Mental Health

To Meditate Or Not To Meditate: Easy Ways To Get Started Or Restarted

November 1, 2018 by Juanita Lepage Leave a Comment

I have been an on again-off again meditator for years. I have always envied those individuals that have made meditation a regular habit in their lives. When I met my husband, he would meditate daily for 30-minutes to an hour every morning and evening. He would invite me to join him, but at the time I thought it looked pretty boring to sit silently for that long. He too goes through periods of meditating and not meditating.

Over the years I would read about people such as Ram Dass, Yogananda, or Michael Singer who had mystical and transformative experiences meditating, and I thought, “Well of course if you’re having that type of “wow/life-changing” experience, you would continue to meditate”. Or I would think, “Of course if you’ve chosen the spiritual vocation as your life path, these transformative experiences would happen”. And then at the same time I would read about stories of people who meditated for years and never had that “wow” experience while meditating.

So, if I can’t get a Guarantee of that “Wow Factor”, Why Meditate?

So, without having the “wow” factor goal in mind, I wondered why meditation would be so highly recommended for individuals.

Physical, mental, and emotional benefits

Calmness, focus, centeredness, happiness, better health, and self-love are all benefits of meditation. It seems that as each year goes by, more and more research demonstrates the healing benefits of mindfulness[1] or meditation for more and more things. Pain, mental illness, stress, and burnout is just a few of the things it can help with. Just google “research meditation” or “research mindfulness” and you’ll notice a plethora of information at your fingertips.

When I taught Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to teens and adults, mindfulness was a key component to this therapy. The main benefit of mindfulness in DBT is to help a person pause and connect with their thoughts & emotions and how they are using this information to interact with the world. Many other types of psychotherapy involving mindfulness have been created too, with the most famous probably being Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) created by Jon-Kabat Zinn. In other psychotherapies, the word mindfulness is never mentioned, but it is used in practice to help a person connect to their emotions and bring awareness to thoughts.

Spiritual benefits

If you’re on a spiritual path, meditation seems a key part in going deeper into one’s spiritual journey whether it be with a religion or a more general spiritual path. Meditation allows a person to connect beyond themselves to something on a much grander scale – God, the universe, specific religious individuals such as Jesus or Buddha, and more.

Where Do I Start (or restart)?

Books

Jon Kabat-Zinn’s book Wherever You Go, There You Are, was one of the books that inspired me to start meditation. It’s an easy read with short chapters. This book is especially helpful if you’re interested in the Physical, Mental, & Emotional benefits. If you’re a person who is interested in being mindful but doesn’t want to sit quietly in meditation, this book provides many other options. You can do anything mindfully. Really.
Want a book that also captures the spiritual benefits? Michael A. Singer’s The Untethered Soul is succinct and you can tell from the depth and simplicity of this book that he is a seasoned meditator.

YouTube Meditations

There are a lot of guided meditations available on YouTube, it can be a matter of trying a few to find your favourites.

Tara Brach is my favourite person to listen to for a guided meditation. I love her voice and her variety of meditations. You can find many selections on her website or on YouTube.

Apps

There are many apps related to mindfulness and meditation. After not meditating for many months, I tried the 14-day trial with Headspace. This was a great way to hear if I liked the person’s voice for guided meditation and try out some of their meditations. When flying on Air Canada earlier this year I found some of their meditations available on the online entertainment system.

After the 14-day trial I decided to buy a subscription for a year (They offer a great discount after you’ve completed the trial). I really appreciate the options to have a 1 minute or a 30-minute meditation. Also my screen can be dark and it can keep playing (unlike YouTube). Some days I’m happy if I meditated for 1 minute. Other days I want to meditate for a longer time. They also have great packages for different topics such as sleep, restlessness, worry and more.

Summary

If you notice in your life that it feels busy, even a few minutes of meditation a day can provide benefits of restoration and calm. Often between sessions with clients a take a few minutes to connect to myself and shift my energy from the past client to the next one.

I don’t use the word mindfulness in most of my sessions, but often I’m helping clients to connect with themselves in a deeper way to find the solutions that they seek. Many of us like to spend time in our minds, and while we would benefit from connecting with our bodies or our emotions, we are often not practiced at doing so. We are often on the move.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you found something to inspire you to start or restart your journey with meditation!

[1] Meditation is a form of mindfulness. There are many ways to be mindful without meditating, but meditation is a popular method of mindfulness.

How Energy Healing Helps Heal Physical Illness

March 22, 2018 by Juanita Lepage 3 Comments

I recently watched the movie Kumaré, about American filmmaker Vikram Gandhi who transformed himself into Sri Kumaré, an enlightened guru from a fictional village in India. He adopted a fake Indian accent, grew out his beard and hair, and came up with his own message and yoga moves to teach his future disciples. Vikram struggled as he went further into this charade about the moral implications of this experiment. One way he tries to keep some morality is by keeping his main message to people that they don’t need a guru and that they can “find the guru within themselves”.

This message is one of the same messages given in energy healing. It is not the healer that heals the patient, but the healer that helps the patient heal himself. In her book Hands of Light (1987), Barbara Brennan states that,

“No matter how miraculous the result, the healer really induces the patient to heal himself through natural processes, even though they are beyond what is considered to be natural for those who are not familiar with healing” (p.147)[1].

In the same chapter, Barbara Brennan describes 3 things that an energy healer has to offer people with physical illness that they often will not get by seeking someone in the medical profession:

A broader perspective and understanding of the causes and cures of disease
Access to information in the energy field about a physical illness that may not be available through the traditional medical methodology
Helping the patient to enhance his own healing abilities

Here is an overview of each benefit.

A) Broader Understanding of the Causes and Cures of Disease

When someone gets a serious illness, there are different responses. Illness can be understood through a physical, emotional, or spiritual lens. Energy Healing will encompass the spiritual approach, and may recommend a physical and emotionally-focussed approach as well.

Physical Causes and Cures (Body)

From this perspective, something caused you to get sick and now you need to find a way to become healthy again if possible. For some things, we don’t look any deeper than this. We seek a doctor, take recommended treatments, and go from there.

Some people will wonder about what caused their illness. They may seek reasons in their physical environment by exploring their relationship with their physical body – diet, exercise, sleep, medications, environment and more. Changing patterns in relationship with your physical body can bring healing to an illness.

Emotional Causes and Cures (Mind)

Some people will look deeper at their emotional relationships to see how these may have impacted or exacerbated their illness. Gabor Maté is a Canadian medical doctor who has shifted his understanding of illness from a purely biological one to an emotional-related one. He has written multiple books exploring the relationship of the mind-body link of both mental health issues, physical illness, and addiction. He demonstrates their connection with scientific research, case histories, and his own experience. For illnesses that stick around, shifting emotional patterns and family dynamics can offer healing to illness that the medical options on their own won’t have the capacity to heal.

One example is ADHD. The common medical perspective is that it is an illness and needs to be treated with medication for a lifetime. Yet people can heal from ADHD by exploring their emotional patterns and family dynamics. Gabor Maté writes in his book Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder (2012):

“People often ask if one can “grow out” of attention deficit disorder – a good question, for healing is a matter of growth. And the answer is yes. It is not curing that ADD children need: they need to be helped to grow. What is required is not a change in parenting techniques but a change in parenting attitudes, based on a deeper understanding of the child. The adult with attention deficit disorder needs also to gain a deeper understanding of herself, to undertake the task we will later describe as self-parenting” (p. 141-142)[2]

Spiritual Causes and Cures (Spirit)

Next are people who will want to use a spiritual lens to get a broader sense of their illness. They look at illness as a teacher in their lives. They can look at what an illness is giving them in their lives that they aren’t receiving elsewhere. Illnesses can bring suffering and pain and at the same time wisdom and insight. Spiritual insight can initiate change in foundational patterns people have in their lives and bring healing to illness.

Some people will look at their life with the perspective that they chose this life, this illness, and even their family before they were born. Once you start reading books by spiritual leaders you will realize that many of them have this perspective including some of my favorites – Ram Dass and Paramahansa Yogananda. From this broader perspective a person can realize that illness is neither good nor bad but a tool to help them with something on their spiritual journey. Ram Dass talks about the role of karma in regard to illness. From the karmic perspective, sometimes illness is related to past-lives.

How To Combine Mind-Body-Spirit Approaches

My perspective is that a combination of each perspective is needed on a journey towards healing an illness. Certainly, exploring one avenue may bring you the desired results, but when you broaden your perspective you open yourself to more avenues to healing.

If the spiritual lens doesn’t fit with your world-view, then start with the physical and emotional lens. If the medical lens doesn’t fit with you, consider exploring your reasons why. They may be well-founded, but you may be making your life overly complicated.

Sometimes the Medical Path is All That is Needed

I remember when one of my sons was younger and he was having frequent bloody noses along with his cold and occasional fevers. Early on I went to my doctor who was curious whether it was allergy related and referred him to an allergist. While waiting months for this appointment, his symptoms were getting worse. I took him to a naturopath. She determined that it was a sinus infection and referred me back to my doctor to get antibiotics. The naturopath also recommended probiotics. The antibiotics and probiotics were what my son needed, and he got better. We didn’t need to explore an emotional or spiritual lens in this scenario.

My Experience with a Mind-Body-Spirit Approach

When I had a depression many years ago when I lived in Vancouver, I started with a physical approach by making sure I got outside every day even though I rarely wanted to. I always felt a little better after I went for a bike ride. I also explored it an emotional level with a therapist and decided to make some big changes in my life – quitting my job and moving back to Ontario. Next, I started to explore it at a spiritual level and that’s when I found a deeper healing. Depression was a teacher in my life whether I wanted it to be or not.

B) Energy Healers Have Access to Information in the Energy Field

A second benefit of an energy healer is that they have access to information in your energy field. An energy healer uses their sixth sense to attune to a person’s biofield and chakras. When a person presents with physical illness, an energy healer can sometimes look at a person’s energy field and receive information or offer healing in a way that attending to the body or mind cannot. I’ve written a general overview of this process in the Anatomy of an Energy Healing .

Both of my sons have had eye surgeries and have had reactions after receiving anesthesia. They would become wild as they awoke after surgery and it was scary for both parents and kids. When my youngest was going to receive his final eye surgery, I had an energy healer do a healing on him. She was able to give me tips on how to support him during and after surgery. She received these insights by tuning into his energy field. We used warm blankets on his feet to help him ground. I was by his side as they gave him anesthesia. She gave a healing to help his eye heal more quickly as well. All these things contributed to a better experience for all of us. The energy healer was able to access information that was beyond the scope of a medical provider and personalized towards my son.

C) Energy Healing Helps People Enhance Their Own Healing Abilities

The best healings come when a healer helps you enhance your own healing abilities. When I do an energy healing I tell them that I do an energy healing that aligns with their intention. We all have the capacity to heal, and my experience is that energy healing will often amplify the healing of both mental health problems and physical illness. When an energy healer works on your biofield, the positive impact on your biofield can help your physical body do what it needs to heal. In addition, if you’re doing things already in your life to help improve your health, energy healing is like a boost to your other efforts.

Additionally, I find that psychotherapy is a way to deepen one’s healing abilities in combination with energy healing. Many of us want a quick answer – tell me what the cause of my illness is and what I need to do. You may think you want to know these things, but once you start examining the layers of illness in relation to mind, body, and spirit, you will realize that this journey takes courage. You will have to make changes in your life that you may strongly resist. You may have to look at different parts of yourself that you don’t want to. You may find yourself saying, “I’ll do anything but that”. Be gentle with yourself if you find these pieces in yourself. The reasons for our resistance served us at a time in our life even though they’re not helping us in the same way anymore.

Shifting Unhealthy Patterns to Healthy Ones

In a deeper exploration of the roots of my depression I was able to see deeply held patterns in my life that had served me in a positive way growing up. Over time these patterns didn’t serve me anymore and I became depressed. Now I’ve gotten to the point where often I can recognize that I’m in an old unhelpful pattern and I’ll shift how I react to a situation. No one else is encouraging me to change my thoughts or behaviors, I’m able to recognize situations that I need to make a change. My own healing ability has been amplified.

If you spend decades embroiled in an unhelpful pattern, it takes time, willingness, and compassion to change that pattern. Fortunately, this journey is available to us all and there are people willing to guide and be with us along this path.

When Illness Persists

Sometimes an illness will not be cured in this lifetime. An illness may appear and a person will not recover and may die from it. A spiritual lens can help a person make sense of it when it doesn’t make any sense as to why it appeared and you aren’t seeing the changes you want no matter what you do.

When an illness persists there are many thoughts and emotions to sift through – Fear, Anger, feeling like a victim and more. An illness’ appearance may not have any rational understanding. Miracles certainly can happen in the most dire of circumstances, yet many times this is not the case. Like any healing modality, energy healing doesn’t bring a guarantee of a return to health. Yet unlike other modalities, the spiritual lens in energy healing can sometimes bring peace in a difficult situation.

Want to learn more?

Books to Explore Illness from an Emotional Lens by Gabor Maté

Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder
When the Body Says No: The Hidden Cost of Stress
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addictions

Books to Explore Illness from a Spiritual Lens

Be Love Now by Ram Dass: Chapter Seven – The Way of Grace
Hands of Light by Barbara Brennan: Chapter 15 – From Energy Block to Physical Disease
Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda

[1] Brennan, Barbara (1987). Hands of Light. New York: Bantam Books.

[2] Maté, Gabor (2012). Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder. Toronto: Vintage Canada.

Child & Youth Mental Health Resources in Hamilton and Burlington Areas

February 15, 2018 by Juanita Lepage Leave a Comment

I recently attended a free workshop about depression & spirituality run by the LOST Organization in Hamilton – an inspiring new(ish) Non-Profit in Hamilton. LOST stands for Living Outside of Suffering and Trauma.

They offer yoga, peer-group support, and creative time for people of any age, either with mental health issues or those supporting others with mental health issues. This place could be great for teens or adults.

The organization was created by a woman, Rebecca, who has depression and was tired of waiting for publicly-funded supports to become available to her.

The workshop I attended was packed and it was easy to see why. Events and support are either free or at a low cost. Go check them out. It’s not restricted by geographic area.

Here’s a quick list of other publicly-funded child and youth mental health supports in Hamilton & Burlington.

Child & Youth Mental Health Supports

Emergencies

For emergencies go to your local emergency department or call 911.

Crisis-Services

Adults

If you’re 16 or older contact the 24-hour services COAST Hamilton Crisis Line at 905-972-8338 or call the COAST Halton Crisis Line at 877-825-9011.

Children or Youth

If you’re a child or teenager, you can chat on-line at Kids Help Phone Line or call them at 1-800-668-6868. It is a 24-hour service.

Counselling & Psychotherapy

Contact Hamilton is the starting place for any publicly-funded programs related to child and youth mental health in the Hamilton region. They have the most current list of services and will help you find the best fit. Call 905-570-8888.

The Rock is great place to start in the Burlington area. They offer some walk-in sessions.

Free Local Groups

Visit Growing Together for the most current list of workshops, groups and resources available free of charge to families living in the Hamilton area.

Interesting in learning how to advocate for your child? Or do you want to connect with other parents going through similar issues as you are? Visit Parents for Children’s Mental Health.

LOST organization – If you’re a parent or teen/adult with your own mental health issues and want some FREE peer support, consider visiting this non-profit organization located in Hamiltong.

Tools to Use at Home

If you’re a parent on a waitlist or wanting tools to try now at home, go to Mental Health Foundations. If you’re looking for local support using these tools, you can Contact Me.

If you have a burning question about mental health, a question that no one seems to be able to answer, or if you find google isn’t giving you what you want, check out Quora. You’ll find questions and answers about all kinds of mental health concerns and very well written answers either by professionals in the field of child and youth mental health or from people who have anxiety, depression, bipolar, ADHD, and so much more. Please note that the answers provided on Quora are not reviewed for accuracy, but that that the content is a much better quality than other forums I’ve reviewed. Please use your best judgment.

Validation: How To Support Your Children And Spouse When You Really Don’t Want To

January 25, 2018 by Juanita Lepage 2 Comments

Your child rolls his eyes at you.

Your partner complains about her work for the 400^th time and doesn’t take any of your advice.

What is your feeling in each of these situations? Anger, irritation, or annoyance is quite likely.

The First Reaction: Defensiveness

It can be easy to get defensive in these situations – you probably feel disrespected and angry that your child rolled his eyes when you asked him to set the table because you work so hard to provide for that child, you do so much work around the house, and your child doesn’t seem to appreciate your hard work.

You may feel a simmering rage that your partner isn’t taking any of your advice after talking about her frustrations over and over and over. You may want to shout, “Just make a decision!” Or “Stop Complaining!”

The Shift To Validation

Validation is about looking at these situations with a different lens. The lens I’ve described so far is the one where we look at the situation personally and make it about ourselves. “My child is disrespecting ME” or “My partner doesn’t value MY opinion”.

Validation is a choice to shift the lens from ourselves to the other person. Acknowledge your reaction and then take a breath and ask yourself, “What is this person feeling underneath the eye roll or complaining?”

Your son could be feeling angry and annoyed to have to shift from doing something fun to something so incredibly boring such as setting the table. That’s normal behavior for a kid. You are the adult and get to make many decisions for your children. They are the child and must do things you ask them to even if they don’t want to do it. That can be annoying.

Your partner could be really frustrated with work and may just want someone to say, “That sounds really tough, I can imagine how frustrated you are that you are being asked to work more hours/being treated so poorly/working hard and getting zero credit/fill-in-the-blank”.

The goal of validation is to help a person deepen into their emotions about a situation and feel heard. Once these things happen, there can be space for problem solving IF needed.

Believe me, I love to give advice to my family – I don’t want to see them in pain or struggling! I can see possible solutions that maybe they can’t. Yet, if I stop and validate instead, I often don’t have to give any unwanted advice – they can see it for themselves. We often think people are asking for advice, but really, they just want to be heard.

Often, we are uncomfortable with someone else’s emotions and attempt to change their emotion, so that we can feel better.

Connection

Validation is about connection with the heart instead of the mind. I see you. I hear you. We slow down and be more present with that person instead of seeing that the act of dealing with their emotions is another “to do” on our never-ending list. If we stop and take 2 minutes to really be there it can make a world of difference.

When Do I Get To Give My Advice?

After the other person appears to deepen into their emotion or relaxes after feeling heard, then we can ask them if they want our advice or want help solving the problem.

With the child who rolls his eyes, there may be zero advice-giving – sometimes just acknowledging that it’s frustrating can be enough. If there’s more going on in the situation (e.g. swearing at you every time you ask) you can set a boundary AFTER validating them. “You have the right to be annoyed for being asked to do something you don’t like, but it’s not okay to swear me at me”.

With the partner who’s complaining about work all the time, after validating the person you can ask if they want your advice. If you’re too tired to hear about your partner’s work woes, try saying, “I really want to give you my full attention right now, but I just can’t because I’m so exhausted. I’m a crappy listener when I’m exhausted. Can you tell me more when the kids are watching tv after dinner?” And then remember to ask them about their day when the kids are watching tv.

Want to see it in action?

Validation, Movie Style!

This is an enjoyable video to watch. Even if you just watch the first 3 minutes of this video, you will get a feel for what validation can be. The actor TJ Thyne conveys deep connection as he validates others. His words are not as deep (he doesn’t really know the people he’s validating), yet his connection is strong. The rest of the video is more of a short story – interesting but more Hollywood than reality. You don’t need to have this depth of connection to do validation, it’s more important to be authentically you in your connection with your child.

Advanced Skills in Validation

If you have a list in your head of situations or words that are challenging to validate, then consider watching the video by a fellow Social Worker, Natasha Files from Mental Health Foundations. She takes 90 minutes to break it down in the one of the best explanations I have seen. She teaches viewers how to validate phrases like, ‘I’m fat”, or “I give up”, or “It’s too hard”. If you feel stuck and confused about validating, this is a great investment of your time that will help you deepen your connection with family members and save hours of time in frustration with them.

Validation Cheat Sheet (adapted from Emotion-Focused Family Therapy)

Take a breath, acknowledge & notice your urge to be defensive – now shift your lens to them instead of you
Attend to the emotion – be present with the person and notice what could be going on
Label the emotion the other person is feeling (take a guess! It’s okay to be wrong)
- You’re mad at me or
- You’re frustrated with everything going on at work
Validate the emotion
- I can understand why you would feel angry, because you’re being asked to do something you don’t want to do, and that it can be annoying that adults tell you what to do at home and at school all the time
- I can see why you would be frustrated at work because you’re being undervalued, your boss keeps treating you with disrespect, and you’re giving your 100%.
Meet the emotional need
- Give your son space to feel what he needs to feel – let him be annoyed while he sets the table. You can tell him that he still needs to set table (if he isn’t doing it) and you could let him know that you appreciate the help
- Let your spouse know that you’re there for them
Fix/Problem-Solve – ask if they want help solving their problem

Like talking about issues of morality with others, emotions are very similar. We cannot use reason to shift someone’s moral views just as we cannot use reason to shift someone’s emotions. (See my blog post Controversial Conversations With Family & Friends to learn more). Connection is the most powerful tool and validation is great way to connect.

Want to learn more about supporting a child or adult with anxiety? Stay tuned for a post in February.

Distraction: Friend or Foe?

October 5, 2017 by Juanita Lepage Leave a Comment

Someone asked me what I do when I’m overwhelmed with life. I told them that I play Candy Crush. Sweet, sweet Candy Crush. Even better, finding a place to hide in my house where I play and leave the world for a little while. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, it’s a very simple game available on your phone or tablet where each level is a couple minutes long.

Doesn’t that seem like the WRONG thing to do when you’ve got issues to deal with? Yes and No. Playing Candy Crush when I am feeling an intense emotion, such as stress or overwhelm, is a great way to take some space and find my center. Even better if I’m in a space by myself. I can play a few rounds and check-in with myself to see if my mood has shifted. I will often feel the temptation to spend 16 hours playing this game instead of 10 minutes – like an ostrich covering her head in the sand. But if my mood has shifted enough, then I can find the will to go and problem-solve and carry on with my day.

ACCEPTS – Healthy Distraction Skills

One of the most important skills that we teach teens with mental health issues is how to use distraction in a healthy way. In Dialectical Behavior Therapy there is a distraction skill called ACCEPTS.

A is for Activities: Playing a game on your phone, going for a walk or drive, doing a chore, exercise, take a few deep breaths

C is for Contributions: Doing something for someone else to take your mind off your problems; make a card for someone, give someone a compliment or a cup of tea

C is for Comparisons: Compare yourself to either people who have been through something similar and who are an inspiration to you, or do things like read the news or gossip magazines

E is for opposite Emotions: Do something that evokes a different emotion than what you are feeling such as watch a funny or adorable funny YouTube video, watch a scary movie, or talk to someone who uplifts your mood

P is for Pushing Away: Imagine putting the current stress in a box, wrapping the box with chains and then throwing it in the ocean. Repeat

T is for Thoughts: I call this the waiting room strategy – what do you do in a waiting room when you are really bored? Count the ceiling tiles, do a crossword, read a book, count backwards, check your phone

S is for Sensations: Hold ice in your hand, run very fast, have a hot or cold shower, put white glue on your arm and let it dry and then peel it off

Choose Items that Shift Your Mood in a Positive Way

The key in choosing the best ones are to find the things that shift your mood. If you find that you feel worse after using one of the suggestions – pick something else. You can always try it again another time if you feel inclined.

Parents are often worried that distraction is a poor skill that will not solve their children’s problems. They are absolutely right, distraction will not solve anyone’s problems and teens know this very well too. Distraction skills are a strategic tool to help us get towards the space for problem-solving.

Anyone of any age is a poor problem solver when emotions are very high or very low. The goal of distraction is to shift your mood enough to get to the point of problem-solving.

If your teen is in a very angry mood, it is best in that situation not venture towards problem-solving until their mood has become less angry. It can be good to let teens go to their bedroom and take some space. The same is for parents, I don’t know about you, but I can think of times where I said something mean because it gave me pleasure to do so and didn’t help the problem. The art is to notice when these thoughts creep up and then take some space to cool down. Problem-solving comes after when things are less intense.

Depression

If your teen is depressed, then it can be helpful to invite them to do something with you. If a teen is very depressed they will be unable to choose distraction on their own. What is the least invasive way to engage them? Say, “Let’s go for a drive and get a coffee”, and drive in silence if needed. Watch a movie with them if that’s more their style. Share a funny YouTube video with them that meets their sense of humour. Even if they see you laugh at something they think is stupid, this can be therapeutic for some teens. You know your teen best – what is a good distraction for them?

Self-Awareness

If you want an even broader perspective about distraction, the ultimate goal is self-awareness. If we can be aware of our moods and our triggers, we will be less likely to react according to them and more to the situation at hand. Sometimes distraction can last a few breaths and sometimes it needs days, but as you practice, the amount of time you need will lessen. A mindful use of distraction requires creativity and practice to be effective. Create a list of possible distractions when you are in a frame of mind to do so. Take a picture of this list and keep it on your phone. Then when the need for a healthy distraction arises, you can thank yourself for making this list earlier.

What do you do when you need a break from life but you can’t disappear to a beach on Hawaii?

The Force Awakens: My Journey into Energy Healing

September 24, 2017 by Juanita Lepage Leave a Comment

Episode I: Reiki

My journey into energy healing happened almost by accident. It was the year 2005 and I was newly living in Milton, Ontario with my husband. I was working full-time and looking for something interesting to do in my spare time. One of my sisters had finished a weekend course in Reiki, and when I saw Reiki mentioned in a local community centre, I decided to try it out. I joined a group of 10 people of all ages in Mississauga and we met weekly for a few weeks. I was introduced to an age-old way of healing -healing with hands. Reiki involves light touch in specific positions on the body while a person is resting quietly on a table, fully clothed. It is a taught by a Reiki Master. How it is taught will vary depending on your teacher, but the principles will be the same.

I decided to continue with this group to learn Reiki level 2. We were introduced to how to use energy healing with the use of intentions. I tried it out. I set my intention to move to Vancouver and find a job effortlessly within the next few months. 3 months later in the Spring of 2006, I was living and working in Vancouver with a government job in the field of child and youth mental health. I was impressed and my curiosity deepened.

Episode II: The Experimental phase

In Vancouver, I got involved with a Reiki-share where practitioners practice their skills with each other. I learned about other techniques that were related and took a weekend course in the Emotion Freedom Technique – which was a combination of tapping points on the body and the use of affirmations.

I went to an evening workshop with a woman who had started her own energy healing school. We had a person with an injury on his leg. She invited us to lightly hold our hands over his legs and see if we could sense where the injury was located. We could all feel where his injury was located – each in our own way.

I wanted to expand my learning about energy healing and joined a 3-year program at Langara College. The program involved multiple week-long retreats throughout the year. I never completed that program, but I was introduced to energy healing in more depth. Perhaps the greatest gift I received from that program was a book in the curriculum, “Hands of Light” by Barbara Brennan. One of my classmates and I discussed how it would be great to attend the Barbara Brennan School of Healing instead of attending a school that was based on some of her principles. It would be like learning Reiki from the original master who started it all instead learning it from one of his students.

Episode III: The Dark Side

Then life took a turn in 2007, I had a miscarriage and subsequently entered a depression. This was a good impetus to start my own psychotherapy and take a leave from my job. It also prompted a move back to Ontario to be closer to family support. While in Vancouver, I briefly saw a psychologist who also used energy healing in her practice.

It took time to heal from that depression. I would say that it was over 2 years before I felt fully like myself again.

Episode IV: Training/Apprenticeship

Back in Ontario, I was fortunate to give birth to two boys. I also found a great new job as a social worker/psychotherapist in child and youth mental health at McMaster Children’s Hospital.

The desire to go to Barbara Brennan School of Healing (BBSH) had lain dormant for many years, but I carried it with me. I attended one of school’s Hands of Light Workshops and was deeply impressed by the skill level and frankness in answers. The teachers weren’t wishy-washy and answered the questions I had satisfactorily. So, in 2012, I started my journey with BBSH.

Occasionally, I meet someone who is highly intuitive, they have been so since childhood, they can see auras, they can bend metal with their intention, or do other things that defy the laws of science that I have been taught in school. I was never one of these people. At BBSH we were taught that anyone can learn to develop their sixth sense, and indeed that it is what I did. Everyone has different ways to sense the energy fields around us, but all of us have the ability.

The school taught me to skillfully offer hands on healing. I learned about chakras and felt them too. I learned about the 7 levels of our energy field and what each level represented. I can work with someone and get see what depression looks like in their field. This didn’t happen overnight and developed over the 4 years of the school. Even now, while I have a very comprehensive understanding of energy healing, I continue to learn more in this field that keeps gathering momentum.

Episode V: Energy healing and Mental Health

While I thought I had fully recovered from my depression after my miscarriage, there were deeper parts that still needed to be healed. On the surface these were not obvious, but many pains remained. Throughout the 4 years of school, a combination of psychotherapy and energy healing helped me to heal at a deeper level.

I am a person who has worked in a traditional medical system with child and youth mental health and have a lot of appreciation for the people who work within it. These are highly skilled individuals with great compassion. Yet, anyone in the field of mental health will agree that the current system for healing in child and youth mental health is an ever-growing field with a lot of past mistakes and a continual shift in recommended psychotherapeutic techniques.

Energy healing is new edge in the field of mental health. I have seen it help those I’ve worked with and it has also helped me tremendously. There many frustrated people with mental health issues who have tried many different options. Energy healing can be a new avenue to explore.

Episode VI: Private Practice

2017 was a year of many changes including the beginning of a private practice where I offer energy healing or a combination of energy healing and psychotherapy. While I live in France, I am offering sessions virtually with plans to additionally offer in-person sessions in Ontario starting in January 2018.