I was introduced to the book, Freeze Frame, a few years ago by our Naturopath. I assured her, I would read it. I just didn’t say when. Thankfully I took the time to read it. Since reading it I’ve incorporated several techniques into my own life. The techniques focus on a system of living from the heart.

While searching for a suitable Destination Healing practice for this issue, I found Jasmina Agrillo has a practice titled Heartful Living in Westbrook, Maine where she utilizes HeartMath® techniques.

I arranged to interview Jasmina and found she works from her heart, possessing a warm and sharing soul, gentle spirit, and compassionate heart helping guide many travelers along life’s paths. She’s been involved in work that embraces body, mind, and spirit most of her life including visits to energetic sites in India and the Himalayas, one her favorite places. She also has an extensive background in working with sound and mantras. Jasmina has practiced many years and views spiritual evolution as endless.

Leading up to her current practice, she’s had a sense of living in the moment for years. This sense encompassed her life. “I wanted my own practice to be more immediate, in the moment. I was having a sense that the energetic heart and the physical heart actually were connected.”

Around 1995, she wondered if anyone else used this connection scientifically and three years later, in 1998, she met Joseph Chilton Pierce who gave a lecture at the University of Maine about the Role of the Heart. He focussed the lecture on the development of the brain and the heart’s relationship to that development. Pierce spoke about the heart and the work HeartMath® was doing in California where people were using heart based techniques based on positive emotions. “They were relieving stress and feeling good, but also effecting the health.” According to Jasmina, she had an “ah hah moment” realizing she could do this work, but she talked herself out of it because of life obligations at the time.

In 2001, Jasmina was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Following her surgery for the tumor, she recognized that her spirit and mind were very active while her body recovered from the surgery. She didn’t feel finished and asked Spirit to heal her fully from the brain surgery. Feeling her oneness with Spirit, “I knew I would do this work and it did involve the heart. Whoever those people were that were doing this work, I was going to find them or they would come to me.”

Now, like the name of her practice implies, Heartful Living, Jasmina works with the heart. “The connection to the heart is the now which balances the whole human system – the mind, body, spirit.” She recognizes that most physical dis-eases begin as an emotion experienced through the heart adding that medical research shows “90% of all illness is stress related.”

“The amazing thing about the HeartMath® techniques is they are easy to practice in the moment. They aren’t complicated, and they work really fast... less than sixty seconds actually. You actually transform a stressful emotion such as worry or anxiety in that moment giving you the opportunity to start developing what I call pragmatic intuition. ‘What do I do in this moment to make this situation less stressful and better for me’. The techniques are really designed to practice right there in the moment with whatever is happening.” Jasmina explained that the techniques work, in the home, at work, personal life, anywhere... anytime.

HeartMath® helps develop a neutral state of being or mindful awareness. “You develop the ability to look outside yourself with loving detachment in any circumstance that you are experiencing at that moment.” This awareness opens the door to developing the connection to your higher self.

Jasmina guides clients through a series of steps to overcome stress or difficult times in their life utilizing methods she has learned through the Institute of Heart Math. By embracing HeartMath techniques, they are empowered to take control of their natural state of being. The individual takes a loving active role in their own healing process. They partner with techniques to achieve wellness. “You want to empower yourself. It’s self-empowering and that not only empowers you, but your life and anyone around you.”

She explained that we also influence others by our responses in given situations. If a potential stressful situation arises and we respond to it through stressful actions, the other person may respond in a like manner. The inverse is also true. However, if we “freeze” the moment, recognize the potential for a stressful response and instead of reacting with stress you act, approaching the matter in real time with a loving detachment, positive emotion, and remain neutral. That response not only helps you, but those around you too. To ignore such a moment is what HeartMath® refers to as repression.

After freezing the moment, we ask ourselves how to respond better in the circumstances before us. One response could be compassion, or appreciation might work instead. Now we are experiencing our mind’s resistance to becoming stressed and deciding on the most suitable response for my benefit and those around me. Through HeartMath® techniques, Jasmina helps clients create coherent environments where balance and loving compassion diffuse potentially stressful arenas. Connecting with positive emotions creates the coherence.

When a potential client approaches her, Jasmina likes to make an appointment for a consult. They can do this by phone or meet with her in person. During the initial consult she determines their interest, purpose, and goals. She demonstrates the HeartMath® emWave PC® software program which reveals their heart rhythm in real time and em–Wave Personal Stress Reliever® which aids in the control of stress and improves health to a better life. The stress reliever reveals the nervous system from the heart’s perspective; what your heart is doing, its stress level and when you come into balance. Jasmina typically uses the software in the first visit to show people how “their own heart rhythm pattern and how their feelings and thoughts really affect the heart rhythm.”

At the first session, she likes to do an “intake” including background, a little health history, and not much detail (just enough to identify their needs), so she can get to know her client. She’ll “go for it” by bringing out the workbook in their first meeting to get them involved. “I want them to start feeling good right away” through working with workbook, introducing them to the connection with their body and nervous system. This, she believes, is a good way to start because “if I don’t they’re getting it conceptually not in their body." This takes about an hour and a half.

“When I work with folks I use workbooks. The techniques are so practical and using a workbook grounds the practice.” The techniques are best learned when the client takes part in their own journey to relieving stress. They hear, see, and write the technique, which grafts them into the person, so they can, in essence, rewire the ways they react to potential stress. The workbooks become more than books. They become tools that the client can use during the sessions and later throughout their life. The workbooks are “very effective when people use it.”

She recommends four sessions although some come in for two sessions, and she views those sessions as opportunities to plant seeds. She flows with the needs of her clients. She has long term clients, but many people come in, learn to empower themselves, and move on to maintain their own care “And that’s really good!” according to Jasmina. “I love working with people.”

She encourages clients to integrate themselves into their sessions at a pace comfortable for them. Jasmina also uses music researched by HeartMath® as part of her practice. It helps “sustain the positive emotion.” She may give assignments to read a portion of a book before the next session, but she really leaves it up to the client how much they want to do.

She treats each person individually and leaves room for adjustments. However, she recommends scheduling the first couple sessions a week apart, then the client can space them out, like two weeks apart. On average, the sessions could be spaced over four to six weeks. After about thirty days, on average, people should notice a difference in the way they work with stress in their lives. “You’re rewiring your brain and it takes repetition and practice. Our brains are not computers, and they learn through repetition and practice. I like to see people stay with the four sessions, ideally.” If someone wishes to work with her for just a couple sessions, that’s fine as well.

She works with many people, but specializes in brain injury cases; from injury through recovery. Jasmina works through referrals from with other practitioners and offers presentations to groups as well.

Jasmina reveals she lives from her heart. “We have this power that’s inside our hearts to really bring loving care, healing care, and compassion to ourselves. We each have the ability encoded in our very own hearts to create our life anew, to heal our body, mind, and spirit. My desire is to help others discover the power of their own heart.”

If you would like to meet with Jasmina Agrillo, she can be reached through her practice, Heartful Living, by phoning 207-856-6042 or at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

HeartMath® and Freeze Frame® are registered trademarks of the Institute of HeartMath.