When I looked up at the world after losing my son, I knew I needed help but had no idea what kind.

For the first time in my life, I felt part of the collective pain sweeping across this country. Given the rising statistics of all kinds of suffering, I had a hunch that traditional therapy would not work fast enough for the level of pain I was in, and prescription medications would not go deep enough.

Since I had never tried either one, however, I wasn’t in a position to judge. Still, I knew there had to be other ways to get help, even though I didn’t know what they were. So, I began to research alternative healing modalities, while still accepting the advice of more traditional friends who suggested that I see a talk therapist they knew and respected.

After sitting in front of this therapist for an hour and telling her my story of loss, she surprised me by asking, “How would you like to work together? How can I help you?”

I started back at her blankly and felt my stomach drop.

If you don’t know how to help me, I thought to myself, how am I going to figure out how to help myself?

In other words, my trauma was beyond her expertise and the expertise of so many.

Still, I wasn’t ready to completely give up on traditional therapy. I made an appointment for my younger son with a psychologist who specialized in childhood grief and trauma. This is what friends advised I do, so I gave it another try.

After my son had a couple of appointments, however, this particular grief therapist sat down with me and my husband and asked, “How are you both holding up?”

Our swollen eyes said it all.

“I’m so sorry,” she said before adding, “from my experience with helping parents in your position, the pain is forever and never goes away.”

A lump formed in my throat and a new strain of anger ignited in my belly. How do you know?! I shouted at her in my head. No one had the right to tell me my future. It didn’t matter how much education they had or how many awards they had received.

“Well, that’s not very hopeful,” I said to her feeling oddly empowered during such an uncomfortable moment.

She apologized. That’s not what she meant. Still, I knew my family would never see her again.  Not for the reasons I thought at the time, but because unbeknownst to all of us, she got the job done that day. In a backhanded sort of way, she forced me to make a choice:

I could choose to live as though my pain was the equivalent of how much I loved my eldest son and spend the rest of my life suffering. Or I could choose to express my love by honoring him with my life, living fully, and serving others.

The choice was obvious, but still, I needed a lot of support to actually DO it.

No more talk therapy, I decided. What I needed was soul therapy.

And it’s funny how the universe works…

Soon after making that decision, I received multiple referrals for different kinds of “energy healers.” From rock stars and business executives to actresses, beauticians, dog walkers and housewives, energy healers came at me from all directions. To my surprise, members of my community had been turning to energy healers for all kinds of mental and emotional ailments, they just never talked about.

With an open mind, I tried one. One led to another, and it wasn’t long before I learned that energy healers come with all kinds of self-made titles and practice their art in unique ways.

What each energy healer I tried had in common is that after one session, they made me feel lighter. They taught me about my own soul and how to help it navigate this modern world. And unlike talk therapy, these soul therapists heard me better than I heard myself because they were not just listening to my words, they were feeling, and in some cases, seeing… the energy around me as I said them.

I know talk therapy has helped lot of people, and I have since met some amazing therapists who blend eastern and western medicine to treat the whole person. All I am suggesting is that if traditional talk therapy isn’t working for you and/or you have been seeing the same therapist for decades, there are alternatives.

Energy healers are one such kind of healers who bypass our complicated human minds and speak in simple terms to our ancient souls.  If it’s true that energy never dies and the soul is eternal, then healing energetically makes a lot of sense – at least to me!

To learn more about this powerful (and fun!) healing modality, you can refer to my Alternative Healing Toolkit (a free resource I created for my community), as it also includes some of my favorite energy healer practitioners.

In fact, if you want to meet one of the “soul coaches” that I credit with a lot of the quantum leaps I made along my healing journey, be sure to join us for a live event this week. (See below.)

From my soul to yours!