"There are only two frontiers left for humans to discover: outer space and consciousness."

I'm an INFP on Myers-Briggs tests.

33/6 is my life path number in numerology.

Astrologically, I'm a Libra sun, Cancer rising, and Sagittarius moon.

I'm a 3/5 Reflector in Human Design.

(I apologize in advance for the essay.)

As a young adult, I struggled to find meaning in life. I grew up in a quiet suburb of Toronto with two loving parents and more than enough. I didn't experience many of the pains that come with a loss of life, or severe physical abuse and neglect. I didn't have to struggle with systemic racism and persecution. I didn't grow up living with the threat of violence, war, famine, or poverty.

And yet, I was always in pain inside.

I felt broken and I couldn't understand why. I had severe social anxiety which became paralyzing into adulthood. I was always tired or depressed, and could never seem to find the energy to wake up in the morning. I was enrolled in enhanced classes, but couldn't keep up with my friends academically. I found myself in unrequited love over and over again while my friends were exploring relationships and intimacy. I even got fired from my minimum wage job.

Every pillar that I tried to build my identity around fell apart. I wanted to be smart and capable, but I felt like a perpetual screw up. I wanted to be desired, but I felt unattractive and unlovable. I struggled to believe I could achieve anything. I felt alienated and alone. I was told "you're too senstive," but it just seemed the world was just too harsh, uncaring, and ruthless.

So I internalized the harshness. One of my nicknames in high school was maiden ice queen. I was a militant atheist. I rejected religion and "God." How ridiculous was the thought of a loving, caring "God" when there was so much suffering in the world?

I couldn't figure out why life was worth living.

All I knew was that whatever answers I was seeking, I was not going to find them living in my childhood home in the suburbs.

In my final year of high school, my eyes turned toward Toronto as the hope for my. future. Sewing was my favourite hobby and one of my greatest joys in life as a teen. I was definitely not the most accomplished academically, but my sewing skills cinched me a spot in Ryerson’s Fashion Design program and I was thrilled to pursue the opportunity.

Fast forward to two years later, I was burnt out, unmotivated and had a bleak vision of my future. I felt alienated and like I didn’t belong. I felt hopeless. It was smack dab in the middle of the recession, and my only prospects for work in fashion were unpaid internships.

In my second (and little did I know - final) year of fashion, I took an elective called the Psychology of Sex and Love. The professor who taught the class was a clinical psychologist. He described his passion for helping patients struggling with Borderline Personality Disorder. He did it because he could feel the pain underneath all of their acting out. He wanted to help.

Something lit up within with me. My "lazy" unmotivated self switched her major to psychology as fast as I could. I took a leap of faith and changed my whole course load a year before I was even able to be accepted to the program. A switch flipped inside me; I just knew what I needed to do.

I studied under some incredible professors at Ryerson who opened my mind in many ways. I learned a lot about the brain, its biological makeup and development. I learned a lot about biases and behaviour, as well as the diagnosis and the treatment of mental disorders. I also learned about the history of psychology and how the field evolved over time.

One of the biggest things I learned was the limits of Western medicine's understanding of consciousness.

Like many others, I had made science my God and thought it had all the answers. My professors chipped away at that pedestal, and led me to the precipice of Western knowledge. It was like standing at the edge of a cliff staring into a black abyss. Each textbook I read led to more unanswered questions. I read pages and pages about different kinds of treatments and their efficacy rates. The possible diagnoses far outnumbered the effective treatments available. So much of the literature seemed like the researchers were using trial and error, especially with pharmaceutical methods. There were no cures.

One of my professors was particularly influential on my journey. He taught a class called Stress, Pain and Bereavement. Through him, I was introduced to meditation. One of the meditations I practiced was about controlling blood flow in the body. I was shocked that I was able to consciously flow more blood to my arms.

What else could be consciously controlled?

He made an observation that the chakras corresponded to the hormonal glands in the body. I had staunchly dismissed the idea of chakras before he had presented them in that way.

By this time, my social anxiety had amped up to almost unbearable levels. My neck and throat would lock up whenever I would give presentations or be in public areas for very long (like riding the subway).

I felt helpless to stop it from happening.

One method that provided some relief was the progressive muscle relaxation technique which I read about in my textbooks. It helped get me through, but the problem persisted. The other method I used to cope was alcohol. Once again, it helped get me though, but it didn't fix it.

I remember walking by the counsellor’s office many times at Ryerson to get help for what I was experiencing. But for whatever forces were present within me, I couldn't muster up the courage to do it.

I read that the neck lock I was experiencing would be diagnosed as psychosomatic pain. There was no "real" physical explanation for the pain and therefore there was no treatment. It was all in my head. I felt hopeless. I was too scared to reach out for help, only to be turned away.

My ex-boyfriend at the time was a believer in the esoteric. He taught me about manifesting rituals and crystals. His father introduced me to numerology. And he told me about a psychic medium named Carole Matthews who was a long-time family friend, and decidedly not a scam artist.

Carole and my ex's father gave me my first crystal, a beautiful quartz cluster. I still scoffed at new age "hippies" touting the metaphysical properties of crystals, but I was caught off guard by the warmth and care of this gift. It came with a message: "this will protect you."

I discovered a series called Spirit Science on YouTube. It was all about chakras and crystals, and sacred geometry. I was still hugely skeptical but encouraged by the people around me who seemed to believe. I think deep down I wanted to believe too, because it was so much better than my bleak materialistic worldview. 

I learned about something called an "empath." There was very little information then, it was not the ubiquitous term it is now. I wondered if maybe that's what I was.

I had an epiphany watching Spirit Science. I had studied research methodologies in depth as part of my psychology degree. Part of what makes esoteric claims unscientific is if they cannot be proven or disproven. Yet, none of the skeptics I had encountered had even come close to doing their proper due diligence, except for maybe James Randi. It is significantly more difficult to disprove a claim than it is to make one. I did not feel Randi's conclusions were sufficient. They lacked rigorousness and thoroughness. So I set out to disprove them myself.

My Stress professor showed us a video of a Chi Gung master. The filmmakers claimed that he could channel electricity with his body. I watched closely. I scrutinized all the ways the video could be faked. That was the fear that had always kept my mind shut - the fear that it's all just a hoax designed to scam vulnerable people out of money.

But John Chang, the Chi Gung master in the video, said one line that spoke a challenge directly to my heart: "Anyone can do what I can do."

Challenge accepted. Out of pure curiosity, a raging desire to be able to heal myself and be in control of my own body, emotions and world, plus an utter lack of meaning and quickly growing sense of misanthropy, I was given a clear challenge.

I started digging more and more into all things esoteric. I read about chaos magick, sigils and the psychonauts. I read a pirated copy of Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson. I started crafting sigils and doing manifestation rituals. I saw very little results myself, but I became more encouraged by the stories I heard, like that of Grant Morrison, Jim Carrey, and Oprah.

I read about the chakras and found out that if I wanted "proof" of the paranormal, I would need to open my third eye. From there I learned about kundalini and how it can lead to extrasensory experiences. I set the intention to awaken my kundalini and started doing meditation exercises and breathing techniques. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. I couldn't see auras.

In 2013, I sought out a Reiki healer. Stephanie Norwich was giving out free demonstrations at a book store in downtown Toronto. I watched one of her seminars with curiosity. I still felt cautious of being hoaxed, but knew I would not have sufficient evidence to disprove “new age stuff” as an observer. I needed to try it for myself.

I couldn't feel much, if anything, with my own hands during my first classes with her. What I could feel was Stephanie's warm, caring, non-judgmental energy. I, however, was full of judgement. When she began talking about angels, specifically calling on the Archangels Michael and Raphael, I started to wonder if maybe taking this class with her was a mistake. I could sense a genuineness about her though, and she was encouraging despite my aloofness. She would surprise me. She was very gentle and unassuming, but when she worked, she carried herself with so much power, clarity and confidence that I was envious. I wanted that for myself.

It was during my third class that the trajectory of my life was forever changed. I will never forget that moment. A fellow student named Aushra, a shy, mild-mannered woman who was new to Reiki just like me, laid her hands on my head to channel Reiki. Very slowly and then all at once, a lightening bolt of energy rushed through my body. It was like an orgasm without the pleasure. I freaked out and had to stop.

I had the evidence I was looking for. It was an anecdotal, non-repeatable, not-even-a-footnote worthy piece of evidence, but my world had changed.

It was a flare gun erupting out of the abyss in front of me.

I was no longer staring out at the edge of a bottomless, endless abyss.

I was at the frontier of something truly wild.

I did not realize it back then but I believe that was the official beginning of my kundalini awakening, which continues to unfold to this day.

Having learned Reiki, I had the tools to begin to heal myself and I started to unravel my inner blocks. I started to work through my paralyzing social anxiety, low motivation, low self-worth, and depression.

I was not yet ready to pursue a path as an energy healer. However, in the years that followed I celebrated many milestones I’m proud of: graduating with a B.A. in psychology, building a career as a software developer, making $15 an hour to making six figures a year, advocating for my own pay raises, leading the social committee at work, becoming a team leader, travelling all by myself, speaking on panels, and one of my favourite wins, conquering my nerves to present to the Prime Minister of Canada.

Despite those achievements, I still struggled deeply with mysterious internal barriers that I could not overcome with my own willpower. When my depression reached new levels, I started to experience dark intrusive thoughts and suicidal ideation. I hit a bottom so low I decided to leave my job and put my health and well-being first.

In the midst of the pandemic, I found myself drawn back to energy healing. In 2021, I came across the work of Renu Arora and began studying her method called the Accelerated Release Technique. 

Once again, my mind was blown and my whole world view had to change. Because of Renu, I have experienced (and continue to experience) internal shifts in consciousness that I have never believed were possible.

What Renu created was a system of algorithms which could be applied to any problem of consciousness. And because they were systemized, they were teachable and repeatable by others. This was the first time that I had ever gotten close to experiencing targetable, repeatable, consistent results with an energy healing technique. ART continues to develop as we experiment and assimilate new techniques from other modalities.

Since I began my pursuit of energy healing, my whole world has changed. My social anxiety has almost completely disappeared. My neck lock is long gone, and I can proudly say that last year I traveled to Amsterdam all by myself. I worked my way from having no coding knowledge to becoming an engineering manager at a prominent financial start-up. I burnt out wholeheartedly and had to leave that job, but for someone who struggled to get out of bed in the morning, I'm so proud of myself for what I achieved there. I have a wonderful partner in my life now. I even feel sexy sometimes, hah! I still sleep in a lot, but I don’t wake up with dread the same way I once did. I am in love with life now, both its highs and its lows.

I'm now ready to explore more of this beautiful frontier called consciousness. I know now that everything is conscious and connected by consciousness. That is what makes energy healing possible, regardless of distance, because we're already connected on a network that can't be seen by the naked eye. A textbook will tell me that the consciousness is a phenomenon of the brain, but it's the other way around.

To my future clients, I look forward to sharing all I’ve learned with you, and I would be honoured to help you uncover all of the beautiful and wonderous possibilities that the Universe has in store for you.

And to my fellow skeptics... don't ever believe me or take my word for it. Always, always, always - try it for yourself!!!