"I don't think that I have changed a lot since I was born," says Hilla Segal. "When I was a child, I always felt an adult being stuck in a small body."
Hilla's parents were very spiritual and philosophical and gave their children freedom. "They never told me that anything which I felt or saw was not correct. They helped me to trust my intuition. I've always known things, my family often label me as the little witch."
The death of Hilla's grandmother when Hilla was 8 years old inspired Hilla to begin a search into the unknown.
"I knew inside that there are other dimensions, and I was always aware of the different types of energies that surround us….When my grandma died I decided to make this search a conscious quest to learn about the other side in order not to loose contact."
Trying to connect to the 'light' in order to overcome her loss, Hilla intuitively felt the need to buy a stone - tiger eye was her choice. At the time she didn't know that tiger eye is a powerful emotional balancer, she just knew it would help her and so it did.
Growing up, Hilla read books about mysterious forces, time travel and miraculous happenings. At times she noticed that she could foresee future events, but she couldn't understand why.
She enrolled to study theater and acting. As part of the regular curriculum she studied yoga, psychodrama and meditation. School was interesting, but Hilla didn't seem to be able to fit in, she remained an outsider, and because of this, sometimes she suffered from depression.
Then something happened. At 16 years old, "my sister with no reason sunk into a state of coma for six months; it was a catalyst for everything," says Hilla.
Doctors were helpless, no one seemed to know the cause or the cure for her sister's disease. "I escaped into my own word to find the answers…..into places where I felt comfortable for searching for the truth."
One day she run away from school and found a newly opened New Age shop in town, which became her haunt. The shop owner, who was himself a practitioner of Chinese medicine, took her under his wings.
With her sister in coma, and her family falling apart economically, Hilla was eager to learn anything that could help her sister and herself. Visiting the shop everyday and reading holistic books, for the first time in her life Hilla felt at home, and soon after with the help of a friend she started to study Shamanic healing.
She visited her sister in hospital often and would place various stones and crystals on her. After six months of combined efforts of healing, prayers, homeopathy and energy healing her sister woke up.
"She was my very first patient, and I had to copy with the hardest questions in life, with the 'whys'"
At the age of 18 Hilla decided to leave school and started to work in the crystal shop full time. Very soon some of the regular clients started to ask her to teach a course on crystals. Although she had never considered teaching an option it was a tempting opportunity, and almost immediately eight people signed up for her course. She felt that God was sending her abundance through her work with crystals and stones.
While teaching she continued searching for the real meaning of stones and crystals, both through books and the direct experience of holding the crystals in her hands. After a year, she was able to finish with the books and trust in her own intuition and the messages she received from the crystals.
Doors kept opening and opportunities came her way. Some of the clients in the shop asked her for healing sessions.
"I was provided with a place to work in the shop and I had the crystals at hand which I would 'charge' before each treatment, it was just so easy….When I needed a bed I got one as a present and I got crystals from people as gifts. Somehow things started to work out."
At the beginning of each treatment Hilla asks her clients to pick three different stones, and by the types of rocked picked she knows the state of mind of her clients and the help she needs to offer.
She uses over 40 different crystals in each treatment placing them according to the chakras. "I look at crystals as presents, as tools helping us to open, to bend and to feel the purpose. My purpose is it to touch people's heart. In the beginning I thought I would do that through theater. Today I do it through the treatments and tomorrow it might be something else. Everything is under a constant flow and change."
Hilla believes that knowing what she wants to do in life gives her the power to accept whatever comes her way in the various stages of her journey. And there is no doubt for her that her work must involve the crystals.
She says, "I decided to heal with crystals because I enjoy their voice, I enjoy the way they move people, …they capture such harmony, beauty, colors and asthetics. I believe working with crystals returns people to the magic of childhood beyond the everyday reality. So I choose them to be my tools but they are only the tools. The healing is always done by the patient."