Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Inbal Gonen. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Inbal, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

There are several things that make Calm Nest an outlier in the field of energy medicine. We pride ourselves on the scientifically based modalities we offer, the approachability of our practitioners and the ease of use of our platform.

The Energy Healing Industry is often looked at as the “woo woo” way. Although I understand people’s skepticism, society is finally entering a stage in science that can support many of the modalities used by Energy Healers.
At Calm Nest, we strive to remove the “woo woo” stigma from Energy Healing. The modalities that we offer are those that have been researched. In order to make people feel empowered to choose the modality that is best for them, we educate our clients by sharing what it is that makes each modality unique and effective.

Our practitioners are people that our clients can relate to. They live in cities all over the world and come from a diverse background. Some are parents in the thick of that stage in life while others are focusing on their studies. They come from a diverse set of religious and cultural backgrounds and are the types of people we would all like to have a chat with when we need some support. In addition and very importantly, they are incredibly passionate and talented at their craft.

Lastly, when using Calm Nest. it is easy to book your sessions in real time and then access them from anywhere you have access to the internet. The majority of our sessions take place over zoom.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

They were subtle at first, “what if this happens?”
“what will they think?”
“will I hurt their feelings?”

Slowly through my early teens these questions got bigger and louder. So much so that I was plagued with a debilitating state of anxiety attacks and fears of the world around me. Talk therapy helped, slightly, although the underlying anxiety never fully subsided. In retrospect, fear was the dominant emotion driving many of my life choices throughout my young adulthood.

In college, my roommate and I decided to take a Tai Chi class. The odd slow rhythmic movement was soothing. One day as I sat on the floor in class I suddenly felt as if an elephant was sitting on my shoulders. I was being pushed over and had no way to push back. I opened my eyes to see what was happening. Above me the instructor was hovering his hands a few inches over my shoulders pushing down. He was using energy to physically move me. My mind was blown. Days later he asked several of us to form a line. As he moved his hands and pushed energy through us, I was the last in the line and fell over. Though deeply impacted by the power of that experience, like many young adults I buried it beneath other “more important” things and went on as I had for years before and years after.

I went on in my life as is to be expected my anxiety returned, with a vengeance and with full blown depression. I returned to talk therapy and started medication, both of which saved my life – literally. Though an important and necessary lifeline, I needed more than these traditional approaches were offering me.

I began exploring what else was available to me in the process of healing my body and mind. I experienced a craniosacral massage which is supposed to move the energy through your body. Within minutes of the massage ending, I felt gas exiting my mouth like I was a character in Ghostbusters.

I held crystals, admiring their beauty, and feeling a metal taste in my mouth with certain ones.

My first reiki session blew my mind. I spent the hour feeling as if someone wrapped a corset around my organs, squeezing them as tightly as possible. It felt oddly comforting and detoxing.

When I spoke with my reiki practitioner after the session, she said that she was called to infuse positive energy into each of my cells and that is exactly what it felt like.

A few weeks after my reiki session, I tried a breathwork class. This was a few months after my father was unexpectedly diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. My lower back was aching, and I needed something to help me process the news of his illness. A breathwork class sounded nice. After an hour of guided and focused breathing, I began to sob, releasing all the stress and worry from my body. When I spoke with the instructor, he shared with me that he was not surprised. All the “what ifs”, the anxiety, the worry were stuck in my body and the breathwork class helped move them out, right along with my back pain.

Then came the forks – biofield tuning. When your good friend tells you that she learned about the human biofield and the energy it holds, you beg her to do a session on you. Heat, sweating, sobbing, squeezing – all unsolicited by me, but a result of the imprint of my energetic history and the frequency disturbance it left behind.

With each of these independent experiences I felt the “what if” voice fade further away. With each release I experienced further confirmation that energy healing is real, and it was working for me in tangible ways.

As my family, like many others, retreated into our home beginning in March 2020, I lost my way to experience the healing and personal growth attainable from energy practitioners. Like a beam of light in a storm I received an email, Virtual energy healing – become a reiki practitioner online. As with all energy and the world, things come to us just at the right time if we are present enough to see them. This was my chance to see behind the curtain and experience the practitioner side of the impactful experiences I had experienced. I became certified and my friends where my willing guinea pigs. While keeping everyone’s expectations low, time after time, physical manifestation of energy movement took place, vibrating colors were seen, pain release was felt, emotional trauma was addressed, and positive energy was regained.

Three years ago I lost my mother to cancer. Her experience reinforced my deep devotion to self-care and checking in with my body. That pivotal life experience was followed by the manifestation of Calm Nest.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Creating Calm Nest has reinforced my understanding that nothing in life is stagnant. Just when I would think, “This is it! This is how we are going to make the big difference!” unexpected challenges came along. At its inception, Calm Nest was suppose to be a brick and mortar location. We were going to be the home for energy healing practitioners. A week of so after I started looking at properties, the world shut down. Needless to say, the concept of two or more individuals in a room together and in close proximity was now out of the question. I has to stop everything. I knew that this was time for me to reflect and confirm that main mission of the company. In doing so, I became open to different solutions, including the idea of providing distance healing.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I am fortunate enough to be in a position that Calm Nest is a labor of love. Don’t get me wrong, there is financial goal for Calm Nest, but healing as many people as we can has always been the priority. Starting and running a business from an idea in your head is never easy. Even when you believe so strongly, that you can taste the companies success, life likes to through curve balls to keep you on your toes.
Not too long after Calm Nest launched, I came across of pseudo competitor who appeared to be doing it all right. They had an amazing team, big VC money and had been working on their company several years before I started mine. I remember feeling deflated when I saw their site. They had a huge team and I was just one person trying to create something great. It really nocked me for a moment. I had invested so much time and money and here was another company that I thought was doing it better, or so I thought.
At that moment, I had to make a choice. I can give up or push forward. I so vividly remember the fear that came over me. Who did I think I was that I can take this big company on? How would I ever be able to compete?

I took a day to have a bit of a pity party. I woke up the next morning, surrounded myself the people that believed in what I was creating and the uniqueness that is Calm Nest and got back to work.

It would have been much easier for me to give up. I would ave had less stress, more time with my family, and saved a lot of money. However, at the end of the day, I had to look at myself in the mirror and ask what is the real reason I chose to not move forward. The answer to that would have been fear. I tell my children that fear is a valid and important feeling, however, it should not be the one running the show. This was a true test for me to follow what I preach and I’m thrilled that I did.

Contact Info:

• Website: Calmnest.com
• Instagram: @calmneststiudio
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/calmneststudio
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/calm-nest/?viewAsMember=true
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@calmnest-thevirtualpersona1020

Image Credits
Anastasia Chomlack