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I know good self-care is the number one reason I am still in business and doing well. I can not imagine having a healing practice if I did not first take care of myself emotionally, mentally and physically.
My self-care sessions, especially in modalities that help me process emotionally – such as hands on healing and breathwork – only happen when I book them in advance. It is so important to listen to my inner guidance, that little voice that says it’s time to rebalance.
A few months ago, my healing practice surged with many new clients, and in a moment of pure brilliance I scheduled several healings and breathwork sessions for myself as soon as I could.
I am now enjoying the support from other practitioners as I integrate all that is going on in my healing practice, my life and the world at large. I am fully present for my clients now because of the extra support I have given myself.
The more I give to myself, the more I can give to others.
Since I started this blog two years ago, I have found several other healers writing about their practices and how energetic healing can enrich our lives. In this post I would like to share three of those blogs with you.
The first blog is by Judith Schutz, Judith Treating cancer with Energy Healing (including the Bengston Method and the Domancic Method): A resource on the use of bioenergy healing to treat cancer, with commentary on working with the Bengston Bioenergy Healing Method, the Domancic Method, Matrix Energetics, Quantum Touch, and Reiki.
Besides sharing her immense experience with the above energetic modalities, Judith is frequently challenging the unconscious ways in which our media and healthcare system treat cancer.
In her short, yet profound post “Some thoughts on Roger Ebert “losing his battle to cancer” she writes:
“This metaphor of cancer as a war that is waged between the disease and the patient has got to go”.
“…We need to find a more useful metaphor, one that gives us new ways of looking at this disease, that will perhaps trigger different, and less harmful, treatments. How about the alternative where we look at the cancer cell as confused? A cell that has lost its connection to the whole that could perhaps be taught to return to normal…”
Judith currently uses all the healing modalities she has studied in the treatment of sports injuries. Click here for her Treating Sports Injuries With Bioenergy blog.
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The next blog is from Reiki Master Pamela Miles who has been doing Reiki since 1986. Pamela’s Reiki practice is in New York where she also teaches. Pamela has a wonderful website, yet I received an email from her a few weeks ago stating that she is going to redo it. Her video on Reiki is one of the best introductions I have seen on energetic healing, so I hope she keeps that on her site.
I personally have been very inspired by Pamela’s website. Her commitment, clarity, and years of healing experience make her blog an incredible resource.
There are two subjects she addresses often that I have found particularly interesting. The first one is self-care. Pamela is a big advocate of daily Reiki treatments. Check out her post The Most Important Thing. Since discovering Pamela’s blog, I have made a conscious effort to make sure I give myself daily Reiki treatments. I have really noticed a difference, especially in my emotional well-being.
Pamela also writes about describing Reiki as more of a spiritual practice instead of an energy medicine. In her post Reiki: Spiritual Practice or Energy Medicine? she states:
“As a spiritual practice, a Reiki treatment doesn’t rearrange the biofield as much as it reminds the system of its capacity to self-heal. A Reiki hand sounds the metaphorical wellness chord, the “sound” of which calls the human system to reorganize around its inherent wellness, thereby increasing consonance in the system, and reducing dissonance from within, rather than sweeping it away from outside, as is done by an energy medicine treatment. The Reiki hand may be the soft mallet that sounds the gong, but the resonance, reorganization, and healing come from within. Yes, the practitioner plays a role, but Reiki healing remains essentially self-healing.
In energy medicine, the therapist does the housecleaning, whereas through spiritual practice, we alter our state from within. Reiki is a spiritual practice that has therapeutic applications. That doesn’t make it energy medicine, but it means it can look like energy medicine.”
From this perspective, Healing Touch would then be more of an energy medicine. This is interesting to me because as an energetic practitioner I LOVE Reiki, yet call myself a Healing Touch Practitioner for a variety of reasons too long to list now. When I give myself an energetic treatment I have always felt like I was doing Reiki, so Pamela’s thoughts on this make a lot of sense to me.
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The third and last blog is from Barbara Litchfield, a Healing Touch colleague that I have yet to meet in person. Barbara has been blogging since 2007. Her writing style is heartfelt, honest and based on her own healing practice. From reading her blog, I can tell Barbara is a heart centered healer – deeply committed to helping people feel better.
Barbara’s post, Energy Therapy Changes the Energetic Pattern is nothing short of BRILLIANT. If you don’t have time to read it right now, click on the link, bookmark it and save it for later.
I hope you enjoy these blogs as much as I do.
Jeri Lawson is available for Healing Touch and Clarity Breathwork sessions Monday through Friday, 10am to 6pm, in the Temescal Area of Oakland, California.
I had signed up for Kathy Allen’s Pre-symposium Workshop It Takes a Special Person to Be a Healer even though I had never heard of Kathy Allen before and had no idea of what to expect. All I knew was that her class was right after Anne Day’s Journaling Your Healing Journey and just before the networking gathering and pinning ceremony.
The presentation turned out to be one of the highlights of the conference and has given me a deeper understanding of emotional and energetic release in my Healing Touch Practice.
First of all, Kathy Moray Allan is remarkable. She is a Healing Touch Certified Practitioner and Instructor as well as a Board Certified Holistic Nurse. She studied energy healing with Rosalyn Bruyere for three years, taught Integrative Imagery for Beyond Ordinary Nursing and graduated from the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute as a Certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. Kathy is also on the Advisory Board of One Freedom, an organization that provides trauma education and training to the military, their families and care providers.
The focus of her workshop was on how prolonged exposure to clients who have been traumatized by natural disasters, domestic abuse, family break ups or terrorist threats can affect the healer. The Symposium was right after the Boston Marathon Bombings, so maybe that had something to do with how profound and timely this workshop felt.
Kathy talked about Practitioner Traumatization, Compassion Fatigue and old fashion Burnout. She described the symptoms healers may notice in themselves, and gave out strategies to prevent practitioner trauma.
Some of the strategies were: get Healing Touch Treatments (of course), spend time in nature, develop and nurture a sense of spiritual connection, sing, laugh and listen to Bellruth Naparstek’s Guided Imagery CD’s.
Kathy spoke about Post Traumatic Stress, a topic that is now being addressed frequently in the healing world. One reason for this being the increase of War Veterans that are now dealing with it.
Kathy’s handout stated this about Post Traumatic Stress:
“Although it is a source of tremendous distress and dysfunction, it is not an ailment or disease, but the byproduct of and instinctively instigated, altered state of consciousness.”
I also found this quote from her handouts by Peter Levine very inspirational:
“Remember, traumatized individuals had the strength to survive the experience and with a little help they can learn how to restore the wisdom of their bodies and the joy in their lives.
…Not only can trauma be healed, but with appropriate guidance and support, it can be transformative. Trauma has the potential to be one of the most significant forces for psychological, social and spiritual awakening and evolution.”
Post Traumatic Stress is not just about veterans, war and major disasters. In my healing practice I have always observed how beneficial it is for my clients to regularly release trauma from surgeries, minor car accidents, dental work and even the paralyzing effect of constant financial stress. Regular Reiki, Breathwork, Massage and Healing Touch sessions really keeps stress from accumulating in the physical body.
This short post does not give justice to the insights I gained from Kathy’s presentation. I feel like I have come back to my own healing practice with a fresh perspective and deeper awareness on how to better assist my clients.
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Here are a few more links about the Symposium and Self-Care Techniques that may be of interest:
Self Care: Shine a Bit Brighter Each Day an article by Caroline Elliott, BScN, RN, HTPA, who was on the Symposium planning committee.
Here is an article by Anne Day called Journaling for Self-care and Development. Anne presented the pre-symposium workshop Journaling Your Healing Journey, which I attended and thoroughly enjoyed.
A free voice guided Chakra Meditation by Ellen Long.
A Huffington Post’s Healing Touch With Guided Imagery Could Help Relieve PTSD Symptoms In Soldiers, Study Suggests
Community! Community! Community!
Last month, I attended Healing Touch California’s 7th Annual Regional Symposium called Self-Care: Body, Mind & Spirit in San Diego. Healing Touch California is a network for all Healing Touch Practitioners and students, and this year all branches of Healing Touch were represented: Healing Touch Program, Healing Touch International, Healing Touch Spiritual Ministry and Healing Touch For Animals. That’s a lot of Healing Touch!
It was exciting and heart warming to talk with so many other practitioners and hear how they were writing grants to get Healing Touch into hospitals, organizing events to get Healing Touch to War Veterans, and energetically supporting friends, family and clients with Healing Touch.
The next few posts will be about what I found personally inspiring at the conference, and how it has impacted my healing practice. There is so much to write about!
In this post I would like to focus on some new Healing Touch products that have been recently published, which I highly recommend. The first, a kit called The Healing Touch Home Study Course: Energy Therapy for Self-Care that includes a DVD that is about 90 minutes long, a CD that runs about an hour, and a workbook with cards. I watched most of the DVD and then promptly lent it to a client. It will be coming back in a few days and I will continue to work with it. This kit is wonderful if you are new to energy work, yet it has helped me refocus on self-care, which I believe is the most important healing work anyone can do. Healing Touch Program and Sounds True (I love Sounds True, by the way) did an outstanding job making this kit. Janna Moll, who is a senior Certified Healing Touch Instructor, is an excellent guide as she explains the remarkable potential of the human energy system.
Healing Touch also published a stand alone DVD called Healing Touch for Beginners, which I realized after I bought it has some of the same material as the kit, but is geared more toward beginners. It also has a very clear and easy to understand description of the chakras and energy system. I find since I am currently focusing on self-care, I am using the kit more.
On a personal note, my Healing Practice is busier than it has ever been and I am currently experiencing a wave of new healing clients. This is the perfect time for me to remember and practice self-care. Being so busy does make it more challenging to write my blog every week, but these are exactly the problems I love to have.
Jeri Lawson is available for Healing Touch and Clarity Breathwork sessions Monday through Friday, 10am to 6pm, in the Temescal Area of Oakland, California.
Hawley Hussey’s home was one of the few left standing after Super Storm Sandy.
I asked my dear friend Hawley Hussey to write a post about her Reiki practice and she sent me this beautiful letter to share with you. Hawley is an artist, writer, performer, arts educator and, as she calls herself in this letter, a maker.
Over the years I have watched Hawley bring art to children in the inner cities who would otherwise never get a chance to experience painting, drawing, performing, pretending, playing and the exhilaration of creating. She is a catalyst for joy.
I have experienced Hawley’s distance Reiki healings while facing personally challenging moments and the Reiki she sends is so grounding, loving and tangible.
Hawley lives in Coney Island and in her letter she describes her healing process after super storm Sandy:
“Dear Jeri,
As you know I have done Reiki every day since my first Reiki 1 attunement in 2001 here in NYC.
I practiced Reiki 1 for a full year, then my Reiki 2 attunement changed everything with the ability to engage in distance work. Distance Reiki is a daily part of me, like good hot coffee and walks on the beach. Beach walks are now the great exception as my beach community was leveled by super storm Sandy.
I got internet and phone about two weeks ago but not one moment of complaint can happen as my neighbors are either homeless or sequestered into a couple of rooms in their homes as they still wait for relief. Our beach house was strangely spared.
There is no real solace in being the ones who made it. My beach walks and especially my well-known winter bathing (usually a daily practice) have come to a full stop. The water has been filthy and the beach side houses are so destroyed it is impossible for me to engage in the joy the edge usually brings to me. The edge where ocean, sand and boardwalk meet.
Reiki has preserved a thin thread of hope for me. The thread is gold and real and keeps my spirits afloat even with this loss of my neighborhood and my bit of the Atlantic. All the destruction brought with it high creativity. I had to go within. Tap into the source of wonder I was born with and be what I am. A maker. With no internet or phone since October’s end my painting and writing practice have flourished.
I did notice that I pretty much let go of the tending of my wee beach side apartment. Normally I take great pride in my organizing and tending to my home. I think I had been distancing myself in case I had to suddenly leave. Although I still have to look through much damage to the ships passing and sunsets setting I am still sending Reiki daily and without fail. To myself, to the sea, to my neighbors, to my loved ones, to difficult people at work, to strangers I see suffering, to potential wild cards on a crowded train. Much is gone from this brush with an explosive and destructive wilderness experience and much has quietly and quite unexpectedly arrived.
I am so thankful for Reiki.”
Laurie Ann Lepoff
Laurie Ann Lepoff, a Dance Teacher in Oakland, California, did a series of ten Clarity Breathwork sessions with me to heal her migraines in 2010. In the third session she actually arrived in the early stages of a migraine and released it during the breathe! Click here for the full testimonial. Laurie recently sent me this update and I thought I would share it with you:
“Last month I had tickets to the runway show at the Crucible, a very noisy busy flashy event. I woke up with a really bad migraine and thought maybe I’d just do the dinner beforehand with my friends and skip the show, but the migraine got so bad I couldn’t even do that. So finally I did the breathing (with about 2 hours to spare before my friends showed up to take me to dinner because I kept putting it off). Not only did the migraine disappear but I enjoyed the whole show with 2 hours of blaring music and flashing lights (major migraine triggers on any day) and it didn’t come back!”
Jeri Lawson is available for Healing Touch and Clarity Breathwork sessions Monday through Friday, 10am to 6pm, in the Temescal Area of Oakland, California.
Belleruth Naparstek is a pioneer in the field of guided imagery and many of my Healing Touch colleagues have been raving about her CDs for years. If you don’t know about her work then you are in for a treat when you view this video!
I personally find her voice incredibly soothing and grounding. Belleruth has an effective blend of practical affirmations and energetic suggestions in her meditations that are precisely written and beautifully executed. They are also very accessible to a wide range of clients.
Below is a description of Guided Imagery from her website:
Guided Imagery is a kind of deliberate, directed daydreaming that uses soothing music and narrative to evoke multisensory memory, symbol and fantasy. This combination gently guides the overactive mind into a relaxed, immersive state of healing reverie. It works easily and powerfully for most people, and doesn’t require much from them – just some basic imagination. Many people who have trouble meditating or relaxing do really well with guided imagery.
I highly recommend the first CD in her two CD set “Meditations To Promote Successful Surgery” when you want to relax and visualize a successful operation of any kind. This is the best CD I have found to help you prepare for surgery. The second CD in the set is music only, and while I know many healers who use this music CD quite a bit, I find it a little too repetitive. You should check it out for yourself.
Belleruth has guided imagery CD’s for headaches, depression, weight loss, post traumatic stress, panic attacks… she pretty much covers everything. Her online store is an excellent resource, especially when you want to address specific issues.
Enjoy this moving video of Belleruth doing a guided meditation for stress release.
Happy Thanksgiving!
It’s Thursday night and I’m just about to go home after my first four days of working in the new healing space. I’ve been going nonstop all week and this is the first time I have had to sit down and write.
Last Monday morning, just as I was beginning my first session in this amazing room, it hit me how much I missed my old space. Yet, two minutes after I started working, I suddenly felt completely “at home” and I knew it was all going to be OK.
I really had a lot to let go of before I could really “be” here. I’ve learned so much these last few weeks about work, home, letting go, opening up and enjoying every moment of it even when it’s really hot and I don’t know how to vent my air conditioner.
I am so excited to come back here and work tomorrow.
This book is about Anita Moorjani’s childhood, illness, near-death experience and the integration of that experience into her fearless new life. I was surprised at how much this book touched me because I have read so many other wonderful accounts of people’s near-death experiences. It might be because Anita focuses on the reasons she discovered for living and the lessons nearly dying taught her.
This is a great book. Check out the “Questions and Answers” section starting on page 163. I found this chapter particularly inspiring and I know I will be rereading these 20 pages for a long time.
Below is a section from the question “Wouldn’t too much self-love make people selfish and egotistical?” I have been thinking about the clearing and healing energy of self-love for the last few months and this beautiful passage by Anita describes it so clearly:
“In my culture, I was taught to put others first and myself last or not at all. I wasn’t taught to love myself or to value who and what I am. As a consequence, I had very little to offer others. Only when we fill our own cup with regard for ourselves, will we have any to give away. Only when we love ourselves unconditionally, accepting ourselves as the magnificent creatures we are with great respect and compassion, can we ever hope to offer the same to anyone else. Cherishing the self comes first, and caring for others is the inevitable outcome.
Selfishness comes from too little self-love, not too much, as we compensate for our lack. There’s no such thing as too much genuine affection for others. Our world suffers from too little self-love and too much judgement, insecurity, fear and mistrust. If we all cared about ourselves more, most of these ills would disappear.”
Jeri Lawson is a Healing Touch and Clarity Breathwork Practitioner in the Temescal Area of Oakland, California.
Clarity Breathwork can help keep you centered when focused on a long-term creative project. Shooting a film, launching a new business or remodeling a home is about 10% creativity and 90% hard work. The creative idea is only a small part of the process, the real creativity comes in solving all the problems that arise when manifesting an idea on the physical plane.
About a month ago on a New Dimensions Radio Program, I heard Terry Tempest Williams make the statement, “Courage is sustained attention.”
What a brilliant insight. It really made me think how many clients I have supported who have succeeded in manifesting their visions. I know how much courage it took them to stick with their project.
While supporting clients committed to long-term creative projects, I have noticed this “Sustained Attention” mode is when personal insecurities, old memories and limiting beliefs often surface. Writing a book, launching a new business, or completing a new series of paintings requires addressing and releasing any energetic blocks that stops the creative flow so you can continue to move forward.
A limiting thought like, “I’m not good enough” has to go if you have to make a deadline. Old wounds or past rejections can suddenly constrict energy flow in the physical body by causing an old back injury to emerge or cause you to suddenly not have any time to work.
Commitment takes courage. Being supported during the creative process keeps the whole experience manageable, exciting and even fun. Private Clarity Breathwork sessions are especially powerful because they create the space that allows you to let these blocks surface and release in a safe and gentle way. The focus is on you, your process and your project.
Breathwork keeps you connected to your initial passion as your vision takes form.
Clarity Breathwork is perfect for cutting right through writer’s block. When I need ideas about what to write my next post on, I just do a breath session. I’m amazed at the guidance I receive.
Support yourself as you manifest your goals and vision. Clarity Breathwork makes the creative process a lot more fun!
