Hiya, Pinkies,
Please welcome our dear friend and Mojo Mentor Fred Kraseise, who today is taking a major Pleap (Pink leap of faith) and gifting us with an incredible story from his life. You have no idea how hard it is for Fred to disclose his story. Have you ever had the burning secrets that just eat away at you? This is Fred’s. What he is doing here is unbelievable brave. So PLEASE, love on him silly. We all feel so vulnerable when we put ourselves out there, yet we’ve created this safe community here to encourage each other to be authentic. And Fred’s taking it us up on it. Fred is the most incredible man, and I believe every word of his story. If Fred says it’s true, then by golly, it’s true. Let’s lavish him with the love and acceptance we all want when we’re putting ourselves out there and being vulnerable.
With Pink love and a standing ovation for Fred,
Lissa
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This is complicated, but I’ll try to keep it simple. This is very hard for me to write, yet it is the most important thing I have ever written – so here it comes.
As most of you know, I am a certified massage therapist, Reiki Master and life coach. If you have had a session with me, you also know that I work I do is profoundly different – it’s a different experience from getting a massage or other bodywork at the spa – not that there is anything wrong with that! We don’t get enough touch in our culture and that is a shame.
But the work I do is different because I work with victims and survivors. I work with women who have been sexually assaulted, physically or emotionally abused, or who have suffered some form of shock and trauma, and who experience chronic pain every day. I also work with women who are undergoing transitions in their life, specifically divorce, separation, loss of loved one, and grief. I try to help my clients reconnect with their bodies. In many cases, the only nurturing touch they have in their life is when they see me. They have shut themselves off – living disembodied from their physical being. The goal of our work is to reconnect once again, to become whole once again, and to begin anew with body, mind and spirit once again in balance. The goal of the work is to help the client move on.
We like to be able to explain things in our culture. “How do you do this?” people ask me. And the technical answer I give them is that I combine a variety of Asian and western massage forms. I use subtle energy therapies like Reiki and some Cranial-Sacral Therapy. I combine what ever I feel is necessary to meet the client where she is in her space. I am profoundly influenced by both Esalen massage therapy as well as Lomi Lomi massage – the beautiful Hawaiian form of massage. Both forms of bodywork require that the practitioner be especially present and hold a very sacred place for the recipient. And I combine life coaching in a way that helps the client to move forward. That’s what it is all about.
So that is what I tell people. But there is more. Much, much more.
I have what some people might call, a “gift,” and it has only been recently that I have begun to see it as such. For years, I buried it, denied its existence, and refused to acknowledge it.
What is it? Ok. This is the hard part for me.
I can sense the presence of angels, and other entities. To borrow a line from the movie “The Sixth Sense,” I can sometimes see dead people and they sometimes communicate with me. I am also highly empathic, and I can tell the moment I put my hands on a client if there has been a history of abuse or violence. I often will feel what they felt during the abuse or the trauma. Their tissue carries more than just the physical scars, but the emotions and feelings, and I feel it all. Together, I work with these very special women to try to release the pain.
I don’t make this announcement casually or lightly. I have gay and lesbian friends, and for me, this represents my own form of “coming out,” and it opens the door for ridicule and scorn. I’ve worked very hard to be taken seriously. I’ve undergone years of training as a massage therapist, energy worker and wellness coach. But, for many reasons it is very important that I accept this, and do what my dear friend Lissa says, “to own it.” It is after all who I am.
I buried this “gift” for what I thought was a very good reason. When I was six years old, my sister was killed by a drunk driver. She was older than me, 18 at the time of her death. But, we were very close. She would look after me, she would read to me. She took me to a magical place she said was called a “library” and introduced me to the world of books and literature. To this day, I consider libraries sacred places. We were so very close, and her death created a void in my heart – a painful, empty space.
What happened that night? I saw a vision of my sister getting hurt. I saw the accident in a premonition. I tried to tell her about it. I begged her not to go out that evening. I cried and said ‘please don’t go.’ She told me that everything would be alright, but I knew that it wouldn’t. She left to go out and I knew I would never see her again. She was in a fatal car accident less than a mile from our house and died a few days later. And so, I buried my “gift” because I was angry.
I hated God and angels and wanted nothing to do with them. And even when thoughts or visions would come to me, I refused to acknowledge their existence. I wanted no part of this – I was furious and held that anger with me for nearly 50 years. This was no gift. I was seriously pissed off! What merciful God would give a six-year old a vision of his sister dying? I would often cry out, “Leave me alone!” “Go away!”
Thankfully, they never did.
It wasn’t until I began my practice as a massage therapist that things began to change for me. At the time, I didn’t even realize or consider that I needed to do this work in order to heal myself. But when you open your heart to God’s infinite love, you cannot help being swept away by it. And that is what slowly began to happen.
I began to open my heart and draw upon my ability to see things to help me gain insight with clients. Just recently, a woman came to see me for the first time. The minute she walked into my office, I sensed and saw a presence beside her. It was her mother, and she remained with us throughout her daughter’s session. She wanted me to tell her daughter how proud she was of her. The daughter works for the government and has recently been selected for a very important overseas assignment.
After our session concluded, we chatted about how coaching could help her regain some balance in her life. She said that she had lost herself in the past year. Her work was demanding and she said that she was holding her family together. I asked what happened, and she told me that her mother had died a year ago from breast cancer. I said to her, “You know your mother is very, very proud of you and I think she wants you to know that.” She immediately began to cry, and told me that she had a dream of her mother just the night before, and in that dream her mother said the same thing, that she was very proud of her.
This has happened to me before, but I have never been so powerfully affected by the feeling of unbounded love. For the first time, I actually began to feel the unlimited grace of God’s love. It was there, surrounding both of us. It was palpable and I could feel it.
With the help of some wonderful friends, most notably my dear, wonderful friend Alice Langholt (@ReikiAwakening), I decided it was time to talk to the angels. I could not have done this without Alice’s help and support. She is the one who encouraged me. She is the one who guided me to this point.
The idea of actually talking to angels was extraordinarily difficult for me. I was still harboring the anger, the hurt over the loss of my sister. But, these angels (there are usually four of them by the way) have been hanging around me for some time and for some reason, and I’ve also been burdened with this “gift” for some reason. So, I finally agreed with Alice. It was time for me to get some answers.
How do you get answers? You have to ask the questions. So I did.
I asked my angels why they were bothering me. Why are they here? Were they here to mock me in some way, because I rejected them so many years ago? And then I asked them the most difficult question. I asked my angels why I was given the vision of my sister’s death. What purpose could that possibly have served? After all, I failed in warning her. It was my fault that she went out. If only she had listened to me. If only I had tried harder to persuade her. If only . . .
Yes, if only.
Here is their answer. They told me that there was nothing that I could have done. I was given the vision to remind me that I would always be in the loving arms of God’s embrace. I was given the vision to help me keep my sister forever in my heart, to strive to live my life like she would have wanted me live, to grow and contribute and to live life fully; to give back something to the world. She would not be able to make her mark on the world, but I still could.
That was the lesson that I missed 50 years ago. That was the lesson that my anger blinded me from seeing. Yes, if only I had been able to receive that lesson 50 years ago, I would have been able to release my pain and anger. But, it doesn’t matter. You can always move forward. And that is what I have decided to do.
My sister wants me to move on. And she has sent loving angels to help me. That is why these angels are here, looking over me, guiding me, assisting me in everything that I do. They are with me every day, every moment. And they are with you too. They are all around us, everywhere. They are here to help, and to guide. And they are here to answer our questions. We only need to ask them.
I don’t consider myself to be an angel expert. There are many people in the world who are, and I’m not one of them. And I don’t expect to be writing much about angels. But, I have embraced them as a part of my life. I no longer am angered by their presence. I look forward to seeing them every day now. I look forward to asking them more questions. And I look forward to their help for I realize they have helped me to see a greater universe.
Angels are part of who I am. They are part of me. They have helped me understand that I am part of God’s realm.
And if a client asks, I will hopefully find the right words to explain it. I still want to be taken seriously, but I have no qualms about saying that I sometimes get a little extra “help” in my work. It is my angels who help me connect to something higher. It is my angels who guide me and help me hold my clients in God’s loving embrace.
I think my clients will understand. I hope so, because it is true.
Peace to you all.
Fred
