with health insurance and how these exercises calmed her down.
22:30 The meridians in the body and our ability to work with them to support the body.
23:30 Working with the heart meridian.
27:40 Boots stresses the importance of visualization in preparation for heart surgery.
29:20 Kari talks about strengthening the spirit and what that means.
32:20 Everytime we go through a tough experience, layers of ourselves that aren’t true are stripped away.
33:00 Boots had to grieve that her body was broken and how she came to the other side of surgery and is able to reflect on one of the “best weeks of her life.”
36:00 Surgery does not have to be awful.
37:00 Kari met Boots wherever she was in her emotions pre-surgery.
38:00 Where emotions are stored in the body and how emotions affect the heart.
39:00 How grief protects us and our hearts.
40:30 Boots laments the toxic positivity culture and how it harms us and uses skiing as an analogy.
41:30 Kari shares two more acupressure points to clear grief for the heart.
42:30 Boots lacked the courage to feel grief.
44:20 Kari gently leads Boots into supporting herself to feel grief. This was profoundly powerful for Boots.
47:40 Boots has made peace with her heart journey with support from these practices.
49:20 How we can use our own sound to move energy and emotion.
52:40 Boots dares you to make your heart journey joy-filled.
53:30 Boots stresses that she needed a large and diverse team to help her heal. You can’t just do a little cardiac rehab and think all will be well. Be an extraordinary heart patient.