University Counselor Pens ‘The Art of Healing’

Jana Walker, LSW, a counselor in the University’s Center for Personal and Professional Development (CPPD), has been interested in psychotherapy and spirituality for more than 20 years. And, now she has brought those two things together in a new book called “The Art of Healing.”

“I think that many people struggle with going deeper and looking at the roots of their behavior, they’re trauma and how to take the wisdom from it and transmit that energy into something that better serves them in their lives,” said Walker. “The goal of this book is to assist people and walk next to them if you will, as they answer those questions.”

The book is in workbook form and each chapter — through short stories and questions — have correlations to different parts of one’s life. It applies psychotherapy practices with different modalities for healing based on the seven main chakras.

The seven chakras — crown, third eye, throat, heart, solar plexus, sacral and root — are thought of as the main energy points in the body, which run down the spine. Walker uses those chakras to draw correlations to the different parts in one’s life. The workbook ends up being seven weeks of engaging daily activities, with the introduction describing the energy center, what it correlates to in one’s life and how it shows up.

“And, some ways that you can work on bringing that into alignment on an energetic level,” said Walker. “Then it also allows you to dig deeper by answering the questions, do some meditations, breath work and some art work. There are spaces in there where you draw your interpretation of different concepts. All that has been put together into one workbook.”

Walker, who joined the CPPD staff at Salus in 2020 calls the book, which is her first, “a pandemic baby.” She actually started the writing in 2019, but the book didn’t come out until March 13, 2024. It is self-published and available through Amazon Kindle. She hopes that it becomes “a vehicle for light” to not only students, faculty and staff at the University but to anyone who reads it.

“By allowing people to invest in this way, they end up with greater healing and really, truly experience the fullness of their life,” she said.