About Jean Haner

Jean Haner is the author of The Wisdom of Your Face and The Wisdom of Your Child’s Face and teaches and consults internationally about powerful techniques to “read” people’s inner natures. With her 25-year background in ancient Chinese principles of balance and health, Jean places an emphasis on compassionate and affirming ways for people to live authentically and to look with love at everyone in their lives. She is well known for providing grounded, practical information that can be put to immediate use in your life.

Q: What does the Wisdom of Your Face mean?

The Wisdom of Your Face is based on Chinese face reading, an ancient branch of Chinese medicine, which is thousands of years old. This knowledge teaches that each of us is born with an inner design that is ours and ours alone, and that this can be read in the characteristics of our face.

In other words, your face reveals your true nature, and if you can learn to read the messages there, you can get brilliant insights about your personal strengths and challenges. You can discover why you experience certain patterns in life — why you seem to end up dating the same kinds of people no matter how hard you try to make different choices, or have the same frustrations trying to earn enough money, and how to change these experiences.

You can also use face reading to know how to create immediate rapport with anyone, to be able to anticipate how they’ll think, feel and behave, and to develop successful relationships, personally and professionally.

And, if you’re like many people, you may feel like your life has taken you away from who you really are. Discovering the wisdom written on your face can help you realign to your original nature, to live a life that is genuinely fulfilling, joyful and open-hearted!

Q: If this is from China, can it really be meaningful for Westerners?

These are universal principles - they have to do with human beings’ faces, not just Chinese faces. The human body has minor variations but one basic design, so just as any Westerner can benefit from acupuncture or Chinese medicine for health problems, face reading applies to all faces.

Q: What does face reading have to say about cosmetic surgery?

Everything you do to your face affects your inner nature as well. Some cosmetic surgery can actually have a positive effect. For instance, if someone has a chin implant, that can increase their determination, their ability to stand up to anyone's attempts to control or dominate them.

But there are many aspects of features and even wrinkles on your face that have a positive meaning. These are often the ones that people change through cosmetic surgery, without being aware of how deeply they're impacting their lives! I’d definitely want them to know so they can make an educated choice.

And most of all, I’d like to contribute to a positive change in our conversations as a culture, about how we define what beauty is. I’d love to release women, especially, from the pressure to meet limiting standards for appearance. (And I’m on a campaign to make you feel better about your wrinkles!)

A few years ago, I read that cosmetic mogul Estee Lauder was quoted as saying there is one day in every woman’s life when she is sure to be beautiful — her wedding day — because it’s the one day she’ll take great care with her make-up! Well, I believe the reason a woman is beautiful on her wedding day is because she’s in love! When you’re in love, there is a radiance coming from your face that has nothing to do with make-up. And that’s the goal of my work — to allow you to have that glow of love for yourself and others, so you’ll feel and look beautiful no matter if you have wrinkles, or make-up, and certainly without having to cut your face.

Q: The subtitle of your book says you can change your life with face reading. How can you do that?

I think most people struggle all their lives, trying to figure out the answer to two essential questions: Who am I, and what is my calling? There is a reason why you are here, and a special way to accomplish your calling in the world. Your face reveals this original plan, which has often become hidden after years of living according to other people's expectations and judgments about who you should be.

When you can rediscover your original design, you’re empowered to live according to your true nature and you can fulfill your purpose in the world. My work is not about finding out what’s wrong with you or trying to fix you. It’s about showing you how to be yourself — on purpose. That will change your life forever.

Q: Can this help me in my dating life?

When you can see by your boyfriend’s eyebrows that he really does need to play basketball three times a week, it can save your relationship! And you can even read the faces on those on-line dating sites to know what each person is really like and if he or she is who you’re looking for.

I do a lot of work with couples who come to me to find out how to best help their relationship grow and flourish. Or someone brings a photo of someone they're interested in. Often they're terrified I’m going to tell them to run for the hills! But it's important to understand there are no “bad” combinations — a good relationship is all about awareness and understanding. This is why understanding the wisdom presented on your own face and others can be such a powerful help.

Q: Can you read children’s faces?

Yes, you can discover so much information from a child’s face about who that little spirit is inside! I love teaching parents how to read the faces of their children, so they can really help them flourish. Click here for more information about The Wisdom of Your Child’s Face.

Q: How can knowing the wisdom of my own face help me in my career?

Many people who’ve been to workshops say this knowledge has revolutionized their professional lives. For instance, you can be more successful with clients when you know how to immediately create rapport. One woman realized she should have been taking more time to ask about one client’s family before getting down to business. This client’s face showed he needed to have more of that kind of personal connection. Once she adjusted that one small thing, her work with this man totally transformed.

Face reading can create easier ways for teams to work together, and for management to understand their staff, and vice versa. But most importantly, it can reveal the best way for you to do your work in the world. You can discover your best strategy for achieving goals, and change your personal challenges into strengths so you can find true success.

Q: What is the experience of a workshop like?

A workshop is a fun and fascinating experience, packed with practical information that you can put to immediate use. It’s exciting to see people’s astonished confirmations as they discover what their faces have to tell them about who they are inside. And you hear a lot of “Oh my God, does that explain my partner/child/parent/boss!”

Many people come thinking they’re just going to learn to read other people’s faces, and they do that. But they often experience profound new realizations for themselves, and emerge with their lives changed forever.

Q: How did you get into this field?

Thirty years ago, I married into a Chinese family and first learned about face reading from my very traditional mother-in-law. The rest of the family just considered it a superstition and was rather embarrassed by all this. At first, I found it horrifying to make judgments about who someone is based on their appearance! It also seemed to be a very limiting way of understanding people, mostly concerned with someone’s face being “lucky” or “unlucky.”

But I went on to study the deeper foundations of face reading with many teachers over the years, and learned it has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with being your authentic self and living to your fullest potential.

And face reading helped me appreciate and love my mother-in-law even more – I discovered how tolerant she had to be when I married her son — it seems I didn’t have any lucky “moneybags” on my face! But she still graciously welcomed me into her family.

Q: Is your destiny written in your face?

This work is not fatalistic; your life is not pre-determined. However, face reading can show you what important experiences have helped shape your life, and how you can stop creating a future based on your past. The foundation of this work is the understanding of how change happens. You, your face, and your life are in constant movement and change. Face reading can show you how to ride that change according to your own natural flow, rather than trying to push the river.

Q: Why do you teach this work?

I love how powerful this wisdom is for people. Every day I hear some version of “THAT’S ME!” in workshops and consultations. People just light up with the epiphany that there is a reason for why they're feeling the way they do, why their life experience has been what it has. More than once I’ve heard that someone’s experience in a single workshop has changed her life more than years of therapy. My hope is that people who come to a workshop are empowered to love themselves for who they really are, and then to extend the same compassion to everyone they encounter.

Find a workshop!

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Read Jean's monthly column in New Spirit Journal
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