Energy Medicine
and Intuition
by Caroline
Myss, Ph.D.
I disappoint some people when I discuss intuition
because I firmly believe that intuitive or symbolic sight
is not a gift but a skill -- a skill based in self-esteem.
Developing this skill -- and a healthy sense of self --
becomes easier when you can think in the words, concepts,
and principles of energy medicine. So as you read this
chapter, think of learning to use intuition as learning to
interpret the language of energy.
The Human Energy Field
Everything that is alive pulsates with energy and
all of this energy contains information. While it is not
surprising that practitioners of alternative or
complementary medicine accept this concept, even some
quantum physicists acknowledge the existence of an
electromagnetic field generated by the body's biological
processes. Scientists accept that the human body generates
electricity because living tissue generates energy.
Your physical body is surrounded by an energy field
that extends as far out as your outstretched arms and the
full length of your body. It is both an information center
and a highly sensitive perceptual system. We are
constantly in communication with everything around us
through this system, which is a kind of conscious
electricity that transmits and receives messages to and
from other peoples bodies. These messages from and within
the energy field are what intuitives perceive.
Practitioners of energy medicine believe that the
human energy field contains and reflects each individual's
energy. It surrounds us and carries with us the emotional
energy created by our internal and external experiences --
both positive and negative. This emotional force
influences the physical tissue within our bodies. In this
way your biography -- that is, the experiences that make
up your life -- becomes your biology.
Experiences that carry emotional energy in our
energy systems include: past and present relationships,
both personal and professional; profound or traumatic
experiences and memories; and belief patterns and
attitudes, including all spiritual and superstitious
beliefs. The emotions from these experiences become
encoded in our biological systems and contribute to the
formation of our cell tissue, which then generates a
quality of energy that reflects those emotions. These
energy impressions form an energy language, which carries
literal and symbolic information that a medical intuitive
can read.
Here is an example of the kind of message the energy
field may communicate. Lets say you had some trouble with
math when you were in elementary school. Knowing the fact
that twelve makes a dozen would not ordinarily carry an
emotional charge such as would alter the health of cell
tissues. On the other hand, if you were humiliated by the
teacher because you didn't know that fact, the experience
would carry an emotional charge that would create cellular
damage, especially if you were to dwell on that memory
through adulthood or use it as a touchstone for
determining how to deal with criticism, or authority
figures, or education, or failure. An intuitive might pick
up the literal image of your exchange with the teacher or
any other negative symbol linked to that experience.
Positive images and the energy of positive
experiences are also held in the energy field. Think of a
time when someone praised you for a job well done, or a
kind act, or for some help you gave someone. You feel a
positive energy -- a surge of personal power within your
body. Positive and negative experiences register a memory
in cell tissue as well as in the energy field. As
neurobiologist Dr. Candace Pert has proven, neuropeptides
-- the chemicals triggered by emotions -- are thoughts
converted into matter. Our emotions reside physically in
our bodies and interact with our cells and tissues. In
fact, Dr. Pert can no longer separate the mind from the
body, she says, because the same kinds of cells that
manufacture and receive emotional chemistry in the brain
are present throughout the body. Sometimes the body
responds emotionally and manufactures emotional chemicals
even before the brain has registered a problem. Remember,
for instance, how quickly your body reacts to a loud noise
before you've had time to think.
As Dr. Pert said on Bill Moyers's Healing and the
Mind,
Clearly, there's another form of energy that we
have not yet understood. For example, there's a form of
energy that appears to leave the body when the body
dies. . . . Your mind is in every cell of your body.
Moyers: . . . You're saying that my emotions are stored
in my body?
Pert: Absolutely. You didn't realize that? . . . There
are many phenomena that we can't explain without going
into energy.
Reading the Field
In addition to reading specific dramatic childhood
experiences, sometimes an intuitive can even pick up on
superstitions, personal habits, behavior patterns, moral
beliefs, and preferences in music and literature. At other
times the energy impressions are more symbolic. For
instance, from one patient who was suffering from
tightness of breath, I kept receiving the symbolic
impression of him being shot in the heart before a firing
squad. Obviously this had not literally happened to him,
but he had undergone extensive medical tests, which could
locate no known physical cause for his condition. After I
shared my impression with him, he told me that his wife
had betrayed him several times with other men, and being
shot through the heart was exactly how he felt about her
actions. By admitting these emotions, which he had
previously tried to ignore, he was able to address the
problems both in his marriage and in his health.
Our emotional energy converts into biological matter
through a highly complex process. Just as radio stations
operate according to specific energy wavelengths, each
organ and system in the body is calibrated to absorb and
process specific emotional and psychological energies.
That is, each area of the body transmits energy on a
specific, detailed frequency, and when we are healthy, all
are in tune. An area of the body that is not transmitting
at its normal frequency indicates the location of a
problem. A change in intensity of the frequency indicates
a change in the nature and seriousness of the illness and
reveals the stress pattern that has contributed to the
development of the illness.
This way of interpreting the body's energy is
sometimes called vibrational medicine. It resembles the
most ancient medical practices and beliefs, from Chinese
medicine to indigenous shamanic practices to virtually
every folk or alternative therapy. The truth is that
energy medicine is not new; but I believe my
interpretation of it and of how you can use it to heal
spiritually in conjunction with contemporary medical
treatments is unique. If a person is able to sense
intuitively that he or she is losing energy because of a
stressful situation -- and then acts to correct that loss
of energy -- then the likelihood of that stress developing
into a physical crisis is reduced, if not eliminated
completely.
While I can parse the language of energy for you so
that you can begin to see and feel the human energy field,
begin to understand its corresponding spiritual anatomy,
begin to know the sources of your personal power, and
begin to develop your own intuition, I have some trouble
explaining exactly how I personally acquire energy
information. Other intuitives appear to have the same
difficulty, but we all pick up on information that has the
strongest impulse -- the most intensity. These impulses
usually relate directly to the part of the body that is
becoming weakened or diseased. As a rule, a person's
energy system transmits only the information that is
essential to bring the conscious mind to an awareness of
the imbalance or disease. Like the shot in the heart
image, symbolic information can sometimes be disturbing.
But this intensity is necessary in order that the body's
message can break through the habitual mental or emotional
patterns that caused the disease to form in the first
place. Medical intuitions cooperate with the body's
intention to promote its own health and life; that is, our
energy will always seek health, in spite of what we may do
to ourselves physically. If, for example, we tell a lie,
our energy field will often communicate to the other
person the energy fact that we are not telling the truth.
Energy does not and cannot lie.
Stay with Your First Impression
When you receive an intuitive impression about
yourself or the person you are reading, pay attention to
whatever image comes up. Most people are looking for safe
intuitions, not healthy ones, and safe insights, not
healthy insights, because they usually want a safe passage
into the future, into the unknown. So you may be tempted
to dismiss a disturbing image that you receive, or one
that is not congruent with your own desires or those of
the person you are reading. Most people who come to me for
an evaluation have already intuited themselves that
something is wrong, but they are hoping that I will give
that feeling some other meaning, such as "You're
merely going through a natural body change, but nothing is
wrong with you physically".
This
article is excerpted from Anatomy
of the Spirit by Caroline Myss, Ph.D. ©1997.
Excerpted by permission of Three Rivers Press, a division
of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this
excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission
in writing from the publisher.
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