Tranquil Topics
Are you someone who strives to be the best version of yourself? Then Tranquil Topics is the podcast for you! Hosted by Stephanie Graham, this wellbeing podcast delves into the realms of self-development and spirituality. On her own journey of personal growth, Stephanie shares valuable insights and tips she wishes she had known earlier in life, believing that sharing this goodness with the world can make a difference, one episode at a time.
Each episode explores a variety of topics centered around mindset, wellbeing, and spirituality, offering thoughtful discussions and practical advice to help you enhance your approach to life. Tune in to Tranquil Topics and embark on a path to a more tranquil and fulfilling life.
Tranquil Topics
Balancing Body, Mind and Spirit: A Holistic Approach to Wellness with Christina Page from Indigo Holistics
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Christina is a counsellor, holistic therapist and meditation teacher based in Bolton, UK. She offers one to one sessions in talking therapy, holistic and spiritual coaching, Reiki, aromatherapy massage and crystal healing, while also hosting regular meditation classes and holistic workshops. She is passionate about helping clients to empower their own wellbeing, reconnect with their inner voice, reclaim their stories and explore their soul journeys.
Step into a world where physical symptoms speak the language of unresolved emotions and energy flows through invisible pathways within us. Christina from Indigo Holistics shares her remarkable journey from sceptical law student suffering debilitating migraines to becoming a holistic therapist who bridges traditional counselling with energy healing.
What makes our bodies manifest pain when emotional issues remain unaddressed? Christina reveals how the mind, body and spirit operate in different timeframes - your physical body experiences the present moment, emotions process the past, and thoughts project into the future - all connected by your timeless spirit. This fascinating framework helps explain why addressing symptoms without healing root causes creates cycles of recurring problems.
For sceptics, Christina offers a thoughtful perspective, comparing our energy fields to invisible technologies we readily accept like WiFi and radio waves. She doesn't demand blind faith but instead invites curiosity and firsthand experience: "Don't knock it till you've tried it." Her message empowers listeners to trust their intuition and recognise that on some level, we already possess the wisdom needed for our healing journey.
Ready to explore how energy healing might complement your wellness journey? Connect with Christina using the links below to discover how addressing the whole self - mind, body and spirit - can lead to profound transformation and authentic living.
Email: indigo.holistics@outlook.com
Website: https://www.indigo-holistics.net/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/indigo.holistics/services
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/indigo.holistics/
Youtube: Indigo Holistics
LinkedIn: Christina Page
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Welcome back to Tranquil Topics. I'm your host, Steph, and today I'm joined by a truly compassionate and insightful guest. Her name is Christina, and Christina is the owner of Indigo Holistics. Christina is a counselor and holistic therapist. She brings a beautifully integrated approach to her work, supporting the mind, body and spirit as one. Through her practice, she helps people navigate life's challenges with a deep sense of empathy and a toolkit that blends traditional counselling with holistic healing. Her work is all about creating balance, fostering self-awareness and guiding others towards emotional and energetic well-being. I'm so excited to have her here to share her journey, her wisdom and some practical insights that I know will resonate with so many of you. Christina, welcome to the podcast.
Christina:Oh hi, that was such a lovely introduction. Thank you, you're welcome. That was really nice to listen to. Thank you.
Steph:So, oh, you're so welcome. Thank you for being here. I'm really excited about this conversation, so let's dive in, shall we?
Christina:Yeah, let's do it.
Steph:Can you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do?
Christina:Yeah, so it sounds like a lot, doesn't it? I'm a counsellor and holistic therapist. I would say that I'm a holistic therapist at heart, but I'm also a counsellor. So I basically work with people to find their own voice really, which can be lost in sort of life and things that have happened to them, experiences they've had, relationships that they've had. Sometimes we can become out of touch with who we really are. What we really want in life really are what we really want in life, and by providing a space to explore that through whether it's a talking therapy or whether it's even massage to connect to the body, or reiki crystals, um, even just meditation I sort of provide that space and that service for people to really reconnect with themselves.
Christina:So that's, that's my passion, that's what I love to do.
Steph:And can you walk us through your own journey and how you arrived where you are now, having your own practice?
Christina:Yeah, because I think it's really important, I think, to understand, because this is really sort of it's stuff that people consider a little bit woo-woo and a little bit like, oh you know, does it really work? And I think it's important to kind of understand how somebody's arrived in this sort of work, because it's tried and tested in that sense, you know, and it's quite. It helps to open it up and become a little more relatable. I think so. I think for me it was kind of inevitable that I was going to end up doing something really unconventional because, um, I grew up in a very strong sort of female environment with very unconventional women. You know my mum. She was a midwife and when she retired she sort of delved into her yoga teaching. So she's a yoga teacher. She's currently doing a course in permaculture as well. My auntie, who's over in America. She's done everything from aromatherapy to crystal jewellery, all sorts of stuff, and she actually helped me buy my first crystal. So I have that as a really nice memory. And then my other auntie, my mum's sister oh god, what she doesn't know about herbs, homeopathy and all sorts of stuff just isn't worth knowing. And she's got some real psychic abilities as well. She can sort of read people and she's always the sort of person who, if I ever need to speak to somebody about something really out there, she's just here for it. She'll listen, you know. So I think it was always inevitable that I was going to end up where I am.
Christina:But I think really the turning point for me in terms of doing this for myself was probably at university, because I was doing my third year of a law degree. Um, how I ended up there is another story. But, um, I was having really really intense migraines, like really really bad migraines, and I don't know if anybody who's ever suffered with migraines you know just how debilitating they can be. And if I didn't like front load mine straight away as soon as they came on with an absolute shed blood of you know obviously safe amounts of painkillers, um, they would take me out for like three days, do you know what I mean? And that was like every two weeks. So I'd been to my GP over in Sheffield where I was at university and they'd said you look, we can give you a pill, but it will make you feel nauseous. It may or may not work, and I was like, right, oh, and you have to take it every day. And I thought surely that can't be the answer. This is terrible. But also what I was thinking was there must be a reason. There must be a reason why I'm getting these migraines, because this isn't normal for me. Do you know what I mean? And I was so desperate by this point, but I really thought that that doesn't feel like it's going to do any good. It's not addressing the problem anyway.
Christina:So over at home I'd been to sort of a few mind, body and spirit fairs with my mum and and we'd come across a local lady called Marie she's absolutely wonderful who was a massage therapist and she just started doing a therapy called Bowen therapy, which was something I'd never heard of, but she said it can treat migraines, amongst many, many other things. Bowen therapy can treat loads of different things, but it can treat migraines. So you know, as a student, and I was thinking this is quite an investment, was about, I think, 80 pounds at a time for a course of treatment and it involved three different sessions over. I think you had one and then you had another two weeks later and then another four weeks after that, so it was over like about six weeks or something like that. Anyway, I thought, right, I'm desperate, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give it a go. So I went up to her house, where she was working from home, and I lay down on the therapy couch and I said it's really sort of difficult to describe what she did, but I mean, I'm probably going to do this a real disservice to any Bowen therapist, so apologies in advance for my terrible description, but this is my experience of it. Um, and she did a really good job. This is not a disservice to Marie either. Um, spoiler alert.
Christina:So then what she was doing was she basically she would take hold of, say, my wrist, for instance, and she would run her thumb across my wrist and back again with a little bit of pressure, and then she'd go to the crook of my elbow and do the same thing, like she was bookending my arm with this little kind of like pressure with her thumb, and then she left the room for three minutes and then she'd come back in and she'd do something similar in another part of my body. And I'm lying there and I'm thinking what is this like what? What even is this? She's not in the room half the time, she's hardly doing anything. There's absolutely no way that this is going to work. Anyway, sure enough it blinking worked and I've not had. I could probably count on one hand the number of migraines I've had since then and that was in 2008 and every single migraine I've had since then has been at about 10% of its normal ferocity. So I would say anybody who's got migraines, 100% go and get Bowen therapy. But that for me was like, oh my gosh, this worked. It worked. It was an holistic therapy.
Christina:I was sat there as a skeptic, thinking this is never going to work, and 100% it worked. So that got me thinking, oh, you know what is this, you know, and all this kind of um, different stuff to sort of explore, you know so? Then, when I was pregnant with my first baby so I was probably about 25, I think 25 my mum had said, oh, I'm gonna go and learn how to do reiki. Do you fancy coming? I was like, yeah, I had no idea what reiki was, no idea what reiki was. Never had a reiki healing.
Christina:But I thought, you know what, if it's, if it's something different, if it's holistic, I'm gonna give it a go because I was interested and sat there doing the reiki attunement with a wonderful tutor called Jane. She worked out of Moon Tree in Horwich and she was talking about guides and, you know, asking your guides to come and help you, and talking about various different things like chakras and all this stuff and a lot of it. I'm sat there trying to absorb and sort of thinking this is, you know, this is interesting. I need to remember all this. But some of it I was thinking what I don't know guides, angels and I don't really know if I'm really on board with that. You know, it doesn't really fit in with my belief system. At the time I'm thinking I'm not really sure about that, I might just leave that bit out. Do you know what I mean?
Christina:And then it was me and my mom, obviously, that were doing the, the training or the attunement, and when it came to practicing on each other, I had this amazing experience where we we kind of connected energetically and obviously this is supposed to happen in Reiki, but this was the first time it had happened and it was a completely new experience for me where I felt the kundalini energy moving up my spine like a sort of serpentine sort of rhythm, you know, sort of right from the bottom all the way up, and I could see colours. I saw green and orange. And when I spoke to Jane about it afterwards, we were discussing how we'd found the treatment. I described what I'd felt and my mum was like, oh my gosh, that's really odd, because I saw green and orange as well and I could feel that swaying as well, you know, and it was like we'd connected. Do you know what I mean? And obviously Jane talked about the importance of grounding, because kundalini energy can be quite strong if you're not sort of, you know, if you're not ready for it, it can be a little bit of a intense sort of energy to feel. So all these kind of experiences are starting to build and build and build. You know.
Christina:And then it wasn't until about four years later, I think, I went to do my Reiki 2, because I know there's courses that offer Reiki 1 and Reiki 2 together and I have my own personal kind of opinion of that. I think for me I needed the time in between the first and the second and then the second and the third achievements to kind of adjust, because Reiki, when you become a teen, so it really does shift your vibration. It kind of shifts who you are and what you can be tolerant of, and, um, it took me some time to adjust to that and become ready for another sort of like level of um shift, if you like. So, yeah, so I became a teen in Reiki and then I always thought, oh, I'm gonna, you know, I want to build on this and I want to do more with it.
Christina:But it felt a little bit like a kind of it wasn't really going to happen for me sort of thing. You know, it felt unattainable and I'd even had a conversation with somebody that I went to um have a reiki treatment with somebody completely different, not already named, and she said, oh, no, no, you don't want to be doing this, not if you want to bring money in. No, no, no, don't rely on being a holistic therapist and totally put me off. But then I think, after Covid, I went to a festival with my auntie, with Melinda, and we had a conversation around. She said that she thought that there was something still there for me that I wasn't reaching for. There was something that there was something within me that I still needed to realize, if you know what I mean. And it kind of got me thinking and I had a bit of a shift and thought I've, I'm not doing with my life, I'm not in the job that I I really want to be in, and I've kind of done all this training, you know, to do other things, um, and it's not quite, I'm not quite where I want to be.
Christina:And I kind of remembered who I was as a child, you know, kind of like reaching for these ideas and, you know, being sort of like thinking the world was magic and I'd kind of lost that a little bit. Um, because when I was younger, I really wanted to be a singer, I really wanted to be a performer and then, yeah, I really wanted to perform, how it was, whether it was on stage or you know whatever. I just I really wanted to sing. Um, and that kind of you know, gone into a very safe path. I've gone. So I'm gonna know I've done well at school, I'm gonna go and do law, because that's what clever people do, that's what will bring the money in, you know, and hated every minute of kind of being in in law apart from when I was doing some other modules in criminology, because I really love understanding how people behave and things like that I found that really interesting. But I felt really out of place at law school. And now, sort of coming a bit full circle, I realised that that was why I was having migraines, because I was resisting kind of where I was. It wasn't my path. I was kind of thinking that I should be doing this, but then also knowing that I shouldn't do you know what I mean? It was that resistance that was manifesting in the migraines.
Christina:But having done the sort of job that I've been doing and working with some really vulnerable and troubled people, I've sort of landed in the career of doing counselling because I wasn't really comfortable with the role that I was doing at the time. I was working with these highly traumatised victims of crime and I felt like whatever I, whatever work I was doing with them, wasn't really going to help them in the end. They were still going to be dealing whatever they were dealing with and I felt like actually my skill set would be better placed to help them work through what's happened with them. I want to do something that would be meaningful in that sense that would help them process their experience, which is why I went into counselling training.
Christina:So in doing counselling training and learning about the person-centred model and everything like that, I did my research proposal as part of my qualification on would counselling benefit from being combined with holistic therapy?
Christina:Because I believe that it would. I think that if people are talking through the problems, there are other things that they can be aware of that holistic therapy brings out that will help them on that journey, that will help them realize what's going on for themselves and why and why certain things are manifesting in certain areas of the body and help them heal more holistically. So yeah, so my journey has kind of been a long one where I've been kind of adding to my toolkit, if you like, kind of um, as I've been going along and what I've kind of discovered or what I believe is that you know, if we can have a better understanding of how energy works in the body, how body, mind and soul works as a as a unit, and how different experiences and relationships that we've had can all play into how that energy is flowing in the body or how it impacts, then we can use that to be better versions of ourselves, essentially.
Steph:Christina, I am absolutely fascinated.
Steph:I was hanging on every word then.
Christina:I felt like I went on a lot then to answer your question, but honestly, it's fascinating
Steph:And what I've noticed is, like I've always been open to holistic side of things, I'm very woo.
Steph:I enjoy things like that. I enjoy hearing people's experiences like fill me up, tell me.
Christina:But I find we all have them. We just feel that maybe we can't talk about them because it's a bit of a. It's still still a bit of a taboo subject, I think, when it kind of outside of circles of people that are accepting.
Steph:I think you know it can be, and I understand the skeptics and we will get on to that um.
Steph:But what I've noticed with people that I've come across in my life is that you can gain this interest at any point in your life, and when you said about um, you felt that it was out of reach for you at a specific time. I think people react differently, don't they? And they think differently about themselves and their, their abilities. But I find, like for me, I've, I would say now, at my point in life, I've grown out of thinking that anything's out of reach, and there has been a lot of work that's gone into that. But I just think, if you say yes to opportunities and you just explore your interest, whether that's in private or not, you just follow, follow your heart, follow your path, you can't really go wrong. But I do agree with you when you're, when you're in a situation that it like your body's sort of repelling it and you can feel it and you are in the wrong place, then yes, you do need to take action and you do need to take action and you do need to do something about that.
Christina:I do think that there's a lot of times, I mean, we're almost conditioned to ignore that. Yes, you know to me to make to, we don't. We're not really in tune with it, you know, even I mean it's changing now. I think you know the way that sort of people are parented, because people are becoming more conscious. But you know so, maybe 20, 30 years ago, maybe 40 years ago, even more, you know, we're sort of taught oh don't cry, oh you're okay, you know that's that's not really happening and we're only really now becoming aware of the importance of validating emotions and validating feelings and validating experiences. And I think us as a generation maybe didn't have that when we were younger, and that's not anybody's fault, it's just the way that we've evolved, you know yeah and so we don't become used to listening to actually our internal experience and hearing or feeling that the body saying no and feel that resistance and feeling that tension.
Christina:You know, and we're considering an option, we ignore it because we're not used to tuning into it. You know, and we're considering an option, we ignore it because we're not used to tuning into it, you know we've been kind of schooled out of it almost.
Christina:So yeah, it's, it's difficult, it's. It's a journey to be able to become open to those sort of things. And what you'll find is, when you are sort of open to a path that you think may be for you, you do find that things start to become hurtling towards you. You know what I mean. If it's right, it will come yeah and things just start. Coincidences happen, opportunities happen because you're more open to them, you're more sort of allowing them to come in, and they do.
Steph:You're not ignoring them, you're aware of them and things fall into place, don't they? And peculiar things happen, which, yeah, yeah, tell me, I want to know. Yeah, yeah, I think if people follow their like what's it called Internal Intuition. Yeah, intuition, their internal guidance system and I always think, if I feel excited about something, even if it scares me, that needs exploring.
Christina:Yes, definitely, definitely.
Steph:So with your practice, christina. What does a typical session look like with you? What can somebody expect?
Christina:So I mean, it kind of depends what they're coming for, I suppose, and there are no typical clients as well. I've definitely learned. But generally I will complete like a consultation with a client first, which involves asking a number of questions about sort of medical history, um, any conditions I need to be aware of, because especially for things like aromatherapy, massage or even crystal healing, you know there's certain contraindications to treatment. So say for say, for instance, if somebody is pregnant in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, I wouldn't be doing an Indian head massage because there's sort of meridians in the shoulder area that can stimulate contractions. So that would be an example. Or I wouldn't necessarily do crystal healing using clear quartz on somebody who had a pacemaker, because it can be a bit sort of too strong and too intense. Really it can interfere with the signal of that. So really it's just to get an understanding of that client and anything that I need to be aware of to keep them safe. But people get a little bit surprised at my consultation form because I ask for things like, you know, the sun sign and the moon sign and the rising sign, and they look at me like a complete weirdo and I'm like, well, if you don't know, it's fine, you know not. Not many people do um, but it helps me to kind of understand their, what their experience might be or what sort of type of personality that they might be. Um, I'll ask them as well if they know what their you know ayurvedic dosha type is, because I find that's quite useful as well for sort of physical um considerations.
Christina:What is that? So it's the so. It's an ancient kind of life science in india that's been used for 500 years, called ayurveda um, and it's the idea is that you as a, as a constituent person, will be balanced to a certain element, if that makes sense. So we all have three elements within our body there's vata, which is air, there's pita, which is fire and water, and then there's kappa, which is earth. So we will have a balance of these three elements within the body and they all represent different things, but we will be weighted towards one or two of them.
Christina:So when I'm working at my best, I'm predominantly peter, which is like the kind of fire and water um elements, which is interesting, because my sun sign is in sagittarius, which is a fire sign, my moon sign is a leo, which is a fire sign, and my rising sign is cancer, which is a water sign. So it kind of links in all together with that. You see, it's almost like two interpretations of the same story it's. It's very interesting, but sort of so. Peter is kind of that um, fire energy, that kind of go-getting sort of energy, and kappa is much more earthy, much more grounded, stable, steady, um, and kind of cozy like it's cozy kind of energy. That's the earth, um element.
Christina:And then vata is more sort of creative, it's the wind and air element, but it can also be, if that's there's an imbalance, that can lead to kind of anxiety and sort of skittishness. So I know personally that if I'm out of balance I will be feeling more kappa or more vata, if that makes sense, and I won't be so much pitta. So if people can understand what their predominant element is and then they do kind of like an assessment to see what's going on for them at the minute and it turns out actually you're more vata, it's like we can bring food in, we can bring activities in, we can bring different things in to bring you more into a different element, because the body will respond that way if that makes sense. I'm not an ayurvedic practitioner. I must sort of caveat that.
Christina:With that, it's just for me to get an understanding of what might be going on in terms of imbalance um so, um, encourage the client, oh, you might want to look more into this or, you know, with the certain exercises that I can do to kind of with that in mind, you know yeah, and for those listening that are thinking what on earth is a sun, moon and rising sign, can you quickly just explain so.
Christina:So your sun sign is the um sign of the zodiac that you were born into. So I'm Sagittarius, was born in December, um, so that's the sign that the sun was in at the time of your birth. Your moon sign is the sign that the moon was in at the time of your birth and that probably changes every three or four days. So, um, you know, it can kind of it changes a lot more often. So just going back slightly, your sun sign is basically your personality, it's who you are, it's your identity, it's your kind of external self, how you present yourself to the world. Your moon sign is more like your shadow. It's more your who you would like to be but you feel constricted. Or it'll be the sides of you that you feel a little bit of shame about, maybe, and you deny and you don't really present too much to the world. Um, it's the part of you that keeps hidden. It's that kind of internal self, almost.
Christina:And then your rising sign that is the sign that is on the eastern horizon at the time you were born. It's the one that's kind of um. So it will depend on where in the world you were born, will depend on what that sign is um, and that will be the sign that you it's almost like how you show up in relationships, how you show up socially. So my rising sign is in cancer, which is a water sign, which is very emotional, and cancerians tend to want to stay in the shell. You know they. They feel quite vulnerable, they like to be at home, and home is very important, space is very important, and they don't really like confrontation. They kind of sidestep away from confrontation, a little bit like a cancer crab, you know um. So yeah, that's how they show up in like relationships and and um social situations is they can be very emotional and sort of be quite vulnerable, but then they'll keep themselves themselves as well I can't get enough of this.
Christina:It's so interesting so in terms of people say like, oh, your star signs, like there's so many people that are sagittarius, how can they, how can everybody be the same? Do you know what I mean? But it's, it's not. When you look into birth charts, I mean, I'm not an expert or anything, I only kind of have a very a dabble in it, you know. But when you look at birth charts, they're so different because planets are in different. You know signs and you, like I say, your rising sign will be different, your moon sign will be different, and it really does lend itself to kind of your personality.
Christina:When I read my birth chart, it is just like reading about me. It's crazy. And then you, you know I'll read it for someone else and I'm like yep, that, um, um. But when we're going back to ayurveda and that sort of life science idea as well, in the way that they understand it in that discipline, you have what's called I'm going to get this wrong now, but there's I'm not going to name it because I'll end up getting it wrong I can't remember the exact word for it, but you will have a constituent that is based on where the stars were at the time of your birth and that's your kind of personality type and that links in with your kind of dorsic type as well. So it's very similar. It's like I say it's just interpretations of the same story, really, but it's different ways of understanding it I've heard of personality types before.
Steph:I cannot remember what mine is. Is it an ISFJ? And yeah, I agree, I was like, yeah, that's me, I feel seen so with your counselling. Do you incorporate that for some clients who are more open to the spiritual side of things, and how does that work?
Christina:Yeah, because we were talking about what a session looks like, don't we? We went off the total tangent. So this is why I have it on my consultation form, because for me it's it's interesting to know not just interesting I'm not like being just nosy and curious about my clients but it's so that I can get an idea of where they're at and where what they might be interested in looking at. So if somebody looks at that and they're like I have no idea what an Ayurvedic dosha type is and I have no interest in that, I'm like okay, we'll just we'll strike that off and we're not going to explore that anymore, because I only really want to meet the client, where they are and what they might be interested in looking at. So I would only necessarily dive into that if they felt like it was important and they wanted more information on that.
Steph:So yeah, I remember yes, it does make sense years ago, um, because I've been open on the podcast, I've had counseling before and uh, I felt a bit sort of I don't know if uneasy is the right word, but I'm going to use that I felt a bit uneasy thinking. I want to say, like I am spiritual, I am open to that side of things. When you just talk about yourself.
Steph:But I had a very big fear of judgment at that time and even though it was a really safe space, I did say it and the counselor actually said to me oh yeah, so am I, I'm open to that. And instantly it just washed away all that. What's she gonna think of me? You know, and it was wonderful. So we mentioned in the intro that you work mind, body, spirit connection, right, yes, so how do you see these elements interacting in the healing process?
Christina:so I mean, for me they are one. You know we talk about mind, body, spirit or soul or whatever you want to call it, um, but really it's, it's a holistic unit and I think that's probably what I always try and keep in the back of my mind when I'm working with a client, because they do interact, but also it's almost, it's like a single organism almost, and the way that I sort of how does it interact? The way that I kind of explain in the way that makes sense to me, or the way I've heard it explained before, and this makes sense to me and I explain it to my clients in this way as well, and it's usually helpful is that your physical body, so your physicality, resides in the present. It experiences the present. So if you hurt yourself, say you cut your finger or you roll your ankle or whatever, you will feel that in the present it's happening now. You know, if you think back to a time when you last bumped your head or something like that, you might recall the emotion of it, you might call the incident, but you don't feel the pain right now, do you? Because it's not happening now. It happened in the past.
Christina:So the body experiences the present, which is why meditation is brilliant, because it helps you to bring you back into the body. You know, you become aware of your breathing, you bring your consciousness back into your body and how your body's feeling, and you're switching off that thinking mind. You're switching off from any emotions that you're feeling because you're inhabiting your body at the time. You know, if I sort of like think now right, I'm just going to concentrate on the palm of my hand and I'm going to feel what the palm of my hand feels like, I'm not thinking what I'm going to have for my tea, I'm not worrying about the argument that I had yesterday. I'm just experiencing what it feels like in the palm of my hand.
Christina:Yeah, so that is presence. Yes, so emotions and your emotional kind of feeling, your felt sense, exists and resides in the past. So, if somebody, if you think of all the experiences that you've had since birth, you know all the conversations that you've had, anything that's happened to you, interactions, you know memories, all that kind of stuff. You don't remember every single thing, do you?
Christina:You don't remember everything that happened to you when you were younger or, you know, in all the years that have passed and gone you only remember certain things. And that would be because there's a reason. You know, the mind's kind of got caught on a little bit of a loop there. It's held on to it because either you've learnt something or you've really enjoyed it. Do you know what I mean? There's a reason why you've kind of held on to it, if that makes sense and you've felt an intense emotion at the time. But when you're in the present, when you're sort of being triggered by somebody say, for instance, say somebody I don't know makes you feel scared or makes you feel angry, you're not necessarily feeling what's happening right in that moment, especially if you're being triggered by something that's happened in the past. Does that make sense? So you've had kind of like a traumatic memory of some time, some time when you felt really scared, really unsafe. That will be in when something happens in the present. It's almost harking back to that time when you felt it before and it's the body's sort of survival system of we felt this before and it was unsafe. You need to run. Do you know what I mean? That sort of thing. So it holds on to that memory of something that was either joyful or that was either difficult, because we want to keep ourselves safe and we want to keep ourselves sort of secure and stop those things from happening again.
Christina:Your thinking mind, so your mental sort of thought process, that resides in the future. So if you're thinking about things generally, it's something that's not yet happened. You're thinking about a conversation that you're going to have, or you're thinking what you're going to have for your tea. Are you thinking about a meeting that you've got, that you need to prepare for. Are you worrying about how you're going to pay for the next holiday, or there's a bill that's due and how I'm going to pay?
Christina:You know, I mean, if you're thinking about things that are happening in the future, um, because the emotional kind of self is thinking okay, we have this experience and we don't want this again. We need to anticipate it happening again. Let's think, let's plan, let's build a scenario around what we're going to do if this happens. Does this make sense and that's all in the future. But when you're thinking all those things like, oh, you know, I need to plan for a meeting or I need to have that conversation. What am I going to say? You're completely and utterly cut off from what's going on right in this moment. You know, because it's not happening yet and, interestingly, a lot of it is completely made up, because you might be thinking of a conversation that you're going to have and you go through it in your head and then when you actually get down to it and it's in the present moment it never plans out the way that you think it was going to. Never.
Steph:So it's all completely made up usually you remind me of that quote about um worry steals your happiness when you're worrying about.
Christina:Worry is a misuse of imagination.
Steph:Imagination oh, yeah, yeah, and it does still, that's right.
Christina:But the thing that ties them all together is the spirit or the soul, or whatever you kind of want to call it. It's a very abstract concept, isn't it really? I mean, we don't really have, don't really know what it is. It's not tangible, but that kind of spirit and soul, self is what ties it all together, because that's timeless, that doesn't experience time.
Christina:Everything is happening all at the same time, which is why, when you're having an emotional reaction in the present, you're feeling what happened in the past, you're being triggered by something that happened in the past, because, to the soul, it's happening at the same time. You know what I mean, and I'm talking about experiences where you know you're feeling a really strong emotion. Something's really coming up for you and it's totally disproportionate to what is going on in the moment. You know you're feeling irrationally angry or resentful. You know what I mean.
Christina:It's it's, it's there's something, there's a, there's a sign of something happening in the past that you've not dealt with, that needs resolving, that needs healing, and it's giving you a signal in the present because the spirit is connecting the two, if that makes sense. So yeah, that's kind of how I explain it. They're all interacting together because they're all experiencing different times, if you like not to get a bit too metaphysical, but they're experiencing different times in the present at the same time, and you're kind of trying to unpick it all and unravel it all and it's about figuring out what's where and what can I kind of heal and how can you share an example of how emotional experiences can manifest physically in the body, then?
Christina:yeah. So if we're getting that emotional experience in in the moment and we're not hearing it for what it is. So say, for instance, going back to what I was talking about when I was at university and I felt really in conflict with what was going on, I mean, looking back at it now, it's easy for me to see that I felt completely isolated. I felt really lonely, really unhappy, but I wasn't identifying with those emotions, I wasn't acknowledging them or recognizing them, because I thought I was where I should be. You know, to me now I'm. You know I did really well at school. I need to get a job that's going to give me security. You know I need to be here and I need to be enjoying it. So I'm going to deny everything that I'm thinking and feeling.
Christina:So if we don't deal with that emotional experience, it then starts manifesting physically and this also is an idea in Ayurveda as well, just going back to that that there's like an accumulative effect of toxicity which then leads to illness. So if you think about the tension that would have been in my muscles, the adrenaline, the cortisol, the stress hormones that would have been running around my body when I wasn't dealing with that emotional response to my surroundings. It's manifesting in my muscles and it's manifesting in different areas of the body. It's accumulating toxicity, which is why I ended up with migraines. So when we I use the sort of Louise Hay um sort of guide to different areas of the body and different kind of emotional reactions and that can manifest physically, I find that really useful. And for migraines it's very much a kind of resistance to the present, resistance to what's going on in your life at the time. So that's one example.
Christina:Another example would be um, so in the hips, in the hip area, if you're struggling with like stiffness or aching, achy joints, that sort of thing, that can be a sign that you are holding on to anger, you're holding on to resentment and anger. And that is because this area of the body, so your hips and your kind of pelvic area, is where your Svadhisthanaana chakra is, you know, your, your sacral chakra. So the second one in the, the group of seven, the one that's kind of usually represented by an orange color, because this chakra and I'll just sort of just touch on chakras very, very briefly in modern science we can kind of understand chakras as essentially areas where we have either, um, an organ that relates to the hormone system sorry, I can't remember the exact name of the system for your hormones to have an organ like, say, for instance, your adrenals or, you know, your thyroid, that sort of thing, pituitary gland or it will be an area where there's a huge bundle of nerve like plexuses, like a spaghetti junction of nerves. It weirdly enough, chakras kind of correspond with the areas that those where those are. And your circular chakra here is your center for, um, how you sort of interact your values with the values of other people, society's expectations, how you manage your passion and your needs and your appetites with what is expected of you, either in the family or in society. It's how you balance your needs with the needs of others and kind of that value system. So it's kind of your centre of morality and justice and that sort of thing. And that's why we feel shame down here when we feel ashamed. We, when we feel ashamed, we can sometimes feel this area by burning or activating, and that's why we feel it there, because it's our center for interacting with people on a value-based sort of system, if you like. So the reason why we feel anger here is because something that um, something within our value system has been triggered by somebody else's value system, so there's like a conflict of values. You know I hold this dear. You've betrayed that trust or you've done something that has compromised my values. If you're not recognising that emotion and you're not dealing with it, it can manifest here as pain, if that makes sense, or stiffness or whatever.
Christina:So ankles I had this.
Christina:I had this over 18 months ago, constantly going over on my ankles, constantly, like no matter what shoes I was wearing, I've been rolling my ankle and it's the most painful. Horrible thing was not the most painful, you know, it's all relative, but it was always very painful and always very inconvenient for me to start crying on the floor because it just felt to me. It was always very painful and always very inconvenient for me to start crying on the floor because it was awful, but it was because the ankles are basically your flexibility in terms of your life and and what you're doing with it and the people around you, and I was being way too flexible at the time. I had no boundaries. I had no um sort of recognition of what my needs were. I was being too flexible and was constantly going over on my ankles, and it was only really when I started addressing that and really kind of put some work into it, that it just stopped. It starts. I've not, I've not, I've not done it since. So it can't be that I've got a weakness there.
Christina:You know that's not anything else, because I'd still be doing it. So yeah, it's interesting. Every part of the body, every area of the body is connected to a particular system, a particular kind of energy, if you like, and when you're seeing sort of physical things happening, it's a manifestation, sometimes when there's not an obvious physical cause, of something that's happened emotionally, that's either not been dealt with and is asking for attention, if that makes sense yes, it does.
Steph:I'm just thinking. I wonder how many people listening that ever have experienced the same as you with the ankles. And now they're thinking boundaries. We need boundaries everybody needs boundaries. Yes, it's important yeah, it's so easy as well to let things slide, isn't it? And then you end up in a situation that you don't want to be in. But for the clients that come to you, how do you help them become more aware of these connections in their own lives?
Christina:so I'm thinking more in terms of my Reiki and my crystal clients. This is generally people who come for a reiki healing or a crystal healing okay I'm more sort of open to these sort of ideas and how things connect anyway.
Christina:Um, yeah, I have had people come for counseling as well who've been more interested in it. But really for me to get a read on what's going on in somebody's body, I need to be doing an energy healing with them. I wouldn't, I wouldn't do a combined counseling and energy healing session necessarily, because it requires different kind of um agreements and different, um, yeah, different agreements in in in terms of what to expect from a session. And you know, because it it means as well that your client is sort of consenting for you to exchange their energy and tap into their energy. You know which has to be consented. Really I can't just do that without asking. It would be an intrusion.
Christina:So generally, for sort of raking crystal clients, what I would do is whatever I'm sort of sensing in the session, I would say to them afterwards you know I picked up a number of things. So normally I would say beforehand if I pick up on anything, do you want me to tell you about it? Because that would be an opportunity then for them to say, actually, do you know what? I don't? I don't really want to know, but then generally they do.
Christina:Generally, you know, any sort of insight is helpful, um, because that's usually why they've come in the first place. And so if I pick up on anything within the body, I will just tell them what I've, what I've experienced, what I've sensed, and I'll say, generally, this area can be related to this does this resonate for you? Does it make sense? Just, is there something there that you know? You'd think, oh, actually, yeah, that there could be something in that. You know, and it's just an offer of information, essentially, and this is what I've experienced, you know, what are your thoughts on that? And and if it's something that they want to work on, then we can talk about things that they might be able to use to help them along, whether it's, you know, use, use of a crystal or use of a someromotherapy oil, and whether it's sound-based healing that they can utilize or, you know, meditation visualizations, that sort of thing and what would you say to somebody who's skeptical?
Christina:oh, I love skeptical people. I love the skeptic because it's so funny, isn't it? Because we don't question things like wi-fi or bluetooth, you know, or radio waves, mobile data. We don't question it, we don't see it. We don't question how that happens, do we? So I find it fascinating that people completely deny that we as human beings, as electrical beings, you know with a kind of electromagnetic field and you know energy exchange that we wouldn't be able to, you know, tap into some sort of exchange of energy with another person either. Or, you know, be able to pick up on signals. Signals, I mean, people pick up on signals all the time, you know they don't realize that they're doing it. Um, so that's kind of. Maybe I would maybe open up, unnecessarily open with that, but in terms of somebody who's skeptical, I would never. I would always say experience it first. But the the thing is, you kind of have to be open to it as well. You kind of have to be willing to kind of just open up and see what's there, because you will, you won't get an exchange otherwise. You know what I mean.
Christina:I mean, I've had clients before who have been recommended by family members and I know, as soon as they walk in, that they're thinking this is never going to work. But I remember thinking that, in terms of the bowen therapy you know I was talking about with the migraines, I mean at the time I was open to it, thinking, you know, when I went and sat down I thought, you know, I'm ready for anything really to solve these migraines. Um, but when I was actually having the treatment I did have doubts. I thought we can't this, this is hardly doing anything, it's just out in the room half the time. You know we can't really be doing anything.
Christina:But I suppose there was a, there was a level of me, there was a part of me that was like I'm open because I kind of need, I need something to work, you know, and I'm hoping that this will have an effect. But I've had clients before come and I can tell that they're like they didn't want it to work. They almost wanted to kind of prove their point that this was not going to have an effect whatsoever. And when I've tried to connect with them energetically it's been like wall, I mean, it's been like a big barrier. And while they're saying yes, you know, they want the, the reiki healing, I'm thinking no, you know, I don't know, I don't think you do, I think you want to prove a point, you know. So I mean, if, if people are skeptical to the point where they're like, actually I'm really not interested in that, that's absolutely fine for me, because I think maybe it's not for you in this lifetime, maybe you're not ready. You know, maybe there's something that you know it's not but it's not drawn you to it yet, which is absolutely fine. But I would say, don't knock it till you've tried it.
Christina:Because I think, to experience something like I did with the bone therapy and experience the effect of it, or you know, to when I was being attuned for reiki, that first time, and I felt that energy, I felt the movement, you know, until you've had an experience like that, because the thing is, it's so intangible, isn't it, you know? I think this is why there's not a lot of research into this kind of stuff, you know, and it's so easy for skeptics to say, well, it doesn't work. You know, otherwise you'd be able to get it on the NHS or whatever. Do you know what I mean? Well, that's because there's not a lot of research into it. Because how do you research? Or how do you quantify individual experience, because every client I've had for rakey or crystals is an individual and they are experiencing it in their own way and they, you know, they will sort of maybe see colors or they might have visions or, you know, they might experience certain sensations.
Christina:Nobody is the same and how do you kind of locate that in a? I mean, I'm not a scientist, but how do you replicate that in a study that can then be repeated and can be relied upon? It's really difficult, you know. I think if you're not going to rely on anecdotal evidence, it's it's difficult to be able to sort of say, oh well, we can hang our hat on this, that this works. Do you know what I mean? So it's easy for skeptics to say, well, it doesn't work, but then, when you haven't experienced it for yourself, you can't necessarily say that completely and utterly, if that makes sense.
Steph:It does make sense. I think that's a fantastic answer. Actually, I looked on your website before recording this and you work with subtle body anatomy. Can you explain what what this is?
Christina:yeah, so subtle body anatomy basically is the parts of our body that we can't see but as an energy healer I can interact with. So it's things like chakras, aura and meridians, and my sort of experience really is mostly in chakras. So essentially what we're doing the crystal healing stuff as an example, if I was going to work with chakras in a crystal healing is sort of get a read on each one and when I'm tuning in it's almost almost like I describe it almost like it's like a radio. So if you kind of like tune a radio and you can pick up certain stations and certain radios will pick up some stations, others won't. Almost when I'm sort of with a client and I'm tuning in, I'm most tuning into their radio signal, their energy, if you like, um, and chakras tend to have um, an energy that feels a little bit like you know um, when you see water coming down a plug hole in a tap and you can see like this little whirlpool. Yeah, it's a bit like that and you can feel it kind of you know, doing this kind of swirly motion and and sometimes it feels really like rapid and it's going around really really quickly and that can indicate that there's a bit of hyperactivity going on in that chakra. It's a little bit, maybe overstimulated, and so people who have trouble settling their mind, their third eye chakra, their asana chakra, up here in the forehead, and that can be quite sort of like overstimulated and sort of very quick, and sometimes it can feel quite slow. Sometimes it feels like a massive, massive diameter of you know sort of um movement and sometimes it can feel very, very small, like a little tiny, little swirl thing, um, and it all sort of indicates what's going on, whether it's um overactive or underactive um, if there's, if it feels very sluggish, then it can sort of indicate that there's the energy is not flowing very well in that chakra, and whatever that chakra represents then can be an indication of what area needs to be looked at in terms of energy flow.
Christina:So say, for instance, if somebody is feeling very um sluggish in their sort of muladhara chakra, in their root chakra, then in the base so this is like at the base of the spine that indicates that there's an issue with either fear or security safety. So they might be dealing with maybe financial difficulties or they might be dealing with um issues to do with their home. You know that sort of thing, or it could be this is what I'm talking about again with the body experiencing everything at the same time. It could be something that happened way in the past, where they felt fearful, where they felt unsafe, that is still affecting their relationships or their experiences now, but hasn't hasn't been dealt with. Do you know what I mean? So that can be that I cannot.
Christina:Sometimes I'll get senses of um, like it's almost like a visual, you know, to me, and so sometimes I'll feel, or I'll have my hands over a chakra and I'll be engaged with that and I'll have the feeling of being sucked downwards almost, or that there's like a big pit down there, or something you know and that can indicate that there's something needs clearing out. So yeah, so it's sort of working with them really and understanding the flow of energy through the body and the different areas that different things represent and to clear them essentially. So, in terms of the aura, that's really interesting and it works, especially if I'm using crystals. I love using a sort of clear quartz crystal grid around a client and being able to engage in their aura and the way that I kind of describe it. It's almost like the feeling of two magnets, you know, when you try and push to pull up to sort of the same side together and you can they repel, yeah, yeah, yeah, it feels like that. It's almost like a resistance. Um, it's very, it's very. I love it. It's very strange, but I love it, you know, and when I can feel somebody's aura, I feel really engaged with them. Do you know what I mean? And and it's a real privilege, to be honest.
Christina:But what I can sort of feel is how wide that is coming out, so what the boundaries of it are, because if it's quite wide, you know, it can generally mean that somebody's got quite a good energy.
Christina:But if the boundary is a bit flimsy, it can sometimes indicate that that person's kind of maybe lacking in a bit of boundaries or resilience. You know, they're letting too much in, um, or I can feel that maybe if there's areas that are dipping, you know, and it's not kind of a all the way around sort of um, even bubble, if you like if there's areas that feels like there's a little bit of a dip or a bit of a hole, you know, I can send some healing into that and we can talk about why that might be there, you know, and that sort of thing as well. Um, I suppose it's just having an understanding of all of this really helps me to see that client as a whole. Yeah, because usually it's never what they came in with. Do you know what I mean if they come in and say I want to work on this, sometimes I'll find some you know something somewhere else and be like hmm, I think this might be where your problem originates, or maybe we're dealing with two things.
Christina:I'm not sure, because what happens is with sort of the chakras is you find the energy flows upwards through the body and then outwards, kind of into the aura and then back round in kind of a big loop. So if you're feeling like maybe a blockage or something in your and a heart chakra, in your sort of heart area, it may actually be because there's an issue further down. Do you know what I mean?
Christina:that needs looking at as well, because that's blocking that flow upwards. So, yeah, it's just about having an understanding of that really, and being able to see how they met, how they are sort of interacting and how they might be impacting the client's experience, you know when did you first realize that you could sense energy?
Steph:do you remember?
Christina:it was well, I think on some level, you know you, everybody can, I think everybody can. I think it's becoming attuned to it.
Steph:Um, have you always been attuned to it? Have you always been? Oh god, yeah.
Christina:I think, yeah, I think, and that's always been something that I know. I think a lot of people who have this, who have been called, oh, you're too sensitive and you're too soft, you see it as something that's almost like a bad thing. But I've always felt that about me, I think, and you know, I've always suspected that I might be too sensitive or too soft, you know, and so it's something that you kind of deny and you push down and you repress because it's not, you know, it's not an acceptable quality to have. But I think, in going through my different Reiki achievements, which took me well, I did my first degree in 2011 and then my master's. I finally did in 2020, just before the lockdown, actually um in the January or February. So it took me nearly 10 years to do um, my Reiki achievements, and in the course of that it, like I was saying before, it it changes you. It changes you doing reiki achievements and um.
Christina:I don't think enough kind of um emphasis is put on this and I think I was, I was probably told. It's probably a bit like when you have children and people tell you what parenting is going to be like and you don't really, you don't really hear it until you have your own children. For those people who have children, they'll come to relate and you don't kind of understand really how it's going to change you until it does. Do you know what I mean? It becomes very, certain situations become very intolerant and you know, you become more sort of sensitive to things like light and sound and you know I I can't have the news on anymore in my house. I've not listened to the news, you know properly, probably for years I can't. I can't listen to it, um, because I find it deeply distressing. So I think it's been a gradual process really, and but I think I always had it to start with. I always had those kind of like intuitive nudges and.
Christina:I think everybody does, um, but I think going through the Reiki achievements has really allowed me to open up to that, because there's been a shift in vibration, and has allowed me to be able to kind of open up and sense things. And I do think that, you know, humans are evolving all the time as well. Going back to kind of talking about skeptics and you know why, would we be able to tune into other people? Humans are becoming more and more conscious every day. I think I've seen, especially over the last 10 years, there's an absolute explosion really of people becoming more emotionally intelligent, more aware of themselves, more aware that there may be something out there.
Christina:Um, even to the point where I met a woman through work who, um, she disclosed to us that she was autistic. She was running a training course on workplace coaching and she described that she can smell illness. You know, much like you have kind of like cancer dogs and things like that. She could smell differences. And when she first realized that, well, when she first discovered this, she didn't understand what it was. She just thought that particular people have particular smells and then she would obviously find out that they were dealing with a certain illness, and then she'd be. She then could marry up certain smells with certain illnesses. I know it's absolutely amazing, okay, and this is part of her autistic abilities, this is and she said that now there's certain places that she couldn't go because there's so many ill people that she found the smells really like kind of sickening, you know, sort of nauseating, and I think that that's incredible.
Christina:And we know, don't we, through science, that as human beings, we can only see a certain spectrum of light, but there's other light we can't see, we can only hear a certain spectrum of frequency of sound, and there's other sounds that we can't hear, but dogs can hear them. Why? Why do we think that that is going to stay the same forever? It's not, you know, because humans are evolving and changing all the time. So I think that, you know I can't remember exactly the first time that I realized this it's been a progression and it's been an evolution, just even just for me, you know, and I think it is something that is open to everybody, really wow, it's open to everybody.
Steph:So it's open to everyone and you can develop it, can't you? So that is fascinating. Like we go to crufts every year and we watch the medical dogs and the training and the shows. That they fascinating, isn't it? It's amazing, it's absolutely amazing. And like they can do it for allergies, for example. When we went this year we saw a dog that was trained to detect nut allergies and they made like a fake bus and they brought it out. They'd sellotaped a pack of nuts underneath one chair and this obviously the packet's closed, it's not open. And they the dog, was taught to lead the human obviously avoid any nuts. And he, actually he avoided that chair, he sniffed it and then took the human to sit at the chair furthest away from that chair, and I was like, wow, they're just amazing. But for that lady to be able to do that, I mean, what a gift like she could save.
Christina:Well, it gets undercursed at times, but yeah, an amazing amazing ability, I mean there's potential there also kind of proof that you know, humans are, we're evolving, yeah, we are evolving and our sensory kind of abilities are heightening. Yeah, you know, and it's in becoming sort of more open to that and more accepting of that as well, um, we can become sort of more in tune with ourselves, you know and with each other, which is very important.
Steph:And she could save somebody's life with that. That's incredible. So what results have you seen from that, from your clients? Can you give us any examples?
Christina:yeah, yeah. So, um, I had a client who came for um issues with relationships and not being able to kind of open up in relationships and um felt like you know, they kind of came and said I want to work on my heart chakra, um, which at first I was a little bit sort of um thinking, okay, yeah, we can work with that, but also something else might come up. So just be prepared, be prepared for, you know, when we go into kind of like an energy healing, um, there may be other stuff there or there may be something else there or whatever, and um, what I found was doing a healing was um. So, yeah, I'd see now, you know, speaking before about when I did my reiki training and thought, you know, I'm not really on the boat on board with guides and things like that I do actually work with guides now as part of my reiki healing and crystal healing, um and other healing as well.
Christina:To be fair, I'm very much more open to that now and I felt guided towards doing a sort of. It was very, very strange, it felt like when the client was on his front, so you know, the back was sort of exposed it felt almost like pressing my finger into where the heart chakra would be, like that area, and just kind of like, just very, very gently, and it's never. It's something I've never, ever done with a client before. I had no idea where it came from, but it was. That was what I was guided to do.
Christina:And when the client came out of the healing they said that in that moment they'd almost felt like the heart had restarted. It probably hadn't, because you know that would be a serious medical episode, but that's kind of energetically kind of how it felt and it was almost like a reset. And then, you know, the client came back sort of a couple of times after that and each time was describing the different ways that they've been able to kind of open up more in relationship but also become more sort of aware of themselves in relationship and how they were relating to people you know, and your heart chakra is your center for relationships, whether that's with yourself or with other people you know, with the environment. It's how you relate to other things outside of you and you know your own internal self as well. So it wasn't like they'd almost experienced a reset. You know it was. It was very, very interesting and, yeah, it still comes now as well. That's one instance, yeah.
Steph:I wanted to say then are there common emotional patterns that you see come up time and time again that affect physical health?
Christina:Yes, I would say probably the muladhara chakra, the root chakra, is probably the one that I see the most issues with and that is obviously that's your center, at the base of your spine. For you know safety, security, basic needs, so things like um belonging to something or, you know, a family unit or just a feeling of community. I suppose you know feeling safe and feeling secure and not feeling fearful, that's probably the issue that I see the most. Um in terms of physical manifestations, that can be things like um, just sort of irritable bowel. Um, you know problems with sort of, you know that sort of system, because I mean, if you think about this very sort of like weird um comparison, but you know, when people feel scared you can almost feel this area of your body, like your pelvic area, activating.
Christina:I remember once I was in a situation where I felt very scared, I thought that was going to be attacked, and the whole of my kind of hip area just started trembling. Do you know what I mean? Like that area just got completely activated. Um, you know that can also be that manifestation of the fear. That's a physical manifestation of fear and I think it's probably common nowadays because you know there's so many things going on in the world that are making us feel fearful. You know, we've got like the cost of living crisis, we've got conflicts going on all over the world, uncertainty about that and, you know, feeling that we're kind of being watched all the time. You know this kind of surveillance culture that we've got um and feeling you know we're measuring up to people on social media so much things that we could be fearful of, and I think that's probably I mean, that's just my perspective I think that's maybe why we're seeing a lot of issues with the root chakra, of feeling that there's a lot of kind of blockages in the muladhara chakra.
Steph:But yeah, I would say that's probably one and how does energy get stuck in the body like? How does that happen? Because you're supporting clients in healing and am I right in saying regulating the energy in the body. How does it get stuck? Well, I'm saying, how can it get stuck? And if so, how can it get stuck? And then how do you help with releasing it? Is that a? Would you focus on the chakras for that?
Christina:well, not necessarily the chakras, but yes, yeah, definitely. I mean it can get stuck. And if we think about it in terms of what we're saying before about um, if we're feeling that we're sort of at odds where they were surrounding something's happening and our body is saying no to it, you know we know that feeling of the body is is responding, in a way, unfavorably to something that's going on, whether that's something chronic or like an acute sorry situation that's happening right now that we need to deal with.
Christina:Um, the body is being sort of flushed with stress hormones in order to activate that fight and flight response.
Christina:You know the automatic nervous system stress response that we have, um, you know, it's flooding the body with all sorts of those hormones and we're breathing becomes more shallow and more quick so we can get that oxygen in, so we can run if we need to because we're feeling under threat. Does that make sense? Yeah, so, because the things that we feel under threat from nowadays aren't necessarily, you know, usually, thank goodness they're not kind of life and death situations that we need to be escaping from like they would have been, you know, back in sort of, you know, stone age or whatever, when we were doing whatever I'm not good with ages, you know back in back in the time when you know life and death was a real kind of problem, a real situation that we would need to run from. We're not dealing with that now. We're dealing with kind of little threats, aren't we? Or what would seem relatively little threats, but the body doesn't know the difference and it's still flushing the body with, you know, these stress hormones and we're breathing quickly. So, in order to deal with it, and that's got nowhere to go, it's got nowhere to sort of release, because we're not having that rush, you know, we're not having that running away kind of aspect of it. We're denying it almost and we're sort of thinking well, you know, I can't feel like this because I just need to deal with the situation that I'm dealing with. I need to send this email, or I need to have this meeting, or you know, whatever, I need to pay this bill. You're just denying it and getting rid of it. So the body's storing it. It's storing that stress, essentially in the muscles. Um.
Christina:So when we talk about energy, it that that really is what that is, if that makes sense, and it's, you know, that kind of physicality of it, but also the emotional energy of the kind of fear element as well, I suppose in that situation is what we're dealing with, our, you know whether it's resentment, whether it's disappointment, you know anger, that sort of thing it's. It's linked to the, the stress response in the body and it's sat, residing in the muscles because it's got nowhere to go, it's not being expelled anywhere. So when we um so, as a massage therapist, when we're massaging muscles and we're trying to loosen that up, it creates tension, this sort of distress response, and we're trying to loosen that tension up to create more space to allow it to flow better, because tension constricts, tension brings something more concentrated and more dense and sort of closer together, if that makes sense it contracts, whereas when we relax, we allow more space, we become bigger, we expand and we allow things to flow out better because there's more space for it to fall out from, if that makes sense. When we're doing massage therapy, we're getting rid of that. When we're doing massage therapy, we're getting rid of that. When we're doing energy healing, reiki, we're allowing the body and the muscles to release everything that it doesn't need anymore. That's what we talk about getting rid of everything that you don't need, that doesn't serve you. That's essentially what we're talking about Everything that you've built up over the day, over the month, over the year, that you don't need because you've not had to. Kind of it's been a disproportionate response to what's going on, but it doesn't feel like that. It's just kind of letting go of that so the energy can get stuck in that sense.
Christina:And often when I'm doing a reiki healing, sometimes if I'm in a particular area, I will get a visual of like a very dense ball of almost looks like tar. This is what I say, how I see it in my head. So I get visual kind of messages, um, and it'll feel like a very dense, very clump clump that's kind of concentrated and feels very sludgy and very dark. That's kind of the visual that I get. So what I will do then is I will scoop it out. Essentially it was all kind of like get it energetically, get hold of it, scoop it out, chuck it away, give it to, you know, the client's guy so he can just take that away for me. She doesn't need it anymore, he doesn't need it anymore, and we'll kind of it's almost like performing energetic surgery, really just getting rid of stuff, as I had a client once who was suffering with knee problems and didn't tell me.
Christina:But when I came to the knees I felt this, this clump, this horrible kind of sludgy lump of energy and that it all got kind of clogged together. So I got rid of it, scooped it all out. It took a while, um, because you know it's energy and it could kind of cling, um, but yeah, afterwards I said, you know, I felt this in your knee. I don't, I'm not really sure what's going on there. She said, oh yeah, I've been suffering with knee problems.
Christina:I was like, okay, well, let's see how you get on over the next few days, and sure enough, mobility was reinstated. So, yeah, so it can get stuck um, and energy healing, and you know holistic therapy, massage therapy as as well as a really good way to kind of get that flowing again. But it's a case of you know, some people will come to me and they'll say, oh well, I had this once, it didn't work, it came back. It's like, well, if you're still exposing yourself to certain situations and experiences and relationships that aren't serving you, that are causing a stress response, then it is going to come back because you've not changed anything. You see what I mean.
Steph:So there is a certain onus, a certain responsibility on the client to address whatever is going on in their life circumstances that is causing this response in the body, that's causing this accumulation of stuckness, almost yeah, and to take action on it, and a good holistic therapist will be able to kind of discuss that and maybe figure out what that might be and what changes can be made okay, and just to steer the conversation back to you, I know you mentioned about you studied law, but have you had any profound or transformative experiences in your own life that ultimately shaped your belief in this work? I know you mentioned how you you were exposed to it with your family being open to it and into it, but yeah, what were those experiences?
Christina:so I mean speaking to a kind of holistic experience, I would say. Probably doing my Reiki achievements has sort of really firmed it up for me because, like I say, I came into it a bit of a skeptic and thinking I'm not really certain about this and you know, I'm not really sure about the idea of guides. And yeah, just by doing those achievements and doing the subsequent sort of um treatments on clients and friends and family and all sorts of other things and people, kind of seeing how it works, has really kind of firmed that up for me. I think, you know, I've done distance healings on clients before as well, where they've been experiencing something at the same time as me, but in a completely different part of town, you know, and stuff like that it's. It is fascinating.
Steph:The more you kind of delve into it, the more fascinating it becomes and where do you see the future of holistic therapy and energy healing going? Because I see it going big. I know a lot more people showing interest in it rather than taking. I mean, obviously, if you need medication, you need to take the medication, but there are other routes of looking after yourself, such as holistic therapies. Where do you see the future of it going?
Christina:My hope is that it does become more prevalent and more recognised and people feel more empowered to explore it, because I agree.
Christina:I mean, you know allopathic medicine, you know, and going to your gp is absolutely essential if you, if you need it, 100, because most of the time you'll be going to your gp because you want to address a problem there. And then I would say that this sort of work is more preventative and more holistic. So it's not just dealing with a particular problem in a particular area and we're dealing with a symptom. You know it's very just dealing with a particular problem in a particular area and we're dealing with a symptom. You know it's very much kind of we want to have a look at the cause and look at you as a whole, as a spiritual being, you know, with a mind, with an emotional body, with a physical body. You know the things that may have happened in this lifetime and maybe things that you're carrying from another lifetime. There may be sort of ancestral stuff that you're carrying with you. I think the more we kind of open up to that, the more we understand ourselves as a whole and understand our soul journey. You know what we're here for and how we can attain that, how we can sort of really work with our bodies and our experiences to become more self-fulfilled and understand what it is that we're here to do. You know what it is that we're here to contribute, what it is that we're here to learn. So I think that just having that wider understanding of other things that may be at play is is really important.
Christina:But it's so difficult because it's not very well understood and it's not very well evidenced scientifically. You know it's hard for people to kind of hang the hats on it and say, oh yeah, you know, go to see a Reiki therapist. And because results are so varied, like I say, you know people will come in for one thing, but usually it's something else that needs working on, something else that needs addressing. And there's also a responsibility there for you to take away what you've kind of learned about yourself and think, okay, well, maybe I need to make some changes in this area or maybe I need to then go and get some counselling about this, because this is a problem that's causing me issues. Now you know there's a real responsibility there. It's not just a case of a convenient let's take a pill and we're sorted.
Christina:You know what I mean, I think, in the age that we've got at the moment, with things that are so convenient I mean we've got shopping at the click of a button, you know, we've got food that can get delivered to our houses we don't even need to lift a finger off our sofa or anything. You know, people are reaching for convenience and it's maybe not necessarily such a convenient thing to get into. So there is that, but I do think that the results are so profound and so insightful and so interesting that it is worth it. It's definitely worth it. So I hope that it does become more prevalent and we can talk about it more openly, you know, and people because, just become more open to it yeah, yeah, and address, like you say address the root cause rather than avoiding it or sticking your head in the sand.
Christina:So yeah, because it requires a lot of change. Yeah, you know. So just the root cause of something. It it can require to you to be really brave, really brave and kind of confront something that you might have buried or something that, um, you don't necessarily want to deal with, because it means having to make a significant change in your life. I mean, it could be that you know the relationship that you're in isn't really right, you know, and having to sort of figure out how are we going to either work around that or are we going to sort of end the relationship. It's a very difficult, very difficult thing. Yeah to um, sort of address, you know it may not be as drastic as that, but there could be something there at play that you're not dealing with, and it does. It requires some work, so, but, like I say, the results are amazing. When you can, like, really understand yourself more, you then have the ability to reach your potential, your true potential I love that well said.
Steph:And what advice would you give to somebody who is curious about starting their healing journey or curious about coming to see you?
Christina:I would say lean into any intuitive nudges you're getting. I would say, if there's anything that you feel drawn to, go and do a little bit of research, check it out. You know there's plenty of books out there on this topic. There's been plenty of books on Reiki, plenty of books on crystals, and you'll find that there's a lot of varying sort of information out there. But whatever resonates with you is the right thing. You, you know, and it's about leaning into that kind of intuitive sense that we don't necessarily lean into very often, because your spirit knows, your soul knows what you need, and it's about sort of taking the thinking mind out at that moment and leaning into that and going with it. So I'd say, anything that you feel drawn to, go and explore it. Go and see a practitioner. Um, and yeah, it may be that that's something that you just need to learn more about and it will open up the doors to other things as well yeah, great from our conversation today.
Steph:Then what is one piece of advice that you hope our listeners would take away, if you can pick one.
Christina:Oh my gosh, I could pick one.
Christina:It would be that you already know on some level. You already know, because we were talking about you know, the kind of experiencing things and different timelines. So your, your emotion, sort of dealing with the past and you're thinking, minding with the future. You are experiencing all times at once. Time is not linear. Time is, you know, very kind of abstract and space is abstract as well. So on some level there's part of you that already knows the answer. It's just about digging that out. So it's very much about what I want people to take away is that you have the ability to heal yourself, you have the ability to understand yourself and you have the ability to get where you want to be in life.
Christina:You 100, you do, but life has happened and there's a lot of conditioning on you, there's a lot of restrictions, there's a lot of residue from all the experiences and the conversations and the relationships and interactions that you've had in your life. It may give you that sort of feeling that you don't, but you do. So it's all about self-empowerment, I suppose, is the message you know. If you lean into the intuition, you're sort of self-knowing, you know what's best for you and go and follow it. Just give yourself that permission to be curious and to look into things and lean into things, and because the more you give yourself permission to do that, the more you then allow yourself to do that and you become to sort of discard all these ideas that you've accumulated over your life that are not even yours. You've internalised them as yours but they're not and you can become who you're meant to be. So I think it would be that you already know. So just lean into it.
Steph:Thank you, Christina. Christina, so how can people find you, how can they connect and work with you?
Christina:So I have a website like you mentioned, um, I'm sure you can put it in the show notes can't you but it's indigo-holistics. net
Christina:Um. I will be revamping my website, um, in the sort of coming weeks, but you know it's still accessible there at the moment. I am on facebook as indigo holistics and on instagram as newagenavigator, um, but you'll see anywhere that you see, like the little purple sun symbol. You know that's me. Um. I am on youtube as well. I've not posted on there for a while, um, but I will be sort of posting soon again with them little sort of meditations and well-being hacks and things like that. Um. So yeah, that's how to get a hold of me lovely thank you.
Steph:I will link all of those in the show notes. I've loved it. Christina, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for the work you do and being such a
Christina:Thank you for having me. It's been so fun talking about this stuff.
Christina:I could go on forever.
Steph:Yeah, you probably can tell it's just so fascinating and I think you're such a positive influence in the world with what you do. So thank you so much. And I'm just going to finish off with saying book me in.
Christina:I'll be happy to help you.
Steph:Oh, thank you.
Steph:Thank you so much for listening. You can follow me on instagram at Tranquil Topics, and if you have enjoyed this episode, please do leave a rating or review, as it will help me to reach more people and I'll be back in two weeks time with another episode. Bye.