Energy work & how to go from clueless to confident

[elainevdw]

A few years ago I lost my childhood belief system, so I've been floundering, trying to figure out what I believe about the world and life. When I ran across Steve and Erin's blogs, they really got me thinking about energy in the universe, and that one could have a hopeful and positive spiritual system that works, rather than the depressing and cynical nonspiritual system that seemed to be the only alternative. To this end, I decided to take two Reiki workshops (second one is next weekend) to get a better understanding and experience of it. I've also picked up one of Barbara Brennan's books on energy work and human bioenergy (i.e. the human aura) that's fascinating and tantalizing.

It's been difficult becoming more sensitive to my personal energy and the energy of others because it's such a different paradigm than I'm used to. Even though there was definitely something good and powerful happening in my Reiki sessions, it's still hard for me to believe, or rediscover in my own self-Reiki sessions. Has anybody else gone from clueless to confident when it comes to personal energy? I feel like it's the missing piece in my life to understanding my personal health and emotional well-being, but I just don't "get" it sometimes, still.

So, I guess, what have been your personal journeys? What experiences have helped you to continue your spiritual growth?

[RandomJohn]

Well, I'm still near clueless, but not quite as clueless as I was before discovering the works of Donna Eden at Innersource.net.

[Steve Olson]

elainevdw,
I've been through what you are living. In fact my beliefs keep changing. The best I can offer you is...
This book...
It was written along time ago...
But it is the best thing I have ever read...
Somepeople say its the book Bill Gates read, and caused him to dropout of Harvard and become an entreprenuer...
And it is free...
Here is a link to info:
Charles F. Haanel's Master Key System
Here is a direct link to the pdf:
http://www.startster.com/downloads/M...Key_System.pdf
Chapter 3 has some great stuff on energy

Good Luck,

[AndyMartin]

Elaine,

I'm definitely still learning, but I do have a few thoughts. I think the first step is in becoming sensitive to energy is to understand that energy flows independently from yet connected to our physical body. Reiki is good for that. I practice traditional yoga, which has the benefit of getting the energy circulating. As I've started to develop the ability to sense and move energy around, I've brought that into my meditation practice with interesting results.

For me, exploring the connectedness of all of these aspects of our being is fascinating. That intangible energy and physical body and consciousness interact in ways that open up new experiences is revolutionary to our rational reductionist assumptions.

My sticking point is where to go from here. I've considered training in Reiki or some other practice of external manifestation of energy. Please share some thoughts from your workshops and reading if you don't mind.

--Andy

[RandomJohn]

As I've started to develop the ability to sense and move energy around, I've brought that into my meditation practice with interesting results.

Please share, Andy!

[mind-energy]

I run a site about parapsychology, where I also write a lot about developing ESP (extra sensory perception), energy work, energy healing and similar stuff. I have lots of interest in it and have taken numerous energy healing courses.

I also post some tutorials and exercises for developing ESP and energy. You might want to start at:
Developing ESP - First steps and
Feel energy between your hands

You might also be interesting to read about some experiment I've done with a friend to test our energy sensing abilities:
Personal experience with feeling energy with hands

There's a lot more information, too. Come to see and enjoy.

[Belle]

I sense energy best when I'm in meditation. I've gotten to the point now where meditation is very important to my day, and I make time for it every day.

A short six months ago, I would have snorted at this and said, yeah, right, ME and a meditation practice?? And now ... well, all I can say is, it's a beautiful world.

For me, it has helped that I am surrounded by people who regularly do energy work. My mother is Buddhist and incorporates several periods of meditation into her life on a daily basis. My husband is a martial arts instructor who uses energy in his martial arts practice, and he also does healing energy work, both by touch and with EFT. And I have a group of very close friends who are seriously into this stuff.

[elainevdw]

Everybody, thank you for your thoughtful replies and interesting links! I'm really interested in that Master Key system... it's an interesting (and historical) look at energy in your life.

Originally Posted by AndyMartin

My sticking point is where to go from here. I've considered training in Reiki or some other practice of external manifestation of energy. Please share some thoughts from your workshops and reading if you don't mind.

You know, I picked Reiki as my intro into energy work because it sounded like a "energy for dummies" kind of practice. I couldn't sort through the crap on Web sites geared towards ESP and energy work because I know so very little about the subject, so I thought an in-person workshop would be a better idea. The idea is that Reiki is a particular kind of universal energy that transcends time and space and "knows" where to go. Since it's not coming from your personal store of energy, it doesn't deplete you as you use it.

It requires an "attunement," which lets you tune into this particular kind of energy like a radio even if you're as clueless as me! During the attunement the Reiki master makes it so that you channel this energy through your palms (some say as an extension of your heart chakra, which is a loving analogy), though historically Reiki practitioners have been able to use Reiki through their eyes and breath as well.

The class I took was geared towards yogis and martial artists (i.e. people already interested in energy); the owner of a yoga studio, a tai chi instructor, and an astrologist/numerologist took the class with me. We had some interesting discussions in class, about how Reiki sounds like tacheon energy, about the difference between Reiki and kundalini, etc. The concept seemed to really "click" with the yoga instructor, because she is used to making hands-on adjustments for students in her class.

The amazing thing was that, after an all-day workshop in a yoga studio with no chairs, afterwards I had a higher energy level and mood than I normally have on a good, relaxing day, and my back and butt weren't sore! And my interactions with my significant other that evening and next day were very postively charged, as well.

I picked up the Barbara Brennan book (Light Emerging; her first book, Hands of Light, wasn't in stock at the bookstore) because all the info on Reiki seemed very narrow and opinionated. I would actually recommend a nonenergy book, The Artist's Way, in conjuntion with Light Emerging, because they have a lot in common, discussing how you need to heal old emotional wounds (not beleiving in yourself, thinking you're unloveable or doomed to a life of uncreativity) to acheive inspiration and physical health. Brennan's books are rather technical reads -- she started a four-year institute to train energy healers, so it could almost be considered an intro college text on human energy. The Reiki book I read is called Reiki: The Healing Touch. It's okay as far as energy goes, but it does explain a lot about the history and methods of Reiki as well. It was written by the guy from the International Center for Reiki Training.

If you're interested in doing Reiki, I'd certainly suggest having a Reiki session first, so you have an idea what to expect. It's very relaxing! And you can have very interesting sensations during a Reiki session. It made my knee stop twinging (I strained it running 5Ks a few months prior), and it made me realize that my breathing problems (I had asthma as a kid) were somewhat related to stress. The attunement itself was a powerful experience as well, and made me realize both how hurt I still was over my loss of faith and how frightened I was to be confronting this idea of energy, and with it, unresolved problems in my life.

Like anything else, though, it does take practice. I don't think I'm very "good" at Reiki yet, but it's a helpful technique to use throughout the day as you get headaches, or stressed, or eye strain from the computer, etc. And if you're having a hard time going to sleep or sleeping well, it's a fabulous practice!

A Reiki circle just started in my town as well, so I'm hoping to get more experience sharing Reiki with others during this monthly get-together.

On a side note, I find it very annoying that all of these new age books have purple covers with glowing human figures... It's almost embarassing!

[AndyMartin]

Thanks, Elaine. That's really interesting. It's interesting that you mention the energy from the workshop -- I have experienced the same thing at yoga retreat. The energy from group practice can be amazing; it's remarkable to walk away from a day of intense yoga at all, much less energized!

It was really my Ashtanga practice that brought my awareness around to energy, even though I took it on as a purely physical practice. (That mentality lasted all of two months.) I added japa meditation to experiment with matntras, and felt it boost my energy even higher, but more interesting was the awareness of different phases of energy. I started to become aware of energy underlying emotional states, and tried japa as a way of discharging or re-routing the energy in response to stress, for example. And it worked.

Then I started looking at moving energy through the chakras using the seed mantras connected to each chakra. This opened a floodgate of energy, including powerful physical sensations. But even more interesting was how this seemed to affect my state of consciousness. I noticed a distinctly different sense of awareness when focused on each chakra. Plus, getting energy moving seemed to "loosen up" my awareness in general, making it easier to start exploring meditative states.

So I can build up massive amounts of energy and ground it back out, I can balance the energy across my chakras and get it moving through my subtle body, and I can use that to enhance and direct my meditative experience. I can't complain -- it's well beyond what I set out to experience. But I'm not sure where to go from there. Or more to the point, I haven't decided where I want to go from there. I guess it's time to pick my next question/experiment to explore.

Please keep us posted on your experiences as you continue to work with Reiki.

Best,
Andy

[Richful]

I find energy work a bit confusing given the multitude of different systems available for study. I was first exposed to the chakra system through new age circles, but no one could agree on how many there are, 7, 8, 100? Let alone what energy is being referred to, ki, qi (chi), prana, pneuma, bioelectricity, ruach...

I settled with QiGong (Chi Kung), there are thousands of styles, each with a different use, but it has a long tradition and is very comprehensive. I study Taijiquan (Tai' ch'i chuan) which utilises Qi energy for health and self defence and enlightenment. Hard to find a good teacher though.

[elainevdw]

Andy, it's interesting that you started with Ashtanga -- it's probably my favorite type of yoga, though I haven't been consistent enough with it to really benefit from it!

I want to start a physical practice with personal energy work as my goal, but I'm not sure what I want to focus on. My first choice would be yoga or tai chi (I do know a good instructor where I live), but I've started wondering if you could do the same thing through a dance practice -- ballroom, bellydance... Or even something like capoeira.

Do you have any sources about japa meditation that you can recommend?

[dsmoke]

I'm not sure if anyone here has mentioned Robert Bruce's New Energy Ways (NEW) techniques that focus on tactile energy sensation as opposed to visualization. His book Astral Dynamics changed my life in terms of energy work. He'll have a new book out this summer called something simple like "Energy Ways" that I'm looking forward to.

He has a free tutorial about NEW on his site Astral Dynamics | Astral Projection, Energy Body, Healing, Kundalini, Auras, Self-Defense.

[AndyMartin]

Most of my information about japa has come from Richard Freemand and Thomas Ashley Farrand. Both have audio CDs on mantra/chant. If you're just looking for something to try and don't care so much to get deep into the subject matter, take a look at Wayne Dyer's Getting In The Gap. He presents a very simple but profound japa technique that's also good practice if you have a hard time quieting your mind.

Yeah, Ashtanga has been really good for me. I have to credit inspiration for leading me to it because I wouldn't have picked it up based on what I was looking for in my life at the time. But it's been utterly transformative, physically and spiritually. I don't think structured systems are by any means the only way to exercise the subtle energies; I think everybody's got their own energetic constitution so different things will work for them. Why not dance? It worked for King David in the Old Testament!

Dsmoke -- Thanks for the link. That is exactly what I've been wondering about lately. I find it's much easier to physically sense and shift the energy than to visualize it, which tends to be distracting. I'm going to have to pick up his book.

[elainevdw]

Thanks for the link, dsmoke, and for the recommendations, Andy! I'm excited about the next step.

[placebo]

I started with PD by finding Steve's site. Those times were heavy to me. The only girl i was in love with left me and hurt me, i screwed up my college, i was depressed and lost. I was so absent from reality that it stoped me from doing things like eating, sleeping, going out. And it is hard when you don't have a reason to wake up and if you stay in bed all day long, no one will even notice.

And one day i found Steve's blog, went back to my parents home and closed myself in that house for 3 weeks. I was reading Steve's blog, learning for exams and did some weight training. After that period i felt like a new person, suddenly i had new beliefs, new way of looking the world around me.

Interesting thing is that i found PD by accident, i didn't know what i was searching for but when i founded i knew that it was it. So i believe that there's no sense in recomending PD to someone. If he has to find it, he'll find it.

[elainevdw]

So I did Reiki II on Sunday! It was way fun, and I was surprised to discover that I could feel the difference between the different "flavors" of Reiki energy we learned. Reiki II teaches you how to focus the energy to heal emotional/mental problems (through balancing dichotomies; i.e., right-brain/left-brain, physical/spiritual, logical/creative), how to send healing energy over distance and time (also helpful in getting in touch with your higher self and guides, which also exist apart from distance and time), and how to focus Reiki in a powerful, faster blast (good for clearing energy, "smudging" rooms and crystals, charging dead car batteries? lol, stuff like that).

The cool thing is that I think I can use a combination of these techniques to strengthen certain intentions. I'm going to try it on my intentions to eat more healthfully, increase dream recall and lucid dreams and become more intuitive.

Does anybody else use prayer or energy practices to strengthen specific intentions?

Oh, I forgot to add -- I think these forums have been helping me progress very much in my sensitivity to energy work, mostly through opening the door to paradigms that are particularly useful as contexts for energy work. In fact, our teacher extended us the invitation to attend her December Reiki master level class, which she usually doesn't extend for several months, when the Reiki IIs have integrated the knowledge they need to really benefit from the class. She said we picked up on the nuances of energy faster than any of her previous Reiki II classes! While that makes me very proud, and happy to have been in a class with some really sensitive and intuitive people (who probably raised my ability to benefit from the class), I don't think I'll be ready for that for a while. And it's expensive, too.

[AndyMartin]

That's very cool, Elaine. It's interesting that it addressed different applications of the energy. I typically think of Reiki in terms of healing, although I've seen some stuff with energy that doesn't make ideas like charging car batteries seem so far-fetched.

I'm trying some new ideas for energy work and I'm seeing possibly interesting results. I'll post more when I have something more repeatable to report.

[arthurb999]

Sprinting and strength training are best

[funchy]

Running is hard on the joints. If power walking up/down hill isn't enough of a challenge, consider a lower impact activity such as swimming, strength training, or cycling.