Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/494122
WHAT YOU OFFER It's important to embrace the power you have as a healer, a power that slips over the horizon of the healing activities related to bodywork. From a subtle energy perspective, your attitude is crucial. You don't even have to say a thing to support a client's ability to be hopeful and therefore self-directive; to keep going where it makes a difference. Energy is information that moves, and everything is made of it: a disease, pain, thought, and antidote. Subtle energy is the high-speed quantum stuff that moves so fast, it can create a change before you even finish the request for that change. A number of experiments 6 have shown that thoughts, images, intuitions, and physical sensations can pass between people who are emotionally close or empathic. 7 Most important, the individual with the greatest or strongest presence influences the other member of the pair. 8 What if you hold hope in your heart, eyes, and hands for your client? We know that sustained positive emotions, such as appreciation, compassion, or love, create coherent patterns in the heart, which in turn stimulates harmony and improved health in a person's body. 9 If you believe there is a potential for emotional steadiness, healing, pain relief, or positivity that lies outside of the finite limitations of the current situation, that same belief can transfer to your client and support them in focusing on the internal and external activities that just might make a difference. This approach to hope, the desire for the infinite to affect the finite, allows us to be clearly in the moment with our clients. We can be empathetic toward their current state. We can honestly tell them we understand how hard it is to live in pain, physical or emotional, and that we relate to their distress. But we can also hold the aspiration for something greater—like grace—to move in and promote change. Recently, I went to the movie Selma, which showcases Martin Luther King, Jr.'s triumph in gaining legal support for African-Americans' right to vote. The movie was striking on every level. My respect for this individual and everyone who fought for a basic American right grew tenfold. I also noticed how many times King was depicted as battling with hopelessness, and how many times his own goals and dreams, and the support of others, lifted him to hopefulness, leading him to actions that resulted in victories both small and great. As a healer, you are part of the team of hope, and all the more important because of it. ENERGY WORK It's important to embrace the power you have as a healer, a power that slips over the horizon of the healing activities related to bodywork. 104 m a s s a g e & b o d y w o r k m a y / j u n e 2 0 1 5