Crystal Healing Therapist or Self-Treatment. By Shirley O’Donoghue

When you first work with crystals, it is a good idea to visit a professional crystal healing therapist who can explain every step of the treatment, as well as support your responses to it, and provide insight and encouragement.

In fact, even experienced crystal healers (crystal healing therapists) often prefer to be treated by another crystal healer (crystal healing therapist) rather than treat themselves.   When a practitioner is giving a treatment, you can relax fully in the knowledge that they are monitoring your energy field and moving or changing crystals as necessary.  The crystal healing treatment is also more powerful because the therapist’s energy boosts the energy of the crystals.

Always make sure that your crystal healing therapist has been properly trained and is fully insured.  In the UK, the Affiliation of Crystal Healing Organizations (ACHO) have a list of all crystal therapists who have been trained in accordance with the ACHO curriculum and who are appropriately insured.  Similar lists are available in the USA from the Association of Melody Crystal Healing Instructions and the Crystal Academy of Advanced Crystal Healing Arts, which train and accredit therapists.

Of course, self-treatment has its own benefits, too.  These include being able to enjoy crystal healing therapy on an ad hoc basis – whenever you feel you need it most, in the comfort of your own home and at a time of day that is convenient.  You also don’t need to pay yourself.

When opting for self-treatment, it is best to wear loose, comfortable, clothes.  Keep the room warm and the light subdued – candle light is a good choice.  You could also burn incense to keep the energy in the room pure or burn calming essential oils, such as frankincense or jasmine.  Soothing background music can help you to relax, but make sure that it lasts as long as the treatment – if the music stops suddenly, it is likely to disturb you.

To give yourself a treatment, sit fully clothed on a chair or lie on the floor with your crystals, around your chair or lie on the floor with your crystals around you or in your hand.  You could keep a blanket to hand as body temperature usually drops during therapy.  A blanket also provides a feeling of protection, which aids the effectiveness of the treatment.

How to choose crystals.

By Shirley O’Donoghue buy her book all about crystals

 Choosing crystals is an intuitive process and the best way to do it is simply to allow your eye to be drawn to a particular stone.

Choosing crystals is an intuitive process and the best way to do it is simply to allow your eye to be drawn to a particular stone.  Some people use a pendulum to dowse crystals, some “scan” with their hands to feel the crystals’ energies, and others like to handle them.  Whatever method you employ, it’s best not to spend too much time on the process.  Making a quick choice allows you to listen to the right, intuitive side of your brain before the left, logical side of your brain starts to interfere with rational thoughts, such as “But I don’t like blue!” or “Why do I want that one?” . 

Colour plays an important part in choosing crystals, not only because it can cause you to be visually attracted to a particular stone, but also because colour conveys vital information about the crystal’s energetic qualities to you on a subconscious level. 

When choosing crystals it is also a good idea to focus on your intended purpose for them – for example, whether you want to use them to attract love or the release stress.  The core crystal directory will help you with this.  If you are choosing crystals for someone else, try visualizing the person during the selection process.  Always trust your instinct and choose the crystals to which you are drawn.

However, if you discover that you really dislike a certain crystal, it is worth finding out more about this crystal and its qualities and potentially working with it.   This is because an aversion to a certain crystal can be an indication that your energy flow in the certain area related to that specific colour or crystal is impaired and needs rebalancing or healing.

HOW CRYSTALS WORK

By now, we know that crystals transmit and are able to absorb and transmute electromagnetic energy.  Their colour and vibration affects us physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually by rebalancing our body’s vital energy flow or chi, thus restoring us to our natural state of well-being.

In this chapter, we look more closely at how this comes about.  We start by learning how to recognize our own chi, and go on to explore the subtle energy system in greater depth, discovering more about the chakras – the spinning wheels of energy that connects the physical body to the subtle body.  Next, we learn how to assess which chakra we need to focus on, and which crystals and chakras work best together.  By gauging whether our chakras have deficient, excess or balanced energy, or by picking crystals of a certain colour.

We then go on to consider how to make crystals work more effectively, such as through approaching them with a positive intent, harnessing deep breathing and employing visualizations.  And finally, we look at some of the more advanced techniques of working with crystals, such as using placements and making gem essences

Crystal Therapy or Crystal Healing is a holistic treatment that works by activating the body’s own healing mechanisms to bring us physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually back into balance. 

But how can crystals do this?

Scientists discovered long ago that crystals have a stable internal structure of perfectly repeating patterns.  Many crystals also emit a piezoelectrical charge – this means that they vibrate and generate energy.  One theory as how crystal therapy or crystal healing works is that, because of the perfect structure of crystals, their vibrations increase harmony in their immediate environment by restoring the energy levels of any people present to their optimal states.  Crystal Therapists harness these vibrations and the therapeutic properties on the stones’ colours to re-tune and rebalance the body’s energy systems to their individual blueprint for perfect health.

A crystal therapy or crystal healing normally starts with a conversation between the therapist and the client, during which they discuss the latter’s medical history and why the person has come for therapy or healing. 

 All information about the client is kept completely confidential.  Then, the client lies on a couch or sits in a chair fully clothed, and the therapist reads their subtle energy system by holding a crystal pendulum or his or her hands about two inches above the client’s body.

Our subtle energy system is made up of the aura (a sheath of energy surrounding the body), the meridians (channels that distribute subtle energy around the body) and the chakras (spinning vortices of the spine and the crown of the head).  Other common terms for subtle energy are chi, prana and life force.

During the treatment, the therapist chooses and places crystals around, and occasionally on, the client’s body to correct the energy imbalances they preserve, keeping the stones in place for 10 to 30 minutes. 

After the treatment, the therapist makes sure that the client feels grounded (firmly anchored in the physical world) again.  Most recipients report a deep sense of peace and relaxation during and after a crystal therapy or crystal healing.

HOW CRYSTALS FORM

Most of the crystals used in crystal therapy or crystal healing have taken millions of years to form.  But how? Movement in the Earth’s crust forces molten rock, hot liquids and gases from the mantle below to rise closer to the surface, where they cool and harden to make “igneous” rock.

Crystals form in this rock when the pressure, temperature, and minerals provide ideal conditions for the rock to crystallize.  The type and colour of the crystals are determined largely by the chemical composition of the minerals present in the rock and the amount of space they have available in which to grow.

When igneous rock and crystals are exposed at the Earth’s surface, they are eroded to dust by the elements.  This dust is washed down rivers to the sea and deposited as silt.  Over millions of years the silt compresses reform as “sedimentary” rock and crystals.  If igneous or sedimentary rocks and crystals undergo further changes from pressure and heat, their particles may re-combine into “metamorphic” rock and new crystals.

Crystal therapy By Shirley O’Donoghue