We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Susan Gibson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Susan below.

Susan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

My mission is to help my clients heal their anxiety holistically so they ditch the overwhelm and live more peaceful, centered lives.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Like most people who feel called to help others transform their lives, I became an energy healer and life coach because I needing healing myself. In healing my own life I knew I could help guide others who were committed to healing themselves.

From the outside, I lived a very typical midwestern life with my family. We went to church every Sunday, vacationed at the beach with the in-laws, and had the usual ups and downs in our marriage; all fairly normal stuff. I built the perfect life. My boys excelled in academics and sports, I was president of the PTA at one school and VP at the other (I even won an award for how much I volunteered at the schools), and my home was beautifully maintained and decorated. Along with all this, I also had a custom window treatment that I ran out of my home. My husband was very successful in his work and we had a comfortable living.

And, I had anxiety and bouts of depression. I was holding it all together, doing it all, but I lost myself in the process. I gained a significant amount of weight and was drinking a bottle of wine more nights than not to numb the pain and anxiety. I was surrounded by people and yet I was lonely.

I don’t remember people talking much about anxiety at that time, but folks spoke of being stressed. For me, stress looked like worry and fear. I worried I wasn’t doing or saying things right. I dissected every conversation, wondering if I said something wrong. Part of me believed that people only tolerated me and didn’t really like me. All that worry seeped into my sleeping hours, causing me to have nightmares that would wake me up and I’d have trouble falling back asleep. When the anxiety amplified to panic attacks, I knew I couldn’t continue doing what I was doing; something had to change. This was not what I envisioned for my life.

I began doing my work. Ever the self-help queen, I read a book my friend had given me. Working through it I recognized how anxiety had impacted me throughout my life, and the events that reinforced it. My earliest memory of anxiety was when I was just six. My teacher would yell in class and I would end up going home at least once a week with a stomach ache. Even though she wasn’t yelling at me, it affected me in a very physical way.

Doing the exercises in this book revealed why my anxiety existed. I got to a point where I felt stuck and needed something more. My friend Kristen referred me to an energy healer. I wasn’t sure what that was or if I believed in it, but I was willing to do anything to heal. My experience was so incredible that I knew I was on the next right path. The healing work accelerated the rate at which I healed. Being able to release feelings, memories, energetic patterns, beliefs, and stagnant energy without having to process or work through it enabled me to make changes quickly and more effortlessly. From the very first energy healing session that I received, things began to shift and change. I wanted and needed to know more! I went to the only four-year energy healing school that offers a B.S. in energy healing, graduating in 2014, so I had the knowledge of how to help others heal.

My life today is so completely different. I am much happier and no longer have issues with anxiety. It’s my passion and purpose to help others heal what isn’t working in their lives. I named my business Your Path to Peace because I help others navigate their own healing journey to find their authentic peace.

Energy healing with me is far from a static experience. Yes, my clients receive transformational healing energy. But I also teach my clients tools they can use on a daily basis to continue their healing process, and give homework to help with shifts they want to make. I help my clients decipher the mental/emotional/spiritual aspects of their current dis-ease processes and what their body is trying to tell them. When you understand the what and the why of any disease, the how becomes quite clear.

Over the past twelve years I have worked with hundreds of clients to help them release their anxiety and stress. Recently I had a client tell me that the work we did together impacted her more than anything else she had tried. That is why I do this work!

I’ve taken all I’ve learned and experienced and put it into a book that anyone can read and follow. The Anxiety Solution: A Guide for Sensitive People Who Can’t Keep Doing It All is being released on September 29th this year. I continue to also work with clients through individual sessions, group programs, and in VIP Intensives. Whatever level of commitment and desire a client is willing to bring I have a corresponding level of support to help.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Connection, connection, connection.

The most effective strategy I’ve found for growing my clientele is to live my purpose and show up as my authentic self, while getting curious about other people and their lives. This means that it’s never about making a sale or getting a new client, it’s about how much support the other person needs and if I’m the right person to help. I am my business, there is no separation. Over the years I’ve met people in line the airport, on planes, sitting at the bar in a restaurant, and even while shopping. Everyone has a story, a past, and a desire for the future, and I love hearing about it all. As we chat the conversations tend to get deep very quickly, and it’s apparent whether it’s a good fit to work together or not.

It’s all about the connection and how can I show up and serve. Sometimes I connect them with other practitioners I know that can help in other areas of their life that is bringing them stress. Those practitioners also become referral partners for me.

Asking for referrals from satisfied clients has also helped me grow my clientele. Every one of my clients has people in their lives who are also struggling with something. Just asking if they have anyone in their life they think would benefit from my services will open a thought process in their mind of who they can refer to me.

Then, of course, I take really good care of my clients. I make sure they know that I appreciate them by showing up fully in our sessions, following up to see how they are feeling afterwards, sending any information they have requested or I think might help them, and texting when they come to mind.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I was 43 when I began reevaluating my life. At the time I ran my custom window treatment business from my home, designing, constructing, and installing custom window treatments. I was married and my boys were 15 and 18. I felt, at that time, that my soul, my spirit, was crying out that something needed to change. I couldn’t continue life in its current condition. I began asking myself difficult questions–what was working, what was not, what brought me joy, what things and people stole from that joy, what did I want instead.

The answers had me pivot absolutely everything in my life–my business, my life, even my circle of friends. I realized that continuing to do the same things over and over was going to give me the same results I already had, and that wasn’t working well for me anymore. I had to make some difficult choices. I realized that I had to become important in my own life, and that my needs were important too.

Over the course of six months I divorced, moved out of the house, enrolled in school, and began tapering off my decorating business.

My main priority became healing myself and knowing myself at a deeper level. As I did that chaos no longer had a place in my life. My peace is what everything else was measured against. Things either brought me more peace or took away from that peace, and that determined what I allowed into my life. I got really good with setting and keeping boundaries that way.

I threw myself into the healing world, learning as much as I could from multiple sources. I traveled and experienced alternative healings. I opened up to new and different things, and it ultimately led me to my passion and purpose.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.yourplaceforpeace.com
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/YourPathtoPeace

Image Credits
Jaime Koller