Whether your problem is physical, for instance the experience of chronic pain, or mental, as in worry or obsessive thinking, or perhaps emotional, for instance being stuck in a fear pattern, holistic hypnotherapy can help.

A session will make you feel deeply relaxed, more confident, more in tune with yourself, your needs and your life.

Don't wait until you have a big problem. Use holistic hypnotherapy to maintain optimum health, mental equilibrium and emotional balance.

After an initial interview, you will be lying back and relaxing as you listen to my voice guiding you through imagery and thought patterns. A series of sessions will help to heal deep seated patterns of negativity and stress. Try it out.

Recent clients have used my guidance successfully:

• to boost the immune system
• to minimize side effects of chemo
• to learn new eating habits and lose weight
• to overcome fear of flying, & phobias
• to boost confidence in the workplace
• to expand their horizons beyond the daily grind
• to attract abundance and magnetize their dreams
• to successfully integrate new behaviours
• to explore past life experiences and to contact guidance
• to master deep relaxation and stress relief

Krysia Gallien is certified in hypnotherapy with the Canadian Institute of Hypnotherapists since 2005 and has had 30 years of experience teaching meditation and deep relaxation techniques. Krysia is also certified to work with children.

The natural outcome of a yoga practice is meditation. Meditation arises after you have learned to relax. Our first thought of what relaxation might be does not compare to the truth of what relaxation can be. It is , in fact , a gradual process of dropping away fear. Fear is the tension behind all of the muscular tensions of the body and that tension permeates body and mind until it is deliberately released.

Yoga teaches us how to use our breathing to move into all of those tight , held areas. With the exhalation we learn how to gradually surrender tension, layer by layer. The postures help us to find those typical sites of tension, through stretching. The breath does the rest. As each area is de-stressed, the inhalation replaces that stressed area with new vitality and a feeling of spaciousness.

It is here that meditation begins, as we enter that new spaciousness within. The relaxed body can sit without stirring, poised like the lily floating on water. The medium that the meditator floats on is the breath.

The process of relaxation continues as we apply our attention in meditation. Continuing to relax, we now can relax the mind gradually. Tension in the mind is called thinking. As we surrender mental tension we surrender thought. We replace this thinking tension with pure space. Now we are beginnning to be here.

Finally we can enter meditation. The body is free of tension and we can experience 
ourselves as containers for energy to flow though unimpeded. The mind is relaxed and we enter this new space just witnessing, just being with what is.

Our sense has changed from doing to being. We just are. And it is exquisite.

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Now your yoga practice is done and it is time to draw up a pillow for the sitting part of your practice. The breath is steady and full. A deep peace permeates your body. The mind feels vast like the sky.

Take a moment to extend into space leaving your personal identity behind. Using your awareness like a needle, thread through the eye of that needle into a transpersonal sense of yourself. All of a sudden your perspective has shifted radically.

Entering the realm of the heart, free yourself from any dark or heavy emotion leaving the heart to claim its true vibration of unconditional love. As the heart opens, the breath deepens. You feel as vast as the ocean floor.

Dive into the sound of ommm. It resonates in the silence of your stillness. Dissolve in that vibration, floating like the lotus, radiating light.

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Inner child    digestion  relaxation

Khidr congestion   fatigue   flu   palpitation

Tango   warming   foot  rub

Tangerine dream  refreshing, soothing

English Garden    fatigue   stress

Temps perdus  aphrodesiac   rejuvenating  hormone balance

Fresh   light relaxing  invigorating

Lemon breeze  light relaxing

Scheherezade   erotic  narcotic  nervous tension

Sunset   sedative  erotic

Floral mist   dry skin

Earth rose    dry skin

Moonphase   pms

Cellulite  topical massage

Sports helps prevent injury and treats it

Detox   acts on the kidneys

Breast toner firms and shapes
Blends can also be made to your specific needs.

Aromatherapy massage is a specific type of massage treatment. It is known as the international method because aroma therapists worldwide practice it. This massage is designed to introduce the benefits of the essential oils into the body most efficiently by using a combination of strokes, acupressure, and energy balancing over many parts of the body. 

The first thing to determine is the correct blend of oils to use. Each essential oil has true medicinal properties and is a type of herbal medicine in concentrated form. The molecules of the essential oils pass into the interstitial spaces between the cells and are conducted to various parts of the body through the blood stream. Different oils have affinity to different body systems. For instance, geranium essential oil has an affinity with the hormonal system, chamomile with the digestive and nervous systems. The study of the actions of the oils is the study of aromatherapy. 

Once the oils are chosen and the blend specifically made, the Aromassage can take place. Special attention is paid to the nervous system by treating the spinal nerve pathway that feeds all the internal organs. The massage also promotes the cleansing of the lymphatic system, clearing toxins and strengthening our immune response. The massage is light, rhythmic, relaxing and refreshing. Typical responses include a feeling of renewed optimism and inner peace Thee effects of the oils rebalance the body mentally as well as physically. Aromassage has a rejuvenating effect. A series of treatments can have a profound effect on a variety of conditions. Ideal as a treatment for stress, insomnia, fatigue, it is considered to be a powerful beauty treatment as well. Many of the oils renew the skin; especially mature skin, and dry skin. Aromassage promotes body tone and treats cellulite. Massage of the face is particularly beneficial. All sessions are by appointment. Call Krysia at 514 695-7950 and enjoy the peaceful sanctuary of the home studio, at  Creative Being . In addition, blends can be custom made for specific needs. Check out the line of Life Essence Creations, fresh blended by request and the full series of Chakra oils and Aromasol sprays.

A mandala of alchemical change : It shows the eternal spirit or consciousness surrounded by the yin/yang of opposites that determine our outer world. As emotions and reactions are transformed or sublimated, the chalice of the chakras where all growth takes place, is transformed. The seed self or essential self is held in the chrysalis of change.We give birth to ourselves daily.

Jung says "the symbol represents or personifies certain instinctive data of the dark primitive psyche; the real but invisible roots of consciousness." The act of linking with the archetypes of the unconscious takes us from a limited and personal self into an expression of the transpersonal spirit. This spirit self crosses all cultural and religious boundaries, expressing from the deep heart of Nature.

"the mandala in its purest form is a link between the microcosm of the individual and the macrocosm of the cosmos. Literally a map, its patterns lead us back to clarity and wisdom, to our higher selves. Whether we are shedding light on our unconscious patterns, illuminating deep truths about the universe, or both, the mandala, says Cornell, makes the invisible visible."

Judith Cornell from an interview in Yoga Journal Nov./Dec. 1997

To create a healing mandala we can put ourselves in a receptive state. Reshad Field, a Sufi master calls this 'living in the question'. The mandala can be created following any ritual that connects us with Spirit: the making of an altar, the offering of a prayer, a meditation or a shamanic journey, a trance dance session. Our intention might be to receive healing, to receive the answer to a long sought question, or simply to connect more deeply with the inner self. Jung describes our relationship with the inner self as circular, not linear. He talks about how we circumambulate the soul making a psychic mandala in the process. So the creation of a physical mandala is interesting because it just mirrors our own psychological dynamic.

Although we might hold a specific intention as we begin, it is important to release any conscious designs or images from the mind. In that way a space can open up for the unconscious (and what Jung calls the collective unconscious), which holds the collective symbols or archetypes of humanity to come through. In the process of meditation or journeying you might encounter certain images, feelings or colours and these will dominate as you begin to choose the colours and shapes you are inspired to draw. Following the Judith Cornell method of mandala creation, I work on black paper with coloured pencils. The black paper is a powerful symbol for the unconscious and as you enter the dark, armed with the light of your white pencil, you begin to illuminate those dark places within. Perhaps you will be drawn to the centre initially or not. Perhaps a geometric or realistic image begins to define itself slowly. Staying in that state of suspended logic, allow colours and shapes to pick themselves. Marvel at how, over time, each part of the mandala takes its place within the whole, like pieces of a puzzle fusing. Feel the palpable healing effect of the colours you are drawn to. Don't be afraid to apply them in layers, again and again.

As you enter the dreamtime of the mandala, the experience is timeless, not unlike the experience of trance dance. You disappear and the inner artist takes over, mastering what you yourself could never achieve, expressing from the deep ground of your being through symbol what you could barely articulate. Hours might go by until you suddenly emerge into real time realizing you have been somewhere else, far far away.

Your mandala might take several such sessions to complete. Each session is a meditation as you circumambulate that central self. Take your time. Get to know the territory. There are often times while travelling the mandala where we encounter doubt, frustration, and even self loathing. We feel we have moved far from the center and are tempted to give up before the mandala is completed. Struggling through these very patches often proves to be the most valuable time we can spend. It is in these very struggles that deeper psychological healing takes place and it is not unusual to emerge from our mandala making feeling a deeper peace, a greater sense of harmony. The fear of making art if carefully analyzed often speaks of a deeper fear of expressing our truth. How empowering it is when those symbols and colours emerge that are our own and yet profoundly universal. The process links us to the deeper structures of life's experience.

Where ideas are expressed in symbols, they serve as doorways into the inner courts of understanding.

Robert Ryan The Strong Eye of Shamanism

Art made in this way is truly an act of creation. It is the expression of creation flowing through the personal self in an act of focused surrender. The needs of spirit or the transpersonal nature are met when we stand out of the way and allow the wisdom nature to guide our act of creation.

I thought of an artist as one who paints or sculpts rather than one who is capable of using certain subtle states of consciousness to bring about inner and outer transformation.

Judith Cornell from an interview in Yoga Journal Nov.Dec 1997

When we can return art to the heart of creation, it becomes imbued again with spirit. So often, mainstream art is disconnected from the inner life, lacking meaning and purpose. Rather than reflecting harmony and healing, contemporary art can be dark, mechanistic and even toxic. If making art can return us to spirit, creating healing and inspiration for both artist and viewer alike then it remembers its original purpose as a language of soul.

The drawing of a mandala is a meditation. The circle serves a protective space, a sacred space, which we can enter in a ritualistic way by the making of prayers and intentions. In our classes we work with an altar, candles perhaps crystals and flowers. Sometimes the altar is a medicine wheel, a mandala in itself, expressing the macrocosm. Sage or other incense can be used to purify the atmosphere, the participants and the drawing tools. The making of ritual is an opportunity to shift our awareness away from temporal reality and into the eternal present.

It is in the eternal present that we can fully enter the circle of our being. Perhaps we are looking for healing, for deeper understanding of some aspect of our lives, for greater harmony in relationships, or for the courage to confront difficult issues in our lives. We enter our mandala, a circle on black paper, armed with the penetrating light of our white pencil.

The mandala becomes the crucible of transformation. The symbols we draw down, the colours we invoke induce their own power of healing and meaning. Some mandala artists will be drawn to make abstract and geometric designs, others will make images or intricate scenarios. We each find a way to express our own uniqueness through pattern, shape and design.

"drawing a mandala is akin to capturing a moment of our being. It's like a documentary of the soul."

Judith Cornell from an interview with Yoga Journal Nov./Dec. 1997

Traditionally, mandalas have been used for healing in many diverse cultures. The Navaho sand paintings are mandalas invoked by the medicine man using sacred sound. The patient is invited to sit in the centre of the sand painting, which is erased when the healing is completed. The images of the sand painting depict a world order, a cosmic arrangement that is deemed necessary for the healing of each particular patient. The use of chant and sacred sound is an integral part of the healing ceremony.

Buddhist and Tibetan mandalas are also cosmic arrangements. The entire complexities of particular teachings are depicted in a complex pattern of Buddhas, demons, landscapes and atmospheres.

The viewer enters the mandala from its rim and moves toward the centre layer by layer. At the outer rim are stairs or stupas that take the viewer inward. At the centre of the mandala, the meditator is expected to pierce the veil and enter cosmic dimensions. At each stage, the meditator confronts Buddhas and demons reflecting aspects of his own nature. The journey is a journey of awareness and heightening consciousness.

ENTERING THE MANDALA

In the same way we can learn to enter our own mandalas. Take your time, as you become familiar with the perimeter of your drawing. Enter slowly and meet each of the shapes or images within. Allow the colours and designs to trigger feelings and emotions. Allow the images to speak. Feel free to dialogue with them or using active imagination, let them inform you of their true significance. This might take some time. Often a mandala has to be entered several times over several weeks or months to reveal its layers of meaning, like a dream. Savour the moment of piercing the veil as you enter the centre of your circle. Allow transformation to take place. The mandala is a crucible, an alchemical vessel. It invites you to enter and be transformed.

In subsequent illustrations, the mandalas I created often held chalices or symbols of the Holy Grail within them. I saw these as vessels of birthing and gestation.

THE SPRING EQUINOX ALTAR

The process begins in a sacred space. An altar might include salt (representing the element of Earth), a candle (representing the element of Fire), water or flowers to represent the element of Water and incense or smudge to represent the Air element.

This altar is a mandala in itself, quartered in the four directions and holding a centre of light that represents the spirit self. Crystals form the next circle, representing pure vibration or sound. The next circle represents the breaking down of sound into elemental form. Seeds form the next circle, representing form coming into manifestation. The circle of roses represents the world of polar opposites, the ten thousand things.

As we open the altar, lighting candles, smudging ourselves, calling in guidance, we prepare to open ourselves. The altar begins our meditation and we proceed into our specific journeys. Each journey is unique, exploring different aspects of our being.

The circle too, is a sacred protected space. As you draw your white circle on black paper, allow yourself to enter the sacred space of your own being and explore what wants to reveal itself in your mandala.

Allow the colours and images to come to you. You are simply awake and aware to receive them and record them. Trust in the process without grasping. Enter the mystery.

POWER ANIMALS MANDALA

In this mandala I created, after a journey to find the power animals, four helpers, associated with the four elements emerged. The kingfisher, associated with the water element, is shown here gazing deeply inward, representing introspection. The woodpecker, representing the fire element, is shown drumming representing penetrating insight. The crow representing the air element is shown taking an objective overview of the situation. The dolphin in the center is making a quantum leap as it grasps the golden ring of wholeness retrieved from the cave to the right. The rings around the dolphin represent the veils we break through as we awaken.

HEALING SYMBOL MANDALA

This mandala was created imaging the Blue Medicine Buddha and asking for a healing symbol for a chronic illness that had affected body and mind.

MEDICINE BUDDHA HEALING SYMBOL

The healing green snakes and the specific colors were later taken into daily meditations and applied to the chronic pain. After a length of time, healing took place. The chalice, which had first appeared in the belly of the phoenix, filled with alchemical fire, now held pure and cooling light.

Joseph Campbell says of the chalice or Holy Grail:

"The Grail becomes the -what can we call it? - that which is attained and realized by people who have lived their own lives. The Grail represents fulfillment of the highest spiritual potentialities of the human consciousness.

The Grail becomes symbolic of an authentic life that is lived in terms of its own volition, in terms of its own impulse system, that carries itself between the pairs of opposites of good and evil, light and dark.

Joseph Campbell from The Power of Myth pg. 196-97

In the following mandala, a journey was undertaken to meet the inner shaman. This shaman appeared as half human, half snake in an environment that might have been the rainforest or a tropical jungle. The power of the snake continued to be the power of healing as seen in the caduceus, or healing staff of Hermes. The other aspect of the snake had to do with its ability to change skin, or transform itself. My life was calling for a radical transformation.

SNAKE GODDESS MANDALA

DRAGONS OF TIME MANDALA

After this came a confrontation with the self; the lengthy evaluation of the events of life, represented by the hot and cold dragons of experience. Out of the synthesis of all life's experiences, a realization of the evolution of consciousness, after gradual acceptance, pictured here as taking place in the cocoon of the chakras, under the watchful eye of the witnessing self. This time, all of the threads of the inner life are held in the chalice, which opens like a birth canal into time.

The seed of new life was stirring within. I had no idea what new self would be born, only a sense of striving and impatience. A tremendous energy seemed to be slowly emerging. Turquoise and purple colors kept coming back in each mandala. I thought about the phoenix that I had painted almost two years before and how it continued to come to birth in my art.

SEED MANDALA

BIRTH OF INNER WISDOM MANDALA

I felt the stirring of a new self, expanding from within. It was empowering and exhilarating but at the same time felt like a crucifixion and death of all I had identified with. My feelings vacillated between euphoria and despair.

The chalice appeared again, this time designed with a crucifix. Resting in its stem lay a dark, seed-like fetal shape. Something new had come to earth and was waiting to be born.

Above it, in the dreamtime, swans swam in lemisticate patterns. The chalice cup became a pregnant belly birthing a wisdom eye. The wisdom eye was born out of Nature's realm.

"There are a number of sources for the Holy Grail. One is that there is a cauldron of plenty in the mansion of the god of the sea, down in the depths of the unconscious. It is out of thee depths of the unconscious that the energies of life come to us. This cauldron is the inexhaustible source, the center, the bubbling spring from which all life proceeds". Things are coming to life all around you all the time. There is a life pouring into the world, and it pours from an inexhaustible source."

Joseph Campbell from The Power of Myth pg.217

THE EAGLE'S GIFT OF LIGHT

A new awareness began to manifest. It had to do with honoring the gifts and talents of spirit and allowing them to become manifest in the world. The chalice bloomed into a lotus, symbol of the divine life unfolding. The silver moon and golden corn come together in alchemical union of masculine and feminine principles. The corn provides nurturance from the core or central self.

The inner healer was awakened and power was restored on every level.
THE INNER HEALER

In the early 1930's, fifty years before any major research on stress related disorders was done, the renowned British physician and scientist, Dr. Edward Bach began to recognize that many of his patients' ills seemed to be directly related to their various negative states of mind. For example, he noted that anxiety, worrisome thoughts, even lack of self-confidence, so deplete the individual's vitality that the body loses its natural resistance and becomes vulnerable to infections and disease. Today, current research supports these findings.

"To bring oneself back into harmony, back to balance, requires the development of a more positive loving nature." Dr. Bach said. Merely treating disease does not deal with the root cause of the problem.

Bach turned to the healing plants of Nature and eventually found thirty-eight flowering plants, which were later proven to positively alleviate a wide range of mental and emotional stresses. The Bach Remedies, as they are now called, work to gently re-establish emotional and psychological equilibrium. Considered a major breakthrough, the Bach remedies have been used worldwide for over half a century with great success by a broad spectrum of health care practitioners, including doctors, chiropractors, psychologists, and other holistically minded therapists. The remedies have been remarkably effective in alleviating tension, loneliness, fear, insecurity, jealousy, shyness, poor self-image and other emotional and psychological difficulties.

Through further research, Dr. Bach and others found the remedies to be completely safe and to require the smallest dosages to be effective. The remedies do not conflict with any other medication that a person might be taking. Each remedy contains the essence of the flower, at a vibrational dosage, preserved in brandy. All 38 remedies are recognized in the Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States.

In our modern times, the Flower Essence Society was established in 1980 in California. Its founder, Richard Katz, has continued and enlarged Dr. Bach's original vision. Now the flower essences, as they are known, are seen as agents for our unfoldment, assisting us in learning life's lessons through the signature of nature. Much research and meditation has been done on how the flowers resonate with our soul nature, encouraging the blossoming of our full potential. The California Flower Essence Society has now added over hundred new essences to the original 38.

Choosing from such a range of flowers requires the assistance of a practitioner who can recognize which flowers match the psychological profile of the moment. Through a process of assessment, attunement and dowsing, a bouquet of essences is chosen to assist the client. This bouquet represents the emotional challenges of the time and guides the way to resolution. During the assessment process, plenty of time is given to discuss and direct the problems at hand. The flower essences support and clarify the life lessons that we each attract on our journey toward wholeness. As emotional tangles are resolved, we experience our soul growth and actualize our potential.

A remedy is taken for a full lunar cycle and may be followed by another cycle of remedies as deeper issues emerge. Flower essences can help to heal ingrained childhood patterns that hold us back.

Flower essence therapy is an ideal adjunct to polarity therapy, especially when the bodywork brings up emotional issues that need to be addressed. The body being a metaphor for the mind will often encapsulate a difficult memory or emotion and hold on to it in the form of pain or dysfunction.

There is much well documented evidence on the effectiveness of flower essences on children who are hyperactive, dyslexic, shy and otherwise traumatised. Animals have equally benefited from flower therapy when their behaviours become troubled.

Krysia has worked with flower essence therapy since the mid-eighties, along with psycho-spiritual counselling and dreamwork. Sessions are by appointment.