Untangling Spiritual Growth & Mental Health

Dec 8, 2024 | Healing & Psychology

This is a two-part blog that I wrote with my colleague, Amy Morrison, in the Spiritual Companions Trust

 

William:

There is a challenge that we may encounter when we are supporting or companioning someone on their journey of spiritual growth. And this challenge is often very confusing. At least, it is often confusing for me.

The confusion comes from distinguishing between the normal challenges of spiritual development and mental illness.

Having worked in this field now for many decades I expect everyone on the spiritual path to go through occasional times of confusion, depression, elation, delusion and insight. That’s normal – and we learn from them.

It is also normal for people to get over-attached to a particular belief or guru, and become fundamentalist, unable psychologically to accept and manage opposing ideas and perspectives.

The problem here and the source of my own confusion is that spiritual elation and fundamentalism look like, and may actually be, mental illness. They might, for example at worst, be presentations of psychosis or paranoid delusion.

My dad was a psychiatrist and when I took two years spiritual retreat, he was psychologically unable to process that his son had done this, and he told his friends that I had left the country on a tax dodge. Till the end of his life he was embarrassed by my engagement with spirituality; it looked to him like a personality disorder or mental illness.

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Spiritual companioning – supporting someone on their spiritual journey – also carries its own challenges. The person we are supporting might fall into patterns of projection, transference and dependence. As we become close to them, they start to process unresolved issues from childhood and we become players in their psychodrama. This too is normal.

But there can be worst case scenarios. The person we are supporting may go into an extreme crisis, unable to cope with daily life – depression, hyper, delusion – and at the same time they act out extreme dependency, projection and transference on to us. They need us, love us, hate us, and so on. In response, we of course want to support, be useful, compassionate and caring, but are now caught in the dynamics of their crisis. This can be overwhelming and exhausting. Worse than that, we are no longer of any use. (This may be when we realise that effective mental health care is best done in a team of family, carers and professionals.)

Over the years, my way of dealing with these crises and their dependencies has been to develop an intuitive sense that such a scenario is coming; and to slow down the process and relationship, by backing gently off and distancing myself. If there is what I call “a wave of grace” my gentle backing off can create the space for a new dynamic that helps my companion realise that they are going into crisis, and that they themselves need to slow down and self-manage. Several times, though, I have not handled it adequately and my companion has gone into crisis, and then both blamed me and wanted me to save them.

It is all very tricky and, as I wrote above, can be overwhelming.

More than that, in these situations I have to be very careful and acknowledge that my own training and capacity are limited, and I need to start a referral process. Of course, finding the right referral can itself be really difficult and usually requires the support of their family and general practitioner (UK NHS medical doctor.)

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What I do know, however, is this: the whole process and the dynamics of the relationship would have been eased if I had known early on if my companion had a history of mental illness. If I had known early on that they had a history of mental illness, then I would have acted more carefully and with clearer boundaries.

This means though that, when supporting someone’s spiritual journey, it is actually good practice to ask if someone has a mental illness history; and that can feel awkward, intrusive and embarrassing. My experience though is this: if my heart is filled with care and compassion, and they can feel my empathic support, then it is a relief for them to tell me. They may be annoyed or defensive for a few minutes, but this subsides – and there can be a deeper and more meaningful connection.

 

Amy:

As I sit down to write my part of this blog, I instinctively feel myself tensing and my mind going blank. It is such a sensitive topic, partly because I struggled a lot with my mental health in my teens and early twenties, but also because how we deal with mental health can have such a positive or negative impact.

So before writing, I first wanted to ground myself in the practicalities. I looked, therefore, at the Spiritual Companions Trust’s Code of Conduct  and our resource on Spirituality and Mental Health.   I felt relieved. I don’t professionally or formally support people on their spiritual journey, but I do it all the time informally in my work at the local library and in my social and family life.  The Spiritual Companions’ guidance applies whether we give support formally or informally.

In our guidance we suggest that we gently enquire about someone’s mental health history and maybe even those within their family. This can be difficult. I know I get prickly when people ask me what my mental health history is or, if I have disclosed already, they act differently because of it. So we risk potentially hurting a relationship we have formed with someone we are supporting if it’s not done in the right way.

My advice is as long as you are doing it with love, compassion and caring then its hard to go wrong; and if you do go wrong, use it as a way to explore with the person a better way of framing and exploring it with them. The key is not to completely avoid the conversation – delaying it is okay – as it needs to be had in order for you to safely work with and support someone else.

If someone is unwilling to go into this with you it might be that you need to skip ahead and advise them to speak to their doctor or mental health professional; you may also need to work with the family to do this. Whatever you do, always make a little note in your diary or similar so you know you’ve done it (or keep messages, emails, etc.).

Sometimes people may become very reliant on you or demanding. They might go the other way and reject you too. I think it is important to maintain your boundaries whilst demonstrating love and compassion. It’s okay to say that you need to stop supporting someone if it is outside of your remit, you are feeling overwhelmed or for any other reason. On the other hand, it’s also important to remember that its ok for the other person to struggle with you pulling away; it’s natural and expected, in fact. To help with this you can check that they have support from others and with kindness refer them to someone else better able to support them. Of course, also ensure you yourself have support, such as supervision with a wise friend or professional, or a peer group, to manage your own process and support your wellbeing.

 

Some First Aid Hints

There are also things that you can do to help someone if it looks like they are going into a crisis triggered by their spiritual journey.

  • Encourage them in the first place to meet their basic needs – sleep, eat, drink, gentle movement and exercise.
  • Tell them to slow down or temporarily stop their spiritual practice, because more spiritual connection and energy may make things worse.
  • With the person’s permission, contact their friends or family, so that they know that their family member or friend has gone into temporary crisis; and can therefore relate with greater sensitivity,
  • If relevant, enquire whether you can join or liaise with the person’s health care team. You can act as a pastoral champion representing the spiritual dimension in a multidisciplinary team.
  • To ensure your own good practice, regularly have honest reflective conversations with trusted friends, Spiritual Companions, coaches, supervisors, caregivers, clinicians and therapists in your spiritual network

 

Resources: Mental Health Referral Pathway and  Spirituality & Mental Health booklet.

How to Bless Medical Science

Oct 18, 2024 | Healing & Psychology, Spirituality

It is very rare for me to share someone else’s eLetter/blog, but I want to share a recent one from my friend, David Spangler.

I don’t know about you, but my in-box gets filed with email rubbish. The most stupid one I’ve recently received is an offer for a 7-Second Prosperity fix that will make me fabulously rich almost instantaneously with just a quick . . . I did not click to see how much it would cost me in money or intelligence.

In the same hour I received a beautiful, inspiring eLetter from David. Some of you may recall that a while ago, when I was about to go into hospital, I wrote a piece in which I described a realisation. My prayers for myself felt out of integrity and everything was transformed into a genuine benevolent flow when my prayer changed to: ‘May my presence in the hospital be a blessing – a blessing to medics, the patients, the cleaners . . .’

David’s eLetter is extraordinarily grounded and inspiring. He has been going through a gruelling treatment for a spreading cancer. Here is his latest blog:

The Beauty of Human Energy

by David Spangler

As I write this, I am sitting in a small hospital room receiving my first chemotherapy treatment. My cancerous bladder was removed but the cancer itself survived to migrate to other organs, including my lungs. Hence, the chemo!

To make this a memorable week, yesterday I had surgery to create a fistula in my left arm. This is a joining of an artery and a vein to make a “docking port” in case I need to have dialysis. My kidneys are now one of the targets of the cancer.

After the vascular surgery, I got to marveling on the skill and knowledge it took to make the fistula. Who thought of this in the first place? So, I did some research. Fistulas, it turns out, occur naturally when two hollow organs that should remain separate somehow get connected. Normally, this is a pathology. But hemodialysis fistulas such as I now have were created deliberately out of many attempts to help people with kidney failure. The research goes back to the turn of the last century. But the kind of fistula I have wasn’t developed until the 1960s.

As I lay in bed last night, filling my arm with Light and welcoming the new joining of one of my arteries and veins, I couldn’t help but appreciate the amount of human energy, creativity, skill, and caring that went into this medical procedure. So many unknown heroes whose efforts made this possible, of which I am now a beneficiary.

This is true for the chemo now entering my body. It, too, is the product of many lives, many intelligences, many souls working to find and improve ways of dealing with cancer. Whatever one may think of “Big Pharma,” behind all these endeavors is love and caring, and for many, a call to service. This is what I tuned into last night.

As I lay in bed, preparing my body energetically for the therapy I’m undergoing today, I had this deep sense of peace and of love and appreciation for all the human energy that has gone into the whole field of healing, allopathic and otherwise.

We see the destructiveness of human thought, feeling, and action displayed daily on the news. What we may not see, or see as clearly, is our human creativity, or the love and caring we bring to discovering ways of helping each other. We rightly decry the state of the world with its brutality and suffering, but we also need to celebrate the beauty we bring into the world as well.

I have always had a hard time adjusting to my physical body. It has been a consequence of the particular attunement to the subtle and spiritual worlds that I’ve had all my life. Not that a spiritual focus necessarily means a lack of physical focus or vice versa, but I teach Incarnational Spirituality in part because incarnation has been a challenge and something I’ve had to learn. The world often seems strange to me in ways that it doesn’t appear to be to others. This has never prevented me from loving the world and taking joy at being part of it. But it has meant physical challenges as my soul works to adapt to physical life. This latest struggle with cancer seems to be a part of that.

I certainly would rather it be otherwise; I have no desire to be ill. But what my latest illness has done is given me a portal into this arena of human endeavor on behalf of humanity. It has made me even more aware of the beauty of our human energy and creativity as we seek to make the world a better, safer, healthier place. Now, I take into my body not poison, not chemicals, but Light flowing from this human energy.

It makes me love our strange and struggling species even more.

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To view this blog online and to sign up for David’s eLetter go here: https://lorian.org/community

New Schools Spiritual Wellbeing Project

Oct 11, 2024 | Articles, Opinion - Activism, Spirituality

Important things first (at least for me):

My new motorbike is grrrreat!

Autumn rains are feeling soggy and damp, but the sun is still emerging warmly.

Our chickens are still laying.

I’ve been silent for a few weeks, but very busy in the background. The diploma course in spiritual coaching and caregiving is successfully off the ground, being led by a great team of colleagues from the Spiritual Companions Trust.  I’m in the background, leading the assessment and quality assurance process.

There is also a substantial piece of good news. Two decades ago I started contemplating how a person-centred approach to spiritual wellbeing could be incorporated into schools, to support the children, staff, parents and wider community. Our approach in the Spiritual Companions Trust has proven over the last decade to work well for adults. Could it help children and their schools? How can we integrate our approach into the system?

First, a reminder of our approach.
We always start with an enquiry and build on people’s prior experience. We ask these questions:

  • In what circumstances do you most easily connect with the wonder and energy of life?
  • How would you describe your experience?
  • What is your favourite name for it – God, Goddess, Spirit, Allah, Source, Mystery . . .?

We then show our students the substantial evidence for the health and wellbeing benefits of spirituality. We explain the physiology and psychology of how these benefits are achieved, and we then coach the students in the universal practices that can deepen their experience and amplify the benefits – embodiment, somatic awareness, compassionate witnessing, emptying, and so on.

Over the years, developing and teaching this approach, as I wrote above, I pondered how this could be integrated into schools, possibly through the Religious Education (RE) or Personal & Social Health Education (PSHE) curricula.

Fast forward to a few months ago when I was contacted by Lady Hohn, wife of Sir Chris Hohn, asking whether I might collaborate on a mystery school educational project. I replied Yes, but a few weeks later when I was talking with Vanessa Jeffery, their project director, I had an intuitive nudge. Out of the blue, I asked Vanessa whether they might be interested in a project around schools’ spiritual wellbeing and curriculum development. There was an immediate response of Yes. I seemed to be falling through an open door.

The next stage in this process was to develop a spiritual wellbeing CPD offer for teachers and develop relevant resources. The big issue, however, was how we would be able to get teachers out of their schools for a day’s training. Individual teachers needed to want to come and their school heads needed to give them permission, plus be able to employ a supply replacement teacher. Working with Amy Morrison, our project manage at Spiritual Companions who has had previous experience with two substantial UK charities, the RSPB and Rethink Mental Illness, we began to research possible partners in the education world. It was obvious, however, that we needed advice on the best strategy.

Someone I knew came into my mind – Ed Gregory. We sit together on the board of trustees for Glastonbury Abbey (I live in Glastonbury) and he is a hugely experienced and relevant educator, now leading the education department of the Diocese of Bath & Wells and was a head teacher for thirty years. Ed and I had never hung out together, but I always found his presence useful and calming. So I emailed asking whether he and I could have a word at the annual trustees away-day. He said Yes and I suggested we might take a few minutes at lunch, where I would explain my problem and he might have some advice. (For those of you who are unfamiliar with this, the Church of England has 4,360 schools under its wing, and has a genuine ethos of inclusivity and compassionate care.) 

At that lunch, before I had hardly said anything, Ed said he has hoping I might be able to help him and the diocese with some CPD for their schools! Within less than a minute, sitting at a table by a window looking across the beautiful grounds of Glastonbury Abbey, we were discussing a spiritual wellbeing CPD day for school staff. Within another few minutes, I was scheduled to speak for 40 minutes at a meeting of heads and senior educators, including Ofsted inspectors, working in the Southwest.

I then had several meetings with Ed and his colleague, Louise Jenkins (also a teacher), and we developed a plan for how and when we could move forward. We agreed that our CPD day be divided into two parts. In the first two thirds of the day participants would personally experience the approach and be taught some of the strategies. In the last third of the day, we would harvest their thoughts, insights and feedback on how this approach might best be integrated into schools  — classrooms, special needs, staff, governance, curriculum, parents and the wider community. We would then build on this, running further CPD days, developing resources and strategies.

So, a few weeks ago I put on a smart shirt and suit (!), and delivered that presentation on a person-centred approach to spiritual wellbeing, ending with a request for support in delivering the CPD.

My heart is still moved by the fact that these senior and very grounded people in the teaching profession all liked our approach. They thought it useful and relevant. It spoke to them. They wanted to support it and they wanted personally to attend. In fact, they suggested that ideally each school would send a head teacher and a classroom teacher.

Our first CPD day in the Schools Spiritual Wellbeing project is now scheduled for early January and others are being planned. The generous support of Kylie Hohn and the LightEn foundation has ensured that schools can meet the costs of supply teacher cover, that we can develop resources and an ongoing appraisal, and as my daughter, who is herself a teacher, insisted, that all the teachers on the CPD day be valued and cared for with a cooked organic hot lunch!

In a future eLetter/blog I will let you all know how it goes. In particular, we will learn from the first CPD day and its feedback whether we have a project that can integrate into schools’ systems and cultures. Our intentions are, I believe, impeccable but there needs to be a grounded reality check on whether it is actually useful and whether the time is right. Watch this space. I’ll keep you informed.

Right now, it feels blessed.

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If you are connected to a school and want to be involved, please email Amy – amy@spiritualcompanions.org

If you want to financially support the project, you can donate here: https://spiritualcompanions.org/donate/

If you want to give a substantial donation, then please contact me directly william@williambloom.com

Distant Healing Strategies to Relieve Suffering

Jul 30, 2024 | Articles, Healing & Psychology

Distant Healing Strategies to Relieve Suffering

Every Thursday since the Spring 2020 covid lockdown I have led a twenty-five minute online healing meditation to relieve suffering.
‘We send healing to wherever there is suffering. Calmly, patiently, we send healing.’

Over these four years my own way of practising distant healing has developed, and I want to share my journey and practices with you. It may encourage, support or expand your own practices. And of course I welcome feedback and other ideas.

 

Relief of Pain

To begin, I practised distant healing in a way that most people will know already. I bring into my heart and mind the people I know who are physically or mentally ill — family, relatives, friends, colleagues and neighbours.
Softly from my heart I wish them well. Just calm thoughts of wellbeing for them.

Long ago I learned never to direct healing energy, prana or qi indiscriminatingly at people who are ill. This is for two reasons:
First, I do not have their permission, so may be intruding.
Second, more energy can sometimes stimulate, amplify and worsen an illness, especially nervous system disorders and mental illness.

So I hold people in Love and calmly wish them health and healing.

 

Birthing Self-Compassion

Over the months, as I contemplated the pain and distress of people in suffering, my perspective changed. Meditation, when we are in a profoundly calm, expansive and connected state, is also a process of curiosity. Consciousness expands. Insights come.

I contemplated the reality that, for many, pain and distress are not necessarily going to end. Even with a miracle cure, end of life inevitably awaits — indeed awaits all of us.

I remembered the nurses’ training led by Professor Margaret Newman where the nurses were told: Wellness and sickness are inevitable cycles. The nurse’s true vocation is, yes, to relieve suffering, but more importantly to midwife an expansion of consciousness so that patients can connect with something Higher and self-manage with philosophical hope.*

I also remembered the teaching of Stephen Levine when he wrote about how patients can ‘heal into death.’ We all die, but patterns of suffering can be relieved by shifts in attitude, in consciousness, in forgiveness.**

And the Buddhist teaching too – it is not the suffering that matters, but our attitude to it.

My internal strategy in the Thursday healing meditations therefore evolved. I still wished everyone relief from pain. But I also prayed — for me, prayer is a contemplative thought held calmly, with a sense of connection to the wonder and energy of life — that the consciousnesses of these people would be birthed into a compassionate and loving awareness, so they might be at peace with their pain and suffering.

This is a deep shift in attitude for people in pain or suffering, the benefits of which can be twofold. Psychologically they can find respite. Physically, this change of attitude can stop the toxic effects of negative thoughts and emotions, which cascade through the neuro-endocrinal system, triggering adrenalin, cortisol, acidity, cellular tension and more pain.

 

Supporting the Hospitals, Hospices, Care Homes, Medics & Carers

Over the ensuing year, my contemplative prayers and thoughts expanded to include the local hospitals, hospices, care homes and their patients. I contemplated clouds and waves of healing warmth enveloping these places, supporting the patients in having a more compassionate and peaceful attitude to life and themselves.

At the same time, the medical staff and carers came into my heart and my distant healing strategy expanded to bless and have loving thoughts for all these people on the front line.

My contemplative awareness expanded from local hospitals to all hospitals across the UK and then to places of crisis in the world. I contemplated the medics and carers in Gaza, then other places of war, famine and catastrophe – wishing them love and strength to relieve the suffering around them.

 

Attunement and Solidarity with Healing Spirits

The most recent shift in my practice is more metaphysical as I gave attention to the healing spirits that may be found around hospitals.

Anyone who has been in a hospital in the early hours of the morning, before and at dawn, will know that there can be an extraordinary atmosphere of calm and healing — a magical and benevolent presence.

In my worldview this beautiful presence radiates from spirits and angels. In particular, my sense is that all hospitals, surgeries, care homes and hospices are overlit, blessed and enveloped by loving, subtle beings, who radiate reassurance, encouraging growth into healing and recovery.

In my distant healing meditations I therefore began to revisit all my local hospitals, and beyond, to contemplate how each place was accompanied and supported by these benevolent subtle beings.

I connect and commune with these spirits with an attitude of gratitude. As best I can, I express my solidarity and gratitude, both as an individual and as a representative of the human community, to these magnificent subtle beings.

 

To summarise:

Always calm, centred and connected:

My heart goes out to all in pain and suffering, and I wish them relief and recovery.

I contemplate the birthing of their compassionate consciousness.

My heart goes out too to all the healthcare staff and carers, professional and voluntary, and wish them blessing and gratitude.

I acknowledge the great spirits and angels of healing who overlight and support all places of healing, and express gratitude to and solidarity with them.

Finally I envisage a network of healing linking all these elements across the Earth.

And, of course, I will learn more.

I hope this is helpful.

*

Comments and feedback are welcome on this blog.
I know that many of you will also be experienced in Reiki and other forms of distant healing.

 

* Margaret A Newman: Health as Expanding Consciousness, 1999

** Stephen Levine: Healing into Life and Death, 1993

 

Sensitivity & Compassion: Risks and Blessings

Apr 25, 2024 | Articles, Featured, Spirituality

When we open up to Source, we inevitably become more sensitive.

This is one of the great risks of spiritual development that is rarely discussed. Why a risk? Because when we open to Spirit, we also open to all the vibrations and subtle energies that are out there, good and bad.

 It is probable that everyone reading this blog has at some point in their lives experienced a sense of energetic overwhelm from all the terrible news and suffering on our planet. You have also probably experienced over-sensitivity to other people’s negative vibrations, perhaps to the point of needing to avoid certain situations.

This is normal on the spiritual path. It comes from being more open and connected. No wonder that historically so many spiritual folk retreated into abbeys, monasteries and convents. No wonder that shamans, pagans and tribal medicine people have spent so much time alone in nature.

Because we all open up and necessarily become sensitive, I often think that at the very beginning of everyone’s spiritual journey, we should be taught two foundation practices.

The first is the skill of being able to distinguish between good and bad energies. It does not matter how beautiful an angel or spirit looks. What matters is its vibration. Supposing it is something evil that comes in cunning disguise. We need to be able to discern. Early on in my own training as a youngster, I was taught something very simple. Will the new energy say the Lord’s Prayer with you?  Decades on, I still use that technique as a guideline when I meet something new and am not certain what it is.

The second practice I believe everyone should learn at the very beginning of their spiritual journey, is how to open and close. Open to the energies you want. Close to the energies you want nowhere near you.

Once I was training a group of Christian clergy, showing them how they might open more fully to God and Christ in their worship. During the discussion afterwards several of them shared that they were concerned about opening fully to Spirit during a public service. I asked why that was so. They replied that they would then feel overwhelmed by the vibrations of the people in their congregation, especially greeting them at the church door after worship. Too many people! Too many vibrations!

I showed them how to open like flowers opening their petals to the sun and to then close their petals as night-time came.

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Managing your energy field and boundaries is also crucial for containing your own bad moods and negative thoughts. We do not want to create karma and harm other people with our bad vibes.

I remember once working with a very intense spiritual seeker who was tormented by the idea that she was casting evil spells on other people because of her negative thinking. We discussed this very carefully and lovingly. During the conversation, she had a crucial insight. She realised that her ethical concern about radiating bad energy, in fact, created a boundary. Her soulful sense of responsibility kept her bad energy strictly in her own bubble. She was not radiating negativity.

This insight was a real blessing for her. It relieved her of the worry that she was polluting her psychic environment. It also made her realise that she had a depressive mental pattern of shaming herself. Understanding this was enough of a shift that she was able to liberate herself from the self-harming thought pattern. More than that, she could see that her concern about psychically polluting the atmosphere was in fact a sign that she was aligned with her soul and seeking to live a meaningful life of compassion and service.

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Often people on the spiritual path think that their spiritual development will make their lives easier, but the further along the path we are, the more open we are, the more we are able to recognise and feel suffering. It is part of being sensitive and connected.

The greatest spiritual teachers are profound souls, aware of suffering, always developing more love, more connection, more compassion.

*

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This blog also appeared in May 2024 issue of Cygnus Magazine

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Energy Healing Strategy for Victims of Rape

Mar 11, 2024 | Articles, Healing & Psychology, Recent

There is an energy healing strategy that can support victims of rape and abuse.

To understand this healing approach, it is useful to know something about subtle energy anatomy. In this case, it is to do with the way that the fascia envelopes every part of the body and is mirrored by a webbing of subtle energy.  

Fascia is the thin, smooth, elastic, slippery tissue that sits between muscles and the skin, and that surrounds body organs. It is everywhere in the body, enveloping blood vessels, nerves and cells.

Fascia is also the interface between the body’s physicality and its subtle energy anatomy. It is the bridge, the connection, between physiological tissue and the stuff of the energy body – prana, chi, etheric tissue.  Fascia, for example, is the interface that enables acupuncture.

In the tragic circumstances of rape and abuse, the etheric webbing – the subtle energy fascia –  around the sexual organs and anus is penetrated.

The result of this trauma may be that the subtle energy webbing, the etheric webbing, is torn and remains open after the abusive event.  The integrity of the victim’s subtle energy anatomy is therefore broken.

The victim now experiences not only the psychological and physical trauma of the abuse, but also the less visible wound of the torn and open etheric webbing. This can create an ongoing existential sense of vulnerability and anxiety. For both therapists and victims, it is important to understand that this ongoing vulnerability is not just a psychological or physiological effect. It is also in the subtle energy body that has lost its integrity.

At best, over time, with patience, calm and trust, the webbing can reform and grow back into place. The patience and kindness of therapists, friends and family are crucial.

At worst however the wounded subtle energy webbing remains open.

This can have a tragic result.  Bullies, predators and abusers may sense this energy wound and be attracted to its vulnerability to repeat the abuse. The wounding, the opening, may therefore be further enlarged, creating more vulnerability and a cycle of abuse. This is very unpleasant, wounding and can obviously be very confusing for the recipient who cannot understand why it is happening.

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This energy healing strategy, therefore, is aimed specifically at repairing the subtle energy webbing so that it reforms back into a coherent, healthy and resilient state.  

This technique is not the usual energy healing strategy of hands-on radiation that is used for example in spiritual healing.  In fact, deliberately radiating energy into the wound might make things worse. It can overstimulate and excite the area, possibly making the tear bigger.

The healing strategy that we can use here is calm, receptive and holding. It is magnetic rather than radiatory. It allows and facilitates the web to reweave itself.

It trusts that there is an underlying DNA blueprint of health — an underlying archetypal pattern of a healthy webbing that remains there despite the wound. We need to let the webbing drop back down into its archetypal pattern and reweave itself.

Our technique then is to be very gently present to the wound with calm and patient care. No excitement. No radiation except patient compassion and love.

It is as if your loving and gentle hands are under the wound, and you are magnetically attracting and allowing the webbing to sink down and reweave itself back into its healthy pattern. This requires a very light touch; no sense of urgency.

To repeat: Allow the torn webbing to sink back down into its healthy blueprint which is always there. Sense that it is reweaving. Do not actively radiate or put any willpower into the strategy.

Energy healers – Be very careful about actually touching your client.

How many healing sessions are needed? I do not know. I wish everyone a graceful and speedy healing, but we know that this may take time.

You will know if the healing is effective and the webbing is back in integrity, because the individual will now consistently feel more confident and empowered.

Victims of abuse – If you are reading this, my strong suggestion is that you do this practice when you are in a very safe, relaxed and comfortable space, perhaps in bed or curled up on your sofa. Approach the practice carefully. Maybe feel your way into it just for a few seconds. Slowly build up to a few minutes. A few minutes practised regularly over several months may work very well for you.

*

I wish everyone graceful healing.

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Below you can watch a video of  this blog