Curious Mind Grapes
Curious Mind Grapes is a podcast where we explore all the strange, wondrous, interconnected things in life. In each episode, sometimes with guests, we explore topics like psychology, health, energy medicine, science, pop culture, and so much more.
Curious Mind Grapes
Across Energy Healing Modalities: An Interview with Vanessa Ferragut
What do Reiki, sound baths, animal communication, and QHHT all have in common? In this episode we chat with our guest, Vanessa Ferragut, an experienced Reiki Master Teacher, about the art and science of Reiki, Animal Communication, Sound Baths, and Quantum Hypnosis Healing Technique. Join us for a conversation about the possibilities that unfold when we tap into the energy that connects us all.
Show Resources
Vanessa’s website http://reikinessdc.com/
Vanessa’s upcoming Group Sound Bath events: April 17, 2024 and May 8, 2024 at Sacred Circle, Alexandria, VA. Tickets are $55 per person and can be purchased by calling Sacred Circle at 703-299-9309. https://sacredcirclebooks.com/
International Center for Reiki Training https://www.reiki.org/
Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique https://www.qhhtofficial.com/
Visit us on Instagram @curiousmindgrapes_podcast!
Feel free to share your questions or episode requests. Thank you for listening!
Welcome to curious mind grapes with your hosts Mary and Christine.
Speaker 1:Hi Vanessa, hi Vanessa.
Speaker 2:Hello.
Speaker 1:We're so happy they could join us. You're our second guest ever, so we're really excited to talk to you and we can't wait to hear about your work in energy healing, quantum healing, hypnosis and animal communication.
Speaker 3:Thank you, I'm very excited to be here today too.
Speaker 1:Great. So can you tell us a little bit about what you do in a nutshell, before we start getting into the details?
Speaker 3:Sure. So I am a Reiki master. I'm a level one sound healer, animal communicator and currently apprenticing in quantum healing, hypnosis technique, and I've been doing the quantum healing since for about three months, two months now, animal communication for about a year, sound healing for about a year and a half and Reiki I've been doing for about 12 years now.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, and so you said you're a Reiki master. Yes, yeah, so what system? I know there are a lot of different systems of Reiki, and you and I were trained in the same lineage, as they call it, which was brought to the US in 1938 by a woman from Japan who learned from the original Dr Usui After him, though, usui Reiki method is named. So, yeah, so can you tell us a little bit more about that, like share with the listeners what makes what's different about Usui, what its distinguishing characteristics are, what drew you to it?
Speaker 3:Well, I'll start at the, I guess, the beginning. I grew up in a household my mom was Catholic, my dad practiced a belief system called Ekkonkar and I remember, you know, they were constantly butting heads. They were, you know, they just didn't believe in the same things. My dad was a lot more spiritual, my mom was a lot more religious. My dad used to say to me he said, vanessa, don't believe anything. The Catholic church tells you Jesus was a humble Jewish man with the gift of Reiki. And this is when I was like eight or nine years old, right. So I immediately, growing up, I knew I knew what Reiki was. You put your hands on somebody, they miraculously get healed. And then over my life I actually had gone to two psychics and it kind of happened very quickly, one after the other, I think one was in New Orleans and the other one was here in Georgetown, and both had told me that I have a very healing quality to me. Do they, you know? They said, do your friends ever call you, get you on the phone and next thing you know, like with problems, and next thing you know, you get off that phone and their problems are healed. But you feel heavier. And I was like, yeah, that goes a time. That's the story of my life throughout high school and college and even my adulthood here. And she told me you have a healing, you have a healing quality to you, but you're an empath, so you're going to a lot of this. You're going to draw into yourself, but it's because you're, you might be taking things off of other people. So I looked into it, so I really started to get interested in it and then one day I was in a yoga class and you know, sometimes the instructors at the beginning of the yoga class have some announcements. And she did make an announcement that she's going to be doing a level one Reiki training coming up in a few weekends. And and I was very excited I was like, oh, I'm going to totally talk to her after class. And after, at the end of class, when she walked around, some of the sometimes teachers like put their hands on you and she told me immediately she's like I just picked up something from you, like you were just like electric, like static, which she got off my head. And so that weekend in class that I was 35 years old this was almost 12 years ago and I remember it so clearly because even though I I I'm a believer in a lot of these things, sometimes you still need to see it to believe it. And it wasn't until I was holding that crystal over somebody and the crystal felt like it was actually pulling down, like the like the crystal had a weight on it, like it was pulling down and moving. That I felt like, oh, my God, this is real, I can touch it, I can see it. And that was a weekend class for level Reiki one, friday, saturday, sunday.
Speaker 3:And I used to be a smoker and I was a smoker for 16 years and I would try to quit while butron, the patch, nicotine, whatever, and I'd quit for six months or eight months or maybe a year. But every time I went back again and I don't know what happened. But Three days after I got my level one attunement, I just could not pick up a cigarette. I Tried and I tried and I thought, oh, maybe it's something in the coffee or the drink I'm drinking or maybe, and I just never picked up a cigarette again. And he was the strangest thing.
Speaker 3:And when I was going to my acupuncturist he told me that, um, he said, you know some people who are gifted with the gifts of breakie, who are actually tuned to it and are meant to Be doing that.
Speaker 3:Their bodies won't allow them to have toxins.
Speaker 3:Their bodies, their higher conscious mind kind of Dips in and goes no, no, we need her to be as healthy and as strong as possible because she's going to be responsible for the energy that other people get. So, without getting too mushy, I sometimes sort of credit Reiki to me quitting smoking and possibly adding like 20 years to my life. No, nothing against people out there who are smokers, who smoke cigarettes, you know, but I'm kind of grateful for that. So, and the a sui system of Reiki is a very well-known one. There are other ones out there I'm holy fire Other ones that have been developed since then, but I feel like the a sui one is very traditional. You know, when it comes to the, the symbols that we we are taught, the weight we are taught, the way we are tuned, I just I felt like that resonated more with me and I have not pursued any of the other Reiki's, but that's not to say that I haven't pursued other healing modalities, such as sound healing and such, to complement my Reiki practice.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks. Thank you for sharing that, and that is amazing the story about Not being able to touch a cigarette after that. There is definitely something that shifts in our bodies when we're attuned to Reiki, but that's one of the most tangible shifts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it makes sense.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so what? What types of clients do you like working with when you do Reiki or where his clients are drawn to you?
Speaker 3:I you know, they really run the gamut. I feel like I get a lot of. I Get a lot of non-believers who are just friends with me and they like me and they, you know, and they think, oh, I trust Vanessa. She can't be making this up like, let me see what this is about. If Vanessa is working on this, then maybe I should, I should try it out. So I get a lot of those folks, you know. I get a lot of people who just I Can't help but notice.
Speaker 3:But the world is really stressed all the time, and it's not just right now, it wasn't just like pre-covid or during COVID, it's been for a while now. We all take on so much and I think understanding what Reiki is, the Reiki, the and what it is, is technically just reducing stress in the body by moving energy around. Like, if you Google the term or the definition of Reiki, that is what it is and that is what I tell my clients, my patients, is we're just gonna move some energy around and that's gonna make you feel a lot better and it might come with it some with some physical healing as well too. But a lot of the time they get off that table and they're like wow, it's like a nap I needed.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so you mentioned the relaxation of. What other kinds of if anything, what other kinds of benefits have your clients talked about or noticed?
Speaker 3:So I Think it's also just kind of getting off from that table and even though we tell you to Leave all your worries and problems at the door and this happens a lot when you meditate as well too Like just empty out that brain, just empty out that brain, just empty out that brain, and then all of a sudden, all the new ideas and new solutions Come up. I had one client I just did a Distance Reiki session with who she was pregnant, it's her first child and she was really, really, really stressed about it and I could just immediately, immediately, just I can feel that in her solar Plexus. So if we're talking about the chakras, right, the solar plexus is the area where we, where we hold our fear, we hold our ego, we hold our pride, but it's also our center of courage, right. So sometimes it's a matter of just moving the fear out to make room for the courage. And for her, she just kind of needed to know and it was weird. I got like a little sort of message from the baby there saying like mom, you're fine, you got this, you know, and I think she needed to hear that and and yeah, and it was a really beautiful thing and I think they just it just took a weight off of her.
Speaker 3:You know, I think a lot of the time for my pregnant patients I probably worked about on four or five pregnant patients and every time they come in there is a stress. It's more than just physical, right, it's just it's, it's a load that they're carrying, not you know, you know literally, of course, but but it's also just what is what comes next? What? What am I supposed to do next? And sometimes just letting them know that, hey, we move this and it's Energy is never stuck. That's one thing I have to explain to people too. Sometimes, like energy is not like energy is moving, it's just moving at a different rate or frequency, or Candace, candace, that it, it, it needs to move a little faster or a little slower. And so we work on that of other Things that people have walked away from.
Speaker 3:Working with them, even doing Reiki, while it's very quiet, sometimes I actually walk them through a visualization like a grounding exercise, allowing, letting go of what does not serve you so that you can make space in for you in your life for what does so let's clear out all that clutter and let's, let's allow yourself to be open and available for all these new opportunities. So then, working a lot with, like, the root chakra moving, like really pulling that energy out into the earth, sitting at their third eye and just like allowing. You know, a lot of them have said to me too it's like, oh, when you were at my eye, of my third eye, like all of a sudden my eyes were closed but everything got brighter. You know, and it's Scientifically, they can probably. You know, it's really hard to explain, but when they, when your eyes are closed and you're seeing colors or things are happening that you can't explain, just go with it. Just go with it. It's, it's, it's there for a reason. You're here for a reason and you're here with me today for a reason.
Speaker 1:That's very cool. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. That's really amazing, really fascinating. Especially, you mentioned messages. I know we all tend to get messages when we're doing reiki and those can come in the forms of images or words or colors, as you said. I love that you were able to communicate with the baby. Yeah, just that's just really beautiful.
Speaker 2:I know you also do animal communication. I'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit about that. How did you develop your ability to communicate with animals?
Speaker 3:First of all, we all have the ability. Let me just start there and let you know that nobody is just born with it. We all have the ability. The way I was taught really interesting. Think of it as three different minds. You have your unconscious mind that we're in from about in vitro until six, seven or eight years old right, when that conscious mind then starts to develop and that conscious mind is actually there for a reason. Then you have your higher conscious mind. When we meditate, who are we trying to talk to? Who are we trying to connect with? Who are we trying to get guidance and love from? Is our higher conscious mind? Think of it as three different minds. The animal communication practice I went through just on these three minds. It's a Huna H-U-N-A Huna practice technique. The way she explained it was beautiful.
Speaker 3:When we are from the time we're in vitro till we're about six, seven or eight years old, we're in the unconscious mind. At that point we think we're Superman, we can jump off the roof. We think running out into traffic is a great idea to go after that ball. It's not until we get put on us these limiting beliefs, religion we're introduced to right and wrong, yes and no morals, that our conscious mind starts to take over and puts us on a path to make sure that we don't run out into traffic anymore and that we don't jump off of a roof because we think we're Superman. The conscious mind takes over. The conscious mind is there until the day we die. The conscious mind makes sure that we go to college school, that we get good grades, that we're making the money, that we're paying the bills, that we're driving the car. Everything is. The conscious mind is there for a reason, but we lose a lot of what I call the clairs. We have our clairvoyance, which is that third eye, our clairaudience, which is our hearing, our claircentcience, which is anything we touch with our hands, and the claircognizance, which is all-knowing. There's a few other clairs too that have to do with taste and other sensations, but those four are the ones that we are developing.
Speaker 3:When we're talking to animals, we're opening up all of these ways that they can come in and out of us, believe it or not. When you're doing Reiki, these are open as well too. I've picked up images and symbols and words and phrases. When I'm working with my clients as well. I thought if I can do it with a human being who's in their conscious mind. Of course, I can probably do it with an animal.
Speaker 3:The thing with animals is that they are always in the unconscious mind. They never graduate to the conscious mind. They don't have to pay the mortgage. They don't have to learn how to drive a car. They always think it's a great idea to run out into traffic. It's a beautiful thing. But the thing about that is that they can easily communicate Using a technique I learned.
Speaker 3:Most of the time, you've got to get yourself down into, like using meditation, to get yourself into like a trance state, a very relaxed state, to communicate and open up the lines of communications with the animal. Then you just start sending you pictures or images or words, sensations, tastes oh my gosh. I can't tell you how many end of life sessions I do for my clients. It's like the dogs always want bacon. They're like my last meal. I want that to be bacon. I taste it, I'll taste it. In my mouth it tastes something super savory or salty and the owner will be able to immediately know exactly what I'm talking about. It's kind of interesting. It's beautiful. Our dogs and our cats and our horses I've done a snake as well too they know a lot. They're just sometimes waiting, sitting back and just waiting for you to ask them what do you think of this?
Speaker 2:What do you think some of the benefits of animal communication are for the pet owners? I think that.
Speaker 3:If you could ask your best friend in the world anything at all and have the man, sir, like I think that in of itself it's just like such a treat. I know when I first started learning animal communication, I was hiring somebody to do animal communication and I tell you what, after I did like a session for my dog, luna, I would look at her and I'm like I get you, like I get you now, I understand everything about you now and it brought us closer, like that bond between human and animal just became so much tighter. I think it also like I do a lot of over the rainbow reading.
Speaker 3:So the another thing about the unconscious mind is they're still here and they can still communicate even after they've crossed the rainbow bridge. They're still around for a while and, believe it or not, because of that beautiful unconscious mind they can be reincarnated over and over and over again and some, some clients have actually had their dogs come back to them. You know, a dog from a cat from a childhood is now a dog from this light, you know, in her adulthood, late at her adult life. So I think it it adds everything. It gives you the communication you need and it questions that you had that you needed answered, the closure that you need when you say goodbye to your best friend like I think that really really just it helps us. It helps be more sensitive to our pets as well, too.
Speaker 2:It sounds like amazing work. Mm-hmm, can you share an example with us of a a session you had Were you used animal communication?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So there was this one Client and she was really upset, her her best friend had passed away and he had had cancer for a few years and I, just I immediately connected with him like he was over the rainbow. So sometimes if they've been gone for a while, a few years, it's a little like it's not harder, but it just takes a little bit little longer for them to kind of come back or get connected to them. But he was like boom right there. And he was boom right there because he's still literally at her side, he did not leak, he has not left her side.
Speaker 3:And he Immediately started sending me pictures of burgundy, everything burgundy, beautiful color, burgundy, and and she was like his bed was burgundy, the, the blanket he laid on on our bed, like for him because he shed, was burgundy, like ever so many things that he had, like one of his coats was burgundy, you know. So that immediately clipped and and I, I did, and and I got a very strong visual of a bird and I was like what, I don't know why he's sending me a bird, but it's like a beautiful bird, like a hawk or something like a regal, beautiful animal right that we, that we're in awe of and respect. And she's like this is so crazy. You're saying this because every she still walks down the path that they used to walk together. She's like, and I, if I'm always finding feathers and it's like I can't stop looking at seeing these feathers. And she's like and I'd, she's like it only started happening after he died. She's like, and now I have over 19 feathers like fully intact, beautiful feathers that she might want to make into pens or something or quills.
Speaker 3:But I just I just thought that was Really interesting that he sent me this image of a bird and he wants to come back as a bird. It's what he pretty much told me and I think in his past life he's been a bird, but he, what he was trying to tell his mom, was like to share this with him. I'm gonna come back as a bird, like just a bird, a bird. And he wanted her to know because he was so excited what, what he'd chosen for his next path that he wanted to let her know. But he was still close to her, so he was kind of giving her some little hints that, um, even when I come back as a bird, I'm gonna still keep an eye out for you.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to two.
Speaker 1:She's the only. Check out our show notes for links to more information about topics we discussed today beautiful book.
Speaker 3:She states that there are these animal soul contracts that before you are ever born and before your dog is ever born, you two agree in the astral plane You're gonna come into my life and you're gonna serve this purpose. We've got this soul contract and soul contracts can be anything from physical soul contracts, like if my leg hurts, luna's leg hurts Right. Like if I got belly problem, lucy's got a belly problem Lucy and Luna are my dogs, by the way, you know. So like a lot of physical Soul contracts, emotional soul contracts that they're did there to help, kind of help you heal something.
Speaker 3:But she had what was called the pinnacle soul contract, which I've not had with any other client since then and I've done over 50 animal communications and that was really interesting to me because he just seemed like a very elevated being, you know, like these. He was a dog, he was a like a greyhound, like a big, big type of greyhound looking dog. But he just was a smart boy and he was very wise, very, very wise, and I Just it didn't surprise me that she got the pinnacle contract when I asked him.
Speaker 2:It's really beautiful yeah.
Speaker 3:I.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of pet owners do Do sense that their dogs or pets spirit is still with them. But when they get that confirmation Evidence things like the burgundy I think it could bring a lot of peace yeah it does and it just um Because there are just.
Speaker 3:These Pets are in our lives for such a short time and so unfair, right, but they make this huge impact on us that we always hope that they come back, or that we hope that they stick around and we hope that they show up in our dreams, you know, and more often than not, they, they do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, readings can be really healing, uh-huh.
Speaker 1:So, vanessa, before you were mentioning how you need to get into a relaxed state, almost a hypnotic state, to be able to communicate effectively with animals. So that reminded me of the other technique that you just mentioned earlier in your introduction, which is quantum healing hypnosis, and I'm wondering how that relates to that idea of trans states or traditional hypnosis. Yeah, so could you tell us a little bit more about what that is, what it entails?
Speaker 3:Sure. So quantum healing hypnosis is if you've heard of a woman named Dolores Cannon she sort of coined the term and it's when we walk around all day long, we're in our beta or brain waves. The brain waves are many people, most people know about these. Right, when we're awake and we're talking right now, moving about our day, going to work, eating, sleeping, showering or eating, running, showering we're in beta brain waves. When you are relaxed and you're in that meditative state, you are in alpha brain waves. So that just means that the brain waves are slowing down. Right before you go into sleep, you are in theta theta brain brain waves. And when you are in deep sleep, like we're out cold, we're in delta. A lot of healing takes place during that theta and delta stages, and quantum healing hypnosis has been known to take people down into a deep, deep, deep meditative state that they can get into a different realm, so to speak. So the technique that she uses, the first part of the hypnosis session, is actually a past life regression. We're going to take you into a past life, we are going to explore that past life and we are going to understand how that past life relates to us now and then after that past life and we take you through the entire life. So we forward you along to other memorable days in that life and then I do take you through the death sequence of that life and then we bring in your higher conscious mind. So this is, you know, can the full awareness of Vanessa come in? Can we please talk to her higher conscious mind? And this is a cool part, because this part is not going to lie to you. This part is going to tell you the absolute truth and you can ask it any question, right? And then I have questions that my clients usually ask in my on the right career path and can I make more money doing this? And why do I have this? Why is this wrong with me? Or why do I hate my brother so much? You know like they're, and so it answers things along the way and I've had it done to me.
Speaker 3:I've had another past life regression done in the past. That wasn't as deep, but when I had it done recently to me it was eye opening. I, it turned out, my dog Luna, was my horse in that past life and it was just so beautiful. And there were an instance where I was, I was sick, I had stomach cancer in that life and in this life I've got issues with my tummy, you know, and I've never understood that ever since I was little, you know, we had to go to like children's.
Speaker 3:I remember children's hospital in Washington DC when I lived in Maryland. I was like six, seven, eight years old and they had no idea what was wrong with my stomach and to this day I still have issues and it turned out I had stomach cancer. So just kind of kind of bringing like an awareness of something that happened in the past life that might be impacting you. And I will tell you, ever since I had the quantum healing hypnosis done, issues with my stomach have dramatically improved. They have not gone away. This is not going to cure cancer, as some people think it does, but it brings a sort of conscious awareness to something, to a reason why your body is, or your mind is or you are the way you are in this life, and it's kind of cool to also find out who you were back then too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, CAN abilities, bisa camper дать. So it sounds like you've delved into a lot of different aspects of really kind of similar things. I mean, at its core, it's all about kind of tapping into this knowledge, these senses that we all have within us. As you said, everybody can do these things, but the techniques you've learned has allowed you to get back to that. So another thing all of these techniques have in common is just finding yourself or bringing other people into a different state of consciousness or being, and that reminds me you mentioned in the beginning that you've been conducting sound baths.
Speaker 2:Do you have any sound bath events?
Speaker 3:coming up? Yeah, I do. I'm working right now with Sacred Circle in Old Town, alexandria. We have I'm doing a Wellness Wednesdays once a month March, april and May and it's a small group and I wanted to keep it a small group, five to six people, so that I could move around. And we're doing the sound bath, talking a little bit about the science and then bringing the modality of sound healing directly to the person, the people out as they lay down too. And then we have another in April, a croning ceremony, which I just found out what this is. I've never heard of one before, but we women go through three phases the girl, the maiden and the old. Crone Croning ceremony is a sort of welcome to menopause party. So I'm going to be doing a sound bath for a group there, a private sound bath for them.
Speaker 1:Very cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I love that we're beginning to create these rites of passage for all the different age groups and acknowledge the different phases of our lives, our bodies, and that's a beautiful way to celebrate.
Speaker 2:So what advice would you give someone who's interested in exploring energy healing or other holistic modalities as a practitioner?
Speaker 3:You know, I would just allow yourself to be very open. But I always say, start with Reiki, and I feel like Reiki is a really good stepping stone to getting into other healing modalities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that Again. And bringing it all back to Reiki as a starting point makes a lot of sense too, because of what you said earlier. It just kind of makes a shift in us when we're attuned to Reiki. It does something to us almost physiologically.
Speaker 3:I mean I quit smoking. Like how is that that thing Right, but yeah.
Speaker 1:And it will be different for everyone. Like you said, everything it really is the personal experience, like what works for you, and not to measure your experience against anyone else's experience, because it's going to be unique. Yeah, so, yeah. So, vanessa, this has been really great speaking with you. How can people get in contact with you if they want to learn more about what you do?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my website is rakeinessdccom and that's rakei R-E-I-K-I and I'm also. You can also find me on LinkedIn. I'm very, I'm very, google-able. I found out, so yeah.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you'll find. You know where to find me, if you're meant to find me. You know how to find me. You'll know how to find me.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to Curious Mind Grapes. Check out our show notes for more information about the topics we discussed today.
