Seeing Auras

From the Book Path Of The Dream Healer
The Path Of The Dream Healer

As a Reiki and Healing Touch Practitioner, I have always wanted to see the auras of my clients.  I mean physically “see” the colors, chakras and energy flow of the field.  I thought that if I could see the energy that would make me a better healer.

For the first ten years of my Healing Touch practice, I focused my eyes on the energy field of every person I worked with hoping that someday I would finally “see.” I studied the Barbara Brennan books, I studied The Chakras by C.W. Leadbeater, and I studied every other energy book I could find. I read about other people’s experiences of seeing and opening up to the energy. I also painted my healing room a light blue, because certain colors seemed to bring out more activity around my client’s heads.

Then finally, one day in 2010, I was looking at the illustrations in the book The Path of The Dream HealerAdam McLeod‘s illustrations of auras showed human bodies surrounded by soft, glowing colors. Instantly I realized I had been seeing energy fields all along. I had been looking for the illustrations in the Barbara Brennan books – and not really perceiving what was really in front of me. It was an incredible moment. I could now see auras and even show other people how to do the same. It was so profound for me it felt a little surreal. A paradigm shift. What else was I not perceiving?

I have also found that learning to “see” has not instantly made me a better healer. I still primarily get information about my client’s energy by feeling the aura with my hands and by just “knowing” what I need to do in the session.

Now that I actually perceive more of what I see, I find I see things differently than the experiences I have read about. I frequently see tiny orbs of light fade in and out in my client’s fields.  These lights are mostly neon blue and white, but sometimes I see orange, red and black. I have no idea what these lights are, yet I always feel very relaxed and peaceful when I notice them. Then again, I usually feel relaxed and peaceful in my healing sessions and I do not always notice them.

In my first Healing Touch class, my teacher and mentor Carol Kinney said that she could not feel energy for the first two years of doing Healing Touch. It was the glowing reports from her healee’s that inspired her do Healing Touch until she could feel the energy herself.  I found this inspiring and incredibly interesting.  I know that I am aware of only a small percentage of what is happening in my sessions, even after 10 years of doing the work. And I learn something new every day, and really, in every healing.

Our healing gifts and perceptual abilities are as unique and specialized as we are. I realized just how unique and specific while listening to a radio show called Seeing Beyond a few years back.  I was in my healing room preparing for my next session while James Van Praagh was talking with Bonnie Coleen about spiritual house cleaning. James Van Praagh is a spiritual medium that has written many books including Ghosts Among Us, Talking to Heaven, and Reaching to Heaven.

He was describing how he and Mary Ann Winkowski were energetically clearing houses.  Mary Ann Winkowski is also a medium and wrote a book about her life, abilities and paranormal experiences called When Ghosts Speak. Van Praagh stated that Winkowski could see spirits when they were earthbound and he could communicate with them only after they had crossed over. I had always thought a medium would be able to communicate with anyone that had left his or her body. It’s as if everyone has their own bandwidth they can tune into.

I feel like I am on the tip of the iceberg when it comes to perceiving reality, or more specifically, my bandwidth of reality. I find the stories of other healers, psychics, artists, and intuitive people incredibly inspiring. I know my ability to perceive energy has greatly increased over the years and with every healing I will continue to expand my awareness.

If you have any stories of how you perceive energy as a healer, please feel free to share them!

Five Music Favorites for Healing

Music is a very important element in my Healing Touch Practice. The music I choose sets the energy of the session. It also can help to clear the energy of the previous client and ground the space for the next healing.

I have clients who want the same music every session, it’s part of their healing ritual and as soon as they hear the first few notes they instantly relax. This works well for clients who are going through stressful medical procedures because they can play their healing music before or during the intervention and the music helps reduce their anxiety.

There are weeks when I feel the need to change the music from one client to the next. Then there are times when I seem to get in a groove and I may play the same music throughout the workday. Rainy days are sometimes like that. When I find a great new CD, I might play it straight for a few days if appropriate. Finding fresh new music greatly invigorates my practice and can bring new discoveries to the healings.

I also have sessions when I just can’t decide on what to play until the client walks through the door.

When I started my healing practice I had a CD player with a “repeat” button that played one CD at a time. Now I have a Boise sound system with an iPod and I can create my own playlists. This has proven to be a major technical advantage because I had so many great CDs with just one selection that was too fast or jarring for healing work.

I don’t make playlists for healing sessions from a wide variety of musicians. I find that each artist tends to create each CD with a specific energetic intention and I like to keep that energy level throughout the session. Generally what I do is take out that one upbeat song that is not suitable for healing work and repeat one of the other songs to make the playlist long enough for a full session.

The five recommendations below are for healers who use CD players in their studios, so if you decide to buy the CD you will not have to worry about editing. I have been playing all these CDs on and off for years. I hope they enrich your healing practice and life as much as they have mine.

“Canyon Trilogy” R. Carlos Nakai

My first recommendation is R. Carlos Nakai’s “Canyon Trilogy” recorded in 1989. It is a masterpiece. The tone of this piece is just right, you can feel it in your body. This is the music I almost always play for new clients because it holds such a high spiritual frequency and is grounding at the same time. Another good thing about this CD is that most people do not perceive it as “new age”. I work with many people who are quite sick and who are coming to me for physical relief. Many of these clients have never had a healing before. Music that is too “new age” can put them off and even irritate them. Canyon Trilogy is a crowd pleaser on every level.

“Yearning” by Lisa Moskow and Robert Rich

“Yearning” by Lisa Moskow and Robert Rich is from 1995. I paid $18.00 for it in a bookstore sixteen years ago and I remember thinking how expensive that seemed at the time. That purchase was well worth the investment: I have played this CD a million times. By the time I started putting all my session music on my iPod, I had to buy it again because the disc had started skipping. “Yearning” is a slow Indian raga, thick with warm overtones that feel incredibly nurturing and very deep. This is music for intense, focused healing work. There are sessions where this music would not be appropriate because it is so intense. I also meditate with it frequently. Check out “Nada” below.

“Reiki – Hands of Light” by Deuter

A very uplifting choice in music is “Reiki – Hands of Light” by Deuter. It is a beautiful piece of music, powerful yet much lighter than “Yearnings.” This music is clear, confident and slightly energizing, yet never interferes with the deepest healing states. “Hands of Light” is very popular with clients and I know many other Healing Touch Practitioners who love it.  Released in 1998.

“Essence” and “Compassion” by Peter Kater

Peter Kater’s “Essence” (1997) and “Compassion” (1998) have been staples in my music repertoire for years. These two CDs each provide a 75-minute landscape of gentle musical movement that supports and smoothly sustains a deep healing space. I can’t really recommend one over the other. For years I played “Essence” more, but now I am gravitating to “Compassion.”

“Essence” starts with six and a half minutes of a soft beautiful vocal melody before the piano comes in. Many times I start the CD before the client gets on the table so the actual healing begins with the piano. It’s a wonderful way to begin a healing. “Essence” was recorded with synthesizers and acoustic accompaniment: David Darling on cello, Cecil Hooker on violin, Rhonda Larson on flute, Peter Kater on piano and Chris White singing vocals with no words.

“Compassion” has several minutes of gongs and bowls at the beginning before the piano arrives. The gongs and bowls are then accompanied by Peter Kater on piano, David Darling is on cello, Mark Miller on sax and flutes and Chris White is singing wordless vocals. I find this music strong and grounding.

I have been playing these five CDs on and off for years. I hope they enrich your healing practice and life as much as they have enriched mine.

Jeri Lawson has a full-time healing practice in the Temescal Area of Oakland, California. She is available for Healing Touch, Reiki, Distance Healings and Clarity Breathwork Monday through Friday, 10 am to 6 pm.

510-601-9632   

jerilawson@mac.com

Releasing Limitations

Swimming in the RainOne of the reasons I do Clarity Breathwork regularly is to release limiting beliefs. I have found many of my limiting beliefs to be imprinted in my body, dormant and therefore inaccessible until something activates them. The more I do Clarity Breathwork, the easier it is to detect if my intuition and my gut feeling about a current situation in my present life originates from my higher guidance or from something else– like my childhood conditioning.

Another dormant childhood belief spontaneously surfaced recently while I was working out at a gym with an outdoor 25-yard-lap pool. It had been raining on and off in California for weeks and on this morning it was starting to drizzle again. The pool was warm and inviting with soft white steam rising from the blue water. As I slipped into the pool, the first light raindrops started falling, creating intricate circular patterns on the water’s surface.

The pit of my stomach tightened. I ignored the sensation, started swimming and the feeling got worse. I even felt threatened, like my life was in danger. Being in the water was not safe. I stopped swimming after one lap and looked around. The other swimmers were leisurely doing their laps. No one looked dangerous or concerned. Why did I feel so uncomfortable? Should I get out of the water?

Suddenly it came to me. In Missouri where I grew up, we never stayed in the pool when it was raining. In my mind’s eye I saw images of myself and other children frantically scrambling out of the water at the first splash of a raindrop. We were told we would certainly be hit by lightning if we hesitated for even one second. My mother was especially vigilant about keeping us from getting killed by a lightning bolt, and understandably so. My mind had totally forgotten this experience of Midwestern life, but my body obviously still remembered.

I am still surprised at how physical this imprint was and how my strongly my body reacted to a situation it had been conditioned to believe was unsafe. I had never been swimming in the rain since I was a child, so my body had not updated the survival information: it’s safe to swim in the rain in California.

Before doing Clarity Breathwork, I don’t think I would have been able to connect with my body quickly enough to understand where the dangerous feeling was coming from. As soon as I became conscious of the childhood memory, the dangerous feeling vanished and I relaxed instantly.

That morning I had a remarkably soothing and peaceful swim in the gently falling raindrops.

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