As a Healing Touch (HT) and Healing Touch for Animals (HTA) practitioner, people often ask me, what is energy work and how can it benefit me and my animals? Is it like reiki? Or a special massage technique? We will dive deep into these answers below, but first, let me tell you a little about myself and how I got here.

As we step into the new year, many of us are filled with intentions and resolutions, be it personal wellness, professional goals, or nurturing relationships. While grand plans are commendable, let's not forget the smaller, yet transformational steps of internal work and emotional intelligence.

My new book, Attunement: Six Practices to Connect to the Powerful Leader Inside is a practice and reflection guidebook that helps reconnect you to your inner wisdom. Through the simple steps, along with fifty-two weekly reflection blogs and questions, Attunement’s practices connect you back to your core values and purpose, supercharging your ability for health and success.

Although she’s been responsible with her health and attended all suggested doctor’s visits throughout her life, last fall, Robin Hutchinson felt an intuitive hit to start seeing Dr. Charlie at All Ages Osteopathy. It was like her body knew something was happening, or about to happen, because shortly after her first appointment, Robin learned she had stage 1, level 1 breast cancer.

Eating seasonally and locally is the secret to a clean, nutrient-dense diet. At All Ages Osteopathy, we believe a lot of the diseases and ailments people suffer from are due to poor nutrition.

The dietary principles that my family follows, and that I recommend to my patients at All Ages Osteopathy, is steeped in ancestral principles. Instead of relying on any trend diet or chic food products, I start by asking myself, ‘was this food around 100 years ago?’ If the answer is no, then I don’t eat it. Because our ancestors had significantly less chronic disease, I believe that looking to the past has the answers of what we should be putting into our bodies today. Our ancestors ate seasonally, locally, and whole (non-processed) foods. They didn’t pasteurize their dairy products and they ate the entire animal, not just muscle meat, but organ meat too. They relied heavily on fermented foods for preservation and gut health. They took care to make their grains more digestible by soaking them first.

The people who live in Jackson Hole have an elevated sense of well-being thanks to easy access to clean air, vistas, and forest bathing, but Veronica Schreibeis of Vera Iconica Architecture has taken this health-full lifestyle one step higher with wellness architecture. Her designs are beautifully in alignment with the principle of osteopathy: structure and function are reciprocally interrelated.

Water plays a deeply mystical role in the human story, and in the story of the universe itself. It has been told in many creation stories that water was God’s first manifestation — in the ever-expanding quest to understand Itself. Water was created to be the living reflection, and the memory bank of the entire universe that is otherwise known as the Akashic Ocean. To deepen our relationship to water, is to deepen our contemplation of self.

At All Ages Osteopathy, we believe that to maintain health, we must live in tune with the rhythms of nature. Our energetic frequencies are greatly affected by the available light and the current temperatures. It’s still winter! Here in Jackson Hole, the sun doesn’t rise until nearly 8am and sets just after 5pm so although a lot of media we consume revolves around setting and achieving goals, it’s still the time of year to integrate experiences from 2022 and to prioritize rest in anticipation of spring. While all other living plants and animals enter some form of hibernation during this time of year, society has sought to normalize activity levels being consistent throughout the year with unrealistic expectations such as New Year’s Resolutions.

The winter solstice, the longest night of the year in the northern hemisphere, is nature’s pivotal point to move from the depth of darkness to the reemergence of light. (It is no coincidence that the celebration of the birth of Christ (who represents light) coincides with this holiday.) For those who honor the earth’s true cycles, it represents rebirth. A new beginning. A new year. To engage fully in this initiation is to honor the light and the dark, the space between. To fully empty one’s cup, lie bare, void of external chaos even for a conscious moment, is the space in which light and new life reignite.

“But in all seriousness, our financial health plays a pivotal role in our general health since it contributes greatly to our overall sense of wellbeing. It’s not just about working harder to get ahead, but instead creating a plan that is sustainable over time, hoping to minimize stress and increase one’s time, either now or later in life, to be able to spend it how they find joy and connection. “

Over the last few years, I’ve had the intention of getting involved with Slow Food in the Tetons, or at the very least, shopping at their Thursday Farm Stand, but life got in the way…

Red Desert Trip with John and American Wilderness Botanicals by Heather Matthews

Dr. Charlie’s go-to local farmer.