It’s really a process to find the right healer for your needs. You want to find someone that you can connect with and who will give you support during this transitional time in your life. I’ve always thought of healers as someone you hire to gain clarity, either emotional or physical. There’s an endless amount of modalities to choose from, each practitioner offers their unique thumbprint and personality. On one end of the spectrum, there are practitioners who are medically trained, while on the other, a more spiritual approach.
So exactly how do you find the right healer for you? You can usually find by way of recommendation from friends that have already experienced their expertise. Most often, though, the healer just appears in my life when you need them (funny how life works like that sometimes). If you’re still wondering where to start, I recommend signing up for a workshop or group event to explore what feels right for you.
However, if you’re looking to learn more about healers and all the kinds that are out there, my podcast 7 Directions is centered around conversations with entrepreneurs, makers, and healers of all modalities to discuss the business of wellness and their unique story of who they are and it has allowed me to connect with many healers in NYC, and experience what they provide. Here are four powerful women that I have already connected with that I think you should know.
Nicole Pivirotto
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As an Art Director working with fashion and lifestyle brands for over 10 years, Nicole Pivirotto combines contemporary design and mysticism to create beautifully constructed healing tools. She’s also developed a spiritual practice that involved Reiki, Tarot, Breathwork, and the Akashic Records. Feeling deep nourishment that came from these learnings, she decided to combine both interests in order to have a creative outlet and to use her skills as a designer.
Eventually, Pivoritto founded IrisEyris in 2017 to create products that help promote self-healing and manifestation. The first product she released was the Prism Oracle tarot deck. The deck features nine colors, each with five emotions we culturally attribute. For example, blue cards include emotions like “reflection” and “sadness,” whereas orange indicates “energy” and “happiness.” Even if you’re someone who likes to pull one card versus a spread, it’s really fun to play with.
She has developed other extension products like temporary spell tattoos, helping the wearer manifest energies that come true when the tat washes away. Her latest project is a collaboration with The Shiny Squirrel to create the 2019 Chroma Calendar. Using astrology, color, and ritual, the calendar is meant to give the millennial witch an understanding of shifting energy. This, in turn, supports concrete habits for high vibe manifestation.
Pivoritto explains the core mission of IrisEyris as using color theory (both magical and contemporary psychology) plus symbolism to make it very easy for people to connect to their own psychic abilities. “Part of why I started IrisEyris is to create products that are super approachable and easy to use. Intuition is also very closely related to creativity, which is what makes IrisEyris and it’s products so special to me.” Anyone looking to become more comfortable accessing parts of themselves who are creative, and growing that confidence in addition to their intuitive abilities should work with her.
Susanna Merrick-Klinkbeil
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Susanna Merrick-Klinkbeil has been seeing auras ever since she was a child, noticing a bright glow around her family and friends. It was only when Merrick-Klinkbeil saw her first grey aura that she realized these colors told a story about a person’s well-being. Susanna felt a call to study the elements of colors and their meanings. The more Susanna learned about auras, the more she saw.
As an aura consultant and founder of Aura Wear, she elevates a person’s wardrobe based on her gift of identifying colors one radiates and understanding what’s happening in their energy field. Susanna guides her clients through what each color means and what it conveys when they walk into a room. “I believe our personal self-expression is just a reflection of our aura, we gravitate to different looks depending on our mood. I want to give my clients as much clarity as possible so they can dress innately every single day.”
Merrick-Klinkbeil describes the aura energy often times as a “swoosh”, starting from the heart, traveling over one side of the head, over the crown chakra and flowing to the opposite ear. Regularly there are multiple colors in a person’s aura which also have a tendency to change. During our reading, she described my primary “heart” color as blue which she relates often time with healers, someone being in touch with their emotions. She hopes to pave a path for more healers through her wellness practice, bringing color medicine to the mainstream. “I want to change our relationship with our personal energy by approaching daily style and beauty choices holistically.”
Merrick-Klinkbeil also creates a customized digital aura chart based on the color combination from her client’s readings. This includes rituals to enhance different parts of your life and designers that align with their style mantra. Clients walk away from her sessions with staple pieces to build upon which she can curate from an existing wardrobe or help a client find through new pieces. Susanna also conducts brand consultations, total closet overhauls, and group events.
Maya Keane
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Who knew something as simple as breathing could be a self-care ritual. I didn’t realize the power of Breathwork until I had a session with Maya Keane. Originally hailing from Southern California, Keane was influenced at a young age by health, wellness, and self-improvement. After moving to NYC and feeling burnt out from various office jobs, Keane found breathwork as a way to gain clarity on what she wanted to do next professionally. Eventually, her “ah-ha” moment was realizing to leave her full-time job to become a breathwork healer. “Breathwork has taught me that being sensitive and having a lot of emotions isn’t a problem that has to be fixed, or something scary that we have to push away. Rather, our emotions are what make us human and open us up to a life of deeper connection with ourselves and others”
Breathwork is an active meditation technique that facilitates emotional release. It can change emotional patterns, lifetime history of depression, anxiety and addiction. It can also connect you to your intuition, and open your heart to increased gratitude and self-love. When I met Keane for our first session, I anticipated possible lightheadedness or deep relaxation. I was shocked how much came up for me and attribute it to her strength and ability to hold space.
The session with Keane started by discussing how I was feeling and what was going on with me emotionally. This subconsciously helped my mind send the breath to different parts of my body during our session that needed to release. Keane guided me to a comfortable lying position, where I began a 3-part, fast-paced breathing sequence that I would use for the next 30 minutes. The body sensations ranged from tingling in my hands and feet to want to scream and cry. The session wasn’t painful, I felt as if there were parts of my body that were waking up that had been emotionally closed off.
When the session ended I felt like I was drunk on life, something energetically had shifted and I was totally at ease. People should visit Keane if they are feeling stressed, anxious or stuck somewhere their life. She holds breathwork sessions privately and in groups. Visit her in person in NYC, as well as virtually.
Dr. Aimée Derbes
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Dr. Aimée Derbes is a wonderful healer with a well-rounded approach to her practice. She may recommend acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, healing touch/reiki or breathwork. Possibly a combination of several modalities. “The work I do offers a channel for my endless curiosity; the reason I offer so many modalities at my practice is that when I experience something uniquely therapeutic and helpful, I want to dive into it and understand how it works. I love learning about people’s experiences and everything that brought them here, to be sitting in my office, willing to try something new and probably outside their comfort zone. It’s a humbling privilege and an honor to get to work with people in this way, so I take the trust that they place in me seriously, and I do everything I can to help them along their path.”
My last session with Aimée was a treat because I’d always wanted to try cupping. And no, it didn’t hurt at all! In fact, I felt as if it made me more energized. Aimée started our session with Gua Sha, this is a technique that uses a smooth edge tool to repeatedly stroke on an area of the body. In this instance, the area of focus was my back. This treatment caused stagnant blood and lymph to the surface of my skin, allowing promotion of fresh blood and the production of new cells. Cupping therapy was done next, this an ancient technique of healing performed by applying cups to selected skin points and creating a subatmospheric pressure, either by heat or by suction. Aimée used non-heated suction cups and left them on my skin for about 8-10 minutes. After the cups were removed, I felt like my energetic armor had been lifted. My back holds so much protective energy, and this treatment was a total heart opener.
We ended the session with essential oil placement that created a great cool down effect. Aimée also gave me some ear seeds, which are gold-plated adhesive seeds designed for a self-care ritual. You can place them on at home, no acupuncture license required! She’s also written a book about it called Seed Heal Now which you can order
If this article interest you, subscribe to my podcast on iTunes where you can listen to conversations with all of the healers mentioned plus many more!
