The Healing Cocoon Podcast

In today’s episode of the podcast, we welcome Whitney Willison, a multi-modality spiritual guide and ethical entrepreneur. She lets us in on her journey from a misunderstood childhood, through her path of awakening, to the uncovering of the gifts and passions she now shares with others.

Whitney is the founder of Of Beauty, a platform through which she brings together the worlds of healing and beauty. A holistic hair stylist, Usui Reiki master, and mother, she has melded her passions and channeled her own healing journey into helping others step into their divine right to know their own beauty, and power, and trust in their innate ability to heal.

Childhood Wisdom

From early childhood, Whitney intrinsically knew she was different from everyone else. A sensitive child, she felt misunderstood by her family and friends. Chronically being ‘unseen’ by those closest to her turned into a layered trauma that left her with two choices at a young age: get herself out of this emotional hold, or drown.  

Her natural intuitiveness was an inner guide that gave her a level of self-awareness far beyond her years. She was able to grasp her need for help as young as eleven, when she realized the methods she had chosen to cope with her feelings as an outcast, such as eating disorders and self-harm, were extremely destructive. She sought professional help in the form of a boarding school for girls that had a therapeutic focus.

Whitney’s therapy journey had a ripple effect that extended to her family. Through her healing, they learned to grow holistically as a family and repair connections that had been avoided or lost.

Holistic Hairdressing

At an early age, Whitney knew she wanted to forgo college in favor of pursuing a trade she enjoyed. This led her to hairdressing, which took her into salon environments, editorial fashion, and eventually into one-on-one client services. As her career progressed, she noticed she was becoming more and more sensitive to salon energies, and that the fast-paced, and often toxic, environment of the fashion industry left her constantly focusing on regulating and protecting her energy, instead of growing and existing in her own peace. She found it opposed to how she wanted to live.

When she moved into a one-on-one client model, Whitney began to incorporate aromatherapy, massage, and music into her practice. And after becoming a mother, her awareness of the toxicity of the products she was using and how they were affecting her body, plus her concern about what she was exposing her son to, set her on the path of analyzing and cleansing everything around her in favor of products with gentler ingredients.

Discovering the Ritual of Tea

A formative moment of awakening Whitney recalls is during a tea ceremony at a music festival (of all places!) that opened her up to the meditative, and ancient, practice of drinking tea. As you might imagine, this wasn’t quite the precious, quiet, traditional tea ritual. Yet even in the midst of the chaos and partygoers, there was somehow a peaceful stillness transmitted in the moment that Whitney vividly remembers feeling on a macro and micro level in her soul. 

When she got back to LA, she bought a tea set and pursued this sacred art, evolving her ceremonies along the way as she grew in knowledge. This space of stillness has become a regular ritual in her life that allows her to sit and observe, reflect, and connect with her soul, which she also now shares with others in intimate bowl tea ceremonies.

Astrocartography

Astrocartography is the art of forming a picture between your birth chart and the longitudes and latitudes of the earth. Each person’s chart is like a fingerprint, unique to them, and can provide insight into which places on the planet have a lot of energy present for us, as defined by our personal astrological alignment. 

These more expansive energies, specific to certain geographical locations, help bring certain aspects of our personalities out, or present an energetically-fulfilling place for us to develop targeted aspects of ourselves, such as romance, friendship or career. Understanding where you have access to particular energies can also help fast track healing, and activate new relationships and energies to support your soul journey. 

Whitney enjoys the ‘choose your own adventure’ nature of astrocartography, selecting travel destinations to activate certain aspects of her chart. Applying the traditional elements of astrology to their geographical alignment was a natural curiosity for her as she sought to understand the energies impacting her life on a more intimate level. As she developed a deeper understanding, she recognized the value of this insightful tool and started to offer reading for others as well.

Learn more about Whitney on ofbeauty.co and on social media at @gatheredcanyon.

For the full interview with Whitney, listen via the link on this page, thehealingcocoon.co, or find us on Instagram @thehealingcocoonpodcast.