Every few years, I stumble upon something so powerful and enlightening that it rocks my world, totally changing my perception and understanding of life. Recently I had one of those rare life-altering experiences. I couldn’t wait to get home and write about it.

It began with an interview I had arranged with a counselor named Dr. Trish Whynot in Middleton, Massachusetts. I had heard some incredible testimonials from her clients, so I was intrigued. Still, I could not imagine what would possibly be out-of-the-ordinary about a counselor. So I showed up at the interview with great curiosity.

My initial surprise came in the first few minutes of the interview when Trish began talking about her use of meditation in her counseling sessions. I have heard wonderful things about meditation, and even tried it myself a few times; but I always fell asleep after only a few minutes. Trish, however, started telling me that she meditates while rollerblading around a lake in the morning and listening to music on her portable headset.

“Huh?” I thought to myself, “That’s not meditation, that’s fun.” Then she explained that meditation and exercise are perfect bedfellows. Walking, jogging, rowing, and bicycling are all possible activities for meditation. She said it’s all about connecting with your higher self. The important part is to quiet the constant chatter in your mind. If you are more likely to meditate while doing something you enjoy, then it doesn’t matter if you are sitting in a monastery or rollerblading around a lake, the fact that the exercise is meditative in nature is what is important.

Okay, so I understood that meditation could be helpful, but I questioned Trish Whynot on how it is used in counseling. And this is where things got especially interesting. She told me that everything is energy, including our thoughts and emotions. When something happens to make us feel ugly, weak or stupid, for example, that emotional energy must go somewhere. If we don’t face that emotion, deal with it and release it appropriately, it could end up being stored inside our bodies. As this emotion stirs inside of us, or accumulates with other stored emotions, this negative energy often manifests into physical form—like illnesses or pain. Trish explained that counseling can be used to redirect this energy in a more positive direction.

In this way, meditation is a tool that allows us to deal with our thoughts and emotions, and properly work through the accompanying issues so that the associated energy is released in a healthy direction. For instance, if someone makes us angry, we might automatically stuff that anger inside of us to avoid conflict, or we might overreact and attack the person verbally or even physically. None of these reactions would be a healthy release of emotional energy, and would likely lead to further problems down the road. Meditation offers a safer and healthier alternative.

According to Trish, meditation allows us to mentally process how and why the person made us so angry. We might learn that the source of our anger is not wholly directed at that one person, but a result of the way other people have similarly treated us in the past. It wouldn’t be fair to the person, or our self, to unburden all this anger on only one source. Meditation allows us the opportunity to release our anger toward that person, and all the others before him, in our mind before we confront that person face to face. This appropriate release of pent up emotions could help us deal with the person in a more levelheaded manner, rather than reacting with a burst of built up emotional energy. It also might help us discover the underlying issue that keeps attracting this behavior from other people into our life.

Trish Whynot has a unique way of explaining complicated subjects with amazing clarity, but I still wasn’t fully grasping the role of energy in other areas of our life. I now understood how our emotions and thoughts could affect our health, but I didn’t understand how it affected our relationships, careers or prosperity. Trish walked over to a table and picked up a pouch. From inside the pouch she pulled the strangest looking metal contraption I have ever seen. She called it an “aura meter.”

I used to think of myself as skeptical in matters of energy, auras and chakras. What Trish Whynot showed me next proved my skepticism to be a simple case of ignorance. She took her aura meter—which is basically a metal handle attached to a very sensitive spring which is then attached to a metal pointer—and she stood at the far end of the room with this gadget pointing at me. She slowly walked toward me, explaining that the pointer would rise in the air when it hit my aura, as if the outside wall of my aura created a resistance that pushed this sensitive instrument upward and backward. I sat there skeptically waiting to see how Trish would subconsciously manipulate the aura meter to do what she wanted it to do.

When she got about seven feet away, the pointer began to push upward and backward as if she were pushing it against a cement wall. She carefully walked backwards and the aura meter slowly returned down to its original position. She did this a couple times, barely moving her hand or body. The same exact result occurred each time. I was flabbergasted!

I jumped from the couch and asked to inspect the aura meter. Although a cool looking piece of equipment, it is very basic in design. There was no way Trish could have been controlling its movements. The only possibility for control would be to cause the pointer to spring up and down uncontrollably. Instead, the pointer lifted at my aura’s wall and stayed in that position until she stepped backward—no bouncing up and down. Trish instructed me to sit on the couch again to try a couple more experiments.

In the second aura meter exercise, Trish asked me to think of something negative, either sad or depressing. After a couple minutes of this, she used the meter again to measure my aura. This time, the pointer didn’t lift until she got only inches away from my body. I was blown away by this evidentiary display of how energy is so clearly detected, and how our aura is so easily affected by our thoughts.

Finally, Trish didn’t want to leave me in this low energy state of mind, so she asked me to think about something positive—happy and uplifting thoughts. She also handed me a crystal, and explained that crystals are a natural source of energy. She said that my energy—my aura—-would increase simply by holding this crystal. After a couple minutes, Trish measured my aura again with the aura meter.

I’ve never really believed in the power of crystals, but Trish Whynot had humbled the skeptic in me to be more open-minded, so I was curious to see the results. This time, Trish walked to the farthest wall of her office so she could reach the outside of my expanded aura. I didn’t know if she was being funny or if she seriously needed the extra space. It turned out that she needed the extra space. The meter’s pointer now lifted about eleven feet away from me. I was so surprised by this display of evidence that I was bubbling over with excitement.

In the span of a few minutes, my aura changed from a reach of seven feet to five inches, and then to eleven feet. It was a brilliant display of our ability to control our energy; and thereby—through the basic laws of physics—attract positive and negative energy into our lives, as well as affect the people around us by the mere fact that our energies (auras) merge.

Trish later showed me that the aura meter has several additional uses aside from the ability to measure one’s aura. For example, once inside one’s aura, the meter will indicate areas of the body that are releasing excessive amounts of energy. The pointer again lifts in the air as it is placed near certain meridian points that are releasing this flow of energy, such as on the shoulders or knees. Depending on the location where the meter reacts, each indication reveals a possible issue that needs to be acknowledged, processed and properly released.

My right shoulder indicated that I am too hard on myself. My left shoulder indicated that I try too hard to please others. When both shoulders have this excessive energy pouring out of the body, it indicates the client may have expended an unhealthy amount of energy trying to please his parents, and never feeling like what he did was good enough. Ouch! I hate when practitioners can see right through to the core of your being. The truth hurts. Trish’s indications were painfully accurate.

Trish moved the aura meter in front of my right shin and the pointer quickly pushed backward and held there. “Oh, you have an issue with allowing yourself pleasure. Do you have a problem with shin splints?” she asked.

I thought to myself, “You’ve got to be kidding. How does she know that?” In the summer of 1986, I had discovered an enjoyment for running. I had been running about two miles a day with some friends. One day, I realized two miles was just a teaser, and I wanted to keep going. So I did. I ran seven miles that day, and again the next day and the next. For the rest of the summer I ran seven miles a day and absolutely loved it. Then one day I got shin splints so bad I could barely walk. I was done running for that season, but tried it again in the spring. After only a couple weeks, the shin splints returned. Months later, I tried it again and got the same result—shin splints. Despite every attempt to avoid it—wrapping the shins, better sneakers, running on the grass—the shin splints always returned. This went on for several years until I finally stopped trying last year.

Trish Whynot identified the message my shins were giving me: I got great enjoyment from running, but I had issues with allowing myself pleasure. Hence, the painful shin splints. It didn’t matter that I tried every preventative measure to avoid getting them the next season; the root cause of my pain wasn’t the running, it was my inner issue with allowing myself pleasure. Until I deal with it, the shin splints will recur. Once I address the issue, work through it and release the emotional energy associated with it appropriately, the shin splints will no longer be a problem. The way Trish explains it in her down-to-earth logical manner, I can’t help but to believe she is right.

Before I left my office for this interview, I told someone that I was leaving to interview a psychotherapist. I had to laugh when I first arrived at Trish Whynot’s office and looked at her brochure; it specifically states that the counseling she offers “is not psychotherapy.” Once we started the interview again after the aura meter exercises, I asked Trish to explain her method of counseling.

Trish told me that she is a doctor of ASAT C.O.R.E.™ Counseling. C.O.R.E. is an acronym for Conscious, Ownership, Retrieval / Release, and Engage. Her method of counseling goes beyond just talking about one’s problems. Trish said that talking may bring added clarity about an issue, but does not address the root cause or allow the client to work through the issue for healing. She believes that every obstacle, every illness and every recurring issue we have in life is a red flag waving at us as an opportunity for change and healing.

Trish views counseling as a turning point for her clients. It is a chance to integrate one’s spiritual, emotional and physical bodies to remove blocks that have caused them to weaken. To Trish, the healing derived from her counseling adds strength that not only removes recurring health problems, but also removes destructive patterns in one’s life that inhibit them from their right to all forms of abundance—money, love, health and joy.

Because Trish Whynot is working with energy, she uses a variety of tools to help direct mental, physical, emotional and spiritual energy to their proper outlets. Aside from meditation and crystals, she also uses aromatherapy, individual or group dialogue, inner child work, and progression / regression therapy.  She only uses a particular tool if the client is interested in that method. Although she will recommend which tools she expects to bring the most rapid results, the client has full control over which tools they prefer and are most comfortable using. There are several tools for healing almost every condition. Once the root cause of the problem has been identified, the healing can be done at this level using several different methods.

“Traditionally, we have been treating the result of ignored emotions when we need to be treating the source,” said Trish. “Treating the symptoms with medication alone will only continue our need for that medication. But if we can discover the ‘unconscious’ reasons we have invited this health problem into our life, then we will discover that the illness or pain is actually a metaphoric message that leads us to the source. In this way, counseling can work in conjunction with traditional medicine to aid in the healing process. Medication may treat the symptoms while counseling facilitates the resolution of the root conflict.”

What most impressed me about Dr. Trish Whynot was her natural ability to see through the chaos of life’s web and identify the root cause of problems. Many of Trish’s clients came to her thinking they knew what was causing their illness, pain or recurring life issue, but discovered the root cause was something quite different. She seemed to understand my own issues much better than I did, and she didn’t know anything about my life before I arrived. Apparently, this is an ability she has had all her life.

“Most of us can’t see our lives with clarity because we are so deep inside it,” explained Trish. “But our bodies are often screaming messages to us that reveal what we need to address.” It is nice to know there are people like Trish who have an extraordinary gift for identifying these messages and then know how to work through them once they are identified.

Before I left, I needed to experience how meditation is used to direct negative emotional energy. I presented Trish with an issue in my life, and asked how meditation could help. Trish suspected that the root cause stemmed from an incident in my past that I simply never worked through. She guided me into a relaxed state of mind to begin the meditation.

Once Trish guided me to a meditative state, she taught me to connect with my higher self. I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t experienced it, but in my mind’s eye I was sitting near a waterfall next to this gray bearded man in his late sixties. It wasn’t anyone I recognized, but he had a grandfather-like energy about him. Trish guided me to talk to him about my issue, but I was so surprised to be seeing this guy that I couldn’t focus enough to talk with him. What happened next was even stranger.

Trish guided me to another scene that allowed me to see myself at different ages where this issue had come up before. I saw myself as a boy, a teenager of two different ages, a young adult and an older adult. It was quite odd seeing these different parts of myself. I was not aware of how many times this same issue had come up in my life. The strangest part was that each individual (me at different ages) was only a faint visual except for one—myself at the age of seventeen. Per Trish’s continued guidance, that boy stepped forward and reminded me of the incident that had affected him so deeply, a memory directly related to the same issue I currently faced as an adult.

I had consciously forgotten that memory, but now recognized how and why the experience was emotionally damaging and still lingering in my subconscious. It was evident that I never worked through it. I had a conversation with the boy, and asked what he needed me to do to address and release the emotional energy I had stuffed away over two decades ago. After promising the boy that I would deal with it (per Trish’s instruction), she brought me out of the meditation.

I left Trish Whynot’s office that day a different person than the one who arrived a couple hours earlier. My mind was exploding with ideas and curiosities about energy and how it worked in the process of healing. I also had a new awareness of how our auras, the energy that surrounds us, is deeply connected to our thoughts. And it had become clearly evident to me how our thoughts, and therefore our auras, have a direct effect on the people around us—perhaps even the world.

Possibly for the first time, I utterly understood how energy integrated the body, mind and spirit. I’m certainly no expert—I’ll leave that to people like Trish—but I was now an inquisitive student who had discovered that this energy stuff wasn’t just a bunch of esoteric theory. There was substance to this field that could be verifiably measured with cool gadgets, something about which I couldn’t wait to tell my friends and family. And the meditation, well, I thought I’d keep that experience to myself. Something that sacred seemed unexplainable. Yet, now I have shared it with you. I guess some things just can’t be kept a secret.

Trish Whynot, D.C.Ed is a Doctor of C.O.R.E. Education, specializing in ASAT™ C.O.R.E. Counseling. She utilizes meditation, energy work, aromatherapy and crystals in her alternative approach to wellness in Middleton, MA, and can be reached at 978-314-4545 or visit her website at www.holisticoncepts.com. Dr. Trish Whynot has many clients around the country with whom she works via telephone.

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For more articles by Bob Olson, visit www.ofspirit.com/bobolson.htm 

BOB OLSON is a former skeptic and private investigator who has researched evidence of life after death since 1999. He now shares his spiritual insights, extraordinary experiences and the gifted practitioners he has met along his journey to assist others with their own spiritual growth. Bob is the editor of OfSpirit.com Magazine, GriefAndBelief.com, BestPsychicMediums.com, & BestPsychicDirectory.com. He is the author of Win The Battle and How To Beat Depression, plus has written Forewords for three books: The Complete Idiot's Guide To Communicating With Spirits, Consult Your Inner Psychic and The Complete Idiot's Guide To Divining The Future. Bob has also been quoted as an expert in How To Get A Good Reading By A Psychic Medium and Empowering Your Life With Angels. To read Bob's latest blog entry, visit www.ofspirit.com/editorsblog.htm