We all go through times when we feel out of sorts, off our game, stuck in a rut, activated and triggered, or repeating the same unhelpful behaviors. These times provide an invitation — to go inwards and reclaim and unleash our true power, purpose, and vitality.

In each session we’ll learn and practice techniques to help us call forth the qualities and potencies of each chakra.

The other night I was out dancing in a club with a new friend when I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to catch a plane in the morning but hadn’t packed any snacks! A stranger, who reminded me of a painter I know, called me a car to get back to my friend’s apartment. I was so grateful because I couldn’t figure out how to make my phone work. Then an elevator let me off on a random floor of a hotel, and I had to try to find my way down to the parking lot through a fancy lobby that I recognized from a movie. The whole time I was feeling bewildered. Then I woke up.

What interpretations about this dream occur to you?

If you’re not feeling connected to the fertile abundance around and within you, spending some time working with the sacral chakra, the seat of our deep life force energy, can help. The sacral chakra, in the lower belly, draws energy up from the root and uses it to fuel our vitality, creativity, sensuality, sexuality, playfulness, and sense of freedom and flow.

When I’m feeling out of synch with the time, the weather, and my schedule, or if I’m repeatedly waking up depleted, scattered, foggy, or overwhelmed, I know it’s time to do some grounding. Connecting the root chakra to the Earth provides a deep sense of stability and support while aligning the body to seasonal rhythms. Now is an especially apt time before all the year-end festivities, pressures, and triggers start to accumulate.

When my son was little he used to get angry listening to the radio in the car — “Why are ALL the songs about LOVE?!” Love is a Battlefield. All You Need is Love. Endless Love. Tainted Love. Baby Love. Modern Love. Stupid Love. Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Is This Love? What’s Love Got to Do With It? There are many different kinds of love, and recently I was thinking about how to describe the “love” I feel during sessions with clients. It’s not romantic love, of course. It’s powerful and yet soft, coming from me and also through me. It’s closely related to “compassion,” but even that feels like just one aspect of it. While I don’t say “I love you” to my clients, I do love them, in this way. There just isn’t quite the right word for it.*

Do you get inspired by back-to-school season? I always feel more energized and focused at this time of year. In the spirit of the season, here are some of my recommendations for anyone interested in learning more about the chakras and the subtle energy bodies, both for casual, personal interest as well as professional development. This is by no means an exhaustive list but rather a few of the tried and trusted resources that I rely on and most often share with others.

If you're feeling chronically exhausted, it's always a good idea to see a medical professional to identify or rule out any medical issues. If you've been tested and inspected and sent on your way without satisfactory solutions, like many clients I work with, then I invite you to take a look below and consider whether some areas of your life might need some tending. Let your intuition tell you which fuel you need most, and see if you can set aside some time to give it to yourself. Ideally we fill all seven tanks daily!

When you look back on your life, can you identify specific experiences, decisions, or encounters that set you on your current path? I often wonder how many life-defining, watershed moments we each have. One or two? Fifty? Hundreds?

If you've been feeling frazzled, anxious, unsettled, scattered, panicky, or disoriented, your nervous system might be short-circuiting. It's time to kick off your shoes and socks, sink into a soft spot of grass, and get grounded.

Many people have come to their first session with a common refrain: "I know what the issue is, and I'm tired of talking about it, I just want to move on." After working with therapists and other health professionals over time, we can become well-versed in our deficiencies, tendencies, triggers, traumas, and patterns. Yet awareness and understanding does not always translate into growth or change; the mind might be ready to move on while the body is still holding on to the past, repeating unconscious and unwanted reactions and patterns of behavior.

We all accumulate beliefs as we move through the world. Over time, with healthy curiosity, education, and exposure, many of our beliefs evolve and adapt. When someone holds rigid beliefs that don't change even after being challenged or contradicted by direct personal experience or education, we recognize that there is a problem, and we see every day in the news how harmful and misguided this can be on the social level. And yet many of us are not aware of the rigid and outmoded beliefs we hold about ourselves and how they impede our health and well-being.

As an energy healer I can see how so many physical problems originate from imbalances and distortions in our first (root) chakra -- what ought to be a vital energetic connection to the earth and one another. I can see now how my "stance," my orientation towards the world as a child, was exacerbating my pain and impeding my healing.

The news cycles can send many of us on a spiral through heavy emotions: despair, shock, anguish, fear, frustration, exasperation, rage... This can be overwhelming and difficult to manage and process, especially if there's resonance with any personal trauma we may be carrying.

One of the more intriguing aspects of energy healing is the phenomenon of healing at a distance. Many people have a hard time with the concept, understandably. As the NIH observed, distance healing poses "a host of epistemological challenges.