Over the past two years I got curious about energy work and energy healing. First, I watched a Goop episode on energy healing on Netflix. It explained that by using energy work one can release tension, anxiety, and blockages and tap into unknown reserves of power. I was intrigued by this and the thought of tapping into more energy. At the same time, my friend Sandra and I were participating in an online seminar from New Ventures West called “Year Launch: Becoming Who You Really Are – The Ultimate Human Quest.” Every month we would get questions for reflection and inquiry as well as daily practices to increase our self awareness. These included sensory exercises which were focused on becoming more aware of your body sensations and emotions. Sandra and I started to read up and talk about the realm of energy, vibrations and expanded consciousness and I felt drawn to learn more about it. We were about to sign up for an energy course in the East Bay when COVID shut down all in-person classes. So nothing materialized right away. But life always has its ways.

When I arrived in Hawaii in January of this year I felt the urge to find some sort of retreat – a yoga or meditation retreat – something that allowed me to create more space and stillness in my life. I wasn’t very successful in finding anything as all in-person offerings were on hold. During my search, however, I stumbled onto Sarah Daigle’s website. She offered “energy upgrade sessions” (an intuitive blend of Quantum/Reiki/Hands on Healing, Sacred Sound, Crystal Therapy & Aromatherapy) and “De-armoring” (Emotional and Energy Release). Now that sounded intriguing – and I also wasn’t quite sure what it all meant. As with many things I’ve pursued and explored over the last year I followed my curiosity and intuition. I wanted to give this a try, find out for myself what it would be like and booked a first session.

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Fast forward to 6 months later and my work with Sarah has had a profound impact on me. We met every 2-3 weeks and each session followed a similar structure. First, we checked in on areas of my life that I wanted to explore more or feel a desire to shift. I pulled an Oracle card from one of her many fascinating oracle decks and we talked about the message and how it might tie to what I’m exploring. I know, one might categorize this as woo-woo, unproven stuff and that’s exactly how I felt too initially. As our sessions continued I found the messages quite meaningful and was fascinated by how they were connected with the themes I was exploring. I didn’t consider them to be predictions of the future or an absolute truth. I saw them more as messages and questions for further reflection (a great add to any deep inquiry practice). After that, the actual energy session began. I was lying on my back on a massage table, warmly wrapped in a nice comfy blanket. Sarah would put on music, told me to “tune into my body” and be present to the sensations and feelings that might arise. In a nutshell, I felt like I was embarking on a deep meditative experience. Sarah would focus on different parts of the body – a shoulder, my arm, my solar plexus, my neck or head – sometimes holding a spot like in acupuncture, sometimes pushing down her full hand or moving slowly across my body similar to a massage. At times, she would also sing or integrate sound from singing bowls or a huge gong she had hanging from the ceiling.

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In my first session, I fell asleep and was so tired after that I needed to take a two hour nap (which I never do). I took it as a sign that I should slow down a bit versus always being on the go and never taking time to rest (a personal tendency I had been exploring already more deeply over the past year). As the sessions went on my experience started to change and deepen. At times, I felt the tension increase and then fade away as she was moving along (especially in my head and neck area), like a huge build up of a temporary headache that then quickly and completely vanished. I felt my feet and hands heat up, my arms tingling, my energy rising or falling into a deeply relaxed state. My senses became more fine tuned. I started to see some colors, especially in the area of the “third eye” chakra, sometimes accompanied by different shapes and images.

It’s hard to pinpoint the exact impact of energy work. My linearly thinking, logical mind challenged me initially: “So what exactly am I getting out of this?”. And yet, at the experiential level, I knew it was having an impact. A (for now) unquantifiable impact. The best description that I can personally give is that it is a gradual fine tuning of one‘s senses – an expansion of awareness and consciousness. Sarah’s work connected well with my existing meditation practice and took it to a whole new level – expanding it from breathing meditation or body scans to noticing energies, vibrations, and images.

Over the course of four months I started to feel more grounded, more connected to the world around me and started to gain more clarity on how I want to live my life. I attribute this to a few influences and experiences:

• The deep energy work with Sarah, the conversations we had and the detailed follow ups and exercises she sent
• Feeling more grounded from living in Hawaii and being surrounded by nature
• My grandmother dying and the sadness and real, vulnerable conversations with my family that followed thereafter
• Working with my own coach on exploring my past and family history
• Books I read including “The Art of Happiness” by the Dalai Lama and Tara Brach’s “Radical Acceptance“

It’s been a fascinating exploration and one I’m excited to continue. I increasingly believe that if we follow the “breadcrumbs of energy” and our intuition combined with exploring different modalities of self inquiry, the path becomes clearer and life richer and more meaningful.