"Everything is energy and everything is flowing,” says therapist Lyn Felix, M.S.W., L.C.S.W., C.Ht. The founder of Smart Solutions and doing business as Creative Holistic Therapy is certified in a wide variety of therapeutic modalities, enabling her to customize treatment to each client, depending upon their individual needs. In addition to being a Reiki Master, her extensive training in mind/body/energy modalities includes Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), and she is certified in Advanced Clinical Hypnotherapy and Neurolinguistic Programming. She is also certified by the American Lung Association for their Freedom from Smoking cessation program, the Council of Compulsive Gambling of Pennsylvania for gambling addiction, and has certifications in pain management, parts therapy, past life regression, and Life Between Lives. She is currently in the process of obtaining certification in biofield tuning, which uses the vibrational frequency of tuning forks to move stagnant or unprocessed energy in and around the body.

“My spirituality informs who I am, how I bring presence to the session,” says Felix. “When I’m listening and tuning in to my clients I’m very empathic, so I’m also able to effectively read their energy body language, allowing me to get a more complete picture of how best to help them.”

Felix’s spirituality guided her to become a minister, and she has received two ordinations, as a Peace Minister in the Beloved Community by the Seminary of Spiritual Peacemaking and as an interfaith minister by One Spirit Learning Alliance. “In seminary, I learned to slow down to appreciate the whole experience,” she notes, a skill she believes makes her a more effective therapist.

Her holistic approach (her personalized license plate reads HOLISTC) stems from her strong belief in the flow and connection between body/mind consciousness, an understanding that she maintains “is the essence of who I am.” She uses that holistic approach to promote the resiliency, flexibility and breakthroughs necessary for her clients to overcome life’s challenges – whether those challenges are physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual, or a combination of any or all of the above. And she successfully treats a myriad of issues, including stress relief, anger management, gambling, smoking cessation, pain management, relationship issues, life transitions, addictions of all kinds – virtually anything standing in the way of a person living life to the fullest.

She is sometimes assisted by her therapy dog, Georgie, a cockapoo who will sit with the client during hypnotherapy or talk therapy to assist in processing what may sometimes be traumatic memories. “Georgie looks like a stuffed animal, so he’s very nonthreatening,” says Felix. “He’s a rescue who I truly believe waited for me to find him, so that he can perform his dog ministry.”

Though Felix says her connection to spirit began when she was a child, she still experienced her own “dark night of the soul,” and maintains that Emotional Freedom Technique (which uses acupressure on the body’s meridian points) saved her life, and led her to return to school to become a therapist. “I would not be who I am today if not for that trauma,” she maintains. “We are constantly bombarded with difficult situations, but we can eventually learn to view them from a place of gratitude and acceptance versus disdain. Gratitude helps us maintain a positive mood and attitude, showing us that when one door closes another opens. Even difficult situations can become blessings with the proper support, therapy and outlook.”

Last year Felix completed full facilitator training for Family Systems Constellation, a methodology for addressing the wounds and fears of the past taught by Francesca Mason Boring. “It’s working in the knowing field, which is a conglomerate of the biofield, ancestral field, and family system,” says Felix, adding that if there is stuck energy in an ancestral line, where hurts, traumas, and/or deaths have not been acknowledged and assimilated, then those wounds move through the lineage to the current time, with potentially negative repercussions, whether relational, financial, or physical. “It can help heal businesses, communities and natural environments, in addition to individuals,” notes Felix.

More recently, Felix has been practicing another new modality known as Biofield Tuning. Taught by originator/ author Eileen Day McKusick, biofield tuning moves energy using tuning forks at various frequencies. It is performed with the client fully clothed on a massage table and, since energy is nonlocal, can also be used for distance healing. “The distance sessions with clients have been amazing and profound,” says Felix, who incorporates the power of words etched into stones into the practice, choosing words resonant with the client – words like “healing,” “safety,” and “love.” She will complete her certification next month.

“I teach people how to go within, how to connect with that place of deep tranquility and peace, which makes it more alive,” Felix says. “It’s important to learn to separate the chatter of the mind and give space from the center of love.” She incorporates the work of Daniel Siegel, M.D., bestselling author of “mindsight,” and expert in the field of interpersonal neurobiology, which promotes compassion, kindness, resilience and well-being in people’s personal lives, relationships and communities. “I teach people to find the ‘hub of awareness’, which is safe and calm, like the bottom of the ocean,” says Felix. “Regardless of what is happening on the water’s surface, the ocean floor remains calm and peaceful.”

Felix notes that while psychotherapy generally doesn’t allow the practitioner to touch the client, her ordination as a minister allows her to perform hands on healing. “The energy wants to move; life and love want to come forward,” she says. “I work with the knowing field of energy to guide clients to a deeper place of spirit, a place of peace.

Typically, at least three sessions are required to facilitate change, but Felix notes that her services are often considered brief therapy because she teaches clients effective self-healing tools they can use each day. “A client may find relief from their concern in as few as three to six sessions. Or she or he may opt for as many as twelve to fifteen sessions or more to more fully resolve the issue,” she adds.

In addition to providing individual and group therapy, Felix is available for group seminars or talks on a variety of relevant topics, including overcoming fears, stress management, motivation and spirituality.

“I believe that becoming more conscious is so important,” says Felix. “I want to be a way-shower, to be the light for anyone in need of support and direction, to provide a way to see beyond fear and resonate from a place of love. It takes courage to go deeper to find that place, but the rewards are enormous.”

Smart Solutions and Creative Holistic Therapy is located at 3037 S. Pike Avenue (Route 145), Suite 105 in Allentown. For more information, visit CreativeHolisticTherapy.com or call 610-282-0709.