EP39 – The Importance of Energy Healing

Matthew J. Brownstein hosts Inbal Gonen in this special episode of Illuminated Mind®. Inbal Gonen is a living, breathing example of the transformative impact energy healing can have. She is a certified reiki practitioner, she started Calm Nest to create a safe place for everyone to practice energy therapy no matter where they are.

Welcome, everyone to the illuminated mind podcast with me Matthew brown Steen. I’m the founder and lead instructor of the Institute of interpersonal hypnotherapy. And I really enjoy doing the podcasting theme to get to meet some wonderful people like my guest today in balgonie. In so in ball, thank you for being here with us.
Thank you for having them. I’m quite excited to have our chat.
Yeah, absolutely. You are the founder of calmness. But let me read your bio. And then let’s dive into some really interesting topics. So inbound, Gordon is a living, breathing example of the transformative impact energy healing can have after years of experiencing the life altering effects of different modalities, the way cranial sacral massage can release toxins, how biofield tuning can relieve trauma, she wanted to share that powerful tool with others, a certified Reiki practitioner involved started calm nest, to create a safe place for anyone, everyone to practice energy therapy, no matter where they are. As someone who has struggled with anxiety and depression her whole life. She is a proponent of holistic approach to well being melding together Eastern and Western healing practices. So one is tell us about you anyplace you want to start just to give us a sense of what you’re all about.
Sure. So I am first and foremost, a mother of three teenagers. So you know, we joked but it’s I feel like I live in a schizophrenic institution most of the time. So I will use any and all tools to help me be the best and calm version of myself. I am a Reiki practitioner, as you mentioned, and the owner of calmness. My background really that brought me here was a life of learning and being very curious. I got my psychology degree from UCLA, and then went on to work in education and got my master’s in early childhood education, worked with young children and developed a program for parents and educators in development, and then actually took a step back for a while and spent 15 years really parenting my three amazing children. Life brought me to this new venture in my in my life, starting a company calm last, whose goal really is to D, demystify and D Wu fie all things energy medicine.
Nice, thank you and the demystifying, I know you’re big on the science behind that. I know a lot of my graduates of our school and as people connected with the work that I do, we’re very into the mind body side. And yet you focus a lot on the energy side. And yeah, love to hear more about your thoughts on the science and why it’s not such a woowoo thing anymore.
Sure. So the idea for Calvinists really came to be when my mom was diagnosed with cancer and sadly passed away just a month later. And she was struggling with opioids, the pain medication that she was given, she was having hallucinations, and it just wasn’t the right fit for her. And I had had acupuncture done many times for myself for some pain relief. And some Reiki work along with some other modalities. And so I wanted to see if I could help her by bringing somebody into the hospital. And sadly, we ran out of time on doing that. But what it did for me really was kind of open the open the lens of what is the science behind this, I’ve always done it kind of for fun, if you will, right other than the acupuncture, which has helped me with some TMJ and other other things. But Reiki and biofield tuning, and sound baths, and cranial sacral massage was always something that I tried because I thought it was cool. It felt good in my body. I didn’t really think too much about the science behind it. But when I was faced with an opportunity to bring it into a hospital, I really had to kind of validate what it is that the possibilities could be. So I started delving into the science behind some of these modalities. And to my amazement and joy, I found that there is quite a bit of research that has been going on over the last few years and is continuing to go on really showing the validity of the response of people’s both physical and mental well being when using these modalities.
Can you elaborate a bit more curious about their research studies from colleges? Where where’s this research?
Absolutely. So a lot of the research comes obviously out of university some of it comes out of a working with veterans war veterans, a lot of PTSD, a lot of nursing a lot of really stressed individual who are struggling with the depression and anxiety. And so the studies are showing that individuals who practice Reiki and have a almost 50% reduction in anxiety and depression, there’s a big study done with nursing staff about that. That similar vein also talks about pain management. So for for, for people who are ill with chronic diseases such as cancer, they have been using Reiki in those particular facilities and the consumption of pain medicine has been reduced by half, which is a tremendous, you know, thing to not have to, to kind of alter the state of the body and be able to allow your body to relax, that goes for the anxiety and depression and those in those patients as well. When it comes to sound healing, we are seeing that the frequency of the sound as it travels through our body and our mind and ourselves, is very, very good at reducing anxiety, tension stress, by activating the parasympathetic nervous system really allowing our body to recognize that it’s safe and harmonious biofield tuning, we’ve seen some evidence of of help with balancing really where our mind where our mind goes, or functions in terms of accessing trauma and releasing the energy that the body holds to that trauma. And it’s funny, because people will say to me, Well, how do you know that we have energy in our body that seems kind of, you know, little nutty? For anybody who doesn’t really understand. And the truth is, if we think about it from a scientific perspective, the fact that we can measure brainwave waves with an EEG or heart beats, and cardiac function with an EKG shows us that our body has functions off a frequency, which the rest of science does as well. And even more specific when somebody is in cardiac arrest. We literally plug a machine into the wall to get the electricity and zap them back, showing us that our body does respond to the energy and the electricity that runs around us.
Yeah, thank you for acknowledging that there must be some energy going on and so much medicine is based upon it. The history of hypnotism started with friends and Mesmer, where he was rubbing magnets over people’s bodies, eventually realizing I don’t even need the magnets. I’ve got this power inside of me. And then supposedly all of that was the bunk and they said, Oh, no, he’s not healing through any energetic medium. And so hypnosis doesn’t even have the energy theme as much in it. But you know, I’m trained in Reiki, my background is in Chinese medicine. So it’d be great to have you on the show to talk more about, like, the importance of energy, because even in hypnosis, we don’t have it as much in mainstream medicine. We don’t have it all that much. So can you tell us more about calmness, what you guys are working to do with the theme of energy healing energy medicine to get it out there more,
of course. So the irony of me running and finding this company is that I’m the biggest believer and the biggest skeptic at the same time. So when I was at UCLA, I was also a pre med student and I phlebotomist and I worked at a doctor’s office, and I’m very much about the physiological body that we live in and how it functions. With all that said, I also understand that we’re a very fine tuned machine that has the power to heal itself if given the right conditions and opportunities. So one of the things that we really focus on in calmness is taking the woowoo away from energy medicine, taking that idea that energy work has to be done either in an ashram in India, or somebody who really can’t live the typical American or, you know, Western life. We really want to take away the stigma of people getting this work done. And we also are not proponents of replacing Western medicine. With this type of work. We really are a supplement. I often like to describe us as a hug, or a speeder upper for what you’re doing otherwise, I’ll often tell people that if something were to happen to me, if I were to break a leg, something very concrete, I would be the first one in the emergency room, I would be the one going to get my physical therapy, I would also be raking my injury, to help my body help heal itself. So I’m really very much about the combination of both and that is a major foundation of calmness. Our most recent goal and endeavor really is to work with as many people as we can and we feel strongly that a good way to do that would be to work with the executives of companies on an international level. And the reason that we want to do that is because these are the moms and dads really of corporations as far as as I see it. And as a mother of three, as I mentioned, I have a wife of a glorious husband of 20 plus years, I know that if I wake up on the wrong side of the bed, or if my mood is not in the right place, the rest of the family really doesn’t function at its optimal ability. So working with corporate executives, and really helping them live and function at a grounded creative focus level, rather than one of fear, despair, and distress allows them to have a more productive and welcoming and creative workspace in one obviously, that will hopefully result in more abundance in everything that they’re doing. increasing vulnerability and integration, and all the good things that we want in a company. So that’s really our focus. So we get to demystify, we get to work with a lot of people that will have a really beautiful kind of wave like, effect on the people that they’re working with, and move our message forward. So we’re excited about that.
Yeah. Sounds like there’s a movement here. And I know you’re in the stage, we’re saying that bringing on too many people right now. But there’s a bigger vision, right, eventually more collaboration, and working on educational endeavors. So when we can talk about the bigger vision if somebody was interested in coming on board, and even though I know right now, you’re a little bit at capacity. What’s the bigger vision? How might people want to be able to connect your energy workers into the modalities that you are?
Absolutely. So as I’ve mentioned, our number one goal really is to demystify what it is that we do. And I find that when I collaborate with other people who are like minded and have that goal in mind, and really can share results of experiences that they’ve had, we have a greater impact for the field in general. So hypnotherapy, for example, is something that I’ve experienced, and know is an incredibly powerful tool. But it often becomes somebody’s last resort, rather than a, let’s call it an even player in the field at the very least, right if we don’t need it to be number one, but let’s make it a solid contender. And I think that both hypnotherapy and energy medicine are fighting the same battle. And that is to just show the world that we are here as another option. Without any judgment or stigma. I often refer to the amazing moment where penicillin was created. I think that it is a game changer, right? It can thank God for it, it saved so many lives. And the problem really is, is that what it did is it created an instant stigma for anything that is not now a quick fix with a pill. And so I feel like we’re finally at a place in our society where we can embrace both sides of the coin, and work together rather than in judgment against each other. So any collaboration with anyone who is along that path of education, I welcome with open arms.
So it’s very much why we’re talking in the education field and say, mission of making these modalities more acceptable. And I like the way you’re talking about a supplement, not an alternative. And like I like to say like it’s like a big hug. If we can just offer a comfort. If we can offer relaxation, if we can offer inner peace. There’s so much value to that, of course, can we talk a little bit about how it works or what the approach is. So some people work to change the body to change the mind or change behaviors. Others like me focus more on changing it from inside out, or from kind of top down like we start with the mind. And then we have the change occur in the body level. How do you find that? Where do you approach that from when you think about energy you said? Like? I don’t know if that question is clear, but no, absolutely.
So it’s interesting because I work with completely different types of personalities, right? So I have some clients who are ready to go they are familiar with everything they are open in their mind and ready to receive and to learn and to grow. I also have clients who are Type A personalities totally heady, don’t know how to relax the idea of meditation stresses them out more than relaxes them. So one of the beautiful things that calmness offers really is this diverse list of modalities. Some are more passive, some are more active. So if you are open and ready to receive and ready to really kind of connect with your body and know how to do that already. modalities like Reiki and and sound bath and crystal healing are really wonderful because you’re comfortable in that silence in that space by yourself with yourself. You don’t know Need to have constant stimulus to get you moving. If that is something that’s a little bit more difficult for you an ad, a modality, like EFT, tapping, or breathwork, or somatic movement may be a better Initial Fit, because it requires you to be an active participant in the session, and you are doing something and in the act of doing something, we often create a meditative experience, unbeknownst to us, that then will open the channel for your mind to be able to process things in a better way. So we work top down and down up, if you will, just depending on the place of where our clients come in.
Nice, I appreciate that answer. The flexibility of adapting to the client, like our work is very client centered, we say, well, this is how the session is gonna go, but the person is at and then find the right modalities. And you listed a bunch of modalities, I was gonna ask you to elaborate on which modalities you mentioned a bunch, but is there anything else you want to share about the techniques that are being used?
So the one thing that we do, we are a virtual only platform and the the special occasions here and there, we do do things in person, but our goal is really ease and comfort of using our services. And so what we offer is our modalities that work well, virtually through zoom sessions. And so when we offer them, I did my research to make sure that these things will work in that way. And so we’re a little bit limited, right? People will ask me, Oh, do you do acupressure and acupuncture and cranial, cranial sacral massages, and we don’t do that. But the modalities that we do offer, like breath work, sound healing, somatic movement, tapping, biofield tuning, ancestral clearing, intuitive coaching, and crystal therapy, all of these kinds of things are easily done at at a distance and have the benefits of doing it in that way. Because you’re not getting up to rush to go somewhere else, when you’re done. The time to integrate the experience that you’ve had, I know that for myself, when I go elsewhere for a session, I you know, get that luxury of five minutes of getting ready to go. And then before I know it, I’m back in my car, and I’m I live in Los Angeles. So I’m dealing with a ton of traffic and my head goes elsewhere. And I think that one of the benefits of doing the work, the way that we do it is really, you can give yourself the time to stay where you are and integrate what it is that you’ve experienced.
There’s so much to be said right for being able to do it from the comfort of your own home. I’m curious with Reiki, I’m sure somebody else would be thinking this I know I am. But I’m seeing it a lot more where Reiki is being done online, and even the attunements are being done online. What is your experience of that? Or how could you explain why? And I have my answer for this. I left here we did have to say, because usually it’s like putting your hands on someone. So how do we do that when we’re doing it? How does that work when we’re doing it through zoom?
So I have a funny story. I actually was not a believer in virtual Reiki when my mom was ill. And she lived in Arizona, my Reiki practitioner who’s based in Los Angeles said to me, why don’t you let me know the evening and I will work on you virtually. And I said to her with all due respect, no, thank you, I’m not paying you to work on me, I am in another state. This makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. And then once the pandemic hit, I actually decided to get Reiki certified and did so virtually with huge hesitation and really kind of a look to excuse to do something out of boredom when I was stuck in my house for months at a time. And I had one of the most profound experiences of my life. It really was a physical and mental response that I was not anticipating, and one that actually caused me to shift the concept of calmness to become a fully virtual platform. And the way that I like to describe that work being done is kind of like the idea of Wi Fi. Right? We are not physically connected anymore to the modem, we don’t have to be plugged into a wall, we can walk anywhere with our cell phones and get that work done. And the reason that works really is through the frequency of, of the air that we are around just like hearing and seeing. We don’t have to be touching something in order for it to affect our body and mind. And so when a Reiki practitioner works with you virtually it really is about the intention and connection of your frequencies and the way that your body is open to responding to that. And more often than not I can share with you that my experience is when I work with clients, I actually prefer a distant healing because it allows me to really just focus on the experience and I’m not so worried about touching the client or being too close or, or, or distracted by the surroundings that I’m in, I can really just focus on what I’m doing and feel the work that I’m doing. And they, they respond beautifully to it.
Yeah, it’s great to hear I mean, right, we need it. And if we can do it, where you don’t have to come to somebody’s office, you know, how wonderful my book The Sutras on healing and enlightenment, one of the chapters, I think it’s chapter nine, it’s called long distance healing and the taking on of karma that we I realized early on, in my practice, you can work with people’s beliefs, their emotions, their energy body without having to be in the same space. And in some ways, it’s like the idea of taking on their stuff take on their karma, as you can actually work through it in your own system. But I know in Reiki, it’s really not about that you’re just a build up the energy move through you. So do you find in the work that you do, is there any taking on other people’s stuff, or are you generally safe, even safer from a distance,
right, so I don’t know, if I’m safer. From a distance, I would say that I, I am very conscious of the understanding that my role as a practitioner really is to be a guide, I am not the one creating anything, I’m just kind of the teacher, if you will, reminding your body to do what it already knows, to do, reminding your mind to do what it already knows how to do, but sometimes forget, and maybe it’s from my background. And in early childhood, I’m very good at just sitting on the side and watching and letting life kind of take its place and just adjusting and guiding as needed, rather than trying to control the situation. And I do have my rituals, you know, to make sure that I am not carrying that particular energy on at the end of the session. But more often than not, I feel that at the very least what I have provided my clients is a 45 to an hour moment of peace. And as we like to call it in calmness, a moment of pause, it’s just an opportunity for somebody to relax. And that’s kind of the worst case scenario, right? I’ll have clients will say, Oh, what am I going to feel? What’s it going to do to me? And I said, you know, I don’t know, because everybody is different, and everybody is open to different things. But the worst case scenario is you will have 45 minutes of beautiful music and relaxation. And I think that is beneficial all on its own.
Sure, even if nothing else happened at least. Right. But yeah, I think you and a lot of people now realize there is something more going on. Like when you have a Reiki session. It’s not just that you’re lying down. It’s a nice room and somebody’s hands are on you. Right? There’s something going on. I didn’t when I went to Reiki training, they talked about the idea of being able to do it from a distance. And yeah, absolutely. It’s beautiful. Can you give us a case history, whether it’s through distance, or just, you know, in an office, some of that comes to mind about a really powerful energy session?
Sure. So it’s very funny. My father is also very heavy kind of old school. And when I told him what it is that I was going to do, he would and I would say, you know, why don’t you let me let me rekey you like this? He was his knee was hurting his back, what’s your he and he would laugh at me and say, I don’t need you to rake me. I don’t need you to read me. And one day he was here at my house. And I said, Stop with the nonsense. Just lay down and let me just work on you. And and like I said, worst case, you’ll take a nap while I’m working on you. And that’ll be fine for you. And so that’s what we did. He lay down on my couch and I worked on him obviously locally. And as I was working on him, I felt some stagnant energy actually in his knee and in his hip. And he was struggling with his knees. And we went through a session and session was over. I turned the music off and he sat up and I went off to make dinner for the family. And he sat on the couch and I said you okay, like, how are you doing? And he said, No, I think I’m okay. And he stood up and he started walking back and forth in my family room. And he’s like, I don’t understand. I don’t believe it. I understand. I said, What What’s the matter? You okay? And he said, Yeah, but my knee doesn’t hurt anymore. And I said, that’s the goal. That’s all we wanted. Well, when did you think your daughter started a business just have hocus pocus and he’s like, I just I don’t get it. But it opened his eyes. And then he also lives in Arizona. And so since then, I’ve worked on him virtually on pains and shoulders and arms, where he has really experienced some beautiful relief and release. You know, oftentimes what will happen is, although I am working towards helping a particular physical ailment, an emotional component of that will come up. In Reiki, especially one of the goals is to release blockages in the body. And what we often do is, you know, we hold tension in our shoulders or in our hips, but really we’re not doing anything different with ours. shoulders are stresses in our heads. So why is it coming up in our shoulders, and that goes back to the mind body connection that you spoke about. We digest the environment in which we live in different ways. And so the different modalities really address different options and possibilities to improve the way that we function and the physical body that we’re in on a daily basis.
It’s beautiful to hear about your father in the change. And I love how you he was saying, I don’t understand this, therefore, I can’t work.
That was exactly it. I mean, it took months. And I finally just said, You know what, stop being so stubborn. We look, I’m a very big believer in the fact that science is evolution, right? We didn’t know that germs cause diseases until somebody decided to just wash their hands. And they there was no microscope at the time to see the size of the germs. So just because we don’t see it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. And we’re in a beautiful time where we’re learning how to understand things more. So if you’re open to it, and understand that science is ever evolving, you will understand that just because we don’t have an explanation doesn’t mean that something isn’t happening.
Yes. I know the early days of hypnotism with Mesmer. They were realizing oh, there’s something called gravity, right? That we didn’t know. But now it’s like, okay, we think we can say there’s gravity and then Ben Franklin lectricity. It’s like, so even when Mesmer was saying, I think there’s some power in me that’s helping you heal other people. It was hard for his contemporaries to believe. But it was around the time that science was having to say, okay, there are definitely invisible forces that we can’t quite acknowledge. So yeah, unfortunately, in the field of hypnotherapy, we had to start saying, Okay, it’s just the power of suggestion. There’s no energy transfer. Yet. I’ve never believed that there’s no energy transfer. So I love talking to people like yourself, where you’re willing to put yourself out there and say, Look, I’m doing energy work, because there is energy. The science is going to catch up to this. But why wait till we have the understanding of the science even though I like that it’s coming out and you’re running with that wave to say like, Hey, there is research, but I know like it hypnotherapy, I never needed to know if there were studies or not, I just know it works. Right. So let’s just do it and be helping people. Because we can, right instead of waiting Sasquatches up, have you noticed you mentioned the idea of like, thoughts are in your head, so to speak, but they manifest in your body like down to your shoulders? Have you noticed that certain thoughts or belief systems tend to manifest in certain areas of the body, they seem like a correlation between if you think you’re like a lot of Louise Hays work, it’s kind of pigeon holing, saying, if you have this thought, it’s gonna cause this problem, if you have this problem, it’s because of this thought. But you haven’t noticed some kind of correlation between the mental and the physical, maybe through the energetic.
So there are different things that I’ve learned a lot of them through different practitioners and their experiences. Lower body pain is often associated with family stresses. You know, shoulders and neck is often associated with the stress of carrying the world on your shoulder, right, carry the responsibilities on your shoulder, stomach pain will often be either having to do with not being able to process something in particular, or a constant worry, we’re really at the end of the day, if one listens to the intuition, which we often point to as our belly, that pain is released. So, you know, a sore throat issues with the neck is often with people who are not able to voice themselves, or share what it is that they’re really thinking. And so they have to hold things back. And so the energy kind of gets stuck in that energy, I mean, in that part of the body, but I don’t, that’s kind of a knowledge that sits in the back of my head, I really am a big believer that each individual is so very, very different. So although we have the general guidelines, in all of these modalities, we need to be open to that communication with the client, kind of like what you said, Being client centric, because people are different. And we may know, to the extent that we know about certain experiences and situations in their life, but there are things that people are very, very good at hiding or don’t even know that they’re hiding and often this work will bring that to the surface and then both the client and practitioner are surprised and you know, often happy that it’s being released out of the body, so that you can address it, whether it’s in therapy or with coaching or you know, journaling or any kind of experience like that friends and family. So our goal is to get it out of our body so we can live and move and have longevity, have a clear mind and clear thought processes. So
yeah, however it got there. Let’s just get it out and get rid of it. But I really appreciate your answer. Yes, there’s going to be some correlation between what’s happening in the body and what’s happening. Putting in the mental level. But let’s not assume in every case it must be that I’ve never liked the model of pigeon holing. So if you have this type of dream or this type of symptom in rescue this rather than unpacking the whole person and acknowledging, it must be a whole lot of other thoughts, a lot of other beliefs and emotions and decisions that were made that are influencing them in this moment. So I appreciate you working in a unique way with people is we in towards the end of time, do you have any closing words, things you might want to share that we didn’t cover something that might help to get your message out there better.
I mean, I just first of all want to thank you, I’m so happy, we got connected through a friend, I’m a big believer in introductions and getting to know people. So if anybody does want to reach out even for a very brief conversation, I’m open and willing, and would love to speak with people of like minded with the same goals. So please make sure to keep that channel open. In addition, anybody who feels that we’re a right fit for them, or right fit for their friend or their parent, you know, community supporting community is a big thing here in communist and we are here to help you and we would love for you to help us. So if there’s anything we can do to help you live as the best version of yourself, we’re here to do that
is I would have to guess that 50% plus or minus of the students that go through my training, have some kind of background in the field that you’re talking about. Like there’s so many Reiki practitioner now and, but the ability to get out there to create community and to have a medium like calmness to to get the message out to actually get clients really, and a lot of people in this field struggle. They had the techniques now, but they don’t necessarily have the marketing skills or system to plug into. So I love what you’re doing with that. How can people learn more?
Sure. So obviously, we have a website. That is communist.com. All of our information is on there. Please join us on social at communist studio. That’s for Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook. And feel free to reach out my email is on our website. But you can reach me at info@calmness.com. And I’m happy to continue the conversation. And really that movement of making what we do more mainstream so that we can help more people live the best version of themselves.
Beautiful. Thank you so much for doing such good work in the world. Definitely needs more healers and people working with light and energy and bringing more calm and peace. I mean, I know I’ve all been about my whole careers, just bringing more peace and of course, miracles to teachers peace is health. And yeah, I wish we heard more people prioritizing that. So more power to you. Blessings for you. Thank you. I’m so glad our mutual colleague friend had connected us so yeah, I’m fully open to further collaboration in the fields of education and just getting the message out there. So thank you so much for being my guest here today. Yeah, many blessings and the continued success of cotton best
thank you to you as well be well.
Thank you. Take care