For the first time, the cover of the JMB Living Journal is a woman from our community: Erica Sartini-Combs (@guidedplace on Instagram). I am so grateful that our network has grown and that I have been able to form connections with Erica and so many others through this adventure, and being able to share her blossoming energy as a representation of Spring is such a delight. 

Erica is the founder of Guided Place, a mindfulness resource center that serves as a space for you to come home to yourself. This can be in the form of Reiki, human design, or Aura-Soma. Erica’s knowledge of holistic healing and spiritual growth is how she forms deep connections with her clients in their journeys to understand themselves and lean into their purpose. 

Erica offered me the opportunity to do an Aura-Soma session, and the experience was overwhelmingly informative, peaceful, and validating of where on am on my personal journey and journey with our community. Before we started our session, I was able to spend a some time with Erica learning about her own journey and the path that brought her to practicing Aura-Soma in New Albany, Indiana.

Erica’s Journey

Erica is originally from Jeffersonville, Indiana, but she moved to Chicago with her husband for better opportunities in her career as a casting director. Erica spent 10 years in Chicago dedicating herself to her work and experiencing increasing success. The career shift from a casting career in a major city to a wellness entrepreneur in a small town might seem random and unexpected, but is highly aligned with Erica’s path. 

Erica loved casting because she got to recognize talent and help people get from point A to point B in their own journeys, while also getting to be constantly immersed in the many forms of art that auditions come in. About watching so many auditions, Erica said, “How beautiful to sit and watch people take the same words as someone else and infuse themselves in it. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was connected to my interest in auras.” 

Erica eventually chose to end her casting career because it was so encompassing and time-intensive, that she found herself overworking for no reason other than the fact that she could. Her job was additionally emotionally taxing—because of Erica’s heightened empathic tendencies, she was better at her job by recognizing the capabilities and potential of people, but she was picking up on energies that she didn’t have boundaries for yet. 

Erica said that the thing that pulled her home was finding more ease in her life. She loved what she was doing, but it felt off; she knew there was a shift coming and she wanted to see more of her daughter and her husband.

To find her redirection, Erica wrote down a list answering two questions: “What do I like doing?” and “How do I like to spend my day?” An opportunity arose in Louisville that would allow her to do the things on her list and it was so synchronistic that she couldn’t ignore it… a moment of kismet.

Erica’s new job was at Level Up, a business offering a variety of skills classes to women. As the director of operations, Erica’s entire experience at Level Up curating moments of joy and self-care brought her closer and closer to what she is doing now. Level Up unfortunately became a pandemic casualty, but at the same time, Erica was provided the opportunity to pause for the first time since she graduated high school.

Guided Place was started in November 2020 as a side soul project. At the top of Erica’s vision board was “Freedom” and she got it on January 28th of 2021 when she lost her job. She was scared about this abrupt redirection, but there was a weird comfort that she had already started Guided Place and everything started falling into place. She was dually encouraged by her husband, who told her to lean in and see what happens, because if there was ever a time to embark on a journey to pursue her dreams, it was now. Erica is quick to acknowledge her gratitude in having the privilege of being able to lean on such a supportive partner. 

Now that she had the opportunity to grow Guided Place, Erica was able to expand her knowledge of Reiki and become formally trained in Aura-Soma. Her mom went to the school of metaphysics and was a Reiki master, so Erica grew up being shown the potential of exploring things that aren’t perceived as typical or normal. Growing up in an environment like this gave her access to wellness early on and set her foundation for who she really was.

Erica’s biggest dream for Guided Place is that she becomes this place where people can come back to themselves for self-discovery, finding depth and honoring the complexities of who they are. She said she would love to eventually have a storefront with different practitioners and other tools outside of human design, Aura-Soma and Reiki. Her long-term goal is to lead retreats, but on the level of micro-retreats. “So many people can’t even schedule five minutes to themselves, but micro-retreats give people a way to nurture themselves along the way of finding who they are.” 

It’s so easy to tell just by the way she talks about Guided Place how dedicated and genuinely passionate Erica is in her dream to help people come home to themselves. Her comforting disposition and naturally effervescent energy elevates her Aura-Soma sessions and easily makes the situation more comfortable and informative. To access all Erica has to offer, follow her on Instagram @guidedplace and visit her website here.

What is Aura-Soma?

Aura-Soma is a system of color, plant and crystal energy that supports a deeper consciousness and holistic well-being. The full system is considered energetic medicine, a mind-body-spirit medicine.

Aura-Soma uses your own internal intuition in combination with your unconscious to identify areas of need and direction to bring you closer to embodying your purpose and ideal life. This identification and message process is informed by intuitively selecting colored bottles. The sequence of the bottles and the bottles chosen influence the message interpretation. The bottles can be used as a body oil and contain living frequencies with crystal and plant energies—just like using a crystal.

There is also an aspect of color therapy as each bottle includes color frequencies that uses cell science to inform treatment. Biophotons are particles in cells that emit light and color frequencies can impact biophotons. Aura-Soma is directly translated into “light body”, and the biophotons in our cells prove that we are beings that emit light. When using a system that includes color light therapy, this biological aspect clears stagnation and enhances energy levels,  which brings Aura-Soma to be effective on mental, emotional, physical and spiritual planes. 

How Does Aura-Soma Work?

The bottle selection is soul-led after entering a meditative state to connect with your highest form. Once guided through the connective meditation, you stand away from the bottle with a soft gaze to take in the bottles. Certain bottles stick out or call to you, and that is a key to the unconscious. At Guided Place, Erica reads the wisdom of the bottle and then looks at how that is applied to your life right now. The bottles provide wisdom and guidance to each of these aspects:

First bottle

Soul Aspect: This bottle indicates where your proclivities lie—where and how your energy is best utilized in relation to yourself and other people.

Second bottle

Gifts and Challenges: what we’re manifesting and what we’re resisting

Third bottle

What is currently in the system energy: insight into what you’re experiencing now and how it impacts the other aspects such as if it is hindering or facilitating your soul aspect and gifts.

Fourth bottle

The Present Future: what energy is coming towards us to support us, which can help inform your dream steps and direction.

Another way to work with aura light therapy is integrative energy healing. With this approach, a single bottle of the four is selected to work with and Erica uses the same energetic frequencies in a vial form. A light pen shines through the selected color vial and makes direct contact with acupuncture points throughout the body as a dose of light energy. Light reaches 33 millimeters into the skin, so this therapy system accesses the meridian lines. This practice works to bring health to the back, limbs, and the Earlier Heaven Bagua—an area in your torso that creates internal feng shui. This integrative modality is where Traditional Chinese Medicine meets Aura-Soma, which was created in England. 

Aura-Soma bottles can also be used to select pomander bottles, a practice similar to aromatherapy in which the liquid from the pomander is put into the palm with a physical mindfulness sequence and it’s then inhaled. This modality brings ease, balance, and calm to your energetic system while cleansing and protecting your auras. 

Individual journeys are articulated with an equilibrium bottle and supported with the use of a pomander. 

What are the benefits of Aura-Soma?

Aura-Soma seeks to take the unconscious and move it to the conscious. Once these unconscious thoughts and feelings are recognized, Aura-Soma can provide insight on a path forward, suggesting leaning into it or releasing it. That is why Aura-Soma is important: it brings awareness to accepting or releasing things to help you become more aligned and at peace on your journey to your best life.

The wisdom gained from equilibrium bottles turns trauma into insight, bliss and understanding. This process is a form of spiritual alchemy in which the release and healing involved is alchemizing in ourselves. From a longevity standpoint, Aura-Soma is a beginning and end ritual that pervades day-to-day to match our energy throughout the journey. We always come back home to ourselves through ritual. The success of Aura-Soma is demonstrated when you move through life with more ease and direction, able to react to things differently now that you are informed and connected to your unconscious thoughts and pre-existing habits and behaviors.

“Because Aura-Soma is soul-led, the greater guide is within; so trust your own intuition,” Erica recommends.

The first bottle I was drawn to choose in my Aura-Soma session expressed that I currently am using my energy to help others love themselves more fully. How much more on target could that be, considering our JMB Living motto this year of "Love Yourself Fully". This motto was chosen based on the intuitive message received by Peyton Turner specifically for JMB Living. (If you'd like to see the painting Peyton created for this beautiful message or order one of the limited edition prints, you can see them here.)

My session also validated my pull recently to take steps to strengthen my intuition as well as expressed that I am to share the knowledge that I am given in a very big way—not to just small groups of individuals, but expansively to many, many people. This, too, feels very aligned with using the journal as a vehicle not only to share tools that have been helpful to me in getting through the challenges in my life, but also as a means to share the wisdom of other women as well.

Pictured below are the bottles I chose during my Aura-Soma session. A picture of the gold and violet bottle now serves as the screensaver to my phone, reminding me often to lean into my intuition.