What Is Energy Healing? A Grounded, Real-World Perspective

Energy healing is often misunderstood.

Some people see it as vague or unexplainable. Others dismiss it because it can’t be seen. But in reality, everything in the body—and in life—is based on movement, communication, and relationship.

What many call “energy” is simply the underlying flow that expresses through:

• The physical body
• Emotions
• Thoughts
• Relationships
• Deeper layers of awareness

In my work, energy healing is not about fixing or forcing change.
It’s about listening to what is present—and allowing something new to emerge from there.

What Energy Healing Actually Means

Energy healing works with the underlying patterns that shape how we feel, respond, and relate.

These patterns don’t just live in the mind. They show up in the body as:

• Tension or contraction
• Anxiety or overwhelm
• Pain or discomfort
• Emotional holding

When the system begins to shift, people often start to feel again.

That can be uncomfortable at first—but as the process completes, it often leads to:

• Relief
• Clarity
• A greater sense of calm
• The ability to respond to life more effectively

How I Work: A Different Approach

I don’t approach sessions with a rigid technique or agenda.

Instead, I:

• Listen to what is presenting in the moment
• Track the body, emotions, and subtle shifts
• Support whatever is trying to emerge

Often, what happens is a kind of reorganization process—where unconscious material begins to come into awareness and integrate.

I’m not “doing” the healing.

I act more as a mirror and guide, helping create the conditions where something dormant can begin to awaken—if it’s ready.

What Happens in a Session

Each session is different, but there are common elements:

• Bringing awareness back into the body
• Noticing sensations, emotions, or patterns as they arise
• Exploring internal experiences through dialogue or imagery
• Supporting grounding and regulation
• Bridging what happens in the session into real life

Sometimes we also work with relational patterns—how someone connects to others—and how those patterns live in the body.

What People Often Feel During Energy Healing

Experiences vary, but many people report:

• Deep calm or stillness
• Subtle sensations (warmth, pulsing, movement)
• Emotional release
• Insights or clarity
• Or sometimes very little during the session—but shifts afterward

The most consistent outcome is not dramatic—it’s a sense of being more present, more aligned, and more authentically themselves.

Real Examples of Change

1. Finding Peace in Difficult Family Relationships

A woman in her 50s came in feeling stuck and distressed about her relationship with her adult children.

In our work, we:

• Explored her internal responses
• Connected her back to her body
• Looked at patterns rooted in her own early experiences
• Supported healthier relational boundaries

Over time, something shifted.

The situation didn’t necessarily change—but her relationship to it did. She became more grounded, less reactive, and more able to meet the situation with clarity and balance.

2. Rebuilding Boundaries After Trauma

A client with a history of severe sexual trauma came in with high anxiety and difficulty feeling safe.

We worked somatically and experientially:

• Exploring physical distance and proximity
• Noticing what happened in her body in real time
• Allowing emotions to surface and move

Through this process, she began to redefine what safety and boundaries felt like in her body, not just intellectually.

3. Supporting Fertility and Emotional Alignment

A woman came in wanting to become pregnant.

Our work focused on:

• Releasing internal stress and negative beliefs
• Supporting connection to her body
• Exploring deeper emotional and relational patterns

She later became pregnant.

While outcomes are never guaranteed, the work supported her in becoming more aligned, receptive, and connected to herself.

Who This Work Is For

This work tends to be most effective for people who are:

• Open to change
• Willing to explore beyond привычные patterns
• Curious about their inner experience
• Ready to engage in the process

It’s not about belief—but openness and readiness matter.

What People Get Wrong About Energy Healing

Energy healing is often misunderstood as either:

• “Magic”
• Or not real at all

In reality, it’s neither.

This work requires:

• Presence
• Skill
• The ability to stay grounded and attuned

It’s also important to be discerning.

A skilled practitioner should:

• Stay regulated and present
• Work with the body—not bypass it
• Support integration, not just intensity

Healing Is Not Something Done to You

Healing is not something I give to someone.

It’s something that unfolds when the system is ready.

My role is to:

• Listen
• Reflect
• Support
• Occasionally guide

But the real change comes from within the person.

After a Session: Integration Matters

After a session, people may feel:

• Calm
• Open
• More aware

To support integration, it helps to:

• Take quiet time
• Notice shifts in reactions or patterns
• Allow space for what surfaced

When the work is integrated into daily life, the changes tend to be more lasting.

Energy Healing in Columbus, Ohio

In my Columbus-based practice, I work with clients navigating:

• Anxiety and overwhelm
• Life transitions
• Relationship challenges
• Trauma and boundary work
• A desire to feel more connected and alive

If you’re specifically looking for sessions, you can learn more about my approach here:
👉 (Insert internal link to your service page: /energy-healing-columbus-ohio/)

A Final Thought

At its core, energy healing is about coming back into relationship with yourself.

Not forcing change.
Not fixing.

But listening closely enough that something real has the space to shift.

Ready to Explore This Work?

Sharon Hartnett, CST-D, has over 30 years of experience in somatic and manual therapies, specializing in Craniosacral Therapy and energy work in the Columbus area.”

If you feel drawn to this approach and are open to exploring your own process, you’re welcome to reach out or schedule a session.

Learn more about my Energy Healing sessions in Columbus

The Value of Being Heard|Why it matters for your Wellbeing and Connection.

Feeling truly heard is one of the most valuable experiences we can have in our life.  It communicates that what we think and how we feel matters.  To have someone truly listen to us, and hold us in this space can be transformational ,which also validates who we are, and helps us to feel centered and confident. My experience is that while we are powerful on our own, we don’t live in isolation.  We are in this life together and being heard is vital to our health and wellbeing.

One of the things that is important to me in the work I do then- depends on my abiity to listen and stay in “presence”.   I believe that more than anything else what matters in this world for us, as human beings, is to re-connect in all those places where we feel divided.   Staying in this fullness and holding space is the most important thing we can do for each other. Nothing feels better than re-uniting with the whole through life experience. 

In my practice, active listening is key.   This skill creates an atmosphere where we can have clear communication, mutual respect, and a place to feel safe enough to drop old protective patterns.  This makes way for authentic expression,  In a world that is very loud,  having a moment to be acknowledged can feel so freeing and relaxing.   When you come to Lighten Up Therapies, my intention is always to listen whether that means physically, emotionally, in a heart centerd way or spiritually.

I never “go” for a goal.  The listening and connection creates a movement of the soul.  The journey lives within just waiting to be expressed.

Techniques are really secondary.

Call Sharon Hartnett– if you would like to find out more about how I integrate my practice based on “listening” and “presence”.

Blessings…

Sharon

The Benefits of Co-Regulation with Craniosacral Therapy

When your nervous system has been under stress, it can be hard to calm down, even when you want to. This is where co-regulation becomes life changing.  

Craniosacral Therapy (CST) supports co-regulation by providing a steady, calm, and attuned presence that helps your nervous system settle and reset. Through gentle, hands-on contact, your body begins to sense safety and shift out of fight-or-flight. 

We all have  a deeper “Source” inside that shifts and centers when we sit with a peaceful listening observer-gently in physical touch.  The melding and bringing together of a different system that is balanced and peaceful is powerful.  The osteopathic approach taught at the Upledger Institute provides Certified Craniosacral Therapists with the techniques that work well.

Why Co-Regulation Matters

Many people with chronic pain, anxiety, trauma, or long-term stress live in a state of constant alert. Co-regulation helps your nervous system remember what balance feels like—often before you can do it on your own.  When a client feels the movement from stress to calm, they remember that they have access to their inner resources.  The real person is the “being”without all the stress.

Benefits of Co-Regulation in Craniosacral Therapy

• Helps calm an overactive nervous system

• Reduces chronic stress and tension

• Supports healing from trauma and overwhelm

• Improves sleep, digestion, and emotional regulation

• Builds your body’s ability to self-regulate over time

Over repeated sessions, this gentle support strengthens your own capacity for self-regulation, so calm and stability become more accessible in daily life.

Craniosacral Therapy doesn’t force change—it listens to your body and allows healing to unfold naturally, at your pace.

Sharon Hartnett CST-D

614 653-8111

www.craniosacraltherapistcolumbus.com

Serving Worthington and the Columbus Area.

The Body Speaks

One of my clients let me know that when I say that I listen to the body, most people might not understand what that is. So I have decided to use the best of words I know to describe it.

Listening to the body is an art.

It’s about tapping into the aliveness of our biology

Everything from the cellular (smaller particles as well) to the whole person has a blueprint of its right to exist- and of course-it course of action.

Sometimes the flow is hindered. But there is something that each of our biological states of being are made out of which is deeper than the obstacles, and more expanded and full of potential. That is not only of the physical world really. It’e energy. It is aliveness. It can have centers or it can be a pathway.

I am not getting metaphysical here – rather I am explaining the electrical system that is our brain and our nervous system . It’s like a superhighway. I listen to how that energy plays itself out both inside and outside of an our tissues. The matrix has a story, and it reveals itself to my hands, my presence, and the many fields of energy in which we live. The fluids & tissues change whether I am connected by touching the skin, or feet away. It depends what your system wants and needs. The membranes either open or not to change and evolution. Sometimes I go more deep if that is the “calling”. Sometimes, I sit with in patience.

Listening is allowing my sensory input to take a person in on so many levels. I feel rhythm, skin, bones, fascia, organs, waves of consciousness- and I trust that core- the origin of life within that does inform me of what is ready to happen. I nudge, and I give space for freedom and expansion.

Doing healer work, in my opinion, is taking the sacred information of each individual that emerges, and nourishing it to express its best SELF. That means listening to you, seeing you, acknowledging you, and supporting to help you can find your depth and your freedom.

This is why I see the world as I do. The grounding all the way to the Cosmos is part of life. Interconnected, and self-expressing. It’s important to honor and respect what is.

Sharon Hartnett

614 653-8111

Serving the Columbus, Ohio area

You can learn more about my Somatic Craniosacral Therapy on my main page.