Susan Nishizawa-Hampton

My yoga, meditation, and reiki journey started after the birth of my first child. I had postpartum depression and was desperate for relief. My husband, of now almost twenty-three years, recommended the yoga studio down the block. I had just started getting interested in Paramahansa Yogananda’s teachings and so was open to trying yoga. Spirit was always at work supporting me because the yoga studio was only a ten minute walk from our apartment. I had experienced seeing Paramahansa Yogananda, who opened my heart and filled me with bliss, while taking a yoga class and felt a confirmation that this was my path. I started practicing 2 to 3 times a week. I felt so much more balanced and lighter and my husband noticed that I was much nicer when I came back from a yoga class! This began my journey as a yoga teacher. I took the 200 hour yoga training there and started teaching yoga in 2003. Becoming aware of the energy while practicing, I began reading about reiki and Kundalini Yoga. My aunt and I took a reiki 1 & 2 training with Jessica Miller, who had trained under William Rand. To further my studies of reiki, I then did another Reiki Tummo Training level 1 to 3a in 2003. I noticed that it stirred up quite a bit of energy in the clients that I worked on, and was wondering why it brought up so much stuff. I then decided to take a Kundalini Yoga Training at the Awareness Center and received my certification in 2008. This was a transformational experience for me. It cleared so much of the heavy energy I was carrying, but left me feeling ungrounded and unable to help process my traumas. After the death of my mother, I started working with Dr. Raven Lee to help process all the things I had been running from my whole life. I took her 3 year Mystic Shaman Training which really helped me work through and ground back into my body. The Integrated Shakti Reiki Master Training she was offering also felt right. I finally understood that I was always working with Shakti energy, but didn’t realize it! I became a Level 1 Integrated Shakti Reiki Master in 2013 and Level 2 in 2016. To appreciate being back in my body, I took the Yin Yoga 1 & 2 Trainings at Spiral Path in 2016 and 2017 and Restorative Yoga Training in 2018 with Cindy Li to start working with mindfulness and the nervous system. After my Shaman Training ended, I decided to hone in on my yoga skills, and took a 300 hour Advanced Yoga Training at Yoga Madre. I received my certification in 2019. During my Shaman Training, I was offered a job teaching recovering addicts and/or those suffering from mental illness. I know that without my own personal work, I could never have been able to teach this population. To support them I took a trauma training, Warrior at Ease Yoga Training, in 2020 and a Mental Health Aware Yoga training in 2022. This then led me to the iRest Yoga Nidra Meditation level 1 training by Richard Miller that I also completed in 2020 and iRest Yoga Nidra Meditation level 2 training on 5/7/22. After these last trainings, I felt like I had a road map to working through the challenges of living in this world. I learned how to hold space for sensation, emotions, thoughts, and become Aware of Awareness and Being. This has been invaluable to me in my own healing. I have always been looking for different modalities of healing, whether it be yoga, meditation, or reiki, to find a way to process my own suffering. Finding a connection to Spirit, which is inherently love and compassion, and sitting with what is arising is what I realize is what true healing is. In gratitude that I can share what has helped me, my hope is that it will help you on your journey towards conscious awareness of your own wholeness.