Crystals for Healing and Empowerment is the topic of today’s interview with Britt Jones and her awakening movement with crystals. We discuss manifesting, self-esteem, Reiki Healing, confidence, raising your personal vibrations and crystals to help us connect with Spirit…. I can’t wait to share this in-depth conversation with everyone. So, let's call it in with Britt and Dar! Before we dive into the awesome topic of crystals, please tell us a little bit about yourself.
● Sure, so my name is Britt Shama Jones, and I've been practicing yoga most of my life, I've been teaching yoga for over 20 years. I also teach meditation, and I am a Reiki energy healer or Reiki master. So I also love to work with energy healing. My passion is to bring those three healing modalities together to practice yoga, meditation, and Reiki all at the same time. And I love to work with my students by bringing those three together. When I'm not on my yoga mat, or on my meditation cushion, I love to travel the world with my husband and our two boys who are both teenagers. And also, I've been a vegetarian for most of my life, although my husband and our two boys are not, so I will have to juggle our meals so that I can have my vegetarian meal and they can have meat.
That is so interesting. Thank you for sharing your story with us. So let's dive in… how do crystals support healing and empowerment?
● Sure, so it's one of those situations where we see that everything is connected, and everything works together, and the whole unit reverse works as a whole. So as I'm sure you know, everything has a vibration, the Earth has a vibration, and the stones and the rocks and the crystals within the earth have vibrations. Also, we can think of sound waves as having their own vibrations. And we also have a physical body but also an energy body, and within the energy body or part of the energy. Or the chakras, which are energy wheel bodies within the energy body, which are also within the physical body.
And these chakras have vibrations. And so all these vibrations work together, you can actually access the chakras through sound, every chakra has its own sound. And if you chant that sound, the vibration of that sound will engage with the chakra and help it bring into balance if it's out of balance, and in the same way, connect with sound also connect with these chakras, these energy wheels. It's called sympathetic resonance, that there's this connection in the vibrations between what is happening with the Earth and the crystals and the stones and the rocks with sound and then with our own energy body and how the chakras are aligned within the energy body.
Yes, sympathetic resonance, you explained it. So clearly. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm curious, how did you first get interested in crystals and then the chakras?
● Yeah, so I was one of those little kids that always love to collect rocks. So I'm an earth sign. I don't know if that's related. But I've always collected rocks, even when I was a little girl. And then my very first Crystal was actually a present…sent from one of my cousins. My family and I were moving. And my cousin who was the exact same age as me, we were born just a few weeks apart. He gave me a clear quartz as a going away present. And I don't think… I know for a fact that he didn't know what it was. I didn't know what it was. I think he just thought it was pretty and so he gave it to me as a present. We were both about 13 or so. And so that was my first crystal. It was a clear quartz and I didn't know what it was. So I just kept it on my desk all through high school. Just sitting there. It's still in my yoga room today. And so then I started practicing yoga when I went to college. And I had one of my first yoga classes. I had a very strong energy experience during class. The teacher had us all chant this “om” sound or our own “om” while sitting at the end of a yoga class. And I was a brand new beginner, so I didn't really know how to do that. So I just sat quietly, and just listened to the other students chanting. And as they were chanting the sound, boom, I had a very strong energy of vibration. I felt like this vibration was existing within my physical body, I think I accessed my energy body and just could feel it vibrating. And then while I was just sitting there, and everybody was chanting, “ om”, I started feeling a sense of spinning. The room was spinning, the whole universe was spinning. And honestly, it was a little scary. I didn't know what it was. I was a little worried. But it did get me interested in the idea of an energy body and the idea of vibration and what does it all mean? And then a few years later, I met an energy healer. And I told her about that experience. And she knew exactly what it was. And it was such a relief talking to her because she didn't think it was anything weird or anything unusual. She just explained that my Kundalini energy had gotten engaged. And that spinning was just me experiencing my chakras for the first time, which made perfect sense because the sound “om”, is actually the sound of the sixth chakra. And so it made sense that listening to the sound of a chakra being chanted around me would bring awareness to the spinning of the chakras. So that got me fascinated with the chakras and I just started trying. And then a few years after that, I decided to learn about Reiki. And I did some Reiki attunements to become a Reiki Master, and started working with crystals in a much more purposeful way. And the chakras as well. And I remember, after my third, Reiki, attunement, I was buzzing with all that Reiki energy, and I walked in the house. And the moment I walked in the house, I could feel my crystals vibrating in my yoga room on the other side of the house. By that time, I had a very nice collection of crystals, and I could
just feel them vibrating. So yeah, it's been an interest for many years. And it's just grown. As I've experienced more and learned more
Beautiful story, thanks for sharing those things with us, especially when there might be some people in the audience that are wondering what that spinning is all about. And your story, you can kind of help them be reassured that it's their energy body, and they can start to learn a little bit more about the chakras and higher being at a higher vibration. So how can we use and care for crystals? What are some things that you recommend we do?
● Sure, crystals can take on energy as we use them and work with them. And so it's important to clear that up on a regular basis, so that the vibration of the crystals is nice and clear. So when you use it, it has gone back to sort of a neutral state, its own natural neutral state. So there's various ways of clearing your crystals and you should just do that on a regular basis. It doesn't have to be like on a schedule or anything like that, just whenever your intuition tells you that it's time to clear your crystals then you should just go ahead and do that. So sound is a great way to clear up your crystals for example, striking a prayer bowl creates a really nice sound or chanting. If you're into chanting, even chanting the sound of “Om” works great. You can use smudging, for example, burning some sage or burning some palo santo and just using the smoke to clear the energy of the crystals. Selenite is a great crystal that you can use to clear other crystals. Selenite is a sort of milky white crystal and it often comes in like a stick form or it's called a Selenite rod, and you can just use it to clear the vibration of your other crystals. The only thing to remember about selenite is that you shouldn't get it wet, it can disintegrate in water. So always make sure that your Selenite is someplace dry. And, of course, you can also use sunlight. So if you want to place your crystals outside and in full sun, the light of the sun will clear the vibrations of the crystals as well. But my favorite way is to use moonlight. And so I'll set out my crystals on a full moon. And I'll just leave them outside all night to absorb and clear through the light of the full moon. Again, you want to make sure not to set out your selenite, because the humidity in the air outside might not be good. As long as it's not a porous crystal, you can leave it outside overnight during a full moon and the full moon will clear it. And then in terms of how to use your crystals. So you can just kind of collect crystals and place them around your house. And I would just use your intuition with that. No right or wrong, there's of course, advice from people who recommend certain crystals in certain places. But really, I think if you trust your intuition, you'll not go wrong. You can also have a meditation space or a yoga space or a place in your house where you place all your crystals and maybe display them or display a selection of them and maybe switch them out. If you have a meditation practice, you can hold a crystal in your hand as you meditate, especially if you're looking to connect with a specific crystal or a specific purpose that a crystal has. If you're trying to connect with a certain vibration, a certain chakra, you might pick the crystal for that chakra and use it while you're meditating. You can also carry crystals on yourself like in your pocket and just have it with you all day. Or you can carry it in your purse, I have a little pocket in my purse where I always have a few crystals. And oh, you might have some crystal jewelry. That's always a nice way… I have this awesome Rose Quartz pendant on a necklace that I love to wear, because it connects me to the vibration of love, which is really lovely to have as a jewelry piece. And a great way also to use crystals is to create crystal grids.
So there's lots of crystal grids you get, you can even download some crystal grids off of the internet and just print them out on a piece of paper. But basically, it's just arranging your crystals in a symmetrical pattern with one crystal in the center and other crystals around it. And if your crystals that you place around a central crystal have points, then you can either have the points pointing towards the central central crystal to charge it and intensify it. Or you can have the points pointing away from the central crystal and that will expand the energy and move the energy around. So lots of different ways of caring for your crystals and using your crystals. And I just wanted to say if you're wanting to work with your chakras and you're not sure where to start, clear quartz will work with all the chakras. So you can always get a little piece of clear quartz and that'll work with everything.
Thank you, that was a very thorough list and as you're going through, I'm just I'm just saying yes, yes, I have a rose quartz necklace that I wear and yes, she mentioned selenite and I use Selenite… I lay it with my jewelry to just clean and clear quite often. And then a crystal grid. I do a crystal grid. I have an oval mirror…It has the grid lines and it's beautiful and I change out the crystals on that. And then you mentioned we're having one in your pocket. I actually have a bloodstone in my pocket because many Native Americans use that in their, in their pouches. And it clears out your bloodstream and clears out any toxins and debris. And what's interesting about the Bloodstone is that as it's working, it starts to turn white… it's usually green and red. And then as you continue to carry it and take out the toxins in your body, it actually turns white. So it's really a fun stone to have in your pocket because you see the results. And then you can when it turns white, you can bury it outside somewhere. And let it refurbish with nature. So that's one of my favorite things. As you were talking about, that's lovely.
● I love that. As you see, I love that.
Yeah, and a lot of people are worried about, you know, negativity and toxins and debris. So the Bloodstone is quite simple. The trouble is that you won't want to wear it as a necklace, because it would start to change color. And unless you don't mind changing colors on you. It's more of a pocket stone. Then for sound, I love my “love tuner”, it is a finely tuned flute to the resonance of loving compassion. And it's so easy to use and it's and so that would be if you don't have some of the other sound making. If the audience doesn't have some other sound making tools, the love tuner is a relatively inexpensive, finely tuned instrument to the vibration of loving compassion.
● I just wanted to say that if it's tuned to love and compassion, that means that it's tuned to the heart chakra, which means that it probably has the same resonance as the sound of the heart chakra, which is a lovely thing to bring up.
Yes, 528 Hertz to be exact. Right? Beautiful. So let's dive back in… you mentioned using your intuition for different crystals, but you and I are both using a rose quartz for compassion and the heart chakra. What would you recommend to support something like manifesting?
● Sure, so manifesting is really connecting with the Root Chakra. If you think of your seven chakras along the core of your body, the Root Chakra is in the pelvic floor. The Sacral Chakra is in the belly below the belly button. The Solar plexus chakra is in the belly above the belly button, the Heart chakra is in the heart center. And then you have the Throat chakra. The sixth chakra is the Third eye and the center of the forehead. And then the Crown chakra is at the top of the head. And so when you look at the whole
chakra system, there's two ways of engaging with the system. And that is to either move up the chakras or move down the chakras. So if you're moving up the chakras from the root all the way up to the crown. That's called the path of liberation, or also the path of enlightenment. So you're moving from the earth realm, through the chakras to the spirit realm. The opposite would be moving down from the crown chakra to the root chakra, and that's called the path of manifestation because you're moving from the spirit realm where an idea or concept can exist, and you're bringing it down into reality until you reach the earth realm with the Root Chakra. So it's manifesting is about moving the energy down from Spirit to down to earth. So a great couple of stones that would or a couple of crystals that work great with engaging with the Root Chakra would be red stones, like red Jasper would be lovely to use, or a black stone. So for example, black obsidian is a lovely stone to use to connect with the root chakra and with manifesting or Black Tourmaline is also great for grounding and protection, because the root chakra is about grounding and connecting with the earth and connecting with your existence as a physical body on the earth, enjoying being incarnated in this body. And so it's about connecting with the earth realm about feeling safe and secure about knowing who your tribe is, in the literal sense of, you know, connecting with your ancestors, but also in a spiritual sense of knowing who your tribe is, knowing who you resonate with. So by manifesting we bring ideas or concepts from a sort of an ethereal spirit place down into reality, moving them down through the chakras, until we reach the Root Chakra. So certainly, red stones and black stones like black obsidian are one of my favorites.
Yes, great explanation.
· Thank you.
And you mentioned obsidian twice. And I think that part of why you mentioned it twice is because it resonated with me because as a Toltec healer, we use obsidian as one of my modalities. We use obsidian, we use an obsidian sphere, and small chunks of obsidian. And then we actually use an obsidian knife to represent psychic surgery during some of our healing techniques. So obsidian is really powerful. And many, many areas of Mexico. So it's a really big stone. And then red Jasper was the first to come to my mind and out of your mouth as well. So, as we're talking about specific stones or crystals, what would you recommend for creativity? If someone is, you know, wanting to be more creative, they have a special project they're working on? What would you recommend for that?
● Yeah, so creativity is really interesting when we look at creativity from the perspective of the chakras…it's actually helpful to look at two chakras together for creativity. So the second chakra, the sacral chakra, deep in the valley below the belly button, that would be your subconscious creativity, and then moving up your throat chakra would be your expressive creativity. So starting with the sacral chakra, deep in the belly, the subconscious creativity, it's that side of creativity that is joyful and fun, and more about play. And just enjoying having fun with new ideas and new concepts and just birthing new ideas. And that's that side of creativity that is kind of below the conscious level. But that's essential to being able to create something new. And it's also creativity that's connected to emotions, to being able to express your emotions in a way that is loving and healthy. Not overly dramatic, not repressing the emotions. Just a very balanced way of revealing emotions in a way that is sort of sweet and playful. Like you can imagine a child playing and being creative in that play. So connecting with the sacral chakra, a couple of wonderful stones would be a Carnelian that is a beautiful orange stone that
you can use. Also peach quartz, lovely peach quartz. That's beautiful. And I think my favorite is Tiger's eye. I love Tiger's eye that's a great stone to use to connect with the sacral chakra and one thing that I really like about a tiger's eye is that you can use it for both the sacral chakra and the solar plexus chakra it works for both so second and third chakra. So any of those three stones would be awesome to connect with the sacral chakra … So as a yoga teacher, I have to mention that a great way to connect with the second chakra is with hip opening poses, or any kind of hip flexibility. Finding a fluid, water-like movement in the hips is a great way to balance the sacral chakra. And so the sacral chakra is about that subconscious part of creativity, but once you want to express something, you've created it spirit with the world, then you're moving the energy up into the throat chakra which is deep in the throat. And so the throat chakra is all about communication, and expressing truth. And being able to speak your mind in a loving way. You know, it's about being able to speak your mind and express yourself in a way that is loving, that is wise and is full of compassion. non judgmental, just sharing the truth. So connecting with the throat chakra would be blue stones. So lots of favorites. Turquoise is awesome. You can use turquoise, frequently for your blue. You can use turquoise to connect with the chakra. Another favorite is lapis lazuli, which is a beautiful blue stone or blue quartz. Blue quartz is also great for connecting to that part of your self that wants to express itself …wants to share the truth, its truth and the truth with a capital T. So working with both the sacral chakra and the throat chakra is a great way to improve and connect with creativity. Creativity begins in a subconscious way and then gets expressed to the world.
So as a Reiki Master, you talked about adding crystals to your healings so what crystals would you recommend that people take a look at if they're interested in energy healing with crystals
● So with energy healing, we want to connect with the heart chakra or so with the heart chakra which is in the center of the chest, or near the physical heart. And it's our Center for love and compassion, patience, generosity. Not a sentimental kind of love, but rather the larger universal love. And this chakra that connects with love is where we find the healing that is possible through energy through Reiki or other types of energy healing modalities, and also with great crystals and the most common blocks of the heart chakra is not an inability to love others it's an inability to love yourself. And so being able to heal the heart chakra is being able to find a way to feel self-compassion, self-love, self-acceptance, self-forgiveness. generosity towards oneself, is where we start by healing ourselves, which then means we can heal others. And a simple way to connect with the heart chakra is through the breath, by really engaging with the breath and bringing a lot of awareness to the breath, since the lungs are right there, near the physical heart near the heart chakra. And crystals that work great to engage with the heart chakra would be Peridot. Peridot is a beautiful green crystal. That is lovely work with the heart chakra and with seeding out to healing others for the heart chakra for connecting to that sense of sort of universal compassion, universal peace, balancing between caring for ourselves and caring for others radiating love to everyone connecting things to the authentic self. And that sense of forgiveness and self-forgiveness is where we begin when we want to heal ourselves and then others.
I'm so glad that you did talk about starting with self first. That is just priceless. I'm just so glad you started with that. And when we start with ourselves first we, you know, it's important that we raise our vibration and connect with spirits. So do you have some specific crystals that you would recommend for that use?
● Yeah, so as we move through the chakras, we're getting up there into the sixth and the seventh chakra, and connecting to spirits. So looking at the whole chakra system, as I said before we start at the earth, and then we move through the elements. So moving through water, and then fire, and then sound and air…. And then when we get to the sixth chakra, which is the third eye and the center of the forehead, that's the chakra of vision, of being able to see the truth behind the veil intuition of understanding patterns in the universe, understanding who you are, and your place in the universe and your purpose in the universe. So that's the sixth chakra, and the stone, the crystal that connects with the sixth chakra is the amethyst, beautiful purple stone. And yeah, you can hold on to an amethyst stone in your hand. And you can use it during meditation practice, to connect the third eye and engage with that sense of vision and of seeing everything that there is out there. It's also important when we connect the third eye with the sixth chakra, to remember that we need a very solid base underneath it. It's very tempting to just want to skip the other chakras and go straight to the third eye and have visions and have this powerful intuition. But that intuition is not going to be grounded in reality if we don't have the other chakras below them below the sixth chakra solidly grounded into the earth. So that path of manifestation, lowering the energy down to connect with the Root Chakra with the Mother Earth below. In addition to being the energy up through the chakras connecting with spirits above and then if we want to move higher then we go into the crown chakra which is at the top of the head and there is the clear quartz and I mentioned that clear quartz works on all the chakras, which is true. But clear quartz is specifically well suited for the Crown Chakra at the top of the head. And that's the connection to spirit that's about. It's an interesting chakra, because it's about being a very free and open mind. And looking at the world with curiosity, not being stuck in the way things are supposed to be, or in the way that we believe things should be, but opening up to curiosity and just looking at what actually is. And so connecting with a clear quartz holding one in your hand, keeping one in your pocket, holding it during meditation is a great way to connect with the Crown Chakra. Beautiful, beautiful, thank you for mentioning also that the temptation to stay up there in that third eye and crown chakra, it is very tempting, especially when I first was learning energy healing techniques…. I'd be tempted to stay in that beautiful area of pretty much fantasy if I was led to. So I'm glad you mentioned that we need to be grounded, we need to have a base for that. And I can joke about it now, because I think it's important to do that.
● Yeah, it's important to remember that we're human beings on earth. And we're here to love others and to love the earth and to love ourselves. And we can't do that if we're constantly up in the spirit realm. And so it's important to bring the energy back down and be able to move the energy up and down so that we can help others around us. We can be loving, we can take care of the people that rely on us. And that's just an important part of the whole spiritual journey.
Absolutely… So I know you have an exciting offer for our audience. And we'll have all your contact information on the show notes page. But will you talk a little bit about that before we round out our interview today?
● I'd love to. So yeah, I have a little chakra quiz, which is super fun. It's a PDF. It's a one Sheet worksheet. And it's a way to connect with each of your chakras and get advice from your chakras. So your chakras, look at the world and look at whatever situation you're facing, from different perspectives, different points of view, and being able to engage with each of your chakras and find out how they're looking at whatever situation you're facing can be really helpful, really insightful. So the way this little chakra quiz works is … I would suggest that you reserve 10 minutes of quiet time where you're not going to be disturbed. Find a nice, quiet place. Take a few deep breaths to center yourself and ground yourself. And then at the top of the page, you'll write down your question, whatever it is that you're concerned about what you're debating about right now in your life. And then the worksheet takes you through each of the chakras, starting with the Root Chakra, and asks you a very specific prompt, inviting you to answer your question from the perspective of that chakra. And so you can go through each of them. And when you've done all seven answers from the perspective of all seven chakras, you're going to see some really interesting patterns emerge, and you're going to get very interesting or, and then you'll get a very insightful response to your question with lots of different points of view, all from your own wisdom or from your own higher spirit. Awareness. So that's the chakra quiz... it's called “answers from your chakras”. And then the other thing is, I have a chakra balancing course, which is coming soon using yoga, meditation and Reiki. So as I said, I love to bring those three healing modalities together. And in this course, we will bring all of them together. So we will dedicate one week to each of the chakra, and then an eighth week for the whole chakra system. And there will be a little yoga, they'll be a little meditation, there'll be Reiki energy, healing, we'll go we'll dive deep into each chakra looking at how they they're looking at their purpose, their function, how to tell if a chakra is in balance, out of balance, if it's out of balance, is it excessive or deficient? Just a really deep dive into the chakra system, and into how you can balance your chakras yourself, and how you can keep your chakra system aligned and balanced by yourself without needing the help of no nevermind that how you can balance your whole chakra system and keep it all aligned through these really beautiful healing modalities. And of course, I'll bring in lots of crystals as well. And we'll talk about using crystals in your yoga practice in your meditation practice. And with Reiki.
Ah, awesome. So would you recommend both of these for beginners?
● The chakra quiz is awesome for beginners, that's a really great way to engage with the chakras and start to connect with them and understand how they work and how they appear to express themselves in your everyday life. The chakra course is for anybody who's interested in learning about the chakras in a deeper way, really going deep and connected with each one. It's an eight-week course, where we're going to do a lot of really strong energy work. So it's, it's perfectly fine. For beginners. The Yoga we're going to do is extremely gentle, and absolutely accessible to anyone. But it's for somebody who's really interested in going deep and learning about the chakras in a really profound way.
Thank you. Thank you so much for explaining that. I know I'm going to do “the answer from your chakras” right away. For sure. So, this was just a wonderful time together and I'm a little hesitant to bring this to an end but is there anything else that you feel you want to share with our audience before we go?
● No, this was lovely. I'm passionate about yoga and meditation and the chakras and crystals and so I could talk about this stuff for hours and hours. I think the chakras are a very interesting energy system that offer us a map of how our spiritual path or spiritual practice can work. So the chakra system is not like a GPS where it tells you where you are, you tell it where you want to go and it shows you the path. The chakra system is like a paper map on a table and you have to figure out where you are on the map, which chakras are in balance with chakras are out of balance, and are they out of balance just because of some minor thing that happened today, or is a chakra out of balance because of a pattern that's been in your life since you can remember because of things that have happened and and then you know that you want to get all your chakras in balance. So you figure out your own way on how to get there. And there's lots of different tools and lots of different help that you can get lots of different modalities that you can use to do that. It's such a personal path that has to be personal for yourself on your own path.
Yes, I'm glad you mentioned that it's a personal path. So we're going to conclude I just want to thank you so much for spending all this time with us today. We got some real quality information. I hope that our listeners will take notes on all those different crystals and I know I I resonated with all the different crystals that you mentioned and I have them around my house so I hope that people who are interested in raising their energy and getting to know more about their chakras will get in touch with you so thank you so much for being here today!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai