"Healing isn't for the faint of heart." These words are an intriguing, if not foreboding, hook on Carley Johnson's website. The Ontario, Canada,-based intuitive healer is a powerful figure and steadfast spokesperson within the Canadian "alternative healing" space. She ditched her life in social services in the middle of the pandemic, and charted a professional path that now has her seeing clients for healing sessions that include reiki, mindfulness, coaching, and mentorship.
Carley opened up to tell us about how her own healing nudged her into the work of intuition, energy, and what she does to cultivate moods that help her to help others.
What is intuitive healing, reiki, and and how did you get into this work?
Reiki is what started me on this path so let’s start there. Reiki is a Japanese healing modality that means “life force energy.” It includes using hands on or hands off healing that channels pure loving energy into the client’s body or energy field. I was sobbing in my naturopath’s office during a rock bottom phase of my life (being an anxious perfectionist finally led me to therapy where childhood trauma became the focus) when she said, “I just had coffee with a reiki practitioner…maybe that could help you?”
I called this healer and when she answered she said, “I usually don’t answer the phone between sessions, but I had a feeling I needed to. Can you come Friday?” Two days later I was sitting in her log home (crying, obvs) starting my healing journey. On our third or fourth session she said to me, “have you ever thought of becoming a reiki practitioner?” I asked her if she said this to all her clients and she said, “No. Just the ones who are supposed to do it.”
After that initial training it took me a year to actually use it. It wasn’t until training number 2 found me that I felt really called to start practicing. After my very first reiki client left my home, I fell to my knees and cried. I said, aloud, “I would be honoured to do that for the rest of my life.”
Slowly reiki evolved into more. I use the foundations of reiki but I have morphed it into something that fits who I am. In sessions I use mindfulness, meditation, humour, intuition, yogic and Buddhist philosophy, and a little sprinkle of mediumship to figure out what stories the client is holding on to so we can let them go. Animal spirits come in regularly to help me understand what’s going on. Sometimes their presence alone will give me information, sometimes the animal will work on certain areas of the body or “chakras” to clear stuck energy. I am just the helper of the spirits that walk with you. I am an apprentice. I create intentional space for whatever needs to come through to be healed and I help it along.
I used to think the intuitive messages I received were weird and I would resist them. In one session, in my first year of practice, a voice said to me, “smear her with orange”. I was like, “nah, that’s crazy,” but then I felt this sense of freedom. I realized no one is watching me, no one is judging me, why not just try it? So, I did. I imagined smearing her with orange paint and I imagined my heart opening and sending her love. Within a few seconds the woman on my table burst into tears. Something just happened. I stopped questioning my intuition after that. Now, magic happens every time.
Wow. That is powerful.
Unlike many mental and spiritual wellness professionals, you speak openly about your own healing work. What does it mean to heal yourself while helping others?
If you’re not healing yourself, you’re not healing others. I’ve learned that I can only love you to the capacity that I love myself. I can only hold space for your emotions to the capacity that I’ve held space for my own. The extent that I help myself is the extent to which I can help you. I can’t truly go into the depths of your anxiety if I don’t have the courage to visit my own. I see my own healing as a gift to humanity. I believe that whatever I work on in myself ripples out to the collective consciousness to lessen the work needed to be done by others.
A healing and healthy version of me shows you the possibilities for you. I believe healers have been sent to “go first.” All humans must face darkness…a healer is the one that says, “I’ll go first and forge a path” knowing that your healing will help others. When I see others using the path that I created, it heals parts of me that tell me I’m worthless or limited or lacking. Healing is never one-sided. It’s always reciprocal and for the highest good.
What brings you joy in life?
Joy is in ordinary things. In the way the sun shines through oak leaves, hearing my son’s voice say “mommy?,” watching a bird carry something in its beak, hearing the door open when my husband comes home, seeing strangers laugh together. We are inundated with messages in our society that tell us joy is in acquiring “stuff.” Stuff temporarily soothes insecurity and fear. Joy has nothing to do with acquiring more and everything to do with allowing what’s already here.
What makes you feel safe or like you belong?
A women’s circle. Hearing women talk about their fears and worries while also sharing compassion and love for yours is transformational. There is nowhere else I can speak with a shaky voice, through tears and insecurities, and be loved unconditionally because of it.
What are some small ways you take care of your well-being?
CONNECTION – I’ve learned that if I feel like shit, I have to share it with someone.
CREATION – Whether it’s social media posts, workshops, writing, handouts, courses, or planning my future healing center; creating something always brings me back to my centre.
LEARNING – Reading books, listening to podcasts, taking courses: whatever helps give me the bigger picture of life (and to remind me not to take everything personally) keeps me grounded.
YOGA – In my 20s I wrote a bucket list and one of the items was, “be a yogi.” I didn’t even know what that meant. Now I know.
What is the one small thing you do that always turns your mood around?
Buying clothes! Just kidding ;) Being with trees. I am a different person coming out of the forest than I was going in.
The thing that brought unexpected peace in your life was/is…
Well, since peace doesn’t come without chaos, every single challenge I have ever had (and will ever have) was an unexpected trojan horse of peace.
You feel sexiest when…
When I’m wearing my lululemon bodysuit. It could be the feeling of me radiating sexiness or my husband’s drooling, but either way, I feel like a goddess in it!
You feel most inspired and powerful when…
I’m leading a group. Leading is the craziest mix of anxiety and alignment for me. My brain is all like, “Oh fuck no. You’re going to humiliate yourself and screw everything up” and my heart is like, “IT’S GO TIME!” Since I’m in the business of following my heart, I just keep doing it.
Also, writing. When I’m writing I lose time. When the words I’ve placed together have the power to make me tear up, I know I’m a vessel for the Divine.
If you could give your 20 year old self advice, you would say…
You’re not who you think you are. You’re so much more. Also, that darkness in you is fertile soil.
Other than your family and friends, the mark you hope to leave behind as your legacy is…
To level up humanity by helping people figure out how to open their hearts…first to themselves, then to others.
Favourite thing that boosts your mood, right now?
Not a product per se, but my daughter’s baking or when she makes gifts. Her making things is pure love in action.
You can continue to follow Carley's work and life - including a forthcoming book - on her website or on instagram.
Stay connected for a future video interview with Carley, and hear more about how she continues to live authentically in her work with intuitive healing, wellness, womanhood, sex, love, life, and everyday moods.