Energy Healing and Intuitive Work – the deep dive

There is a whole realm of healing that is difficult to measure, difficult to explain, and – at least for some of us – very real.

I call this work Energy Healing & Intuitive Work. It is one of the ways I help people look beneath the surface of a problem and listen more deeply to what may be asking for attention, healing, or change.

I know this is not everyone’s cup of tea. It wasn’t always mine, either.

But after more than two decades of studying and practicing this work, I’ve come to trust the information, imagery, and intuitive impressions that arise – and, just as importantly, I’ve learned not to treat them as absolute truth.

That distinction matters. You are the expert on your own experience.

SCIENCE AND THE UNSEEN

My first “evidence-based” encounter with the intersection of conventional medicine and alternative approaches came through my work in psycho-oncology.

In the late 1990s, while working with people with cancer, our team was involved in a research project that included helping breast cancer patients navigate the world of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).

At the time, the conversation around these approaches was much more polarized than it is today. Some people viewed anything outside conventional medicine as nonsense. Others felt conventional medicine was missing enormous pieces of the healing puzzle.

I could see truth – and limitations – in both perspectives.

The National Cancer Institute now includes energy healing among the complementary approaches it describes. NCI defines it as an approach based on the belief that a vital energy flows through the body, with the goal of balancing that energy, while also noting that there is not enough scientific evidence to establish the existence of the energy fields involved.

I actually appreciate that language. There is something refreshing about being able to say: Here is what people experience. Here is what practitioners believe. Here is what science has and has not established.

Those are three different things. And they don’t necessarily have to be enemies.

For me, that is one of the most interesting things about this whole field. There are aspects of human experience that are observable and measurable, and other aspects that are much harder to capture with current scientific tools.

That doesn’t automatically make the unseen true. It also doesn’t automatically make it false. It means we need discernment.

That was part of what we taught the women participating in our cancer research. We encouraged them to become informed consumers: to ask questions, investigate therapies, understand what was known and unknown, and carefully choose practitioners.

I still believe that is excellent advice. You should investigate anyone you entrust with your body, mind, spirit, money, or hope.

And especially when you are dealing with a serious medical condition, complementary practices most often should be complementary. NCI advises people considering CAM approaches to talk with their healthcare providers, because some complementary approaches can interact with conventional treatment negatively or otherwise cause harm.

That principle is important to me.

Energy healing is not a substitute for appropriate medical or mental-health care. It is another way of exploring the human experience.

EXPERIENCES THAT KEEP ME HUMBLE

My years in cancer counseling also taught me something that no textbook could have taught me:

I do not get to decide what another person’s healing path is supposed to look like.

I had a dear friend with breast cancer who wanted to use herbs and avoid chemotherapy and surgery. Her mother and sister had also experienced breast cancer. That indicated a genetic connection. Her sister chose conventional treatment and is alive and well. My friend did not survive.

My brother was later diagnosed with Stage IV kidney cancer – the most advanced stage. He and his physician pursued treatment with the goal of achieving remission. At first, I wasn’t convinced that was realistic.

I even asked permission to speak directly with his physician and gave her a hard time about raising his hopes too high. She gave it right back to me.

She had seen people respond to the treatment she was offering, and she wanted to support his hopefulness. She was right to do so.

My brother is cancer-free today after going through a difficult course of conventional medical treatment.

I have another dear friend whose leukemia experience took a very different path. He used alternative approaches and survived that illness, only to face other serious health challenges years later.

These experiences have stayed with me. They make it impossible for me to believe that any one healing philosophy has all the answers.

They also make me cautious about the spiritual language of healing.

I believe each of us has our own soul journey. I believe there are mysteries in life that we cannot fully explain. I believe our challenges can become part of our spiritual development.

But I do not believe I get to determine someone else’s soul lesson.

And I certainly do not believe that someone’s illness is evidence that they did not think positively enough, heal enough, pray enough, or do their spiritual work correctly.

Life is far more mysterious than that. Survival is not the only measure of the value of a life.

And sometimes we have to be willing to sit with the mystery rather than force it into a neat explanation.

That humility is part of what I bring to this work.

MY ENERGY HEALING AND INTUITIVE TRAINING

My professional foundation is clinical.

I trained as a somatic, body-based psychotherapist, and my Colorado psychotherapy license dates back to 1997. I trained in professional coaching in 2005 through the Institute for Life Coach Training.

But my intuitive development began much earlier.

As a child, I often sensed what was happening beneath the surface of things. I could pick up on emotional currents and truths that weren’t necessarily being spoken aloud.

Like many people, I also learned to doubt those perceptions. Adults don’t always appreciate a child noticing what everyone else is pretending not to notice!

Part of becoming more authentic has been learning to reconnect with those subtler senses – not as infallible truth, but as another source of information.

In 2000, I began formally studying Energy Healing, also known as Psychic Healing, with my teacher Anamari McNamara, a third-generation psychic. Early in our work together, she told me I had a natural ability for it. I have received my Reverend degree studying with Psychic Horizons in Boulder, CO, in their year long clairvoyant program, along with many other classes.

For more than two decades, I also studied energy-based massage work with the wonderful Boulder healer, the late Jim Goldman. He taught me to bring intuitive awareness into bodywork and helped me understand something I had initially resisted: Healing touch does not always have to mean digging deeply into muscles.

Sometimes grounding, intention, presence, and energetic awareness can create a profound shift all by themselves.

And strangely enough, after years of preferring deep tissue massage, I’ve increasingly come to appreciate the immediacy and subtle power of energetic work.

HOW I EXPERIENCE ENERGY HEALING

I think of energy healing as a form of concentrated intuition.

In a session, I may pay attention to what I experience as the energetic layers of the body – the aura, chakras, grounding, and other sensations or images that arise in my awareness. I often see issues overlayed on certain parts of the body.

This is not a medical scan. It is an intuitive process. Information may come through as an image, a physical sensation, a color, a phrase, an impression, or an unexpected sense of meaning.

Sometimes it feels remarkably specific. Sometimes it is vague. And sometimes it seems to make no sense at all. And this is where my skill in communicating what I see comes into play. Or yes, in to play 😊.

I don’t approach intuitive information as a diagnosis or a pronouncement. I offer it as something to explore together. I’ll tell you what I’m seeing or sensing and ask something like:

Does that resonate with you?

Does anything come to mind?

Does that fit your experience – or not at all?

You get to decide. I may be the Sherlock Holmes in the room, but you are the expert witness.

That makes the work collaborative and co-creative.

An image or impression can be like a seed. You look at it together, turn it around, see what it connects to, and sometimes discover that it opens a door you hadn’t realized was there.

Other times, it doesn’t. Or it comes to make more sense with time. That’s okay too. Discernment is part of the work.

ENERGY, TRAUMA, AND THE HEALING SPIRAL

One of the reasons this work pairs so naturally with my psychotherapy and coaching background is that human beings are patterned creatures.

Our unresolved issues tend to revisit us.

You may have experienced what is known as the healing spiral: a theme returns at different points in your life, but each time you have an opportunity to meet it with greater awareness.

Maybe the lifelong theme is:

I have to fit in.

My needs are too much.

I can’t trust myself.

I have to keep everyone happy.

If I stand out, I’ll be rejected.

If I make a mistake, everything will fall apart.

A difficult experience can reinforce these beliefs so deeply that they begin to feel like reality rather than learned conclusions.

Then life brings another opportunity to work with the same territory.

Sometimes intuitive or energetic work can help illuminate that pattern from a different angle.

Rather than simply talking about what happened, we may explore what seems to be held beneath the story – emotionally, physically, symbolically, and spiritually.

In my energy work, I may use imagery or what my teacher called “spirit fingers” to work with places that feel energetically burdened, stuck, bruised, or congested.

Sometimes I imagine clearing something away. Sometimes I work with color, light, water, warmth, grounding, or another image that feels restorative. Again, these are part of the language of the work -not scientifically established mechanisms.

What matters to me is whether the experience helps you understand yourself, feel more settled, reconnect with your own knowing, or take a meaningful next step.

A REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE

A client I recently worked with had a painful history of being misunderstood despite doing everything she could to fit in.

The pattern had first appeared in middle school, became particularly traumatic in high school, surfaced again during graduate training, and had now reappeared during a professional development challenge.

On the surface, the current problem seemed manageable. Her reaction to it was much bigger. She knew that intellectually, but she couldn’t quite understand why.

During our work, intuitive imagery helped us explore the connection between the present situation and the older wounds it was touching. She began to understand why she was so activated or triggered. Why this felt so much bigger.

More importantly, she could bring compassion to the younger parts of herself that had learned to expect misunderstanding and rejection. That created some breathing room.

The goal wasn’t to prove this explained her experience. The goal was to help her see something she could not yet see clearly – and then decide what she wanted to do with that new awareness.

This is one of the places where my therapist, coach, and intuitive selves naturally overlap. Sometimes the work needs insight. Sometimes it needs nervous-system regulation. Sometimes it needs a practical next step.

Sometimes it needs grief, forgiveness, a new boundary, or a completely different way of seeing the problem. And sometimes it needs to allow a little mystery.

WHEN YOU FEEL STUCK, FOGGY, OR “OFF”

People often come to this kind of work when something feels off but they can’t quite articulate what it is.

You may know you’re unhappy, blocked, restless, emotionally activated, or disconnected from yourself.

You may keep thinking: I don’t know. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know why I’m reacting this way. I don’t know what’s wrong. I don’t know what comes next.

That uncertainty can be uncomfortable. It can also be the beginning of something.

Sometimes the surface problem is not the whole problem. Sometimes an old belief, unfinished grief, fear, or relational pattern is asking to be seen.

Sometimes you’re simply exhausted and need rest – not a spiritual explanation. That’s another place where discernment matters.

I don’t assume every difficult feeling means you have a hidden energetic blockage. Sometimes you need therapy. Sometimes you need coaching. Sometimes you need medical care.

Sometimes you need a walk, a nap, a good meal, a conversation with someone you trust, or to stop trying to solve your life for five minutes.

And sometimes intuitive exploration opens exactly the door you needed.

WHY I DO THIS WORK

I believe human beings are more than the problems they are trying to solve.

We are bodies. We are minds. We are hearts and emotions. We are relationships. We are stories.

And, for those of us who experience life spiritually, we are also souls. I use the word soul deliberately.

I think of it as the deepest spiritual essence of who we are – the part of us connected to meaning, mystery, purpose, and the larger arc of our lives.

You don’t have to share that belief to benefit from this kind of exploration. But for people who do, it can be powerful to ask:

What is this experience asking me to learn? What wants to be healed? What am I being invited to release? What part of myself wants to come forward now?

Those questions can lead us into places that ordinary problem-solving doesn’t always reach.

And sometimes the greatest gift is simply seeing yourself more compassionately.

MY APPROACH: CURIOUS, GROUNDED, AND COLLABORATIVE

I don’t claim to have all the answers. I don’t claim that every intuitive impression I receive is accurate. I don’t claim that energy healing can diagnose or cure disease. And I don’t believe you should hand your authority over to any practitioner – including me.

What I offer is a different kind of lens. My clinical training gives me one lens. My coaching experience gives me another. Somatic awareness gives me another.

And my intuitive and spiritual practice gives me another.

Together, these perspectives can create a surprisingly rich way of exploring what is happening beneath the surface.

You don’t have to believe everything I believe. You don’t even have to believe in energy healing. You can simply be curious. Notice what resonates. Notice what doesn’t. Keep what is useful. Leave the rest.

That, to me, is part of healthy spiritual practice.

CURIOUS?

Energy healing and intuitive work can offer a glimpse behind the scenes of an issue that has been difficult to understand through ordinary problem-solving alone.

For some people, a single session brings clarity.

For others, it opens a deeper process of healing and self-discovery.

And sometimes the most valuable thing that happens is discovering a question you didn’t know you needed to ask.

That’s where I like to begin.

You bring your experience.
I bring my training, intuition, and curiosity.
Together, we listen for what wants to emerge.

If you’re curious about this work, you can begin with a Clarity Session and see what happens.

Just an invitation to become a little more curious about the wisdom beneath the surface.

It is a magical time to be alive. Blessings on your path,

Denise Barnes

P.S. Do the soul work. You’ll be glad you did.