Manipulating Energy for Healing

Assuming you did succeed in all the previous experiments, you now know that anyone can manipulate energy, including you! Now, let’s go a step further. The very same techniques you just used, alone or with your partner, can be used to actually help another person!

Just as you manipulated the energy between your own, or your partner’s hands, you can manipulate the energy within and around another person. Think of it in this way: You can take any electrical contraption that has a plug attached to it, shove the plug into a socket and voila! Whatever that contraption is meant to do, it will do so as long as the energy is turned on at the main switch box…and you’ve paid your bill! You could say that the switch box is your intention. With intention, a deep desire to help another human being, and with that person’s permission, you open the possibility, or flip the switch, to allow your personal energy to engage with another person’s energy. You’ve plugged yourself in so that you can move energy around both inside and surrounding that person’s body.

Permission is key! Boundaries are extremely important! My body is my body and I am very particular with whom I give access to my personal energy field. So too, I believe that it is highly important to ask permission before facilitating any energy work on another person.

A few years ago I learned a very important lesson from Cecile Carson, M.D., one of my shamanism teachers. Imagine that someone, we will call her Beverly, is beginning to go through the dying process, yet no one besides Beverly knows this. Someone calls Beverly’s friends and asks them to pray for Beverly to get better. What if Beverly is quite ready to die and is in the process of allowing her body, mind and sprit to let go of her physical form? Beverly hears that all her friends are praying for her to get better and she is praying for an easy transition into death.

Prayer is a strong intention and holds big energy. We are only beginning to understand what prayer can do. What happens when all that energy or prayer is being focused on Beverly to get better? Do you think it could make it challenging for Beverly to do what she thinks is right for her? And, just what does “getting better” mean? To her friends, getting better may mean that Beverly stays in physical form. To Beverly, it may mean that she moves from physical form to what comes next.

Because of this new information from Cecile, I have changed the way I pray for others. I now pray that they receive whatever is in their highest good. Since I don’t know what their highest good is, I don’t name it. Do you see the difference? Manipulating energy and praying both work on intention and both must include healthy boundaries. We will talk more about intention soon.

Now let’s get back to our discussion of manipulating energy. Hopefully, you now know that our bodies consist of both matter and energy, as does everything around us. Our body energy travels along those seven major chakras that I mentioned earlier. In the best of situations, when at peak health, our energy spins smoothly through this system of chakras. However, when we are physically, emotionally, or spiritually tired or ill, our energy tends to constrict, which interrupts our natural energy flow. When illness, trauma or any emotionally charged situation occurs in our lives, the energy from that situation can become deeply lodged at a cellular level causing us physical discomfort as well as emotional and psychological dis-ease. Shamanic energy work allows the universal energy, moving with intention through the practitioner, to dive into those areas where the trauma energy has become locked and loosen it so that it can begin to flow freely again. In turn, this natural flow of energy allows the body to heal itself and return to its peak state of health.

Before we go on, let’s go back to the energy bank account discussion I started earlier. Usually, we are both taking in and releasing energy at a normal pace. As I just said above, when a person, let’s call him Michael, is sick, depressed, or just having a bad day, his energy begins running less efficiently and then begins to deplete and perhaps even becomes stuck. It takes more energy than usual for Michael to keep his body going. His energy may at first kick into high gear to take care of him when most needed and then it may crash because he isn’t able to sustain or replenish the supply. His energy bank account is on its way down. It’s vitally important now for Michael to realize the situation he is in and to find a way to replenish his account before he receives an insufficient funds message from his body.

So, at some point, Michael does realize what is happening and calls me for a shamanic energy appointment. Scheduling a session is a clear intention that he is giving me permission to work with him. When he comes in and before I begin energy work, I send out a clear intention to assist him.

How intention works

It is with intention that energy work happens. To work with another person energetically, I first align myself with that person’s energy field. The web of life includes all of us, without exception. Because we are made of the same stuff, we have the ability to reach into another’s energetic field and ask that our energies combine for a particular amount of time for the good of the other.

Intention includes creating sacred space for the work that will be done. Even before Michael enters my healing room, I clear the space with a stick of Palo Santo. Other clearing agents include sage, sweet grass and copal. Palo Santo happens to be my favorite agent. It is an aromatic wood from Peru and means “holy wood” or “sacred tree.”

Big cauldrons of Palo Santo were burned for clearing purposes outside the temple in Peru when I was there in 2012. Before we entered for ceremony, we stood at the cauldron and allowed the smoke from this sacred wood to flow over us. The scent always reminds me of my days in the Amazon jungle and this is why it is my favorite clearing agent. I have also discovered from a few of my clients that Palo Santo is gentler for those who have a sensitive sense of smell or any breathing difficulties.

I light a stick and then allow the flame to go out. Using its smoke, and directing it toward each of the six directions (in the Peruvian tradition), I first invite in and thank all my spirit allies. I begin by facing the south and continue around to the west, north, east then the sky and earth. This is my invitation and invocation for each direction:

I invite in and am grateful to all my spirit guides, power animals, elementals and ancestors from the south (west… north… etc.) who are ready and willing to come and work in this space today for the highest good of all who enter both physically and spiritually. Aho!

I name those who will be coming in that day, including Michael. I then use the smoke to smudge my self, my center (the seventh direction) and the center of those who are coming for healing. While allowing the smoke to surround me, I add:

I am clear and clean of all energies that belong elsewhere. I open to the highest good of those who enter this space. May they be clear and clean of that which belongs elsewhere so that they may enter this space ready and willing to achieve their highest good. Aho!

Lastly, I smudge the room itself by walking around intending that the space be clear and clean of all energies that belong elsewhere.

The term “Aho” that I have used in prayer is from the Kiowa people and means “thank you.” It has been adopted by many other Native American languages because of its frequent use at pow-wows and in the Native American Church (NAC). It can also mean, “Yes, I agree” or “amen.” (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/aho)

Once Michael arrives and is on the healing table, I pray:

I know the right and appropriate energy for Michael is coming through me now. I only personally take on that energy which is my own. Any energy that belongs elsewhere is released back into the universe to be transmuted into its highest good. I invite and am grateful to all my spirit allies who are ready and willing to come and work with us at this time and I am opened to any information or messages that are meant to come through me for Michael. Aho!

Next, I invite Michael to prepare by speaking his intention for the work we will do together out loud. Then, I tell him that he may invite in all those spirit allies whom he wishes to surround and support him during the work.

I begin the energy work by opening Michael’s chakras and then proceed with the session.