107: Crystals for beginners, ft. Karen Frazier

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Wayfair, every style, every home. Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Cani Crystals, the podcast. I hope that you're all well. My name is Mart Tweedy, I am your host, and this week I'm joined by a best-selling author, an intuitive energy healer, a psychic medium, and a musician. She writes books and blogs about energy healing, crystals, sound healing, metaphysics, and everything else paranormal. And now she's on our show, so please welcome, all the way from the US, Karen Fraser. Karen, how are you?

I'm well, thanks for having me.

You're very welcome. And I mean, this is the second time. I'll just be really upfront about this. We recorded this episode about a month or two ago and Karen just sounded like an absolute robot and we don't know why. So unfortunately, this is a rerecording. So I hope that we just— I just hope that we get the exact same replica of what we talked about the first time because it was amazing, the chat that we had. So just before we get into the conversation, I'd like you to just introduce yourself, Karen. What's your story? Like, how did you get into all of this? How have crystals impacted your life? Take me right back to the start.

Sure. I mean, the start is honestly my birth, but I'm not going to describe that for you. So I was a very intuitive kid. I was a very sensitive kid. I loved rocks and crystals. I had a box of rocks I kept in my parents' basement. Just anywhere we went, I picked up rocks. So I have always been drawn to them and also just had a lot of things going on as a kid that I didn't understand until I was in my 40s, imaginary friends and that type of thing. And so by the time I was 18, an adult, I grew up in the church. And so I grew up really believing that all of the things I do now are not things that are A, possible, or B, acceptable.

Yeah.

And so it wasn't until I was in my 30s that I had a big reminder from the universe that I was all of these things. And so I had a sore throat that I'd had for months, and it was very severe. And I'd gone to several doctors and they were like, yo, we don't know what's wrong with you, you know. And so I went to a doctor who was also an energy healer. Because she was a medical doctor, I was hoping my insurance would pay for it because in the US that has to be one of our concerns, right? And so she laid me down on a table and she put a crystal on my throat and she was doing some things. And my analytical brain was involved and I was asking, why are you doing this? How is this going to help me? This is— you can't stick a rock on my throat and put your hands on my head and that's going to make me better, right? I just— and so I was really thinking more she was going to use herbs or something. And so because I didn't know anything about any of this energy healing stuff. And she was very polite and very kindly told me to shut up and just let it happen. But she said it much more nicely than that. But that was the message. And so I thought, okay, well, I'm here. My— if my insurance isn't paying for this, that means I am. So I might as well just go with it. And so I did. And in the middle of the session, I felt almost like something I can't even explain it, but I felt like something inside me just like broke, this whoosh. And I started to cry and I started to ugly cry, like, and for 3 days on and off, I ugly cried. And at the end of that 3-day period, my sore throat was gone and it has, it never came back. And so I thought, okay, there's something to this. And so I started to experiment. To explore because I'm a very curious person. And so I just really started to explore. And this was in the very early days of the internet when you had to get your information on like AOL or Prodigy or things like that. So, but I was able to start to understand things and just spent years and years building my knowledge. And then when I was in my early 40s, as I had been studying all this, I was writing for a magazine called Paranormal Underground, and, um, I was doing, uh, investigating this paranormal place for them. And by the way, I didn't believe in any of that crap. Yeah, so that was kind of where I was. I don't believe in this. This is— no, this is— and I went to this place called Wellington in, um, up in the North Cascades of Washington State, which is where I live, is in Washington State. And I had experiences that were undeniably experiences with spirits. And I knew things, and I knew things about the people, and I knew their names, and I knew their stories. And these were verifiable because this was the site of the worst avalanche disaster in the history of the United States. About 100 people died back in 1910. So I was able to research all of this, and it was right. And so at that point, I thought, okay, well, here I go. I, you know, I, I understand now that I have psychic abilities. I understand that energy healing is the thing. And so I wrote a book about it. Um, I tried to be real closeted and quiet about it because I knew it was going to be tough for my family, and I thought people were going to think I was a little off my rocker and all of those things. And I wrote my first book. Um, I didn't know I was writing a book. I sat down to write a book, or sat down to write a blog and emerged like 4 days later to my husband and children looking starved because apparently they can't feed themselves without mom. And I had a book. And so I put that out. And from there, I mean, look, I couldn't deny or hide anything. My truth came out in this book and it's been ever since.

I know you've got a few books as well, though, haven't you, Karen? You haven't just got the one. I remember actually about 3 years ago, I read your Reiki Healing for Beginners. And that was when I was just starting to get into my own Reiki journey. But the one book that does stand out for me, and the one that I want to talk about today, is your Crystals for Beginners book, because I just think it's the perfect place for people to start who, you know, maybe haven't even considered crystal healing before. So would you like to tell us, like, how can we truly harness the energy of crystals?

Um, I would say just start playing with them. Get some crystals, pick out a crystal that you're drawn to. You can also look it up in a book, um, but honestly, just pick out a crystal you're drawn to and, and hold it and, and see what it does for you. Keep it in your space. And then, um, once you recognize and can feel that it's actually doing something, then start to look at the background. So I always say approach it intuitively first and then fill in the background information because what I like to do is, for me, every practice I've ever engaged in, I like to get a foundation first in place where I understand that it works and I understand how and why by reading all sorts of stuff, right?

Yeah.

And then once you have that foundation, you can find the freedom in the practice and you can make the practice your own. And so Crystals for Beginners is really creating a foundation so that people can find the freedom in a practice.

Yeah, it's exactly that as well, because I think the one question that I get asked the most is, which crystal should I be working with? And it's like, how do you personally determine which crystal best suits someone else's needs and their emotional needs? But at the same time, I always say to them, you have to choose intuitively, don't you? You have to see what's calling out to you, see what you resonate with. And I think that's probably the best way to choose. Is that the way that you choose?

That's the way that I choose. And even when people come to me, like, so Clearly, I have all of this knowledge about crystals because I've written, what, maybe 6 books? 6?

Yeah.

I think about 6 books about crystals. And so I know a lot about them. I'm really a geek. I love geology. I love all of the little nerdy things about crystals, like their lattice structure and why they are the color they are and why they have an energy they do and all of that stuff. But even when people come to me with all of that knowledge that I have, I always will go with what I feel is the right crystal for them before I look it up. And there is an occasion, like sometimes I'll have somebody who will come to me from far away. Like if you came to me from the UK, I may not necessarily have as great of a read of your energy because we're talking here versus face to face. Yeah. Um, although that's not always the case, uh, sometimes I still can. And so if I don't get an intuitive hit and they ask me, hey, I'm having anxiety, which crystal should I use? I will go back to my, my knowledge if I don't get anything intuitive, but I also always work intuitively, and I always encourage people to walk into that crystal store and kind of walk in whatever direction they feel pulled and pick up whatever they feel pulled to pick up and see how it feels to them.

Yeah, our intuition has a lot to answer for because sometimes I'll be doing a tarot reading, for example, and I can just see like a number in my head, and I'll mention that number, and then when the person gets the video and they read it, they're like, oh my God, that number is so significant to me. I see it all the time. And it's just weird, isn't it? So I always say, trust your intuition, trust your gut, just go with first thoughts. So how do crystals kind of resonate with our energy and our chakras then? Going a little bit deeper here, how do they resonate with each of the chakras across our body?

So honestly, the easiest way to— if, if you truly believe that you don't have the intuition, which a lot of people have that belief, which by the way is absolutely a belief that is limiting your intuition. But if you truly just are not feeling the intuition, you can pick crystals by color and get crystals that match your chakra color. So for instance, if you have root chakra issues, then you can pick out a red crystal or a black crystal and those crystals are going to help to balance that chakra. And I, you can go a little more in depth with that too, right? If you think it's an overactive root chakra, If you're— or an underactive root chakra, you can choose a translucent crystal to increase that chakra energy, and you can use an opaque crystal to absorb more of that energy. So if you— but honestly, you don't need to even go that far. Just pick a crystal that's red or black for that one, orange for your— orange or brown for your sacral chakra, gold or yellow for your, for your third chakra, um, green or pink for your heart chakra, blue for your throat chakra, um, indigo or violet for your third eye chakra, and clear white for your crown chakra. And if you pick out those things and crystals in those colors, it can help balance those, those issues. And one of the things that I like to do is I like to do one for each chakra and just lay there and visualize the energy flowing through.

Yeah, that's one of my favorite meditations. I usually do it on a Sunday afternoon. I'll just lie on my bed and I pick one crystal for each chakra and I'll just lay there with some like healing frequency on in the background. It's just so relaxing. I always feel like I'm ready to take on the week ahead. It's just really, really nice.

Yeah, it's one of my favorites as well. And I also like to do like chakra grids that you can lay out in a space. For instance, you can lay one out under your bed where it's just balancing while you sleep. And if you do that, which I think is a great thing to do, just make sure that you pull them out about once a week and cleanse them, um, more if you're going through something, right? Uh, if you're having a lot of energetic disruption from things, job change, stress in the house, all of those things, you want to cleanse them more frequently, but always cleanse them at least once a week and reset them. And it's a great way to align while you sleep.

I was going to actually ask you about crystal grids because I do get messages all the time. So what is the significance of, you know, working with crystals as opposed to working with crystal grids? How can we use crystal grids for manifestation? Because I mean, I've got one right here on my desk right now, but I don't really understand how it works.

So it's all about synergy, right? It's, it's about being better than the sum of its parts. And so, and it's also about intention. So for me, what I really feel like is Grids are reminders of our intention and they're energetic reminders of our intention. So if you like, what's yours laid out for on your desk? What is it for?

It's for money. It's— I've basically got a little affirmation on the bottom saying like, money flows effortlessly to me, I'm a money magnet. So I've got like citrines, green aventurine, pyrite, and I've got a couple of sigils on. Do you deal with sigils in the US? I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, um, for that one, like, I would assume your very center stone is going to be the citrine, right? Because citrine is a great prosperity crystal. And And the, the next ring around those, whatever shape you lay them out in, that helps to refine the initial intention. So that initial intention is prosperity. The next ones, for instance, if I'm working with prosperity, I might want it to have to do with prosperity at work. So I might lay some crystals around work. Okay, that resonate with work, and then the outer layers. And so you can do as many layers of that as you want. I tend to like simpler is better. I think when we get too specific with our intentions, the universe could deliver us something much better than we can conceive of. So I try not to be too specific with intentions. But the final outer layer basically either directs the energy, so it can— you can put points facing out so that it directs it down into the room, or it can contain the energy within the grid as well. So you might put black tourmaline if you wanted to contain that energy. Into the space of a grid. For instance, if you had your center one— so say you set this up under your desk versus at your desk, um, and you wanted to push that up to you, you might put, um, your center one being a citrine point that points it up so it comes up towards you, and then contain that with black tourmaline or hematite or something around the outside so that it's within the space to keep the energy from being more diffuse and sending a more powerful energy up towards towards you.

Oh, I love that. I'm going to have a good play around when we come off this call, actually, and get some other crystals. Yeah, it's not set up effectively, I can tell just by what you've just said there. So I need to have a play around with that. So yeah, where do you kind of see the practice of crystal divination like going in the future? Because I just think even since I was young— so I'm 36 now, but I mean, when I was 14, 15—

you still are young.

Well, when I was 14, 15, I used to go into little like witchy style shops and I would like, you know, pick up incense and take a little crystal home with me. And I just used to like think, oh, it's quite magical and stuff. But from there to where crystal divination is now, it's much more like widely accepted and socially acceptable, isn't it? So where do you see it going in the future?

Well, I think this is the future of medicine, not just crystals, but all of the energy healing. I think that one of the reasons that we're unable to cure so many things is because we're looking at humans as a set of parts. And we always work on the part. So for instance, if you have throat cancer, everything is focused around that, right? The throat. And we're not. We're a holistic part of an energetic system. We are the same energy as the trees and the rocks and the stars and all of that. It's all the same stuff. We are strands of energy. And so when we treat things holistically, we ignore all of that energy that we're connected to, or when we don't treat things holistically, when we treat them based on a part of who you are. And so I think that the missing piece in our healthcare system, um, and that includes our mental health and our physical health and our spiritual health and all of that, is that we are energy and we are part of this huge system. And we need to treat it holistically. And I think that crystals are a great bridge to that because we as humans, we're very grounded in our physical reality, right? And we believe our physical reality is absolutely like unovercomeable. And so we, when we're sick, we take a pill or we have something cut out of our body or we wear a splint, right? We do all of these things to heal things. And that's fine. That's because we only understand our physical reality now. But crystals are a physical thing that we can bring into our space that connects us to something energetically. And I think they are a first step towards more holistic energetic healing that we do on all planes of all creatures and beings and the planet as a whole.

That's such a great explanation because my background is that I used to work in the National Health Service, the NHS, over in the UK, and, um, I used to work in mental health. And I think it was around about 2018, 2019, I started working for a recovery college, which was basically helping mental health service users get back on their feet, you know, with like finding work and just finding that connectedness, that hope, that identity, that meaning, and basically empowering them to go back out into the world and live a normal life. And one day, one of the tutors basically were doing like a spiritual class, and they brought in a handful of crystals. And I was thinking, oh my God, they're absolute nutjobs. Do you know what I mean? That was my first thought.

Yeah.

And I thought, why are you teaching like mental health service users to carry around a little stone or a rock? And I just thought it was all placebo effect. But then in 2019, I lost my granddad, and someone that I met basically gave me some crystals for grieving. And my grieving started to get like easier and less, less like intensive on me. I was still obviously grieving, but it didn't hurt as much. So there were some of the signs that, you know, crystals were changing my life. What, what, what can we say like what are some of the signs that crystals are changing other people's lives in different areas? Is it just that you see a slight improvement, or are people going to jump from A to Z overnight? Like, what's the kind of the signs of change that we can see from using crystals?

Well, I mean, it runs the gamut, right? From very, very slight change, like you just feel better about something, or you're able to manage something better. So even if— so say you have a physical problem and you're really struggling because that physical problem is keeping you from doing what you wanna do, right? Which is what physical problems do. And you start working with a crystal and the physical problem is still gonna take time to heal because we're human beings with bodies. But you manage that healing better. You manage that frustration better. You find ways to use the time while you're in the middle of this physical healing process. And by the way, I am right now— I was in Sedona and I, I partially tore my Achilles tendon just a week ago. And so I am in one of those right now where I need to be doing things but I can't. And so I'm just have to be sitting around, right? Which I really hate. I'm not that person. Um, but so, but it's the management, it's the all of a sudden you use that time for spiritual growth or development or to change your thoughts about the way that your body heals and your beliefs surrounding those things. So it can be something as simple as a change in attitude. It can be a physical change. It can be where, um, something that wasn't working for you in your body all of a sudden starts to come back to life and work correctly. Um, and it can be all the way to spontaneous healing. So it's everything on this spectrum from minute physical changes to just understanding and accepting that this is what the universe has delivered me right now, and this is where I am, and I can either fight it or I can use it pleasantly, all the way up to having spontaneous healing.

And I have to ask you as well, what are Karen's top 3 crystals?

Why, oh gosh, uh, for me or for beginners?

I think let's go for you first, and then we'll talk for beginners as well. What are your top 3 favorites?

Morganite, phenakite, and, um, many of the tektites. Any of the tektites really are kind of the ones I'm feeling right now.

So what would you suggest for a beginner or someone that's just wanting to pick up crystal healing for the very, very first time? What are 3 essentials that they should have?

Um, clear quartz is the one that everybody absolutely has to have. Clear quartz is this amazing crystal that is super easy to, to resonate at any— it's kind of the master healer crystal. So for me, definitely phenakite, and then just things that are super easy— or not phenakite, excuse me, clear quartz. I was thinking about myself again. So clear quartz is the first one, it's this master crystal. I really like smoky quartz. And the reason I like smoky quartz is it takes negative energy and it transmutes it to positive energy. It's plentiful, it's beautiful, Um, so that, and then probably, uh, something like citrine that has multiple purposes. And the other thing about citrine is that it's just a really— it's self-cleansing, although I cleanse it all the time anyway. Um, and then I'm going to throw in one more, and that is that you want a piece of— oh crap, I forgot the name, hang on— um, gypsum, um, selenite.

Oh, selenite, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, which is, did you know, did you know that selenite is just gypsum? It's just the same stuff that goes in wallboard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of people don't know selenite is drywall, but it's beautiful, right? And the reason I like selenite is because you can use it to cleanse all your crystals. I put the crystals I wear on a selenite dish every night, things like that. So kind of 4, not 3.

I'll let you off with that one.

You can have that one. Okay.

I noticed on your website as well, Karen, that you are also an intuitive energy healer as well. So is that kind of Reiki, or what does that involve?

It involves everything I've learned. So unless somebody specifically says to me, I would like you to do Reiki on me and only Reiki, I always ask, can I use other modalities? So what I do is I sit with people, and, and I can even do it at a distance like we would be here. I sit with people, they tell me their story. I feel things in my body because I am an empath and I am a physical empath. So if I'm in a room of people and all of them don't feel well, I feel terrible. So anyway, so I feel in my body where they're having issues and I send— I direct energy to them using either distance Reiki. I may ask them to work with certain crystals, but as I'm doing these things, I'm also asking them questions and having them answer things because I want them to make the link between verbal processing of what it is they're experiencing and the energy so that they can start to recognize that they have control of all of it. You are— so I am a big believer in that we are our own placebos. Dr. Joe Dispenza wrote a great book that if people haven't read, I highly recommend that makes the best case for this I've ever read, which is called You Are the Placebo. Um, we, we can heal anything through our thoughts and our prayers, and not our prayers, our, our energy, the way that we direct our energy. And, um, I, I think that we need to rethink what healing means because we always think healing means something specific. So for me right now, what's healing is that I can walk without my leg hurting, right? And I can do the dishes and go hiking and do all the things that I like to do rather than sitting around with my foot up. Um, so I very specifically human care, and no, that's what healing is to me. But really, maybe what the healing is is that I'm having this time where I have time on a Sunday because I'm not out shopping or hiking or working in my yard. It's fall, you know. I have this time instead to sit and reflect and get back more into some of my spiritual practices. That bring about something. So we need to redefine healing and recognize that we have all the tools we need to heal ourselves.

Yeah, I love that. And that's a bit like self-love as well, isn't it? Because obviously if you're doing something for you, you're taking time out for yourself, you're then going to be able to show up better for other people. So what are your goals and dreams for the future then, Karen? Where do you see yourself in, say, 5 years' time?

Gosh, I mean, it's a great question. I'd like to be— I've been doing a lot of traveling and teaching. And I'd like to do that more because, well, first of all, I just love to travel, and so that's super selfish of me. But I, but also I, I like to be in the energy of people that I haven't met before, and I like to feel that energy rise. And I like to sit in a room with people who have certain conceptions about what reality is and to see that shift as we have conversations. And to see things awaken in them. So for me, ultimately, in 5 years, I'm mostly traveling and teaching all over the world. Right now I do it all around the US. I'd like to do it all around the world.

Go international. It's the only way.

That's right.

Finally, Karen, what advice would you give to someone who wants to start their journey with crystal healing? And what can they expect from your book as a guide?

My advice would be to just be open to it. Come in with a— suspend that disbelief and come in with an open and trusting heart and release expectations. Because expectations, when we have expectations, it often blocks our awareness of what's actually happening. So if you expect one thing to happen and that's not happening, but something else is, you're not seeing that something else. Right? And so I would say come in with an open heart and without expectations and just explore and play. Pick up a crystal that you're drawn to and see what it does for you. And really just be open to what that is, recognizing that it can be something really tiny or something really huge, and just allow all of those things. And then give yourself a foundation, start to understand why this happens. So that then you can find the freedom in the practice and find the practices that work for you.

Amazing. And how can people find you, Karen? What social networks are you on?

Well, so I have a website. It's authorkarenfraser.com. I am on Instagram and Facebook. I think on Instagram I'm author K Fraz, K-F-R-A-Z, and I think just Author Karen Fraser on Facebook. I have a— it's not called Twitter anymore. I have an X. But I, I never ever use it. It's just, um, I, I just haven't used it in years. So mostly Instagram, Facebook, and my website.

Amazing. Well, I'll pop all of Karen's links in the show notes as well so everyone can listen in, can find it. But Karen, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on the show, and I'm sorry about the first time around. This episode's turned out better than that anyway, so it was just meant to be.

See, that's the universe. That's That's, that's, that, that's healing right there. It's right, the first one, when we, when we finished the first one, I'll tell you really quickly because I know you have a timeline and it's probably late there for you. Um, when we finished the first one, I, I thought, you know, that didn't go quite like I wanted it to. I didn't quite say the things I wanted to because I was in the middle of a very busy work day that day when I talked to you. And so when, when Hannah connect contacted me and said, hey, this didn't work out.

I was like, great, you manifested this, didn't you?

I did. It was all me. I'm so— I should be apologizing to you. I'm sorry.

It's absolutely fine. It's an absolute pleasure to speak to you as per usual. I've really enjoyed our chat, so thank you so much.

Thank you.

And for everyone else, if you've enjoyed this episode, please don't forget to rate, review, or subscribe. I really would appreciate it. And I will see you all next Friday for another episode. Have a great weekend, everyone. Bye!

You want to get your backyard summer ready, but you don't want to break the bank? Wayfair gets it. Planning on dining alfresco or relaxing poolside? Wayfair has everything you need to prep your space. Shop now and save up to 70% off during Wayfair's Fourth of July clearance. Score huge deals on outdoor furniture, area rugs, and more. We're talking thousands of products for every style and budget. Plus, surprise flash deals July 6th. Don't wait. Shop Wayfair's Fourth of July clearance now through July 6th at wayfair.com.

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