Jyoti Rawlinson started to use energy-based bodywork in the Nineties and didn’t stop since then. Based in Sedona, Arizona (United States), Jyoti told us in this special interview for MysticMag, that her “passion is working with people over time and witnessing the dramatic changes that can take place when their energies are supporting them in an optimal way”.
Check out this great interview below!
Can you present to us the Sedona Healing Sanctuary?
I’ve created an intimate, dedicated healing space here in Sedona with the idea that people can start to come home to themselves as soon as they enter the studio. For the past 9 years, this space has been dedicated exclusively to healing work and meditation. Clients can feel that the moment they walk through the door. They tell me that something inside relaxes, like their being is recognizing they are in a place that will support their healing journey.
You work with individuals and groups for more than three decades. What changed since then in your work, and do you observe changes also with your clients?
My work has naturally evolved over the years, often as a direct result of my personal growth, insights and journey, and also from my interests in learning and training. I initially trained in Holistic Massage. A knee injury had prevented me from signing up for the Rebalancing training (an offshoot of Rolfing) that I was planning to do, so I took the Holistic Massage Training as a sort of stop gap as it was shorter and less physically demanding. I totally fell in love with this way of working. That training placed a huge emphasis on being present – dedicated meditation time was part of the training and I continue that daily practice to this day – and it completely changed the way I worked with people.
Presence is a constant in my work, but the techniques I use have evolved quite dramatically over the years.
Even though the massage training I did had quite a large energy work component, things didn’t really fall into place for me with energy work until I trained with Donna Eden. Partly that’s to do with how comprehensive The Eden Method is, but it also has a lot to do with my own healing. The more whole I have become, the more understanding I have about the mind/body/energy connection and how I can help my clients with this. I think this is something all body and energy workers go through. Having an intellectual understanding of techniques is one
thing, but it’s when we really take that understanding into our experience that it comes together.
One of the things I emphasize with my clients is communication. I think we can all understand how clear, verbal communication makes for healthy relationships with others. What is often overlooked is the communication we have with ourselves, our own being, our soul, if you like. We can start to notice what the body or energy is telling us. We all know this. When we have pain somewhere, it’s telling us something.
If we’re walking a feel a pain in our foot, we may stop to look in the shoe and see if there is a stone or something in there pressing on the foot. But sometimes we’re in a hurry to get somewhere and may decide to ignore the foot pain (if it’s not too intense). If that stone, or whatever, stays in the shoe, we’ll probably start adapting the way we walk to avoid putting pressure on that place.
As my focus has changed more to energy work, I do fewer one-time sessions. My passion is working with people over time and witnessing the dramatic changes that can take place when their energies are supporting them in an optimal way.
I’m also seeing how people in general, but especially the younger generations, are much more open to working with energy. Many young people have had an understanding their whole lives that energy is intimately involved in their health and well being. They often give quite detailed feedback of what they are experiencing during a session.
You travelled all over the world on your journey. What brought you to Sedona, a place in Arizona (US) that seems to have a special energy? on that place.
So many people have amazing stories of how and why they came to Sedona. My partner at the time brought me here because his family had built a home in Sedona in the 1970s when it was still a quiet backwater. We came for a two month visit and 27 years later I’m still here! Once I started my practice in Sedona, I realized what an ideal place it was since it’s visited by people from all over the world. I was getting the opportunity to reach all kinds of people with my work without having to go anywhere.
As for Sedona having a special energy, that’s such an individual thing. I prefer for people to make their assessment of that when they visit rather than coming with a preconceived idea based on something they have heard. For me, I experience it as an amplification, so whatever is going on for you will be increased. If that’s love and joy, it can feel wonderful, but if there are some more difficult issues going on, then being in Sedona can be a bit more challenging. I’ve certainly heard plenty of both types of stories during my time here. One thing I’ve definitely noticed that if someone is not well grounded, they have a more difficult experience energetically in Sedona.
You offer a wide array of services. How do I know what I exactly need to ground myself and improve my wellbeing?
Everyone’s energy is individual – it’s as unique as your own fingerprint – so that’s a major part of working with someone. We need to find out what is happening in particular with your energies. That’s why energy testing (a type of kinesiology testing) is fundamental to this work. In a session, we will initially do specific tests to see if the body is grounding, if the energies are running in healthy patterns and connecting, or if the energies are scrambled and coming unhooked from each other. There are several basic exercises or techniques we might use to ground and get energies moving in a more productive way, and we test those too to make sure they work for you.
I usually start with the exercise corrections that work for the majority of people, then if they are not doing what we would like them to do, we can try something else. That’s also what I love about the energy testing. When we think of tests we often think of looking for something that is wrong, but I like to use the approach that testing is offering us valuable information. So even if a test shows up something out of place, that is valuable input and we use to that make adjustments. Likewise, we’re looking for what the energy is doing that is supporting our well being, because that’s also useful and can be built upon.
In your website you talk about cleaning the clutter. What can be classified as clutter (emotions, traumas, concerns)?
Basically, clutter is anything that is interrupting the free flow of energy. One of the fundamental principals of energy is that it needs space to move. So anything that’s preventing energy from moving can be considered clutter. It may be an excess of mental activity that is cluttering the head space, unresolved pain, which accumulates as dense energy in a traumatized or damaged area, or electrical static build up that has no exit from the body.
When I work with children, I encourage them to visually describe energies we are working with. As an example, I explained to a 10-year-old-boy I was doing some chakra clearing with that his chakras are like pools of water and sometimes stuff can be there that clogs up the pool. As I cleared his third chakra at the solar plexus he related to me all the things that were coming out – old bicycle tires, clumps of weed, etc. He really got into the spirit of it! He was able to tell me when the last of the junk was removed and when we retested the chakra, it tested as strong again.
How does your wellness coaching work?
During lockdown, my physical practice was closed for 5 months so I turned to working with people over video. It was something I already had in place for following up with clients who live far from Sedona, but this was my first time working with new clients in this way, without previously seeing them in person. It works really well. In essence, physical distance is no barrier when we are working with energy. The bulk of the session is going to be helping someone discover which exercises and techniques are going to be the most beneficial to them, and instructing them in how to do this for themselves.
Depending on the client and their situation, I may also do some distance work with their energies, for example, if they are needing something that isn’t so easy to do for themselves. If they already know how to energy test themselves, I will have them do that throughout the session so we can assess what their system needs. I am also able to use myself as a surrogate to test what’s going on.
Do you have a special message for our audience in these challenging times?
In my experience, there are two things that have had the most impact in my life. The first is having adequate, daily time for yourself (you can call it meditation, if you like) where you go inside yourself and access that deep, quiet space at the center of the being. It really is such an amazing resource – no need to go anywhere particular, have special equipment or rely on someone else to guide you. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. In today’s world, we are seriously over-stimulated, constantly busy, filling our time with one thing or another. Even if we’re amidst noise and commotion, there is always peace and silence within us. We just have to take the time to access it.
The second is communication, which I’ve already mentioned – with our body, with our energy, indeed, with our very soul. These bodies we inhabit are infinitely wise, but we learn to overrule our inner wisdom and rely either on the mind or looking outside of ourselves for answers. Taking the time and learning to listen to signs can so often reveal the next step we need to take towards wholeness. Our energies are constantly communicating with us. We can really start to be involved in that communication when we can notice what our bodies are trying to tell us. In the beginning, it could be as simple as taking heed when we are tired in the evening and going to bed right then, instead of overriding the urge to sleep because of all the things we believe we have to complete before the end of the day. The more we are able to listen, the easier it becomes to notice not only the big signs, but the subtler indications too. We don’t have to wait until we’re being hit with a sledgehammer. A, gentle knock will be all we need.
