Energy Healing- The Basics

Energy Work

The Basics

it all starts from the basic assumption that everything is made of energy

our bodies, the world around us. 

We have all grown up with the concepts of energy “discovered” by modern science. of electricity, magnetic energy, gravity, weight, atomic radiation...                

But the concept of energy on a subtler level is still seen as a mystical, imaginary spiritual thing played with by deluded mystics who like to believe in fairy tales.

We do have a spiritual subculture seperate from science that has made many attempts to define other energies. 

Starting in India Sanscrit, and Bhuddist teachings, we have the concept of Auras and energy bodies, chakras and more. Which is wonderful, as it has made the concept more mainstream and acceptable to people, but one of the misconceptions that exists is that this “Aura” is somehow something seperate and “spiritual” from our more earthy bodies. Whereas in actual fact, our bodies themselves are energy. And actually the denser, solid part of our “Aura” or complete energy field.  If you go inside from the body layer by layer, it goes from the outside, the body as a whole....to the larger parts: head, torso, legs and arms, feet and hands... to the individual organs: skin, heart, lungs, womb, muscles, bones, blood vessels....to the cellular layer: some fixed and connected, skin cells, nerve cells sending electrical impulses, endocrine cells pouring chemicals into our blood stream, some moving around totally independently: red blood cells carrying oxygen and carbon dioxide to and from the lungs, lymphocytes patrolling the blood stream for dangerous intruders like policemen, attacking and isolating anything foreign and unwanted.

Its an incredibly complex system full of individual parts that somehow function as a whole.....

And lower still, you find the individual chemical compounds and elements that make up the structure of the cells and fluids.... Nitrogen, carbon, oxygen...all made up of individual atoms bonded together in complex beautiful and perfectly crafted shapes...

Below this the individual atoms. Strange and fascinating balls made up of smaller particles that move constantly, yet stick to strict “orbits” that then create the impression of something solid....

And here we have the first inkling of the energy concept of the world. Each atom is actually made of moving energy. Electrons, neutrons, that are not solid things, but again made up of small sub-particles until you come to pure energy...and space in which it moves and is held in certain shapes. 

And everything around us is the same. Energy. Shaped, held, interacting, moving. Constantly moving and changing.

Now mentally go back out again holding this idea: from energy patterns in a constantly swirling inner universe....to atoms, cells, organs, bodies....

Solidity is an illusion, created by distance perspective. 

We are truly just energy and space, held in certain patterns that give the illusion of shape and solidity.

If you look at this as a basic fact, another form of energy in our real everyday world, just like gravity, heat and electricity, it takes away the mysticism and allows us to approach the concept of energy healing in a far more down to Earth practical way.

What makes us different

To me it is blatantly obvious that our brains and our nervous system would then be uniquely designed to work with this. to both perceive, measure and manipulate energy. Makes sense really doesn't it, since this is what we are made of.

The patterns that make the atoms, cells, and organs of our bodies have a unique electric charge, and a background radiation that can be measured by the clumsy machines science has developed so far...but our bodies are capable of perceiving far subtler patterns and energy fields.

Humans are unique in amongst all the life forms on earth, in that we move and interact with everything. And analyse things, perceive patterns, and beyond anything else have the capacity to “CHANGE” everything around us.

We can observe and copy the patterns of everything around us, build cities, reshape whole landscapes, collect, breed and change plant species, animals, fish and even bacterial cultures...

We are specialists in pattern recognition and manipulation.

This is on a macro level.

We also have social sciences, and study patterns of the interactions and movements of our own and other species...

What interests me is the study of the energy one level above this. The energy patterns that govern and move these. 

Perceiving Energy

People often talk about “seeing” Auras. And Ive always said this is not really true. Our eyes are designed to perceive light energy within a very limited spectrum. And the human energy field is 

Lets go back to the concept we started out with, that our bodies are made of energy...and that they are the “solid” part of our energy field.

Here’s the theory I work with: Our Energy Fields or “Auras” are bigger than this. And form the pattern fields that shape our body.

And these larger energy fields are constantly interacting with the energy fields of everything around us. Trees, mountains, animals...and other humans.

So when we meet another person, our energy fields are touching, intermingling and gathering and  exchanging information before we physically or even visually interact.

This explains why we have certain “gut feelings” about some people on first sight. And everyone, even the most “down to earth” sceptical non spiritual person knows this experience.

Consciously reading energy fields is just a matter of focus and practice.

I also don’t think anyone actually “sees” Auras. We interact with others energy fields, exchange information...and to be able to process this information effectively it can be easier to translate it into  a sense we are more used to processing.

We are by nature very visual animals, so it makes sense to “translate” what we are picking up into a visual form to process it further.

An easy example of this I have used to teach people to read the human energy field, is to get them to look at someone they know reasonably well, and ask them, “If you had to describe this person with a colour, what colour would they be?”

“Oh green! She’s always so calm...and sorta nurturing...”

What people are actually doing with this, is summarising what they know about this person, and drawing a parallel to the emotional affect that colours have on us. 

They are describing this persons energy in colour...and identifying how this person makes them feel. 

From there it’s easy to take the concept further:

“OK, what about that person over there, what colour would you use to describe them?” “Oh he’s really red...he seems angry...”....

You can go on from there and start to observe more subtle changes in the “colours” you see in people. You’re partners basic green may develop cloudy dark patches around the head with a migraine....or angry red patches over the solar plexus or neck when they are angry....

Sick people will look washed out or cloudy as their energy level is low....

But not everyone is comfortable working with colour. Some people are more kinaesthetic than visual. You may find that you can more accurately describe what you pick up from a person as hot or cold....heavy or light....or “sticky”...or downright “yucky” as my youngest duaghter used to sometimes say. 

Or you may relate more to sound, smell or even taste

The key is to find which sense is the one you are most comfortable working with and start to use it to classify the energy you pick up about other people.

Working with Energy

Here’s where it gets more technical. 

We all work with energy, all the time. 

It happens for the main part quite subconsciously. Our energy fields exchange energy every time we are in contact with each other.  

And that is one of the biggest things to remember. When you do any kind of healing work with another person, you are connecting your energy with theirs. Which can be wonderful. It can also be draining, it can transfer some of their “stuff” to you, you can drain them, and you can also stuff up their energy.

So it’s good to have a few guidelines in mind.

Firstly “ground” and heal yourself

“Grounded” is a term used in New Age literature a lot. What it means is that our human energy systems should ideally connected to the Earth herself.                    We can release energy into the Earth, and draw Energy from her too.                        It is a basic cycle that keeps us alive and healthy. And if it is interrupted (by wearing shoes all the time, living in high rise concrete buildings with plastic carpets etc), the cycle is broken and we become sick.  This is the reason humans crave being outdoors, on the beach, in the forest, hiking up mountains... We also absorb other energy from the air around us, and from water too... but more about that later.

Before you start to work on a person doing any kind of energy healing, ground yourself first. 

An good way to do this is to make sure you are barefoot...relax, close your eyes and bend your knees just a little bit (this stops you from tightening the muscles too much and locking up your knees which effectively blocks the energy running up and down your legs.) Give your body a little shake to make sure none of your muscles are tight and your not holding tension anywhere... then take a few deep long breaths, focusing on the out-breath....imagine you are sending tree roots down through your spine...through your feet...through the floor...down into the earth...with each breath out you sink your roots a bit deeper into the Earth...imagine you can feel the soil, the moisture, the little rocks as you wind your roots past and around them....letting a bit more tension go with each breath...Feel the strength and the solidity of the Earth beneath you, how huge she is....how strong and safe....          And then as you breath in, imagine that you are breathing this energy back up through your roots, through your feet up into your body....feeding you, making you feel whole and strong and...grounded...connected......

This is the most basic exercise for healing and any magical work, and one of the most powerful things you can do to heal yourself on a daily basis.

Its also the most important thing to do when you are working with someone else because it kinda closes the circuit so to speak. You form a three way connective circle between you, the person you are working with and the Earth, so that the energy that you feed to the other person is flowing from source that isnt just you, and the blocked, dirty, messy energy you move out of them has somewhere to go (and be recycled and changed).

Its all simple energy mechanics really.

Healing Work

Nobody can “Heal” someone else.

All those traditional movie scenes with extravagant looking shamans waggling their hands over people and crazy preachers yelling at people to “Be Healed in the Name of Jesus” are not really how it works. At least not if you do it right. 

Healing is a collaborative effort between you, the person being healed and whatever other Energy you bring in.

In its basic form this is you, them and the Earth. 

Many New Age Healers also play around with many more complex kind of Energy sources, from various God forms to things with clever sounding names like Reiki and universal Energy....

But it always boils down to the simple mechanics of you, the other person and moving energy around between you.

The basics of healing are a bit like dealing with plumbing. In a healthy body everything flows. Blood, oxygen, food, hormones, nerve impulses...everything is constantly moving in and out and all through the organs. 

Problems start when one of the systems gets clogged up and stops working properly, and the ripple on affect starts to screw up the healthy complex flow of everything.

What you are looking for when you are doing energy healing is where things are blocked. And then unblocking them. Simples.

And extremely complex.

A good sequence to start off with could look like this:

Get your victim, er patient to lie down facedown on a massage table, wearing minimal loose clothing made of natural fibres. No leather belts or large metal buckles or shoes, as these block energy.

Make sure they are warm and comfortable, add pillows or cushions as needed to prop up knees, hips, chest so they can completely relax.

You can play music if you like, either some calming new agey stuff, or something else that is gentle, upbeat and friendly, but nothing to bright and bouncy as you want both your own head and that of the person you’re working on to be nice and calm. Incense or essential oils in a burner can be good too.

Stand next to them, close your eyes and ground yourself. 

Place your hands gently on their back. I usually find good places are one hand up between the shoulder blades and on lower back just above the lower spine. Let your hands rest there for a bit and focus on the image of simply connecting with the person. You want to make them feel safe and “held”.

Then slowly start to move your hands over the other persons body. You are looking for areas that feel hot or cold...where there is tension or emptiness.... a feeling of “too much” or “too little”. You can either touch the physical body gently as you go, or hover your hands just above it...maybe experiment with both to see what you perceive.  (The person you are working on may feel safer if you touch them physically. Lying there with someone not touching them but moving energy around can feel a bit disconcerting for people who haven't much experience with energy healing. )

Try not to have too many expectations, just approach this exercise with simple curiosity. The physical reality of the body will mirror the energetic state of the Aura...it has to, It is after all simply the denser part of it. So what you can physically feel in the way of tense muscles, swellings and heated areas is just as accurate a symptom of a clogged energy pattern as what you can perceive on a subtler energy level.

Continue to feel for areas that feel “good” or “bad”, and when you come to an area that feels strongly one way or the other, stop and stay there for a bit. 

Tell the person you are working on what you are picking up and ask for feedback. 

Be aware that people can be very protective of certain areas of their body being touched and it can make them feel very vulnerable...and which areas these are varies considerably from person to person. In general, the buttocks, the genital area, the neck, particularly the throat, and knees are often areas where we “hold” a lot of fear and tension, and touching these areas can trigger that fear, memories, or whatever other emotions the person is holding on to.

You are in effect starting a conversation with the person you are working on. You are discovering the energy patterns in their body, and by touching and holding these areas, you are making them aware of these patterns.

The next step is actually bringing energy and movement into the system.

You can do this in 3 basic ways:

A) You can find an area with too little energy and put some in to it

B) You can find an area that has too much energy and drain some of it

C) Or you can find an area that is blocked and hindering the energy flow and unclog it

If the idea of moving energy just by “imagining” something in your head seems silly to you, think a minute about how our brains and bodies actually work: If we want to move our left arm, we think about it and “imagine “ it so to speak before we do it...we plan each action, and this planning in our heads triggers actual chemical and electrical impulses in our bodies. Remember, our bodies are made of energy at the base of it all. So we use our brains, our will, to focus move and change this energy on every level. We are now just working with another level.

A) Feeding Energy

To feed energy into an area, you can use the grounding exercise we started with at the beginning of this text.

Close your eyes and imagine again that you have roots going deep into the ground....and as you breath in, imagine you are pulling energy up from the Earth, into your body and into your arms and hands....imagine it flowing through your body out of your hands, and into the area of body of the person you are working on. Keep this image going in your mind, making sure to breath slowly and deeply, keeping your body relaxed and your knees just a little bit bent, till the area feels “full” and warm.

B) Draining Energy

To drain energy from an area that feels “hot” or overloaded, reverse the process, letting the energy flow through your body down through your roots into the ground.

This is the most risky way to move energy for the person doing the healing. Because as you move the energy through your body, there is always the potential that you wont be able to move all of it through and that you will “absorb” some of it. This esp. happens when you first start working with energy. In fact it is so common that Ive come to think of it as part of the learning and healing process each Healer goes through. It seems to follow logical patterns: You will absorb energy in areas where you have weaknesses yourself. And the challenge for you is then to look at where the energy has got stuck and heal it within yourself. As you do this, you become less vulnerable to it...and in fact often find that this even becomes a specialty area for you to help others. 

You can minimise this absorption problem by constantly checking in with yourself that you are well grounded. Close your eyes, make sure you aren’t tensing your shoulders or some other muscles in your body...give yourself and your arms and hands a bit of a shake...wriggle your hips...and KEEP BREATHING! The slow deep breaths themselves make sure you are moving energy through the system you the person on the table, you, and the Earth.

C) Unclogging blocked places.

This is usually my main focus when I am doing Healing work. I track down the areas where the flow is stagnant and work on them a bit like untying a tangled knot. I will often simply go to the area that feels “blocked” and simply place my hands there....gently feed energy into that area to “amplify” it so that the person I am working with becomes acutely aware of the place...and then ask them what they can feel. This is different to the approach of many other Healers I have known. Most “Healing” focuses on the Healer being in charge and doing all the work...and it is how I started off working initially too. However I often found that no matter how spectacularly well I drained, fed and unblocked what I found, or how spectacular the short term effects were... the person I was working on seemed to “rebound” back to their old patterns within a few days or weeks more often than not. And I eventually understood that Healing needs to be collaborative. And that my main job as a Healer is to help the person I am working with understand what the problem is and what they need to do to fix it, with me being the support person and coach instead of the cool impressive Shaman who swoops in and does the miraculous Healing Cure.

OK so back to what we were doing...I hold my hands on the blocked area and feed energy into it to amplify it...and ask the person for some feedback. If I’ve hit the right spot, what usually happens is that they say “Oh yes, that feels really uncomfortable/painful/yucky...or scary. Or If they are having trouble sensing it I’ll ask them to describe what the area feels like as a colour....

”reddish yellow and yucky!” 

“OK, what colour should it be?” 

“Blue!”

“Cool, well I want you to imagine Blue Energy pouring into this area through my hands and beginning to dissolve the yucky stuff.”

“Ohh.......”

This is the script of a beginning collaborative Healing Session. 

When you have the person you are working on working with you, it becomes a whole different story.

Realistically nothing really happens unless the other person relaxes and trusts you enough to open up and connect to you...let your energy in. so its always collaborative.  

From here the Healing session may go not much deeper than that. you simply go on letting energy flow up through the earth through your body down your arms and out of your hands, with you consciously changing it to “Blue” energy as it flows.....

And you just watch and feel as the mucky clogged area dissolves....

The person you are working on may just feel a sense of relief....

Or it may trigger intense feelings, depending on how deep this is going and how intense the energy that is blocked here is.

Which brings us to what causes these blocks in the first place.

What causes energy blocks

The traditional thought on this is:

 that the change starts in our basic energy body first. A new pattern comes is that we need to learn and understand. 

Then it shows up in our thoughts. If we don’t listen and shift things here,

It shows up in our bodies. If we don’t listen to our bodies, our bodies become sick. If we don’t listen to that sickness, it becomes worse...and louder...until we can no longer ignore it.

Then we eventually listen, and pay attention, and begin to look after ourselves and do and get what we need to heal...and understand.

And the energy shifts.

Some examples of this: 

Example 1:

You’re a shy, very pretty child who is tall for their age. Very empathic to others energy..what they call “too sensitive”. You are surrounded by angry insecure people and other kids at school. Who act out as bullies to make themselves feel less inferior. You developed hunched shoulders trying to deflect the constant emotional blows and to shrink down smaller so your not as visible a target.

This blocks off your throat chakra, and you develop constant tonsillitis infections every winter. As You grow older, you retain this energy pattern of being scared, hurt, and afraid of standing out in the crowd and being a target, so your body posture stays the same. The tonsillitis bouts continue till you have them removed...which doesn't change the pattern so you get sore throats and begin to get physical neck and shoulder problems as the misaligned vertebrae grate against each other.

The muscles in your chest and shoulders shorten from being held in a certain way for many years, which makes it harder to change your bad posture, even when you become aware of it. And on top of it, changing your body posture re-triggers the same feelings of fear and inadequacy you felt as a child.

In healing session, your therapist puts energy into your throat and heart chakra, and you can feel how blocked they are....and you eventually begin to let them loosen up which brings all the old fear and hurt to the surface...and the memories of being bullied as a child....and you scream and cry, feeling safely held by the Healer, though its still fucking terrifying....and in doing that, the blocks in these areas loosen up and shift.

When you stand up from the table you feel different...and in the next days. you begin to feel your body differently. You become aware of how stiff and “wrong” they feel, and you begin to stretch and move them differently, they way they should be...you also find that memories surface of being bullied and hurt....again and again....and you struggle to let them go...cry...write about them, paint...whatever it takes to let them go....and the more you do this, the better your body feels. And the next winter you no longer have a sore throat that turns into the flu, your neck stops aching and you find you stand up straighter and face the world. And begin to speak out about what you think and want with less fear......

Example 2:

You are born into a family with a parent who is really angry and feeling inadequate, insecure and angry. They have an energy pattern of being blocked and empty  in their hearts, their solar plexus is an angry messy blocked mess....Their base chakra is disconnected from the earth, so their sexual energy in their second chakra is constantly swirling around with nowhere to go and getting toxic.

You as their child love them and want to heal and connect to them. So you are open to someone with blocked congested energy with no way of releasing it safely.

So what may happen is that they start to dump their pent up energy onto you... verbal and emotional abuse...and eventually, since their sexual energy is so pent up and cant be released and renewed through their broken base chakra, sexual abuse.

Your trust is broken which breaks your base chakra.

Your sense of your own power and being in control of your own life is damaged hugely as that parent overrides you and pushes their will on yours...which leaves you angry, your solar plexus a seething messy knot.....

And Your heart is hurt, so you shield it from further hurt and block it off.

So in turn your parent has transferred exactly the same energy pattern to you that they have.

Generations upon generations...until someone can step in and change the pattern...heal the pattern....and break the cycle.