DIGGING INTO OUR PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE LIVES WITH THE AKASHIC RECORDS
Figuring out our path in life can be really challenging, especially if you’re like me and often become consumed with making the “right” decision. As if one path in life holds the golden ticket, and the other path would turn your life upside down. Over the last several years I've often sought out spiritual healers for guidance during crises of the heart and career. In November 2020, a friend of mine gifted me with an Akashic Records reading. I had never heard of it before, and with a little research I came to understand that it was a living, energetic, and vibrational field of information that could give insight into our past, present, and future lives. Sign me up!
I’ve had a lot of spiritual readings in my day, but not one that has made me cry before the actual reading began. I had zero expectations going into my session with Courtney Cooke, but within several minutes of her opening prayer, tears started streaming down my face. Something about the energy just shifted (and this was over Zoom!), and I had this sense that something very profound was awaiting me. What I heard in my hour-long reading was a true affirmation of the path I was on, and my purpose. It was encouraging and supportive—and really helped me to see that there is no one path in life for us. We all have choices, and no matter what we choose, life will unfold as it is meant to.
That reading stayed on my mind for a very long time. But there was still a lot I didn’t really understand about what the Akashic Records actually is, and what transpired during my session even though I fully trusted the messages that were delivered to me. So it was an honor to sit down with Courtney to dive deeper into her practice, healing, and her degree from Columbia University’s Mind Body Institute.
Read the edited interview below, or you can listen to our full conversation.
What were you like as a child?
Courtney: I think a lot about childhood, and I try to return back to who I was at 4 or 5 as much as I possibly can. I think that’s part of our spiritual nature, before we’re put through the filter of life and life’s experiences. As a child, I was very much in my imagination. I spent my first 6 years as an only child, so I played alone a lot. I had imaginary friends, stuffed animals. I started dancing at a very young age. I could spend a lot of time being in my creative self, making dances, making music, playing on my own. I was also a very trusting, open-hearted child. I remember the day that shut down, when I started being more social and having friends and feeling like oh my god I can’t handle life. I was incredibly sensitive.
When did your spiritual awakening begin?
Courtney: I’d say in my younger ages, through childhood I was always interested in the unseen world. My first experience of being able to put language to perceiving energy and the way that we’re all interconnected was with my best friend at about 6 or 7 years old. I could see the lines of energy connecting us. I remember at the end of a playdate I told her, don't worry we’ll always be connected by this line of energy from finger tip to fingertip.
I actually lean on that image often because it was so clear and it gave me a sense of peace being able to say goodbye to her and go about our days knowing that we’re always going to be connected by this line of energy. I saw it with my naked eye that day. As life went on, the perception moved to more of an internal perception and not always with the naked eye.
Around 21 is when I started having a deeper confrontation with what I would define as a spiritual awakening or a big resurgence of energy that was coming into my life. I had no language for it. I didn't know what was happening. There were a lot of phenomena that I was experiencing and it took me the better part of a decade to sort through that and begin to figure out what was happening and what it all meant.
What was the process like? Were you reading books? Seeing spiritual healers?
Courtney: I had a deep understanding that I needed to sort through my pain. I could not move forward without identifying what was this source of pain that was nagging at me. First, I started really tending to some of those foundational parts of healing. By the grace of god, I had an amazing situation that placed my therapist in my presence—so I started there. Then when I got the foundational, very ego-based, painful issues out in the open, it allowed me to enter into an understanding of the phenomena that I was experiencing that felt different than pain. For that, I sought out many books, went to tons of healing workshops and trainings. Just becoming totally absorbed into the world of spiritual healing.
As a dancer, I’ve always found entry into the more somatic yogic principles. The chakra system was the number one teacher for me in the early days. Caroline Myss, The Anatomy of the Spirit, was one of my foundational books. Learning meditation through the yogic practice. I eventually became a certified yoga teacher.
Our body is such a massive component to healing, and I think so much of what we talk about when it comes to healing feels more cognitive.
Courtney: It’s huge, and my body was having very strong reactions. I was learning through my body. I remember a dear friend said to me, “your body is screaming. When are you going to listen?” I kept that very close over the years. I’m like, oh can I listen when my body is whispering? Or when my body is silent? I was having a lot of symptoms and a lot of imbalance and illness at that time.
So, what exactly are the Akashic Records?
Courtney: I think many people might have a different understanding, but from my perception— the Akashic Records is a living field of information and wisdom that is connected to each and every one of us—both individually and collectively. When we’re working with the Akashic Records, we’re working with our essence, who we are at the soul's nature. So, when we enter into the Akashic Records, we move into a multidimensional understanding which can include aspects of ourselves in terms of past lives, multiple timelines, different incarnations. We can work with the present-day energies and the field of information as it relates to the highest good and best interest of today and this time period. And the Akashic Records give us access to the blueprint of the foreseeable future. How I see it, it’s a holograph of what’s possible. Not just one or two choices, it has many, many different options. The Akashic Records help me to align to the energy that I want to say yes to and welcome into my life. It really helps me look at the patterns or obstacles that I'd like to overcome. The Akashic Records is a field of energy, even in the prayer, you can start to perceive there’s a shift. We’re taken out of how we normally experience human existence, and we’re brought into contact with the transcendent—in contact with the divine. So when we’re working with the Akashic Records, things are moving, even when we’re just having conversations about things. When we’re working in the Akashic Records through our observation, through compassion, we begin to open to receive healing. So working in the Akashic Records is different from other modalities that are considered readings. We're not just reading or hearing information from the Akashic Records—we're activating the field, which opens up the possibility of receiving healing.
What led you to the Akashic Records?
Courtney: The Akashic Records led me to the Akashic Records. I feel like, at some point, it really found me. I was open, I was ready to receive it. The narrative of how I got there felt like part of the longer process of that 10 years being exposed to many different modalities. I eventually saved up money and went to yoga school. While I was training in Bolivia and Peru, I had a parasite, so I was really sick. I was taken out of my body in a way that I was not expecting. I thought I would go and be the star yogi. No way, I couldn’t do anything. So, I spent a lot of time contemplating and in meditation. I went very internal. One night we were all in a circle, and the teacher asked if we wanted to do an Akashic Records meditation. This fire lit inside of me. We went through a very simple journey and meditation—and it was like I had arrived home. Everything was so vibrant, so amplified. I got a huge download that night, tons of wisdom, and healing around the specific topic I was working with that night. Afterwards, we were comparing notes and everyone else was kinda like nothing happened, no big deal. I was weeping. Something is here, something is going on here.
That continued to express itself and unfold to me, as if it were teaching me, over the next several months. I was being brought through this school of Akashic Records. Day in and day out is extremely overwhelming, very disorienting. The Akashic Records are not linear, they certainly don't always make sense in the mind. I was just being schooled on it. It was very disturbing at the time. Now, looking back, I’m like, wow what a beautiful experience.
It wasn't until a year or so later that I started to learn about the work of Edgar Caycey, and at the time, there was the Edgar Caycey Center in NYC and I started to have some better understanding around what was going on. I was able to name it. I was working within the Akashic Records, and I was channeling the Akashic Records.
Yeah, I found it to be very profound and affirming, especially for where I was in my life at that time. 2020 was a very uncertain year for all of us. I had experienced a huge shift, I left my longtime corporate job, and was about 5 months into doing my own thing, and finding my footing. One thing I will never forget you said to me was, “what an incredible lifetime you’re having.” It made me feel really good. It affirmed where I see myself going. You mentioned the responsibility I feel in regards to helping others. I think it can be difficult, when you feel a certain purpose or a certain responsibility to communicate that to people around you.
Courtney: First, I will say, the encounter with the Akashic Records is always the perfect timing. For you, it was in this transition place, you had just taken a huge leap of faith. It was totally there for you.
I was also in the midst of planning this newsletter and I said I’m not really sure when to launch it, it’s not perfect. I was just feeling unsure about the timing, it made sense to launch in January but I didn’t wanna push myself to put something out there that wasn’t really ready. You were like, “you just gotta go for it.”
Courtney: I really feel like I’ve learned through the Akashic Records to strike when there's that natural window of opportunity open. Sometimes we just have to jump through it. And our resistance will come up in the form of perfectionism or these little things we get very heady about. When we know at our core, the energy is there, it's going to be successful. That came up in that session cause we could just really perceive it, this needs to happen now. Forget about yourself. Think about all the people this is going to help. We forget when we’re in spiritual service, which is what your newsletter is, getting out messages and helping people expand their consciousness. It has its own agenda. It wants to move through us, we’re just the vessel.
So, you also went to grad school for spirituality. I never knew that was even a thing!
Courtney: Yes, a client of mine in the middle of a session said, “you should go to Columbia School Spirituality Mind Body Institute”. And I was like, ok we’ll talk about this later. I had actually been looking into grad schools at the time and I ended up following through. It’s a clinical psychology degree. It was only in its 4th year, and it allowed me to study psychology, but through the angle of spiritual healing. The track that I was on was a practicum where we’re working with spiritual healing, and I wrote my thesis on the Akashic Records and the potential to work in a therapeutic dynamic. I used case studies from my own clients, as well as research into the Akashic Records.
I think a lot of people don't realize that spirituality and psychology go hand-in-hand.
Courtney: We’re really in a time period where people are asking questions about the nature of themselves. The nature of reality. Where we are doing soulful work. Soulful work can absolutely be done through therapy or psychology. However, we’re seeing a big awakening, especially amongst our generation around spiritual seekers. People are looking to go beyond themselves. And why I think spirituality and psychology are such an interesting blend, and why I've found my pathway in these two places is when we do the work of healing ourselves, we start to feel an ego strength. A certainty and empowerment arrive within ourselves. So the next layer of that, so what else is there? Okay, now that I'm feeling pretty strong, what else can I know about myself? What else is there? We start that quest. We get out of our comfort zone. We get into the challenging and very exciting places, and that's where the spiritual component comes in.
Your work also extends beyond the Akashic Records, so can you talk a bit about your other services?
Courtney: So my work will always be foundationally in the Akashic field. It’s my main mode of perceiving, my main mode of seeing, it’s how I communicate, it’s how I see the world. It’s certainly how I see others when I’m in a session with someone. Now, over the years, I have been trained and really developed and honed in on some other skills that I find to be quite complementary— one being this modality called Family Constellations. That comes through the work of Bert Hellinger, I am trained by one of his students, and that is working with the family lines, working with the family field, the ancestors, and ancestral healing, as well as addressing the dynamics of everyday life scenarios. That work is not only limited to the family field, it can include people’s businesses, projects, and their professional life. It could also extend to their spiritual life and even to the body. Working constellations that help to address physical illness. With that training, I am also trained as a spiritual healer working with hands-on healing for those who have serious illnesses. I also train people to do their own self-healing. I am a firm believer that we all already contain the inner wisdom to access our own healing, whether it be physical, mental or emotional or spiritual healing. It’s just that we need a bit of a roadmap to get there sometimes, we need some directions. I love nothing more than training others to open their inner perceptions. I deeply believe one day, we will be all fully empowered in our spiritual nature at all times.
Something I think about a lot…I truly wish we could all have some education around basic psychology from a grade school level. I think if people had an understanding of what trauma is, and how it manifests and how it affects people—we would have a lot more compassion for others.
Courtney: Absolutely. If we were taught the skills for coping with that at an earlier age, we’re less likely to pass it on and perpetuate it. I will say, I teach creative movement in dance part-time at a school ages 3-10, so I have access to the little brains of the next generation, and at least in my school, we are making a much better effort at introducing mindfulness. Daily check-ins, even being able to give language to the feelings they are feeling. I’ve done little meditations with them.
Early on in my work with the Akashic records, I asked my guides one of those basic questions, and by that, I mean a profound question, “what’s my purpose?” My guides said to restore others to their childlike wonder. I was like, what? At the time, I was like, what does that have to do with anything? Tell me what I’m supposed to do, tell me where I’m supposed to be. That’s a great message, now that I listen back to that. Now, there’s nothing in my practical day-to-day that looks like I’m doing that. I’m not doing inner-child work, I’m not doing play-therapy or anything like that. However, it goes back to that spark. Who am I really? Who was I before the world changed me? Getting back to our essence. When I find that people are really struggling with accessing passion, purpose, placement, direction, that will be an assignment. Let’s sit with the uninjured, the unwounded, spiritual soulful child. Let's get back there. Once we’re able to move through the pain of it. A lot of us associate those younger years with a painful narrative, then we start getting some breadcrumbs towards where we might be able to go.
What are your thoughts on this narrative that has evolved, especially as spirituality and psychology terminology have come into pop culture, surrounding the desire to constantly “fix” or “heal” yourself. I try to be mindful of not perpetuating that. At my core, I am very interested in self-development and I love reading about psychology. But I don't want it to seem like it’s coming from a place of, “oh I’m trying to fix myself so I have X, Y, Z.”
Courtney: I’m not gonna lie, at some point in my life, maybe 15 years ago, I thought, once I fix X,Y, Z, I'm gonna be that whole complete person that I always wanted to be. I’m gonna be happy, I’m gonna be joyful, and nothing will ever take that down again. Okay, that didn't work. There have even been moments where I’ve been arrogantly sitting on a good day, “Oh I have arrived. I’m a whole enlightened being” —then 20 minutes later it's like… womp womp.That’s not my goal anymore. What I am learning and what I am trying to be in the process of is how to always stay curious. How to always stay with a sense of wonder without a need to arrive at any point within myself. I don’t wanna say I don't have goals. I certainly have a vision of things, but I don’t have an expectation of a linear unfolding of my own healing, of my own striving, or my own goal-oriented self, which we often get into around healing work or spiritual seeking. For myself, it's about a level of acceptance. Where am I today? That kind of acceptance is really beautiful when you can really sit with it. Knowing that if I happen to be in suffering today that it will also pass. For me, though, working with something greater than myself, call it God, call it the divine, is a reminder for me that I’m not always “efforting.” I’m not always doing it alone. What else is there that I can call on? And can I trust in the unfolding? Can I trust that everything is perfect for today even if it doesn't feel perfect?
In the pop culture of spirituality, there's a lot of language that resembles capitalism, racism, and these other things we want to be dismantling and yet are under the guise of spirituality. I stay away from that.
What advice would you give someone who is interested in beginning their own self healing journey?
Courtney: First, I would say, the word that I received when I was beginning my own spiritual healing journey was “patience.” I was not a patient person, maybe I'm not a patient person now, I’m still learning. And that’s because we often want to rush through and get to the other side, we want to be knowing, we want to see how it’s going to look, we want to have the understanding, we want to arrive at the destination. I’ve come to see that’s a really masculine energy. Being in the feminine energy is being in the mystery, swimming in the unconscious, swimming in that dark space where we just don't really have the clarity yet. And seeing that as a feminine energy, I own it, I claim that. I want to stay in that. Looking at ourselves with that curiosity and with that mystery. Also, finding the people that have paved the way. It may not always be a teacher. But there is certainly someone out there that’s a couple days ahead of you on their pathway. Ask questions, find resources, find the people, and find community if possible. People who speak the same language to hold you accountable, deeply assist each other in spiritual matters, which for me is all of life. I think people are often like, what’s my thing? What's something I should explore? Go back to your childhood, see what you were interested in and start from there. If you loved music, explore sound therapy, go to a sound bath. If you’re more visual, maybe you’re more drawn to tarot, something that’s based in images and symbols. Always begin with what feels warm, easy, and natural.
Book an Akashic Records reading with Courtney Cooke
Courtney’s Most Recommended Reads
The Akashic Experience by Ervin Laszlo
A collection of essays from first-hand accounts of ‘Akashic experiences.’
Women Who Run with Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
A great book for those interested in Jungian archetypes and psychology. This book still makes my wild heart sing!
The Field by Lynn McTaggart
I use the word “field” with my clients all the time! This book helps being scientific understanding to the interconnected fields of belonging that unite us all.
Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian Weiss
Highly recommended for those interested in learning more about past lives and the healing potential of past life regression.
Anatomy of the Spirit by Carolyn Myss
One of the first books I read about physical healing, the chakras, and medicinal intuition. It gave me language for working with the body and spiritual perceptions.