Quintessence Studio
Creative Growth for Self-Expression
Today we’d like to introduce you to Anjali B. Arnold.
Anjali, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I believe who I am today is an active and dynamic mixture of what I truly love and other gifts I’ve stumbled upon, shaped by all my childhood struggles. Back then, I never would have imagined this outcome having emerged from a background in hard science – physics, math and engineering. It was my mother who reminded me that when I was six, I announced I would learn the secrets of the universe by studying astrophysics. She also noticed decades later that in doing Akashic work, I seem to get real answers of a very different nature that help people, and by the most unusual, non-traditional methods that no astrophysicist would touch with a ten-foot pole.
By profession, I am a teacher, and in addition to working with people on creative growth (one on one), I also make music, sing out loud and I love art and experimenting with color. Everything I do in this chapter of my life feels liberating and meditative. Just like the foundations of physics, light and sound are the bases of the complementary healing modalities I have created in Soul Tree Akashic Healing, NeuroSound and Creative Explorations.
Not to give away any surprise endings, my story is about accepting and integrating the experiences of my early life weaknesses, hurts and challenges rather than amputating them. The only thing I wanted to leave behind was my limited beliefs and false truths. I look back on the key turning points on my journey thus far as fascinating landmarks of personal reinvention, some forced out of necessity, and others have chosen for organic growth. I had a kind of breakdown when I was twenty that made me understand the process of seeing myself broken into pieces, deconstructed as it were. I kept the pieces I wanted and rebuilt a stronger version of who I wanted to be going forward.
I wonder that long lost friends and loved ones who knew me before the age of 25 might not recognize me today. But who knows, maybe they could see the best parts of the real me was in there the whole time. When I was in elementary school, I felt ostracized, knowing inside I was different, and on the outside, because I am from am Indian family. Trying to bridge cultural differences and navigate high expectations, I just didn’t fit in, anywhere. I knew my dad always wanted a boy. Overwhelmed with too many blocks that didn’t fit, I became my own biggest obstacle. People saw me as shy when in reality, I loved being in company with others. I just wanted everyone to get along, to feel included and accepted for who they were. Little did I know how much the process of shedding false beliefs would influence my vocation and sense of purpose as I grew up.
Looking back, everything I’ve worked at or studied, including the many hopeless attempts I braved, together with my own weirdness (quirks, idiosyncrasies, strange talents) form part of the singular and unique profession that I call ‘the creative growth practitioner’. One thing about creative growth, it truly celebrates and makes excellent use of questionable outcomes above intended results.
In my work, I have redefined ‘creativity’. I have reconsidered ‘talent’. Even ‘Failure’ and ‘success’ have been re-addressed to shine their best light in this brave new world. My clients get to do this for themselves now. I am living proof that no time is truly wasted, or that success, or lack of it, is bad for the soul. If one reason we are here is to experience fully, we need to be able to feel at the same depth. Then for me, I can say I’m passionate about what makes us tick and I’m committed to learning how to cultivate joy regardless. I’ve found the secret is in what we love.
I think I was born with some strange connections already hard-wired in me that made me feel different, frowned at and rejected. As a toddler, I knew things I had no business knowing and nobody wanted to hear it. In most cases, I didn’t know what to do with it, and it caused me tremendous stress. In elementary school, I predicted outcomes and saw events before they happened. But like many other kids, you decide the best thing to do is accept the squashing and hide that part of yourself away. As I grew and matured, I could easily imagine how an immediate issue someone was dealing with arose long ago. The foundation for present conditions was like an infinitely long arc of experience, as though I could see a movie of all events that preceded up to the moment of strife.
So, when I interrelated with people, this natural ability to make wider sense of it all seemed to help put things in perspective. Others responded to possibilities that resonated with them, as from beyond the narrow window of conscious awareness of our earthly life. Over decades, it grew clear to me that each of us holds memories of experience beyond our conscious mind, and I wasn’t the only living proof that it could be accessed.
From the Indian and Vedic mythology that I grew up with, the Akashic medium was always my awareness – the fundamental layer of the universe that holds the imprints of all experiences. Conscious, ever-changing and replete with wisdom, perhaps this was where we gleaned our best ideas, experienced our aha moments and could get grounded as spiritual beings having a human experience, in the wisest way. Better than plugging into the fears and irritation of collective unconscious, I wanted to access the secrets of the universe from a higher place.
In my 30s, I took up elective studies in mindfulness, creative growth, depth psychology, neuroscience applications of positive neuroplasticity as I publicly emerged out of my hard science closet into the psychic/intuitive arts. I had chosen to leave behind traditional pathways and walk a new path of neuroscience-based metaphysics with the idea of the cosmic consciousness wisdom that Akasha backing it. I credit the Dalai Lama and the Mind and Life Organization as well as the Institute of Noetic Science, and other “new” research agencies that specialize in consciousness beyond the limits of the brain-body connection.
I only began the business of guiding anyone who came to me feeling rutted or blocked against personal growth once I could prove a longstanding change in myself. This took years and floods of tears. Amidst this process, I also challenged myself to overcome fears and thwarts to self-expression by writing and publishing Turning Points (2007), a fiction novel about breaking free from self-imposed limitations so you can do your thing. I had to teach myself to sing while playing the piano. I’m still working on it.
Since 2005, I perform (out loud) the music and songs I compose and arrange – yes in front of people! So my story is simple and remarkable all at once – no different than anyone else’s story – in that each of us is unique, but I think the meaning of life is to get out and blaze your own trail. Every time I tried to copy someone else, to emulate their success, to do what I was told, or follow the already trodden trail, I found myself to be a very unhappy soul. And in studying Akashic reading etc… I had stumbled upon a powerful support system that provided incredible guidance to blazing a new trail and solving myriad problems. And it came from within.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I had to move beyond the barrier of my own mind. While critical thinking was praised, overthinking was killing me. By age twenty-nine, none of those degrees, paper certifications or any of that mattered to me. I was lost to myself deep inside and with the failing health of my parents, marriage worries, the real stuff of real-life simply rendered me even more helpless to everything that could not be controlled. In my case, I still struggled because of that so-called “gift” of knowing everything I wasn’t supposed to know. I needed to explore who I was inside before I could even accept myself. I had given up trying to fake traditionality, trying to meet ridiculous expectations without realizing or honoring what my own strengths and gifts were as they clambered to the surface, begging to be noticed, and meaningfully put to good use. Until that realization was faced, the miracle could not materialize.
Whose road in life is smooth? I set out to claim my uniqueness, partly out of spite, and because I didn’t come exceptionally equipped to meet the standards of traditional excellence as defined by my cultural upbringing. First, I discovered is that no roads worth exploring are smooth, especially the ones less traveled. They’re bumpy and crooked with few guard rails, offering tempting diverts to dead-end cul-de-sacs. Many times, the safety of others’ clear-sailed avenues showed up as impassable (or just unpalatable) to me.
The next thing I discovered is that the uniqueness I searched for needed to be unearthed out of me before it could be claimed. I stepped out certain of my banality and of not much more once I realized uniqueness wasn’t going to fall out of the sky (or come from anything else external) and land on me. I needed actual proof to overcome the limiting belief that being a mediocre generalist was worth less than a skilled specialist, gift-wise. Securing that proof becomes a matter of life or death, at a soul level and at heart level.
We are here, amidst this life and world just as it is… to create miracles, to live the power of hope this aching world needs and has lost. Each of us here can blaze a new trail regardless of how we slot and label as individuals. For me, the struggle lessened when I adopted a new truth as first principle. Each of us has our gifts no matter what you call it: weird talents (redefined), or persistent tendencies, urgent whims, repeating quirks, lifelong wonder… so what we can do with them?
Please tell us about Quintessence Studio – Soul Tree Akashic Healing. What should we know?
If our gifts are not obvious, or worse feel more like volcanos, horrible eruptions at the most inopportune moments, know that from somewhere deep down, that’s love that seeping up through fissures trying to find its way out into the light and fresh air. If our uniqueness feels impossible to express, like daisies trying to pop out of a crack in the parking lot, know that is the urgent force of love that comes from your spirit, intending to live, no matter what. It’s so hard to say what I do, exactly, when asked.
But these images do convey how I help folks feel the love inside them that’s trying to get out, especially if they’ve never felt it before, or have spent a lifetime hating it. Then we work on getting it out according to the healthiest, most enjoyable ways for each soul’s expression. Each person’s path is unique. Therein lies the proof of each person’s uniqueness.
My company Quintessence Studio, a Golden Colorado business and web portal, offers three choices of creative growth and practice: Soul Tree Akashic Healing, Publishing, and Q Music Studio. They work in tandem or chosen as separate pathways. I work with anyone locally or long distance as lower dimension physics of time and space are a non-issue for Soul Tree Akashic Healing, NeuroSound and Creative Explorations. I monitor progress and keep close ties with the client throughout their program. Working with me can be done one-to-one or in small groups such as Know Yourself & Live Your Inspiration workshops (also local or online).
Online resources and e-training for this modality are available for people who want to grow their own practices in tandem with their existing business. Music students who are local are invited to attend Q Music Studio in Golden for individualized vocal expression (singing or confident presentation), music lessons or to complete recording studio projects. But even music programs, including NeuroSound, are accessible online. Soul Tree Akashic work is just as powerful regardless of client’s physical presence. This is where this uniqueness begins.
The first question I pose to anyone new who is looking to get unstuck and get going is, “What do you love?” Most of us are unsure of why we are even here; in my case, “what do I love?” is so much easier to answer than, “What do you do?” because the surface details of the first half of my life’s activities and work do not directly display or point to who I have ‘become’. Ultimately, who any of us really is… is all that we are not. Everything we’ve tried that didn’t quite fit. The object of the game is to see folks getting going doing their thing, whatever it may be. To be honest, this work isn’t for everyone, but many folks with an exploring, adventurous side embrace it with courage, or when they are serious about true change in their lives.
What you love fits you like a glove, though many people have no idea what that is, for them. Asking “what do you love so much you get lost in it?” always generates a passionate (and often surprising) answer. For me, I get lost in love doing Akashic work, and my detail-oriented thinking mind is a now a useful tool, and no longer my worst enemy (once it learned to stop spinning and driving me nuts).
Being the creative force behind Quintessence Studio, I will use ALL the colors on the palette of life to help people grow – one person at a time – to reach and move upward from a place of soul to Higher Self. Bypassing the egoic mind is the trick to getting out of your own way: all branches of work in Quintessence Studio go directly to spirit, so you can feel. Fully. Liberated. This reconnects you. Once people know themselves, they can live their inspiration.
I believe it is possible to live this life from a higher place that gives us the ability to rise above obstacles, and not get pulled back into the quagmire of despair. When I found myself wailing “I just wanna be ME” as my theme song, I figured I must not be the only one who needs to live a joyful life full of unrestrained, creative self-expression. I would describe myself as an Artist of Life because that’s who I reinvented myself to be – I wanted to integrate all facets of life (including trauma and shadow) to reveal and reflect the miracle of ourselves. It’s something so many of us have forgotten. Helping someone reconnect to their own magic, to me, makes the most purposeful difference in the world here and now. For example, my first novel Turning Points lets the truth “What you are most afraid to share is just what this world needs most,” shine.
So I work to get this message out to the world via the books I write, and by working with colleagues and clients in my local and online communities. I’m always excited to operate my booth at Colorado’s BMS Celebration Expo, as I have done several times each year throughout the state. I really wish to thank Steve Strickland, Linda and Del Hunter, all of whom saw something wonderful in Soul Tree that day way back when and they gave me the go-ahead to introduce this work to the world via quick twenty-minute sessions. So I created a toe-dipping opportunity that could provide a fast sample reading and healing for anyone who showed up at the event intrigued by Akashic work.
For those taking a deeper dive, as an in-depth Akashic practitioner, I help people unburden their souls to achieve a kind of spiritual relaxation they didn’t even know was possible. Most of the healing/relaxation methods today focus only on the body, or the energetic system alone. Soul Tree Akashic Healing goes right to the spiritual source first then picks up everything derivative along the way.
When we watch someone who felt blocked since childhood moves through challenges with grace and new confidence, to see a person rise above their old ways without getting stopped short (again) and take the high road they always intended, their new chapter in life begins and there’s no going back. Every day, I get to witness the shedding of intractable resistance and the unblocking of creative pathways, it shows up as a brighter light in the client’s eyes that I can see.
I have watched and assisted young people to blaze their own trail and act on their inspired initiative, whatever it may be, to build new meaningful work for themselves and gain independence. The speciality (and generality) of this work lies in liberating trapped life force then harnessing and channeling it to creative use in a way that’s never been done before. Each person embarks to deliver their unique gift to this world, realizing they can love themselves fully – even those parts they perceived as problematic.
It is said that Akashic work is the most advanced of all metaphysical approaches. Soul Tree Akashic Healing works at spiritual, energetic and physical-body levels simultaneously, and I feel the most important thing that sets this modality apart from others is that you don’t have to revisit, re-traumatize or muck-rake your conscious past or elements of your subconscious experience. The soul is given the opportunity to heal longstanding issues with loved ones, even those who have passed. Loving Forgiveness (to self and others) is the final square on the Akashic chessboard. The dangers inherent in past-life regressions and other modalities, that might force one to face or get trapped in something they’re not ready to address, is just not an issue. The healing gets done just the same once all aspects are pinpointed.
Together with my proprietary NeuroSound (TM) produced out of Q Music Studio, Soul Tree healing is faster and the changes are lasting. NeuroSound Akashic sound healing reinforces newfound spiritual relaxation by rebalancing your brain chemistry and it raises your state of consciousness – it metaphorically loosens all the residue to be released, like a sound detox. Most clients tell me they feel lighter and clearer and the beneficial changes are so noticeable, they don’t want to revert. So the old methods of endless talking about lifelong baggage etc… are obsolete. Over the years of doing this kind of work, even old clients tell me they can’t even remember or viscerally recall/regenerate the trauma and pain they’d held for so long.
One thing I’ve noticed in myself as a result of this work – you know you’re healed when you can talk about your painful experiences openly, without becoming undone again. But you are still connected in feeling. In Soul Tree Akashic Healing, when the soul drops the baggage, the spiritual miracles take over from there. Vital force that had been trapped can now be actively channeled (with guidance through Creative Explorations) to bring into manifestation any creative work the client desires (visual art, writing, music, new pathways for living, etc…) and we make sure that’s done within three months of the Akashic Healing.
I am most proud of Quintessence Studio for everything it has grown to become, as an extension of me in the truest sense, and for all it has revealed, for another’s benefit. I haven’t located any other practitioner/modality on the globe like it. When my business coach and mentor warned me that “you can’t sell creativity,” I agreed, then refuted, “but creative expression is square one for feeling. The world has become numb to deep feeling. And you need to feel before you can heal.” So there you have the Akashic chessboard: creative expression as square one and Loving Forgiveness as the last square.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
I want to tell you about a client who showed me how powerful this work was. At the end of his rope, in his fifties, he felt oppressed by some invisible force he felt ruined his life. He was limited in joy and resisted engagement, and always shied away from “showing up” in the world, even though he graduated with a university degree, he did not have a job. He didn’t trust others. In order to self-protect, he could not truly feel, himself or others. Akashic work revealed to me that he had been sexually violated at age 11.
At the intake interview with me, he said nothing like that had ever happened to him. Yet, the event had been embedded in his subconscious, in his cellular memory, and all his vital life force had been diverted to protecting him from recalling this terrible experience. It kept him from living because every day, he lived the restrictions of this truth, without truly knowing why he felt this way. At no point in his Akashic program had I presented this information to him, to keep him safe. Long story short, we followed through the whole Akashic healing protocol, including NeuroSound and Creative Explorations.
And on day four of the NeuroSound work (his protocol was minimum 21 days), on his own, he told me a story of when he was 11. He had uncovered and processed his blocked memory to a safe enough extent that it could come to the surface in this way. He began to tell me details of what I had already pinpointed doing his Akashic reading, including the lead-up situation and the perpetrator. With a kind of objective interest and equanimity, he spoke without emotional trauma yet with a connection to feeling, I could tell he was still amidst his own natural healing process, so I did not interfere or fill in his gaps.
I just let him speak, then allowed the work to continue to do its thing. Months after that, he was able to venture out amidst others, he now works a day job, joyfully living a full life with loved ones and pursuing his interests. He feels safe, for the first time since age 11. And in his own way, he could understand what his struggle was all about and move forward, once his soul was unburdened.
Because of this case study, I realized how conscious and compassionate Akashic work was. Everything I had hoped for, intended and was certain would succeed, there is a way for people to heal the toughest aspects of their experience without having to re-experience the misery all over again. With Akashic work, no one needs to keep reliving their trauma, or remain stuck feeling bludgeoned by the same lessons they think they keep failing. Unburdening at a spiritual level, this kind of relaxation does not look like anything you’d expect it to look like. It takes a different kind of courage to explore, and leave behind the outstanding specialness that accompanies suffering.
I am beyond proud that Quintessence Studio and Soul Tree Akashic Healing people can show, to those who need to know, without a shred of doubt that we are spiritually connected to something so much greater than anyone of us alone, invisible and all-powerful. I do not dare to name it. But I do dare continue to study, live and work in cooperation with it, learning everyday something about it I didn’t know before. I trust this work. More than I trust myself.
