The Healer's Toolbox: Perceptive Awareness and Trusting the Process

Often I get the question of, "How do you know where to put your hands in a healing session?" Or, "How can working on one area affect another?"

The answer can be understood when we recognize the meta-scientific perspective that we live in a reality of matter, space and vibrating particles that are all connected. Through the power of the mind and setting intention, we guide energy to flow through a medium and reestablish balance in a system in order for optimum functioning to occur. 

In other words, I'm opening my awareness to what's already occurring and guiding a process while leaving the final result to higher intelligence beyond me. 

The body is a highly intricate machine. We eat a meal, the food gets digested and its components are distributed correctly. We don't consciously think, "Protein particles of chickpeas, go rebuild my muscles. Fiber, sweep through my intestines and exit my elimination organs." We don't stare at a flower bud and will it to open its petals in a mathematically beautiful and symmetric spiral. Life happens. Intelligence unfolds. 

So it is with energy. 

A person comes to me with a headache. We set the intention to clear the headache. I lay my hands on the person's forehead and there's enhanced energy flowing through this area. But there's also energy flowing elsewhere. I feel energy in the forehead erratic and buzzing. I sense a stream of energy connected to this down through the Solar Plexus area. I sweep my hands down to this energy, following the pulsating that I feel, centralized as a dense, heavy energy ball. I continue to move my hands and clear this area until the heaviness, the buzzing, eventually relaxes and dissipates. In that moment, even though I'm not even working on their head, the person reports that their head feels so much better! In addition, the sense of nervousness they'd been feeling in the "pit of their stomach," that they didn't even realize they'd been carrying, is gone. 

So while we set an intention, working on one area of the body or energetic system can clear another area. 

We trust that wherever the energy needs to flow for the client's highest good, it does. Could I have cleared the headache directly by working in the head area? Perhaps, yes. But was that the core of the problem? Where did the disturbance originate, their thought process, or in the energetic area of the body connected to our values, sense of self, and sometimes emotions? Or did one affect the other? 

Yet perhaps more importantly, how would I have known?

Part of this is the mystery that requires the flexibility and openness of healing work versus the diagnostic and prescriptive science of traditional medicine. 

So, as healing practitioners, while we trust the process of healing and energy to go where it's needed, we can more effectively assist the process by using our tools of perception. 

I read a quote that went something like, "How do we fill up a swimming pool? Sure, we can turn on the hose in the backyard, and eventually it will fill up the pool. But we can be more effective by putting the hose directly into the swimming pool." 

That is the role of a healing practitioner.  Opening to a process unfolding, and with awareness and intent, guiding it along. 

Ending with a quote from Albert Einstein:

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.

Getting Centered Simply

Happy Friday, everyone!

I was feeling so scattered today! I tend to get lost in email-world and digital world -- like Tron but less visually stimulating. 

I literally closed my labtop and said aloud to no one, "I need a break." I stepped away to my healing room and sat in front of my Sri Yantra picture. And I simply focused. Thoughts came in and out, and I let them pass as I focused I the bindu at the center of the image. 

The importance in stilling the mind is not if you are absent of thought, but rather the ability and discipline to not follow the string of thoughts that the mind conjures up. 

I love to use the image of clouds passing by across a clear sky. Thoughts come and go, and still we, our essence, remains. Our awareness remains. 

The more I focused and the more still I became, the better I felt. Breathing slowed and deepened. I actually became more energized, too. 

Such is the power of concentration or focusing the mind.

There are so many centering and meditative practices! It doesn't always have to be still-mind, eyes-closed meditation in order to become centered and at peace. I think this is a misconception that many people have. That's why there's yoga, breathwork (pranayama), and for example, yantra -- focusing one's gaze at an image to achieve still mind.  

It doesn't have to be long. In my case just today, 12 minutes turned into 15, then 20-something minutes. I couldn't tell after a while, and it didn't matter. 

So very thankful to lose track of time in order to FIND, and not LOSE, myself!

Namaste.

What Do I Choose?

Inspired while on a plane to Seattle and after reading a bit of "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight" by Thom Hartmann. 

I need to commit to being a more responsible inhabitant of this planet.

For those of us who have the capacity for greater thinking, expanded thought process and creativity, we need to come together and collaborate to solve the world's problems while moving forward with living. 

There are always many different scenarios. There are endless possibilities and lines of probability. They can be optimistic or dismal. But if left to chance alone, without the willpower of the philanthropists or the willing servers and healers, the balance will be shifted in favor of those who choose short-sightedness and selfishness for over the goodness and long-term proliferation of all. Whether this is due to self-malevolence acting outward at the expense of the unaware, or to ignorance, or a a lack of fulfillment, it does not matter. What matters is that forces of ill will, which we can even for dramatic effect give the names dark forces or evil, exist. These forces that would tip the balance of planetary resources and energy of human potential and collective consciousness towards disorder for selfish and temporary gain will follow fate of entropy unless countered by order and willpower if those that choose altruism or at the very least sustainability. 

I believe in universal forces. I believe in greater Intelligent Source that is able to orchestrate a grand scheme and scenario in terms of societal interplay and longevity. I believe that Source would not grant us short-handed of the necessary forces on both sides of the equation in order for life and creation to thrive and perpetuate itself. Any other viewpoint unto the nature of the Creator is absurdly fatalistic. Why would the Creator toss us all into a fishbowl just to see how ugly its demise could be? What is the pleasure in that? What is the payoff to the Creator?

I make this last point because I want to show in more simple, rational terms that the point of our existence is to exist and thrive, not just decay. Therefore there must already be sufficient forces of good and numbers of individuals with willpower and creative capacity to make such an existence unfold. 

Then where are we?

How do we find ourselves? If there is a higher source orchestrating all of this, wouldn't we also be given the awareness to know what role we need to play? 

Well, yes. I think we all do have access to this higher plan, both on the grand scale and more individually unique to each of us. We all contain light of awareness and the creative spark. I believe when we awaken to our true selves and our true nature, we can then freely express our uniqueness and from this place of understanding create with awareness. We can engage our willpower and create for ourselves and for the whole. When in alignment with our truest selves, we know what our purpose is; who we are, what understandings we have, what our role is in this overall creation. Then whatever vocation we move forward in with awareness is in alignment with the Creator's plan. Then as if by a miracle everything falls into place. Everything flows and moves forward effortlessly. We are in alignment with the universal laws out forth by the Creator. 

As a healer, I see myself helping others to remember their inner light, their creative essence, their healing power. I help hold space and set their intentions in motion so that they can more truly know and fulfill their true selves. Not the selfish, egoic, survivalist self that requires more narrow focus in order to survive. Many of us are past this evolutionary stage of development. We need to consolidate and graduate these survival energies and begin using more of our creative energies. Such is the natural unfoldment of the creative process. 

To illustrate this, I will turn to the simple pattern seen everywhere in nature: birth, life, sex, death. Egg, larvae, caterpillar, cocoon, butterfly. Infancy, adolescence, adulthood, old age/wisdom. Time unfolds this cycle of life everywhere and always. 

Life and nature is about patterns, be it on the micro or macrocosm, from simplicity to more complex and once again back to simplicity. This is the creation cycle. If our current universe was born of the Big Bang, first was just all a contraction of light and matter, bursting forth into a giant swirling pool of matter, energy and light, eventually taking on order and collecting into more stable and intricate form, to ... ? 

We need to step up. We need to claim our place in the universe and on this planet. We cannot hide our heads in the sand. What keeps us from lifting our heads and becoming courageous? Fear. Worry. Possibility of discomfort. All human emotions and lack of belief in ourselves and our creative power. 

Unless we remember our true nature as creators, or are inspired by our own uniqueness, there will not be any real progress forward or cleaning up of our own mess; we get lost in despair and think this life is all for nothing. And we don't see how fulfilling our individual role can then aid the whole. 

But, if we CAN see that in knowing ourselves, in becoming aware and having the inner tools of forgiveness and healing, that we DO in fact fulfill our individual plan and thus the Creator's plan, then we can do no wrong! Everything is possible! 

And if everything is possible, then what do I choose? 

That's the beauty of it. It's for you to decide. 

Why Body Awareness is Crucial in Expanded Consciousness

I love to dance. I love to meditate. I do both. 

Increasingly, there is much emphasis placed on increasing self-awareness, our relation to others and the world. Yes, we are all connected beyond physical terms, and how beautiful to discover and nurture this ethereal awareness! But the more spiritual I become, the more custodial I am of my body. If we wanted to delve directly into the esoteric realms of the topic, I could introduce discourse on the serpent in the Bible and the Feminine principle. But that's not where I want to go with this.

Recently in my meditations, I have seen in my mind's eye swirling energies above the planet. I see this as the collective consciousness of a given corresponding geographic locale in the physical plane. I see that there are new energies being introduced to the planet and the simultaneous need to purge old energies to make way for the new. It's as if these collective energies are cuing up to manifest themselves. However, from what I see, there is serious need to cleanse our thoughts and consciousness for the purest of these to enter our reality. 

But how do we know for sure what are the highest vibrations? How do we choose? Or do we even get to choose at all?

I like to utilize the imagery of light refracting through a prism. 

So much of our consciousness is fractionated. Whether by our egos, our belief systems, or the external realm of media and news information, quite literally our attention, like a beam of light, becomes refracted through the fog. 

When we try to redirect our divided attention back to ourselves -- whatever the question or insight we're seeking -- it's no wonder we can be confused. By going within ourselves, back to our central Self, we can surpass this. We become our own gurus. 

So, what are some ways to get to know ourselves? 

Meditation. Breathing practices. Centering exercises. Energy work. And, yes -- Mindful Movement and Body Awareness.

We've heard it again and again, but it's true -- we are a society bombarded by distractions and sensory overload. We almost have to numb ourselves in order to cope. Before we know it, we're caught in an endless cycle of overstimulation and withdrawal, until we don't even know what our vital life force is anymore. 

By tapping into the wisdom of the body, we can bypass the mind chatter and unending engrossments. We return to our center, the core of our being and awareness, before any refraction occurs. In this state, there is calm, clarity, and peace. There is a sense of resolve and contentment. And it is easy. You don't need to think yourself here -- because you simply are. 

The beauty of Mindful Movement and Body Awareness is that with focused practice, one can arrive immediately in a state of present moment awareness. Try it -- whether through yoga, tai chi,  qigong, or any type of dance. Feel your energy in different areas of the body. Follow the breath. Feel the sensations and simply note what is there -- be it warmth, pain, tension, or flow. See how your awareness is not always in the brain and mental activities, but very much with us in our bodies. 

I urge you to cultivate true body awareness. This cannot happen by adding substances to our systems or by numbing ourselves. Even drugs only give a temporary high which fades. 

And so, I dance... I meditate... I let one flow into the other, all the while my consciousness riding the waves of movement... one not better than the other, but each a means for awareness. So please, I implore you, explore.