Below is a short video showing how Healing Touch can make a difference for hospital patients. Yes!
The Healing Touch, Reiki and Clarity Breathwork Practice of Jeri Lawson
Below is a short video showing how Healing Touch can make a difference for hospital patients. Yes!
The Healing Touch Community in the East Bay is very committed to supporting the Veterans. One of the ways we give back to the Vets is bringing Healing Touch to the Stand Downs.
Stand Downs are held all across the country. They are one to three-day events that provide services to homeless veterans. They provide food, Social Security benefits counseling, shelter, clothes, haircuts, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, various health screenings, and much more. Often there is also massage, Chiropractic treatments and, as you might have guessed, Healing Touch available.
Last Saturday, I participated in the Stand Down on The Delta at the Contra Costa Fairgrounds. Here is a link to an article in the Contra Costa Times that gives you an idea of what the Delta Stand Down was like.
The whole event was so well organized. I just love that. Our Healing Touch coordinators are beyond amazing. There must have been twenty emails preparing us for the event. We had all the information we needed: directions to the grounds, where to park, where to get our shirt and badge, what to wear, what to bring, good snack suggestions – we were prepared!
Being in a healing space from 9 to 5 was quite extraordinary, as well as intense, and all that preparation came in handy. The coordinators were always on patrol in the Healing Touch tent, encouraging us to take breaks, eat snacks, stay hydrated and take good care of ourselves.
The healing sessions lasted about 30 minutes, and on Saturday, the day I volunteered, there were about nine healers. Some Healing Touch Practitioners signed up for both days.
It is wonderful to do healing work in a group. Even though the sessions were one- on-one, it felt like we were all working together. It was an incredibly loving, healing, and supportive environment for the Veterans.
Healing Touch Coordinator Suzanne Mittica wrote:
“I am always amazed at the generosity of spirit, the unstinting extension of personal skills of just darn nice people who volunteer for the many tasks of a successful Stand Down. It doesn’t matter what role we play in the rest of our life, we become the many with one purpose: to show the vets someone cares.”
I would like to thank Healing Touch Practitioners and Stand Down Co-coordinators Nancy Khlafallah and Suzanne Mittica. They spent the last year getting this event organized. Also thank you to Assistant Coordinator Cindy Durant and Helper Maryanne Mitchell.
I posted this video on how beneficial Healing Touch can be for Veterans once before, but it is such a good video, I had to post it again. I can’t link it directly from my blog, so after you click on the video box, then just click the word “YouTube” at the bottom of the video. That will take you right to a YouTube video you can easily watch. This video pretty much sums up why I volunteer at Stand Down:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hBnDb4EWxE&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop
Energy work has been an incredible support for my clients when they are in the hospital. After years of healing in hospitals, I am still amazed how remarkably helpful Healing Touch and Reiki can be in these stressful situations.
A few months ago I worked with a young girl immediately after extensive back surgery. Her mother, who did not have much experience with energy work before this, was instantly on board with hands-on-healing. After one of the follow-up sessions, I showed her how she could clear her daughter’s energy field: I just demonstrated for her one very simple Healing Touch technique. Her daughter was very sensitive to the pain medications she was being given, and I knew even five minutes of this simple clearing technique throughout the day would help her immensely.
I want to say right away that I am not a Certified Healing Touch Instructor. I cannot “teach” Healing Touch, but I can “show” a mother a simple technique that may keep her daughter from getting nauseous. I also made it very clear that all healing is self-healing, and her daughter was the only one who could heal herself. I told the mom “just try the clearing and let go of the outcome.”
Here is part of the email she sent me weeks later:
“THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your work with my daughter and me!! Wow – talk about things just coming together at the right time!! I love your energy and spirit and that you were able to do those sessions was so awesome. Also that you took the time to show me how to try to work on her was amazing!! I’m not sure how well I did, but there were some super tough times during our hospital stay. It gave me something concrete to do to try and help my daughter. You were so kind to share that with me!!!!!!! You truly have an amazing gift!!!!
We all have this amazing gift of healing, right at our fingertips.
Last July, I attended Kathleen Prasad’s Equine Reiki Training.
I first learned about Kathleen’s work via YouTube. I found a video of Kathleen doing Reiki in a shelter full of dogs. Her simple approach to Reiki is a welcome bridge between my studies in non-duality, my healing practice, and my life in general. There are moments on my spiritual path where I can’t tell if my meditation practice is deepening or dissolving. Reiki with animals puts me in a space where all that doesn’t seem to matter.
Since discovering Animal Reiki, I have watched Kathleen’s videos and read most of her books and online articles. I have given her book “Reiki For Dogs” (which is brilliant) to many of my friends and clients. I took her email correspondence course, The Animal Reiki Workshop: Core Curriculum, and during that course, I found and adopted my dog, Berkeley.
So you can imagine how excited I was to attend her Equine Reiki Training.
The class was held at BrightHaven, which is a Sanctuary and Hospice for senior and special needs animals. It is a typical ranch style house in Santa Rosa filed with cats, dogs, chickens, horses, two goldfish, a pig and a goat. There was so much love in that house I felt like I was sitting in a temple. I consider it one of the most sacred spaces that I have ever entered.
Richard Pope is a Director and one of the Founders of BrightHaven, and he was at the workshop sharing his wealth of stories about the animal residents as well as taking groups of us to the horse pastures.
Kathleen donates half of her workshop fees to BrightHaven.
I work with Reiki every day, but sharing Reiki with a 1000 pound animal was an experience that took me completely out of my element. It was more profound than I had anticipated. The first horse’s attraction to the energy was so strong he backed me into a tree; he really liked the Reiki. I was surprised by how emotionally (and physically!) moved I was by interacting with the animals.
The stories Kathleen told throughout the day were educational as well as totally fascinating. She shared the pivotal experiences that taught her how to be Reiki with the animals. Her understanding of animals, healing and life is priceless.
Below is a quote from Kathleen’s blog post: 5 Things You Need To Know about Animal Reiki Today
“Reiki teaches us to be compassionate to ourselves and to others. Ultimately, there is no difference, since all is One. It is this Oneness space that Reiki helps us to tap into with its many tools. When we are with our animals, we can often touch this space, feeling our hearts merge with our animals’ hearts. These moments are so profoundly moving. We can often see a wonderful healing response arising naturally from these compassionate moments.”
I felt this “wonderful healing response” arise in me. The horses appeared to like it too.
Jeri Lawson is available for Healing Touch and Clarity Breathwork sessions Monday through Friday, 10 am through 8 pm, in the Temescal Area of Oakland, California
I’ve been reading and thinking about Flow.
What is Flow?
To use Jason Silva’s descriptions from the first video below, it’s that state in which time slows down or speeds up, self vanishes, action and awareness merge. Flow is an effortless state that silences our inner critic.
Abraham Maslow called Flow “a peak experience.” In the 1970s, James Fixx described Flow as “a runner’s high.” Los Angeles Lakers’ coach Phil Jackson calls it “being in the zone” and Miles Davis spoke of it as “being in the pocket.”
As a healer, I call Flow “sacred space”. Sacred space is where healer and client become one, where there is no time, where the more “I” get out of the way, the more effective the session.
I find it fascinating to see how other people are experiencing Flow and how powerful this state is. In the second video, Jamie Wheal tells the story of how his first Flow experience changed him: “I was different. I found what I had been seeking; I was home for the first time in my life.”
Jamie Wheal is a founder of the Flow Genome Project. Jamie and co-founder Steven Kotler’s website used to state:
“Flow states are now known to optimize performance, enhance creativity, drive innovation, accelerate learning, amplify memory and underpin happiness itself.”
Steven Kotler’s website is now the Flow Research Collective. Click on the link for more information.
Are Healers really Flow Hackers?
Jeri Lawson is available for Healing Touch and Clarity Breathwork sessions Monday through Friday, 10 am through 8 pm, in the Temescal Area of Oakland, California
As Healing Touch Practitioner Janna Moll writes: “Clients tend to come in batches”*
The latest wave of clients in my healing practice have been contacting me for pain management and healing after surgery.
Post-surgery sessions are where I have seen people cynical of energy work join the Healing Touch fan club. I had friends who would roll their eyes at me when I talked about the benefits of energy work, yet after a post-surgery session they enthusiastically starting referring clients to me.
The most obvious effect of an energy session after surgery is the reduction of physical pain. For ankle and knee surgeries, clients have said they had no pain. It’s quite amazing.
Another incredibly wonderful thing is the clearing of anesthesia from the body, helping reduce nausea and headaches.
The third factor that I find immensely helpful is that Healing Touch helps my client relax and let go of anxiety. This helps them sleep so much better.
I feel like I am on a soap box here, but I can’t help it. Healing Touch and Energy work are SO HELPFUL when recovering from surgery. If you are getting ready to have surgery, find a Healing Touch Practitioner or another energy worker to give you a healing as soon as possible after the surgery. Having a session before surgery is also recommended.
Many hospitals – such as the Kaiser Permanente Walnut Creek Medical Center – have volunteer programs where Healing Touch is readily available. That means it’s free!
Click here for a list of facilities that have Healing Touch. Many nurses are also Healing Touch Practitioners, so ask your Hospital if Healing Touch sessions are available. Click here for a link to Certified Healing Touch Practitioners all over the country.
Energy work makes a difference.
Jeri Lawson is available for Healing Touch and Clarity Breathwork sessions Monday through Friday, 10am to 6pm, in the Temescal Area of Oakland, California
*”Practitioner Development” Energy Magazine May/June 2015 Janna Moll MSN, CMT, HTCP/1
To watch this wonderful video, click the box and you will find it on YouTube. Hear what Doctors, Nurses and Veterans have to say about Healing Touch. Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hBnDb4EWxE&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop
Here is a sweet video from the participants of the last Clarity Breathwork Intensive in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Ashanna Solaris and Dana DeLong are now taking this beautiful work all over the world. If you want to get away and go deep, this is a training/retreat for you.
Thank you, Dana! Thank you, Ashanna!
To learn more about PachaMama click here.
While I highly recommend these Clarity Breathwork retreats, it is also possible and incredibly healing to have regular sessions in Oakland and then integrate that expanded state immediately in your daily life.
Jeri Lawson is available for Healing Touch, Reiki and Clarity Breathwork sessions Monday through Friday, 10am through 8pm, in the Temescal Area of Oakland, California.
I have found in my personal healing practice that one of the many benefits of Healing Touch is the release of toxins from the physical body.
I know this may sound crazy to anyone not familiar with energy work, but over the years my clients have consistently reported the physical symptoms of toxins in the body, such as fatigue from medications, headaches from allergies and tightness in the chest from environmental pollution, fall away after a healing. Some people have said they can actually feel chemical exposure or old medication leaving their body during a session.
One man who had been working with toxic cleaners a few days before his healing, reported that after his session his urine was discolored for several days and then he felt amazingly better.
Similarly, clients who have recently been under anesthesia seem to release residual drugs still in their body – especially from chemotherapy. In my last post I wrote about a client who was experiencing withdrawal after going off the pain medication from his surgery. The energy work was very helpful in getting him through the ordeal.
I have worked with two clients who were able to release toxins they traced back to specific environmental events from their childhood. It took a series of sessions in each case, but after the energy work, they feel much stronger and healthier. Clients who relax and release tight muscles during a Healing Touch session often tell me the next day their bodies are sore, as though they have experienced a deep tissue massage.
Most remarkably, a client and I both smelled cigarette smoke during her Healing Touch session, even though the woman had stopped smoking years before.
If you are feeling sluggish, fatigued or you seem to get every cold that comes along, think about trying Healing Touch. Energy work is also a wonderful support when making dietary changes or doing a cleanse or fast. Healing Touch helps the physical body release and return to its natural state of health and equanimity.
Energy work improves quality of life.
Jeri Lawson is available for Healing Touch and Clarity Breathwork sessions Monday through Friday, 10am to 6pm, in the Temescal Area of Oakland, California