As a teen and young adult, I felt fairly fearless in my daily life. I surfed big waves...or tried to, but still, they were very big cold waves, I traveled and worked as an editorial photographer in countries of high conflict, naively thinking if my passion and faith were strong enough for the work, I would be safe from harm. I was proven wrong. I ventured into risky relationships--the kind I knew would break my heart but I did it anyway. I threw caution to the wind and sometimes happily and foolishly courted disaster to experience adventure and to feel alive and awake.

Other than a few crappy relationships, some hard lessons in learning boundaries and self-respect and several slices of humble pie, I don't regret my thrill seeking past. I liked living out of a backpack, traveling the globe with camera in hand, I felt comfortable on the road and I didn't hold a lot of fear in my life at that point.

However, much of my fearless spirit abandoned me when I came back to the states and settled into my new home in Colorado and gave birth to two amazing children in my third decade of life. As soon as my baby's little foot kicked the inside of my womb, a fear like I'd never imagined took hold and ruled. Once the children were born, thoughts and images of disaster preoccupied my mind and I found myself deliberating which route to drive to the store that would least likely have traffic or deer to avoid a crash and killing my son or daughter.

In therapy, we call this awfulization--making the worst-case scenario out of any event, real or imagined. I don't think my fear was entirely abnormal. Many new parents grapple with the angst and vulnerability felt for their new family. Problem was, my fear didn't go away, instead it mutated into an overwhelming sense of unreasonable responsibility to save my children and every child and adult on this earth from pain and suffering.

Some of this herculean desire to help humanity was modeled by my do-gooder parents but other than that, a lot of it didn't make sense. My father used to tell me I became a counselor at the age of seven by the way I listened to the problems of my family and friends. Recalling my childhood, I see now how I had concern for others at a very young age, as many children do. But in my concern was a need to be the hero, saving people like Superman. My imaginary world was filled with magic rings and capes that turned villains into angels, preserving the village from ruin and mayhem.

I thought my inspiration was born from compassion and pure intention to heal, but in reality, the thrusting energy behind my motivation was plain and simple: Fear. I thought if I could help fix someone's problem I would be a better individual and they would live a happier life. On some level I thought the more people I assisted, the more worthy I would become--like Creator would give me a brownie point for each person I helped. Cognitively I knew my actions were a drop in the ocean but I believed my passion to heal could create tsunamis. If I created tidal waves of positive change than I wouldn't fear the oblivion of worthlessness.

My fear of unworthiness did not stem from a compromised childhood or lack of parental love. I was born with it and like fire expanding in air, my angst expanded in the experiences of this lifetime. Giving birth to my children was the kick-starter of an already mounting pressure.


The courage and passion that I had as a young adult I took with me into my healing career by working with difficult populations. Once again, I thought my passion would protect and save me. Old patterns die hard.

You see, my fear-driven-over-responsible-energy resonated with the heavy energy of deep trauma; that energy mixed with my desire to deliver people from pain made counseling highly traumatized clients seem easy and while I helped a lot of people, I certainly didn't help myself. A caseload with a percentage of traumatized clients is normal in the healing practice but a full caseload of only complex traumatized clients is not. Such caseloads are not healthy for the counselor. I took home a lot of heavy energy and carried the weight like it was my own. But that was my karmic release--my lesson was in releasing a responsibility that wasn't mine to hold and with that the tie to worthiness. Could I learn to love myself for just being me, healing or no healing? Could I accept myself as is without ever helping anyone again, that being me as I am is worthy of infinite love? No f------ way, I thought.

This unrealistic and unhealthy belief of omniscient responsibility needed to be released. Call me slow, stubborn minded and resistant, I learned the hard way in releasing the energy. Something I'd like to help you avoid doing, whether you carry over-responsibility, anxiety, guilt, anger or loss, you can release karmic energy easily and gently. First, you need to identify the karmic energy, debt or karmic pattern within you, which is not always obvious and then make the effort to release it.

Looking back at the beginning of my healing practice, I realized I did a lot of heavy lifting in my client-counselor role. There were many clients, especially kids who courageously entered into their healing work like true warriors but some clients sat back and allowed me to do their work. I don't blame them. I blame my fear. In my desire to prevent them from feeling pain, I buffered their experience and possibly mitigated their growth and evolvement. My mentor at the time told me that pain was necessary, that we wouldn't evolve and learn compassion without it; that all the types of pain, be it physical or emotional, eventually will bring us progress and compassion.

At first, I resisted her nugget of truth because it collided with my fear and created spiritual resistance. She was right though. Now after fifteen years of being in the healing arts, I can honestly say there is nothing like the efficacy of pain. This is so hard to witness in a young person such as your child, a teen client, or a friend. Feeling pain drives home a lesson or experience as well as increasing empathy and compassion. How many times have you given sound advise to a child, partner or friend, only to be ignored. I bet ten to one, your loved ones learned what they needed to   perhaps battered and bruised but always growing.

I have friends and clients who through their pain become less judgmental, gentler and more compassionate human beings. I'm sorry for their pain but not their growth. With time, they get over the pain but their evolvement plays out in every move of their life. Their change is inspiring and beautiful  to be a part of.

It took many years of heavy lifting in relationships, not just my client- relationships but my personal relationships, as well as getting sick before I decided my way of helping maybe wasn't the best way for my clients or me. I had to find a way to release this responsibility and accept myself in the process. By taking care of myself, doing the healing work and taking the time to facilitate self-love, I've let go of my heavy burden. While I still hold compassion and empathy in my heart, my intention for my work is more clear and clean. I still care a heck of a lot how my clients are doing but in a way that enables them to hold accountability for themselves and when they do, they are empowered to make positive change. I now WANT to heal, instead of feeling like I HAVE to heal.  When your motivation is driven by HAVE instead of WANT, than that might be a clue your desire is karmic driven, which is not a bad thing. When you feel compelled to partake in something, you are giving yourself the opportunity to release and learn something new about yourself and to feel more peace.

When your major karmic debts are released then you are left asking, "What do I really want to do? What is me and not debt?" This in itself can be challenging because you're no longer driven by a needling energy. You get the chance to know yourself in a deeper way and that can feel like being lost at sea for a while until you figure things out. But when you do, you know your desire is unwavering and pure in this time and moment.


I can also say from my experience I can help people locate their karmic pattern and facilitate release. There are many protocols that are offered by so many amazing healers that enable karmic release such as Thetahealing, hypnotherapy, EMDR, meditation, and often, just knowing the who, what, where and why of karmic patterns can help release it. In future posts I will give examples of what karmic patterns look like and how they were released in case studies.


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As we move through our life, we have layers of energy surrounding us: The first layer is your physical body. The outer four layers of energy are commonly referred to as your aura. Together, these five layers or "energy bodies" are the human energy field. Our field or layers of energy affect us in numerous ways, especially our perspective. We have so  many experiences in our field of energy that motivate us to do all sorts of things. Continue reading about what each layer represents as it's important to understand these layers and how they impact us. Our karma resides in our field of energy.


The Physical Energy Body –
Everything is energy, trees, animals, buildings, etc. Our bodies are also energy; same as the four energies surrounding it; although, many people can’t see or sense these layers on a physical level. 
The Etheric Energy Body -
The second layer -- the etheric layer of our energy body is located approximately one quarter to one half an inch from the physical body. The etheric energy body has also been referred to as the blueprint or holograph of the physical body. Many energy workers work with this blueprint. Our Etheric layer protects our physical body from toxic energy unless we have wounding in our layers, which look like holes or tears.
The Emotional Energy Body - The emotional layer of our energy body is the third layer. This is where our emotions reside and this layer can fluctuate depending on the intensity of our mood.
The Mental Energy Body – Our beliefs, thoughts, and ideas transform in this layer. As our beliefs change, our perception on the world changes-as does this layer of energy.
The Spiritual Energy Body - The spiritual layer of the human energy field is the final layer. Some say our higher consciousness lives in this layer.

As we release karmic traumas, our frame of reference or perception of the world shifts and clears, as do these energetic layers-- they can move, grow larger, darken or lighten.
Imagine, these energetic layers being like a coat we wear through life. Our energetic experiences live inside our coat, affecting our frame of reference-in other words, our perspective on life. As our field or coat of energy gets cleaned up, our perspective changes and we see and experience things differently than before.  
When we reach the end of our life here on Earth, we check our coat at the door before entering into eternity, which some people call heaven or the life after and so many other names. I believe this is where we live our real life. We continue to learn, share, work, etc in eternity, just like we do here. We live our eternal lives in eternity but come here to Earth temporarily (although it can feel like forever) to learn and evolve.
 
From what I understand, we choose our next life based on what we want to experience and learn. Our souls exercise our free will in choosing (or not) to grow, evolve and expand as beings. When we are reborn into our next life we put our energetic coat back on that we checked at the door when we left our previous life. In that energetic coat are all the experiences from previous lifetimes, which again, affect our perspective in the current life. We live with past life residue and it is up to us entirely to wipe away those residual experiences so we can have more clarity in our souls and mind.

Our energetic coats are loaded with thousands of experiences, both positive and traumatic. From what I’ve seen in my work and what I’ve studied and learned from other healers in this line of work, is generally there are four to five past life experiences that substantially affect our current life and most of those past experiences were traumatic.

We don’t always get opportunities to heal our trauma, especially if we had a traumatic death or lived in an era where surviving was the only item on the menu. When we have deep trauma in our energetic coat, it can affect us in our current life any where from causing fear, stress and anxiety to feeling inexplicably sad. Past life trauma lives in the four layers surrounding us and stays there until it is recognized and healed. 

If there’s intense trauma in your energetic coat, think of it looking like a dark grey mass in one of the layers, that mass will push into the other energetic layers, affecting our physical and emotional bodies. Remember, we are all energy and energy is constantly moving, unless it gets stuck. Energy never just disappears, it moves or gets stuck, thus disease and negative patterns and thought beliefs. Trauma can cause our energy to stagnate and get stuck in our energetic coat, thus affecting our perspective and how we literally feel every day of our life. Often it can feel like a needling energy that motivates us to act a certain way, maintain unique beliefs, have fear or anxiety, or pursue a goal or career that matches or relieves the thrusting energy (see blog on the efficacy of pain).

When we are reborn into our current life, we sometimes choose similar circumstances of that of a past life, so that we could trigger our past wounds. We do this as a way to heal our selves. If our wounds aren’t triggered, how would we know they exist. They’d lay dormant, affecting our belief system and driving our behavior and/or cognition. An example of this is when someone dies alone in a house fire in a previous life, in their current life that fear could be triggered when they are around fire or in that they feel uneasy when they are alone. Many times our fears may feel so ungrounded in reason because there’s no concrete experience to substantiate them. Why would someone feel deathly afraid of being alone when they grew up in a loving family with no abandonment of any kind?

I get this all the time in my practice. Clients, bewildered, share their fears with no idea as to why they are so anxious. But when I “look” at their karmic past, everything makes perfect sense to me and eventually to them as well. It’s helpful to have a reason for the way we feel, even if we can’t see it or experience it in this lifetime.

When we heal, we may not be only healing a wound in our current lifetime, but one from many lifetimes. Not all our experiences in our current life mimic our past life trauma, but we are still affected by those residual experiences. If we want to feel more clear and light, we have to dig for reasons behind our behavior or needling energy, especially if it doesn’t make sense. 

Healers can locate some of the wounding in our karmic coat and explain what happened, why and how it affects us in our daily lives. Knowledge is power, power to change and clear our mind from fear, anxiety and overwhelm. Some healers can facilitate the energy out of the energetic layers. When this happens, we feel more peace in our mind, our bodies feel light and the anxiety and fear dissipates or in some cases disappears. We then see our world in a different manner. What may have seemed too daunting or scary, may appear exciting or do-able. Or simply, we may not over react to the environment around us. So many times, we walk through life reacting, letting our emotions drive rather than our mind. With karmic release we’ll have more opportunities to accept and/or feel motivated to change our environment consciously. Not because we need to out of guilt or fear but because we want to, because our minds are at peace and we no longer wage war with the world inside ourselves-- and that is a big difference.
 

When my client pounded her fists onto the couch and said, “Is

my life EVER going to get any less difficult? Why does life

keep throwing curve balls at me and when is it going to stop!”

I understood just how she felt, along with many other clients of

mine.

My reply to her was, “Well, life probably won’t stop throwing

curve balls but you do get a choice in how to deal with them.

And since the curve balls won’t stop coming, you might as

well do something to help yourself–or not.”

And this is where I start my work with many of my clients,

whether they come to my office for trauma-related work,

improving relationships or spiritual work or all three; it all

comes down to making the choice to work on yourself and

loving yourself on a deeper level. Peace = Self Love. As we

grow more peaceful, our world around us mirrors that peace

and balance. The biggest step is choosing to do the work, and

if you’re reading this right now, I’d say you are ready to do the

work.

My connection to spirit is strong. As a child, I heard and felt

my angels. At the age of nine while laying on a picnic table at

UCSC, I was surrounded by pure light and felt lifted and taken

away to a place of indescribable peace. Later, the woman who

trained me in the psychic arts, said I was taken by the angels.

Since then, I’ve been striving to return to that level of peace.

At the age of 12, I started training in Karate. When I turned 14,

my Sensai pulled me aside with four other students and told us

we were gifted and ready to start a deeper level of spiritual

training, which included breath work, meditation and chanting.

This opened up my world and I realized how much more was

going on in the universe and that we could access it. My 14-

year-old mind thought it was the coolest thing ever.

What I’ve learned from years of practice is that connecting to

spirit will bring us into our soul’s desire-- and that is peace -

which means freedom from the fearful constructs in our minds.

When we connect, we decrease and/or sometimes altogether

lose our fear, we resonate with the peace and before we know

it, we’re breaking old negative patterns, moving energy and

changing our beliefs about the world around us. I will write

about this from 15 years of case studies of what has worked

and what has not. I also teach classes on developing peace and

building spiritual connection and intuition as well as other

classes. Please click on my “services” button for more

information on what I offer.

And last but certainly not least, I am married with two

children. I love to meditate, take long walks, sometimes surf,

collect sea glass, and eat excellent food with excellent wine

and wonderful friends.