There is a lot of healing going on in Asheville, North Carolina.
Lourdes Lorenz
In this article by Kate Lundquist, read how Reiki and Healing Touch – as well as other complementary therapies such as guided imagery, aromatherapy, breathwork, massage, and biofeedback – are being integrated into mainstream medicine.
I discovered that in 2007 Lourdes Lorenz, a nurse of 33 years, started an integrative healthcare department at Mission Hospital in Asheville. She has trained over 450 nurses to use Healing Touch.
Think about that: 450 nurses doing Healing Touch.
Talk about “being the change.” Thank you, Lourdes Lorenz!
Jeri Lawson is available for Healing Touch, Reiki, and Clarity Breathwork sessions Monday through Friday, 10 am to 8 pm, in the Temescal Area of Oakland, California
I love the shot of a women receiving a session with her full-length boots on. I love hearing about another headache that was released with energy work, and I love the fact this was made in Ketchum, Idaho.
Enjoy.
Jeri Lawson is available for Healing Touch, Reiki, and Clarity Breathwork sessions Monday through Friday, 10 am to 8 pm, in the Temescal Area of Oakland, California
With Laurie Ratto at the California Healing Touch Conference
I am part of a community of Healing Touch Practitioners who live and work throughout the Bay Area. This community is a continual source of inspiration and support for me in my healing practice. Today I would like to share an article written by my colleague Laurie Ratto,“Healing Touch Helps Those with Cancer”.
Laurie Ratto has a private Aromatherapy and Healing Touch Practice in Alameda, California. She is also a RN. In this article Laurie mentions our volunteer work as Healing Touch Practitioners at the Charlotte Maxwell Clinic. While she writes about my success with neuropathy in my private practice, it was one of Laurie’s sessions at Charlotte Maxwell that made me first realize how beneficial Healing Touch could be for my clients going through Chemotherapy.
I am not an isolated healer. I am part of a dynamic, enthusiastic, heart-centered group of healers who are creating a new paradigm of possibilities. These are exciting times.
Jeri Lawson is available for Healing Touch, Reiki and Clarity Breathwork sessions Monday through Friday, 10am to 6pm,in the Temescal Area of Oakland, California. 510-601-9632
Jeri Lawson is available for Healing Touch and Clarity Breathwork sessions Monday through Friday, 10am to 6pm, in the Temescal Area of Oakland, California.
In this blog I have written several posts on how practical and supportive Healing Touch sessions are for anyone going through Chemotherapy or Radiation, and how much relief my clients have had from the side effects of neuropathy, fatigue and body pain.
In my healing practice, I have also witnessed how supportive energetic sessions are for people after cancer.
Some cancer survivors appear to pick up their life right where they left off when they are finished with western cancer treatments. Other clients find they are disoriented and unsure about how to move forward. Friends and family expect them to be happy and grateful and instead they may feel lost or angry. Some people also start processing their fear, anger and grief after it’s all over and they feel it’s safe.
Here is a selection from “Life After Cancer” by Meghan Brennan describing her last day of cancer treatment:
“…I climbed into my car, put the keys in the ignition, and waited for the joy that was certain to follow — after so many disappointments, the day had finally arrived. I’d be able to walk unaided; I’d be able to breathe. Strangers would stop addressing me as “sir.”
Instead of joy, I spent the next 30 minutes crying effortlessly into my steering wheel. That was when I knew: I’d lost it. What person with even a shred of understanding would act this way? Who responds to the conclusion of an active fight against death with increasing levels of depression, anxiety and grief? Well… I did.”
Everyone who has had a cancer diagnosis has their own unique journey. When I had thyroid cancer, I had scheduled a surgery merely to have a cyst removed from my throat and discovered afterwards that I had also had thyroid cancer. (Interestingly, the cyst had nothing to do with the cancer.) I was extremely lucky and felt like I glided through the whole event. Support was everywhere, on every level. Compared to my migraines – which were extremely traumatizing and emotionally charged for me – cancer was a non event.
As a healer, I never assume to know what my client is feeling or going through. I just set my intention to hold the highest space possible and the energy meets my client were they are at.
Clients often find during a healing that when they fully relax, they connect with their own inner guidance and find a sense of what their next step is. Sometimes it’s a profound insight and sometimes that guidance is much more subtle. It might be about what to do that day — like call a friend for lunch or find a certain book to read. Yet that immediate next step connects them to the rest of their journey and is exactly what they needed to do at that moment. This is one example how Healing Touch sessions not only help with pain relief for the body, but can also help with the larger issue of how to regain one’s life after cancer.
Jeri Lawson is available for Healing Touch and Clarity Breathwork sessions Monday through Friday, 10am to 6pm, in the Temescal Area of Oakland, California.
There is something very profound that happens emotionally when deep relaxation occurs in a healing session. I don’t fully understand it, yet I watch it happen daily in my practice and see how much my clients benefit from it.
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My clients usually come for a Healing Touch session for relief of physical pain. Yet in the last few months, I have had clients who came to specifically address emotional issues that they wanted to release and resolve.
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Healing Touch is one of the most subtle healing modalities there is and that includes gentle emotional balancing and release. A Healing Touch session is safe, non-invasive and very comforting for anyone in a very fragile and vulnerable state.
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Emotional release in my Healing Touch sessions is most often quite subtle. Most Healing Touch sessions are immediately experienced by my clients as relaxing and extremely peaceful. Such a deep state of relaxation is a different state of consciousness, or several states of consciousness that have profound healing effects on the mind, body and spirit.
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While supporting clients through a surgery or other physical condition with a series of healings, many clients have appeared to resolve long-term emotional issues. They report back after the session, sometimes emailing months (even years!) later that issues that once obsessed or triggered them just don’t seem that important anymore. This emotional resolution had not been my focus while I was working with them; As an energetic healer my goal was to balance their energy field so they could self-heal. Obviously a balanced energy field can facilitate even deeper healing and emotional release.
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The more I learn about healing, the more I find there is to understand. Healing continues to be a mystery to me. I hold space for this mystery daily with complete trust that what ever needs to happen will happen and that it is indeed all good.
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Jeri Lawson is available for Healing Touch and Clarity Breathwork sessions Monday through Friday, 10am to 6pm, in the Temescal Area of Oakland, California.
This week’s post is a testimonial from one of my recent clients.
“Jeri was instrumental in helping me get through chemo and radiation when I was undergoing treatment for breast cancer. Her gentle healing touch helped me enormously with the side effects of treatment, and consequently I was able to carry on with almost all of my regular activities, including chasing around my three young children! I visited Jeri the evening after each chemo session, and once a week during my daily radiation. I felt exponentially better immediately after each session, and I truly believe that my successful completion of treatment was due in large part to Jeri’s help.”
To read more on this blog about how I support clients diagnosed with cancer using Healing Touch, check out these posts:
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.
In my healing practice I have watched Healing Touch sessions make a remarkable and dramatic difference in the lives of my clients who were going through chemotherapy and radiation. Because of this, I would like to see every person with a cancer diagnosis have access to Healing Touch treatments.
That’s why I have been a volunteer at the Charlotte Maxwell Clinic in Oakland since 2008.
The Charlotte Maxwell Complementary Clinic (CMCC) is a state licensed primary care clinic and a community of healthcare practitioners dedicated to bringing low-income women alternative healthcare. Designed to work alongside the services of a primary care physician, CMCC is also a center where women with a cancer diagnosis can find consistent physical, emotional and spiritual support through healing modalities.
The Charlotte Maxwell Complementary Clinic was named after social worker Charlotte Maxwell, who died of ovarian cancer in 1988. Charlotte was an extraordinary woman who found that complementary therapies greatly enhanced the quality of her life, especially in the final months. Her healthcare practitioners were so inspired by her spirit that they founded The Charlotte Maxwell Clinic. They wanted to make acupuncture, energy work and other complementary modalities accessible to women who otherwise would not be able to afford them.
Navigating our healthcare system, even with insurance and a strong emotional and financial support system, can be overwhelming. Navigating our healthcare system without insurance can be devastating. At CMCC, it is so rewarding to see a women who looked fatigued and exhausted, walk out or her Healing Touch session with a smile on her face so much more relaxed.
At CMCC I have worked with women of all ages and diverse cultural backgrounds. I find it so exciting to work in a clinic where the value of complementary modalities is understood and put into action in the community. The Charlotte Maxwell Clinic is a working model of how people with cancer are benefiting from alternative medicine in our healthcare system.
Volunteering at CMCC is a rewarding experience. As a volunteer, I received a weekend of orientation and training, and was then scheduled for one shift a month with clients. I see three clients during my shift. I get there thirty minutes before my first client to look over the medical charts. Everything about the client is in the charts: when she was diagnosed, what kind of cancer she has or had, what Western treatments she is currently going through, and any contraindications. I can look at what modalities or treatments the client has had in the past and read the notes from those practitioners. If the woman doesn’t speak English, that is also in the file and the clinic usually provides a translator.
Sessions with clients are 50 minutes each. At the end of each shift all practitioners and staff support gather to check in. Check-ins have been extremely educational for me. I have learned so much more about cancer and the current Western medical therapies. By listening to the other practitioners, I have also learned the amazing benefits of other complementary modalities such as Acupuncture, Chinese Herbs, Jin Shin Jyutsu, Therapeutic Imagery, Feldenkrais and Western Herbs.
At the check-in, if circumstances warrant it, practitioners can write referrals for their clients to the CMCC staff. This could be for a woman who needs special preparation before an upcoming surgery or a client who needs special care due to an infection. Appropriate staff members will then call the client and make sure the client is taken care of.
The Charlotte Maxwell Clinic also has presentations and workshops for volunteers on each modality the clinic offers and lectures on topics such as “The Basics of the Biology of Cancer.” I attended two separate talks on chemotherapy by oncology nurses from the Bay Area that have been extremely helpful while working at the clinic and in my private practice.
Since volunteering at The Charlotte Maxwell Clinic I can picture how our healthcare system can integrate Healing Touch and other complementary modalities into our medical culture. It is inspiring to work in a community with so many caring and committed women coming together to help each other. Working at Charlotte Maxwell gives me the hope to believe we can change our healthcare system to a culture where everyone is cared for emotionally, physically and energetically.
The Charlotte Maxwell Clinic has an office in San Francisco and an office in Oakland, California. To find out more and to support the work of CMCC click here.
Jeri Lawson is a Healing Touch Practitioner and Clarity Breathworker in the Temescal Area of Oakland, California.
