Table of Contents
Systemic Energy Healing © Martyn Carruthers 2009
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Energy work refers to alternative healing modalities based on beliefs that we all have energy fields that can be affected by the thoughts or actions of other people. Here is an overview of energy work – and insights into Soulwork and the structure of love. |
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For your cognitive mind, your loving heart and your intuitive soul
I am sometimes asked what energies I use to cause, supplement or support the rapid, powerful results that so many people experience during our work. People often tell me that they feel or even see an energy flow between me and those people.
I believe that I know what this energy work is, but when I try to describe it, I can get lost in abstractions. So I will summarize what various energy workers say that they do, and then offer my own observations.
What is Energy Work?
Depression, fatigue, anxiety or unhappiness are common reactions to relationship issues. Such reactions can decrease the body’s immune system and increase the risk of disease. These reactions also motivate searches for inner peace.
Compared to drugs, balancing body energies may seem like a great idea! Energy work certainly seems easier than analyzing emotions and changing relationships. Just relax, think nice thoughts, breathe deeply and pay. Great – if it works!
Energy workers told me that balancing body energies can empower people to harmonize their minds, bodies and souls and they often claim that they help people stimulate, release, clear or unblock their body energies.
Descriptions of energies that can affect the human body can be found in older medical and spiritual systems. Such energies were called prana in India, mana in Hawaii, qi in China, ki in Japan, orgone in Germany and animal magnetism in America.
Popular Forms of Energy HealingAll practitioners seemed to believe that their modality is effective, Acupuncture was developed in ancient China. Practitioners told me that everything is governed by the energies of water, wood, fire, earth and metal, and that they can affect the flow of body energy by inserting needles into the skin to balance the flow of a universal energy called Qi. Animal magnetism need not mean sex appeal! The term referred to the application of a universal magnetic fluid that practitioners (mesmerists) could control. Research into animal magnetism was the basis of early medical hypnosis which later emerged as psychotherapy. Bioenergy practitioners seek to unblock body energies restricted by suppressed emotions, which manifest as tension, pain and illness. Bioenergy practitioners may use suggestion, exercises and breathing to allow a universal energy called orgone to flow through a body. Christian healing practitioners may say that some special people can ask a universal Holy Spirit to enter other people’s bodies to promote transformation, forgiveness and health … if those people believe or have enough faith that this is possible. Ho’omanamana is Hawaiian for making great energy. Practitioners may say that they use the elements of nature, generated by breathing or given by an ancestral spirit to replace or balance human mana (life energy), and to kick out malignant energies left by other people. Polarity therapy practitioners may say that nature has positive and negative energies that must be in balance to prevent illness. Practitioners claim to balance human energy fields to restore the mind and body, using massage, dietary and nutritional counseling, yoga and positive thinking. Prana is a Sanskrit word meaning invisible vital energy. Practitioners may say that they can use prana to balance, harmonize and transform body energies, to accelerate healing by increasing the life force or vital energy on the affected part of the body. Reflexology practitioners apply pressure to the foot, holding that the foot represents a microcosm of the body and that parts of the foot correspond to other body parts. By pressing on certain parts, practitioners may claim to help alleviate body problems by clearing congested energies. Reiki is Japanese for universal energy. It uses touch and visualizations to access a universal energy that can restore health. Practitioners may claim to transfer this universal energy by placing their hands on chakras, and body organs, to balance the energies of the mind, body and spirit. Shiatsu means finger pressure and includes a massage rooted in traditional Chinese medicine. Shiatsu appears to follow the principles of acupuncture, replacing needles with finger pressure (acupressure) to allow body energies to move more appropriately. Spiritual healing practitioners may ask spirits of dead people or other energies to influence the health of other people, and they often consider themselves to be conduits for healing energies, capable of sending such energies to whomever they choose. Therapeutic touch practitioners may say that they can affect body health by intuitively assessing a person’s energy field, clearing it, and transferring their own energy to the person by holding their hands close to the person’s body. Witchcraft practitioners may say that everything has auras, and adepts can see illness as cloudy or discolored areas to which they can transfer a universal light, perhaps with the aid of gems, incense, candles or magical items. How many universal energies are there? I asked practitioners about their methods and the methods of their competitors. Many people told me of their special abilities to manipulate |
Spirituality, Happiness & Love
For me, spirituality means lasting happiness. For me, happiness is a profound experience of well-being that can survive and grow even during difficult times. For me, happiness includes sharing my skills with people I can love.
Yet if I claim to love someone, I am on thin ice. The word love has so many different meanings and implications. Important questions arise … Am I truthful? What type of love am I talking about? How do I want to express my love? and What do I expect other people to do with my love?
To love someone is, I feel, very different to falling in love. (Our brain chemistry seems to change when we fall in love, with similar effects to psychoactive drugs and severe emotional disturbances). I feel more whole when I care about the happiness of other people; especially if I have evidence that those people care about me. When I encourage people on their life paths, and feel encouraged by them, we may feel connected and even included in each other’s lives.
Yet love is so often used to describe unhealthy behavior. When I counsel unhappy couples, I may ask, “Why do you want to stay together?” Often their answers are, “because I love him/her. ” If I delve deeper, I find darker answers … fear of being alone, fear of not supporting oneself, fear of never again enjoying sex, fear of not finding another partner, or people bonded by negative emotions.
People who feel unloved, unlovable or incapable of loving, often distract themselves from their emotions with television, alcohol, sex, toys or food. In the absence of love-that-connects, they may seek people or things that can distract them from their senseless lives. Such people often claim that they love their distractions.
With that background, peaceful energy work from a calm practitioner makes sense. The energy work that I experienced usually involved gentle words, deep breathing and soft touches, in rooms of pastel colors with scented candles, incense and fragrant herbal teas. I felt better … so energy work works … doesn’t it?
My questions were, “How long do such changes last?” and “How can people access and enjoy a stable sense of wellbeing?” And, “What is love, anyway?”
Love is Energy Work
We are careful to clarify relationship roles and responsibilities. Adult clients, for example, are not close friends and are not children. They are people we may accompany for a few steps of our life paths.
Real love is appropriate. Some people seem confused between love for parents and love for partners. Some therapists seem confused between accepting clients and romantic affairs. Acts of kindness seem more honest than words of love.
Real love can be active or passive. For me, active love is encouragement … I can only encourage people with integrity if I support their values and goals; or else I am lying. For me, passive love is acceptance … I can only accept people with integrity if I know their past and present circumstances, or else I feel that I am playing games.
People communicate their love, or lack of love, non-verbally. Postures, gestures, and voice tones communicate more than words – and more accurately. When these messages are received, people feel love, or lack of love, in their bodies.
Yet few people really listen. Instead, they ask me, “What energies are you sending?” and “How can I do that?”
My most profound energy work starts with my dynamic acceptance and active encouragement of people who have goals that I can heartfully support. Only then does sharing love in relationships make sense! This is one basis for my incredible results.
Do you want to enjoy honest success and healthy relationships?
