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New! Why would you want to read your child's face? See Video

Face Reading on ABC News! See Video

Face reading questions answered in the latest interview Listen

Energy Stew - Radio interview with Peter Roth Listen

Jean speaks at East West See Video

See Jean on San Diego Living, January 2010 See Video

Listen to a fun and fast-paced radio interview to learn face reading tips you can put to use! MP3

Jean reads intuitive author Collette Baron-Reid’s face!  Part 1      Part 2     Part 3
(Find out more about Collette)

When Michael Jackson Changed His Face, He Changed His Destiny See Video
(Skype Interview on “Extra TV”)
Jean Reads Michael Jackson's Face See Video

See Jean on San Diego Living See Video

See Jean on Fox News’ “The Strategy Room” See Video

See Jean on View From the Bay, KGO-TV, San Francisco See Video

See Jean on San Diego Living See Video



Articles about Jean Haner’s work

From the Louise Hay Newsletter:  "Author Spotlight"

Jean Haner, renowned expert in the art of Chinese face reading, teaches powerful techniques to help people “read” their inner natures—and learn to love them! With a 25-year background in ancient Chinese principles of balance and health, she shares compassionate and affirming ways for people to live in alignment with their true selves. “Jean is a wonderful teacher and a good friend,” says Louise. Jean’s ability to encourage people to see themselves and others with compassion and understanding dovetails perfectly with Louise’s own philosophy of self-love and self-healing.

In her new book from Hay House, The Wisdom of Your Face, Jean explains how she developed her life-affirming vocation. “I first discovered Chinese face reading in the late 1970s, when I married into a Chinese family and learned of it through my mother-in-law.” As a feng shui consultant, Jean wanted to study face reading in order to understand her clients better. “Face reading is based on the same ancient principles as Chinese medicine,” she says. “The same qualities that reveal the state of your body also have parallels in your emotions. Your face is a blueprint of your personality.”

Jean’s face reading study evolved into a remarkable career as an international consultant and counselor to corporations and individuals. The principles of face reading can be used in every area of life—career, self, relationships—wherever greater personal and interpersonal understanding are desired. And isn’t that everywhere? As Jean says, “Face reading helps people love the face in the mirror. It gives you a way to rediscover and reclaim your original nature, to become who you’re truly designed to be. When you live in alignment with your own inner self, you radiate a loving presence. And when you can achieve that compassion for yourself, you can hold this same space for other people as well.” 

Jean’s popular workshops are focused on the practical application of face reading techniques. Who, for example, wouldn’t like to know more about what their children’s faces reveal?

You can read information in children’s faces from the moment of birth and continue to perceive new things about them as their faces change throughout their formative years. The Chinese say that until the age of 25, a child has his “mother’s face”—that is, he’s still evolving through the influence of his parents until adulthood. But even though this may be true, you can see a great deal in these small faces that’s theirs and theirs alone. It can be such fun to gaze at a tiny face and already see an artistic nature reflected in a rounded forehead, a curious mind represented by a pointy nose, or a little performer mirrored in a cleft chin!

You won’t find wrinkles to read in most youngsters, of course, but occasionally, as a child nears adolescence or is further into her teenage years, you may spot a line or two. For example, it’s not all that unusual to see a forehead wrinkle develop at this stage, which means that there’s something in her current patterns of thought or emotion—her way of perceiving the world—that’s creating an opportunity for stress or a life lesson in her 20s (the decade marked on the forehead). If you can convince your child to try wearing adhesive tape on the wrinkle for a few hours, she might have some interesting revelations! Each time she feels the tape pull, she should pause and tune in to what she’s feeling and thinking in that moment. She may well discover a pattern of similar thoughts and emotions that are creating the line and that may be contributing to some life challenge coming in her 20s.

© 2008 Hay House, Inc. Reprinted with Permission by The Louise L. Hay Newsletter. www.hayhouse.com

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Facing Your Face by Roselle Kovitz

In our culture where extreme makeovers are more and more commonplace and the concept of designer children is not out of the question, opting for refining or remaking our appearance is an increasingly accepted practice. I admit, I’ve lingered over glossy plastic surgery ads, noting the smooth faces, wide eyes and taut thighs. It’s tempting.

According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS), “From 1997 to 2005, there has been a 444  percent increase in cosmetic procedures.”  Industry predictions now estimate that cosmetic procedures could exceed $30 billion globally, growing 25% per year.

But what if your face told the story of who you are, how you behave and how your life experiences have marked you? According to the ancient Chinese practice of face reading, our faces are a three dimensional reflection of who we are and how life has affected us. But in this culture, more and more of us want the airbrushed face of a young über model—no matter our age.

Feng shui and face reading teacher and author of the upcoming book, The Wisdom of Your Face, Jean Haner, would argue that our faces tell an important story about us; that there is something almost sacred about every unique feature, even seeming imperfections we are born with or the lines and markings that come with age and experience.

Haner reads facial features much as a meteorologist reads weather patterns. Maybe better. After much study and intense practice, Haner uses her face reading skills to help clients more fully realize and unapologetically inhabit their potential. She came to the practice after many years of study and experience as a feng shui practitioner, working with the interaction of people and spaces. “Face reading has informed my work as a feng shui practitioner,” Haner explains. “In fact, a comment I hear frequently is ‘I feel like I’ve been feng shui'd’.”

Chinese face reading developed over thousands of years of careful observation and practice. Forbidden to touch female patients, Chinese medical practitioners, learned to read the health of their patients by examining their faces. Much like feng shui practitioners learned to read patterns in the land, face readers observed how facial features and markings corresponded to a person’s mental, emotional and physical makeup or the maladies they suffered.

And like feng shui, the practice is rooted in what is called the Five Element theory. This intricate theory uses the elements of Water, Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal as archetypes for everything occurring in the natural world. Each element is correlated to seasons, colors, shapes, sounds as well as facial features, body types, the body’s major organs and behavioral tendencies. For instance, in the practice of face reading, a strong chin or rounded high forehead are considered outward expressions of the Water element. Prominent cheekbones, an aquiline nose and porcelain skin belong to people with a strong Metal element.

Reading faces may seem an esoteric practice at first, but any of us who have a modicum of social skills know how to read some key facial expressions. In his book, Blink, Malcolm Gladwell profiles the work of Silvan Tomkins and Paul Ekman who isolated and identified 3,000 combinations of facial movements that display certain emotions and documented them into the Facial Action Coding System (FACS). Tomkins, Ekman and Robert Levenson went on to study the relationship between facial expression and physiological manifestation of emotions. According to Gladwell, their work, as well as a subsequent study by a German team of researchers, showed that facial expressions alone can cause the same physiological responses as expressions resulting from directly experiencing those same emotions. Gladwell concludes that “[t]he face is not a secondary billboard for our internal feelings. It is an equal partner in the emotional process.”

If facial expressions both reveal and cause emotions, then perhaps it makes sense that the markings we develop from making those expressions over and over would also reveal things about our personality. Like a rut forming in the road, our face shows the effects of moving our facial muscles in repeated, habitual patterns.

So is it revisionist history when we seek to tuck, fill, resurface or reshape our faces? Are we just running from ourselves rather than facing ourselves? And if we are the sum total of the features, lines and markings on our face, then what happens when they vanish or are reconfigured?  Haner believes that a change to the topography of our face also changes the essence of who we are. Conversely, a change in who we are can change our face.

If we were born with a soft fleshy nose (indicating someone who savors the pleasures of life) and pay thousands to have it reshaped to look leaner, longer, more aquiline, will we take on more of the characteristics of a Metallic personality?  Certainly some people give voice to how cosmetic changes have initiated psychological changes as well. While that is anecdotal, it’s hard to ignore how deeply our appearance influences us. On the other hand, if we are to consciously change ourselves from a person quick to anger or behave aggressively person, for instance, to a more peaceful and patient one, we may reduce facial lines by avoiding making an “angry face.”

Haner offers an antidote to our obsession with perfection. She believes that beyond just the outward changes we want to make, many of us actually blame ourselves for who we are, putting us at odds with the very characteristics that define us. “When you can understand that so much of your experience in life is affected by others' judgment, and your own self-judgment, that alone can be revolutionary,” she explains. “And then to discover a way to see who you truly are, and how to be yourself on purpose, to free yourself of those judgments, it can be a life-changing experience.”  And maybe it’s a way to come to terms not only with our physical appearance but allow us to fully inhabit who we are. Instead of radical surgical changes, perhaps mental and emotional ones will do.

In her workshops, Haner illustrates this concept with intriguing stories from her consultations. One is the story of a client who for years dreamed of being a firefighter. An accountant by trade, with facial features that supported that type of careful, detailed work—not the heavy-lifting or risk-taking required of a firefighter—Haner tried to diplomatically explain that accounting was indeed a fit for her; firefighting was not. Midway through the consultation, her client brightened and exclaimed that she “got it.” She said she didn’t really want to be a firefighter, she wanted to have a firefighter. Soon after the consultation, she did just that.

In a culture that defines beauty narrowly and primarily through physical characteristics, many people succumb to needless self criticism at best, self loathing and a variety of self diminishing and destructive disorders at worst. We live in a culture that instead of celebrating uniqueness encourages a conformist standard of beauty that many are literally prepared to die for. But the skin deep beauty that is promoted in ads that fill magazines, line highways and flicker through our living rooms each evening, sell something other than looks. They sell a dissatisfaction with who we are that can and does erode self confidence, self acceptance.

Face reading provides a way to line up inner and outer aspects of ourselves to create a coherence of sorts. Would it be too far-fetched to believe that embracing our true nature and that of others could actually be quite freeing or lead to more authentic relationships? The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a multiple choice personality assessment, similarly provides information on how we tend to move through the world—what gives us energy or saps it and how we like to receive, process and provide information. For years, many in the work world, among others, have used this tool to help people understand how best to relate to colleagues and family members, by understanding how they navigate their life.

Face reading uses what’s in front of our very noses—so to speak—to reveal some of the complexities of our psyches. From whether we are effervescent, pragmatic, attentive to detail, secretive or stubborn, a skilled face reader can pinpoint people’s proclivities, helping clients to better understand themselves and those who are close to them. Reading faces, in a way, is giving voice to what make us unique, the grand attributes we celebrate as well as those that cause us difficulty. And like much truth-telling, Haner says her clients often express a sense of relief as a result of her reading. It seems to free some from layers of expectations—chipping away the years accumulation of who we are not to reveal the original masterpiece of who we are.

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Your Face Is a Blueprint of Your Personality
by Elleke van Duin, Living Magazine, September, 2006

(The following is a translation of an article published in The Netherlands.)

This time we are going international with Living Spirit.  The American woman Jean Haner was in Holland for a few days illustrating her field.

What is face reading exactly? I cannot suppress an association with palm reading. Jean Haner is a red-haired woman in her early forties. Her porcelain skin and light blue eyes give her a fragile look. When she opens her mouth I hear her voice soft and modest. Could she already look into my heart? Actually quite scary. It looks like she can read my thoughts and starts to talk about my jaw line.

My jaw is strong. That means that I am not easily convinced of other opinions.  Nice to hear but I regard myself quite often as a doubter. She is ahead of me: “Furthermore, I see on your temples that you at the same time doubt a lot. That is because you want to decide things for yourself.  Although you think you would like it when there was somebody who would tell you what to do.  But that is not what you really want after all. That takes a lot of internal battle and that is why it sometimes takes a long time before you take a decision. But when you make a decision you really stand behind it."

What is your time of birth? Has astrology also to do with this? “Yes, when somebody has come into the world plays an important role.  I can see that your job suits you. You sense everything what happens around you and you cleverly react on it." I don’t sit here by accident. Jean appears to have a large customer circle in the United States.  People come from a long way to counsel her about their work, their partner, their child or just about themselves.

What is it exactly, face reading?

"Face reading, or face analysis, is a part of the Chinese understanding of life. This science is 3000 year old. The basis is the same as principles used in acupuncture and feng shui : ‘yin and yang’ and ‘wu xing’ (5 phases of development). Your nose, mouth, eyes, ears, eyelids and brow, but also the nostrils, eyebrows, hairline, wrinkles , scars, moles, complexion and color differences have all significance. On the basis of these traits, combined with age characteristics that can be found on the face I can read somebody’s personality. The shape, the relative proportions, size differences, symmetry or not, show character, life, and living conditions. A face is a blueprint of your personality."

How did you get in touch with it?

"Thirty years ago, I married a Chinese man from a very traditional family. My mother-in-law practiced face reading. She wasn’t happy with me then because I didn’t have the so-called "money bags" on my cheeks. I found that very judgmental, but it did intrigue me. I began to study, and became so enthusiastic that I wanted to translate it for the western world."

On what doctrine is it based?

"On the Five Elements, or the everlasting stream of changes in everything that lives on earth: these are called Water, Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal. Every element has another energy. These different energy streams are also inside us.  We are seldom  one specific type; usually it is a combination of several elements. Like  I see in you a combination of Fire, Wood and Earth."

What is the purpose of face reading?

"When we learn to read our inner blueprint, about who we are, we know our goals and which road we can take best to go there. Understand who you are, acknowledge that and use that. Acceptance instead of judgment. Too often we blame ourselves and others about how things go: if I had only chosen this or that. A pit,y because when you know yourself better and you are prepared to listen to yourself, you can better react on what is coming your way and be happy."

But how and where can we use it?

"Face reading can be used in every field: career, yourself, your relationship.  It is a means for self-reflection. What emotions do you see in your own face?  What other qualities do you have that you don’t use but that can have a positive affect on your life? You can learn to see what your colleagues or customers would like to. And in the face of your partner, you can see his character. Negative qualities don’t come as a surprise then, but can help you to better balance your relationship. You know, for instance, that he is stingy because you’ve seen it in his face. I try to make my workshops as practical as possible. If you are looking for a partner, I can help you discover what kind of partner is good for you, and where you have to pay attention to in faces. By first assessing what person you are yourself I can see what kind of person would match you."

What did it bring yourself?

"Face reading has taught me to come into balance with myself."

What is your motto?

"Understand and acknowledge who you are."

© 2006 Living Magazine

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Know Your Face and Free Your Soul:
Jean Haner on Chinese Face Reading and Self-Discovery
by Rhonda Dicksion

Ask most people what’s holding them back from joy, what they need to really improve their life, and they’d likely answer in predictable ways: they want a job that energizes them, an overflowing bank account, a relationship with a perfect someone, or vibrant health.

But what if we could discover something even better, the touchstone that makes all the rest possible? What if we could replace all the ways we might feel “less-than,” and “not-good-enough,” and “other,” with feelings of love and gentle kindness for ourselves? Then we’re free and open to joy. We step out of our way, become our best cheering squad, and allow all of life’s magic to happen in and around us.

This is Jean Haner’s life’s work. By teaching people how their own faces map their life’s journey — their habits, tendencies, and the way they look at life — she helps them understand why they feel, think, act, and react in certain ways. Through Chinese face reading, Jean helps students and clients discover that magical moment when they can flow with life, and let life’s treasures flow to them.

“Most people have never heard of face reading,” Jean says. “They think it’s a party trick or something.”

Jean was exposed to face reading by her mother-in-law when Jean and her ex-husband were preparing to buy a house in 1979. Her mother-in-law, who was from China, insisted on being in on the search.

“She knew this really weird thing called feng shui,” Jean recalls. “The rest of the family told me not to listen to her — that this was superstition — but the things she said about what to look for in a house really made sense to me. She became my first feng shui teacher. And she also knew face reading.”

Initially, Jean didn’t see the value in face reading.

“It all seemed very much like folklore to me. ‘Don’t do business with that man, he has a dragon nose,’ my mother-in-law might say. A dragon nose? What does that mean?”

But fascinated with feng shui, Jean studied it and then began to practice it professionally. As her practice grew, she realized that face reading was a natural complement to feng shui, and that face reading gave her a deeper understanding of clients and their issues.

“I came back to face reading years later thinking, okay, maybe there is something valuable here,” Jean says.

“I am one of the more skeptical people you’ll ever meet. Things have to make sense to me. Face reading has an incredible depth and foundation. My mother-in-law taught me the superstitious side of face reading, but the principles behind it are universal principles that are astonishingly true and useful.

“The Chinese have observed nature for thousands of years, and they noticed that everything is about a circle — the seasons, times of day, times of life — everything goes in circular fashion. They noticed that at different stages of the circle there were different qualities of energy. The energy of winter is very different from summer, and childhood from old age.

“This circle is what Chinese doctors or acupuncturists use as a grid or map when they look at your body to discern your physical health. What the Chinese also discovered — and what we in the West have only come to accept in the last 20 years — is that your physical health is directly related to your emotional state. Three thousand years ago, Chinese doctors discovered they could discern the health of the body simply by looking at the face, but they also found you can read someone’s personality by reading their face.

“When you unwrap the gift of face reading, inside is the circle that helps you understand how you should live your life, how you take a breath, how a business meeting happens, how you eat a meal. You can use this as a map to understand any situation or experience. Your face tells the world what you expect from it and what your experience is going to be, and you can read the same in other people’s faces: about how they will experience life, how they will experience you, and what you can do to make them feel more comfortable.

“When I started with this work I thought, ‘Oh cool! People are going to be able to understand their spouses and their kids better with face reading!’ Certainly they do, but when people really get lit up in my workshops is when they realize, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s why I do what I do!’ People are transformed when they understand why they keep feeling certain ways, or why they keep attracting certain types of people into their life.

“But this is not a head-thing. When you begin learning to read faces, there is a stage you go through trying to remember what a nose or chin means, but pretty soon you throw that away. You come back inside and it’s almost like you can read someone’s frequency; you learn to meet people where they are. And then, when you look in the mirror you’re not so self-blameful. People tell me, ‘I finally have permission to be myself. I am not blaming myself for who I am anymore.’

“To me, face reading is about getting out of your own way; about not taking yourself so seriously. It’s about knowing that you have certain feelings because it’s your nature.

“People are just like plants. Somebody is supposed to be a pine tree and someone else a willow tree and someone else a redwood. If the willow tree is trying to be a pine tree because her parents and friends are pine trees, and if she’s blaming herself for not being able to grow needles, then she’s never going to be happy in life, she’s never going to be anything but stressed. This is about moving beyond the small self and the personality we are so locked into, the filters we see the world through, and into understanding why, as a willow tree, I perceive someone else as good or bad or difficult or wonderful. This work frees people to be their authentic selves. If you are the authentic, integrated version of yourself, then you live your life with joy.

“It’s a confusing place, this planet, and we get all kinds of messages about what we’re supposed to do here. We struggle all our lives to discover or rediscover who we were meant to be, to find the fullest expression of who we were meant to be. Face reading hands this self-discovery to us on a plate. It’s amazingly eloquent and breaktakingly beautiful.”

© 2008 New Spirit Journal

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