How I Learned Chios

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As a child, I was very clumsy. I didn’t have much body awareness, so I constantly walked into things, or tripped and fell. I have scars on my knees because I skinned them so often.

Cuts and bruises hurt, obviously. But when I was four or five, I realized that if I put my hand over a cut or bruise, my hand got warm and the injury didn’t hurt as much. It also usually healed faster.

The adults around me told me that was just my imagination, so, as with a number of other things, I pushed it away. I didn’t want people to think I was weird or crazy, and I definitely didn’t want to annoy my parents. Besides, adults were the ones telling me the warm hand thing wasn’t really happening, and when you’re a child, you pretty much believe adults know everything.

When I was about 35, I became friends with someone who practiced yoga, Chios energy healing, and channeling. Over time, he started sharing these things with me. The first time he did a Chios session with me, I had some pretty intense results, and I decided to start learning Chioswith my friend as my instructor.

In Chios, one of the first things you learn to do is call in the energy, which means opening yourself as a conduit for the healing energy to flow through. You don’t use your own energy to heal others; you allow universal energy to go through you into the people you work with. My friend warned me, and I’d seen for myself, that when that energy flows, it brings heat with it. What I didn’t expect was that one of the first times I called in the energy, my hands got so hot that the wedding ring I had at the time left a burn mark on my finger!

That was when I started remembering the warm hand thing from when I was a child. It hadn’t been my imagination after all. It was energy healing.

As I went on learning Chios, I didn’t feel like I was gaining new knowledge. It felt a lot more like someone was reminding me of things I’d already known but had forgotten. Regaining that knowledge was exciting, and so was seeing the results I was able to bring the people who let me practice on them while I was learning.

I don’t know whether Chios, or something similar, was something I learned in a past life, or just instinctive knowledge I’d had as a child until I let the adults around me convince me to shut it away. But I definitely feel like it’s natural for me. And I still get excited when clients tell me what they experience during and after healing sessions. That’s why I started River Flow Healing, so I could bring Chios to others.

My Favorite Things About Chios

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Last week, I told you a little about the history of Chios Energy Healing, the type of energy work I practice. (If you missed the post, find it here.) As I said in that post, I can’t compare Chios with other energy modalities, because Chios is the only one I’ve learned. I have tried learning a couple of others, but they didn’t stick with me. My brain simply wouldn’t hold onto the information. With Chios, I didn’t have that issue, which told me that for me, Chios was the right choice.

One of the things I enjoy about Chios is the focus on working with guides. While that isn’t a requirement, for me it’s a bonus. Guides are beings with higher energetic vibrations than humans, who work with humans for our benefit and, often, for theirs as well. These beings include angels and spirit guides, among others. When Stephen Barrett developed Chios, he worked with a group of guides, though he also did a good amount of his own research and refinement of the techniques.

Not everyone believes in guides. I do, and have been working with mine as long as I can remember, though as a child I didn’t realize they were guides. They were just my “invisible friends,” and as I got older, I didn’t really understand why I didn’t outgrow them the way most kids outgrew their imaginary friends. I didn’t learn until I was an adult that it was because they aren’t imaginary.

I have a guide who works with me specifically on healing, my own and the healing practices I do for others. When I do Chios healing sessions, I also communicate with the guides who introduced Chios to Stephen Barrett. For me, this is a benefit, because it gives me even more confidence in my skills. I know I’m good at what I do, and that I know the techniques, but having backup from these guides is reassuring. Besides which, sometimes there’s a need to vary the sequence of techniques I use, or use a technique that isn’t as common, and my guide tells me when that’s the case.

Another thing I love about Chios is the benefit I see my clients receiving. When a client tells me after a session that they’re feeling calmer or more focused, or that another problem they’ve been having has either cleared up or isn’t as bad, I’m excited for them. I feel really good hearing that something I’ve done has helped them. I don’t consider myself to be the one who’s healing them; I’m just making their healing easier and more accessible to them. But it’s still incredible to be part of someone’s healing.

Obviously, I think Chios is pretty awesome. It’s been thirteen years since I first learned it, and even though I’ve gone through stretches of time where I didn’t practice it, I’ve always come back to it. I would love to talk with you more about Chios. If you’re curious, leave a comment, or visit the Chios Energy Healing page for more information or to schedule a healing session.

Refocusing

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I’ve found that where I was focusing my energy previously wasn’t exactly where I wanted to be.

This surprised me. I thought I wanted to be a coach or mentor to those who are on journeys of healing and trying to gain self-love. It’s something I studied, and something that I do informally in a few venues, and I love the feeling of knowing I’ve helped someone. More, I love seeing them gain insight and make positive changes in their lives.

Deciding I wanted to coach was a change in itself. When I originally conceived this website and business, the plan was to do energy healing and guided readings. Then I realized that when I did healings and readings, I ended up informally counseling my clients anyway, so I looked into becoming a counselor. That would have required a degree I was unwilling to invest in, so I looked at life coaching/mentoring instead. And that became something I found myself more drawn to than energy healing or readings.

So the next chapter of this business was meant to be coaching, or holistic mentoring. I created an eight-week coaching program, and realized that interested me more than ongoing, less structured mentoring. Then I created a talk to go with that program, and realized that what I really wanted to do was become a transformational speaker.

So now I’m focusing more on speaking, and that’s what I feel the most drawn to at this point. That and teaching theater to children, which doesn’t seem to connect with the other things, but that’s how passions are sometimes. Transformational speaking to large groups is on hold for now while I work with smaller venues, including schools where I discuss my message of self-acceptance and living one’s truth using one of my young adult novels as a springboard.

Many of these changes have occurred in just the past month, as I’ve looked at and refined my goals for 2018. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to do the full year in advance.

Life isn’t a static thing, and sometimes that means plans change even when you don’t expect them to. My eight-week program, which is now a six-week program, is still part of my work, and I’m building the speaking side of things. And I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next.

Healthy Eating

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I try to eat healthy. I really do. But it isn’t as easy as it seems. I always seem to get hung up wanting something sweet.

The thing I’ve learned that seems to work best is to moderate what I eat in terms of portion sizes. If I try to eat only healthy foods, I’ll end up craving sweet things, and eventually I’ll completely screw up the plan and just go nuts with cookies or ice cream or something. But if I make those things *part* of the plan, along with things that actually are healthy, it works out a lot better for me.

My Bucket List

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There are a lot of things I hope to do in my life. Some of them are not necessarily probable, but I’m hoping for them to happen anyway. Other things are ones that I can make happen, if I believe in myself and keep trying.

I want to resurrect my writing career. For several years, I was a published author, writing two very different types of things under two separate pen names. A few years ago, a combination of poor sales and some personal life things derailed the writing, and now I’m facing the first year since 2009 in which I don’t have anything under contract with, or even being considered by, a publisher. For the time being, I’m taking it easy and writing just because I enjoy it, but I hope to resume writing for publication.

I want to do public speaking presentations on my message of self-acceptance and the power to change. I was trying to build that from nothing other than some Facebook Live videos, but I found myself having difficulty finding venues to contact and, more importantly, believing in myself enough to contact them. (Yes, sometimes I have trouble believing in myself. I am, as I said a few posts ago, still on my journey.) So now I’m focusing on contacting libraries and schools to do presentations there, while I continue working on the other aspect of what I hope will become a career in transformational speaking.

I want to travel. I’ve done a little bit of traveling in my life, but there are so many places I’d like to go!

I want to sing onstage, with live musicians. So far the closest I’ve gotten to that is karaoke, which isn’t exactly the same thing.

Those are the big things on my want-to-do list. What do you have on your bucket list?

My Favorite TV Shows

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Just for something different and more light-hearted today, in no particular order, here are seven of my favorite TV shows.

  1. Goblin: The Lonely and Great God. This is a Korean drama that was partly filmed in Quebec. I kind of have a thing for Korean dramas, to the extent that I’m trying to learn Korean so I don’t have to always read the subtitles.
  2. Gotham. Because Batman and other heroes and villains. I have a thing for superheroes too.
  3. Lucifer. The ultimate antihero, except he turns out to be pretty heroic in some ways.
  4. Shut Up Flower Boy Band. Another Korean drama, from 2012, with some kick-butt music.
  5. This Is Us. I like the way they weave in the characters’ pasts and presents.
  6. The Orville. Given who’s behind this show, I was prepared for offensive potty humor, but it actually manages to be a good homage to shows like Star Trek. And some of the plots really make me think, which is always a plus.
  7. Runaways. Because superheroes again, but this time teenagers, some of whom are heroic with no special powers at all.

How I Started Writing

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 When I was very young, I made up stories that I acted out with my dolls and stuffed animals. Sometimes I shared those stories with my parents; more often, I just kept them to myself. I lived in a very elaborate imaginary world, populated by imaginary people who sometimes seemed more real than the people I knew. I learned to read early, and I was determined that someday, my stories would be in books like the ones I read.

When I got a bit older, I learned how to make those little squiggles called “letters,” and that unlocked a whole new dimension for my stories. I could put them on paper and keep them to read later! Not only that, but I could share them with more people! The first story I remember writing, when I was five, was about a girl named Maria who went to live with her uncle. I wish I still had that story, but alas, it was lost to a flooded basement when I was eight or nine.

In kindergarten, I had a wonderful teacher who allowed me to read books from the classroom library and draw pictures about the stories as part of my reading curriculum. One day, I wrote my own story based on a picture I’d drawn, and she began encouraging me to write more stories. It was the first time an adult had told me my stories were good and had acted like they were something to be proud of.

So basically, I’ve been creating stories my entire life, and I’ve been writing them down since I learned how. Obviously I haven’t been published that entire time. My first published work, a phonics-based reading comprehension program, came out in 2002 (and 16 years later is still available!), and my first novella came out in 2009 (and is no longer available). But as a child and teen, I wrote dozens of stories, some novel-length, many of which I still have. They aren’t as good as I thought they were back then, but I’m still proud of them. Especially since I wrote them all longhand…computers weren’t available to me back then!

Driving

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Before I moved too close to a major city, I used to love going for long drives. Sometimes I was alone on the road, with only trees and houses around me but no other cars. It was relaxing, and some of my best story ideas came to me while I was in the car with part of my mind engaged in driving while the rest wandered.

(Come to think of it, the fact that I can’t really go for long relaxing drives anymore might be part of the reason I have trouble thinking of things to write now…)

When I was in the car, while of course I had to pay attention to traffic and signs, I didn’t have to completely engage my brain. Sometimes when depression was kicking my butt, being behind the wheel was all it took to put me in a better frame of mind, because it shut off the thoughts. If I was bored, heading out to see someplace I hadn’t seen before was always exciting.

I think I inherited the driving gene from my dad. When I was growing up, he would often take off on hours-long drives to nowhere, and sometimes he took me with him. I always loved seeing new places and things, and spending time with my dad was a bonus.

Now, I live just outside a major city, and driving isn’t so relaxing. There isn’t anyplace I can go that doesn’t involve driving through heavy traffic for at least half an hour, and while I would eventually get to more relaxing routes and areas, I would have to go through the same heavy traffic to get home. Which would kind of defeat the relaxation of driving in the first place.

I miss driving. Maybe when it isn’t winter here anymore, I’ll try it again.