There are hundreds of subtle energy processes you can use in your massage practice. So, how best can you sort through the myriad subtle energy techniques available? Well, you don’t necessarily have to. There is a simple technique I use every session, no matter the client concern. I call it “Spirit-to-Spirit,” and you’ll learn how to perform it near the end of this column.
Of course, I might still pull additional practices out of my Mary Poppins bag, when necessary. These modalities, which include auric field clearing, chakra balancing, herbalism, meridian analysis, toning, and a long list of other practices, are more powerful when I’ve already started the session with my “one-size-fits-all” or “cookie-cutter” technique.
How the Spirit Can Benefit Your Practice
Before I introduce you to this process, I’d like to cover the six objectives that can be met by the Spirit-to-Spirit technique. I’ve developed this technique over the 25 years I’ve been doing energy work. It accomplishes the following goals:
1. Makes Sure the Practitioner’s “Best,” or Most Conscious Self, Conducts the Session
Sometimes it’s hard to compensate for our humanity. We all have off days and situations that trigger our painful issues. Still, we strive to show up as the most conscious and conscientious healer we can be.
2. Calls Forth the “Best,” or Most Conscious Aspect, of the Client
While a client might truly desire improvement, there might be other aspects of her personality sabotaging the process. For instance, I once had a client with multiple sclerosis who was a step away from remission. One day, she looked at me and said, “I don’t want to get well. If I do, my husband will leave me.” With this statement, she immediately took a turn for the worse. If possible, we want to engage the aspect of a client that honestly seeks positive change.
3. Invites the Highest Level of Spiritual Assistance
Subtle energy practitioners usually acknowledge a spiritual side to their work. Many call on spiritual guides, such as angels, avatars, the deceased, or totem animals. They might also attribute powers to Spirit or their own highest self. Many also recognize there are unsavory or dark forces negatively influencing the client. These might need to be chased away by the good guys for the client’s situation to improve. Clients often share similar beliefs.
4. Establishes Clear Energetic Boundaries Between the Practitioner and the Client
Most of the healers I know struggle with subtle energy boundaries, or rather, the lack of them. Caring people frequently sense their clients’ aches and pains, emotions, illnesses, needs, and deepest motivations. When we’re saturated with others’ energies, we’ll end up confused, depleted, and exhausted. We need to stay distinct and separate from the client, yet retain our compassion and empathy.
5. Clears Inappropriate or Misleading Agendas and Establishes the Highest and Most Achievable Agendas
We might hold a personal agenda for a client that is improbable or unrealistic. Clients, too, carry agendas that might be impossible or untimely. Or maybe we’ll both err toward agendas that are too limiting. I have determined that a session goes far better if I focus on what should occur from the highest perspective, instead of what myself or the client desires. Usually, we’re both pleasantly surprised.
6. Allows a “Let Go/Let God” Attitude, Turning the Session Over to Spirit
Ultimately, Spirit is the highest form of guidance, best able to inform our intuition and carry out healing. Our main job as a healer, especially in regard to subtle energy, is to step aside and allow Spirit to bring about the desirable results.
Why are these objectives so important? Over the years, I’ve met many healers who have expressed concern about one or all of these factors. I’m sure you’ve felt the same way, and so, you might relate to the needs met through Spirit-to-Spirit.
Referring to Spirit
As a process, Spirit-to-Spirit meets all six objectives and can be performed in three steps. Before sharing these steps, it’s important that I clarify how I use the word spirit, since I employ it in three ways.
First, spirit references the highest aspect or essence of a living being. This definition includes animals. I picture a spirit like a spark emanating from the sun. Knowing that it’s always connected to the sun through beams of love, an individual’s spirit is continually renewable and open to prosperous and supportive energies. In the Spirit-to-Spirit technique, this particular definition of the word spirit will apply to you or your client. If you are working in a group, it will encompass all the living beings you are seeking to address or heal.
Second, the term spirit can also refer to noncorporeal entities, or angels, guides, the deceased, and additional otherworldly beings. If either a practitioner or a client believes that spirits attend to the living, it’s logical to want only the most obliging and beneficial ones assisting in the session.
Finally, the term Spirit represents the Higher Power many call God. Know that when I use this term, I’m not witnessing for a certain religion nor analyzing for gender. In fact, in the The Bible’s New Testament, the word used for Spirit is pneuma, which is a gender-neutral term that in Greek means “breath.” (If anything, the Christian religion should actually support a feminine interpretation of the term. In Hebrew, the original language of the Jewish Torah, which is also the Christian Old Testament, the term used for Spirit is ruah, which is a feminine noun. As well, the word employed in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, is also feminine. Specifically, the word for Spirit is shekinah, which means “presence.”1) My advice is that when you invoke this Greater Spirit using my technique, you insert your own belief system.
Integrating Spirit
With these definitions in mind, the three steps of Spirit-to-Spirit are best undertaken silently and at the beginning of a session. It is not necessary to introduce them to a client, although you can, if you wish. Over time, you’ll discover that these steps take no more than a couple of moments to complete. At the end of a session, I simply reverse them, which allows me to release my client into the world in a good way.
These three steps, with descriptions, are as follows.
1. Acknowledge Your Own Spirit
Affirming your own spirit is equivalent to identifying with your spiritual essence, which is always connected to Spirit. Over time, many practitioners create a tool for quickly performing this step. They might internally chant a certain tone or song, picture a light emanating from their heart, or feel positive energy flowing through their body. The purpose of this step is to activate your best self and clear personal issues and agendas.
2. Acknowledge Others’ Spirits (the Client’s and the Helping Presences)
The primary intention of this activity is to call forth the highest aspect of your client. This step doesn’t eliminate the client’s personality, underlying needs, or psychological dramas; rather, it bolsters their spiritual essence, the part of them best able to avoid self-sabotage, work toward a clear agenda, and enable healing. As stated, if you are interacting with multiple people or living beings, you can affirm all of their spirits, simultaneously. The second aspect of this step is directed at transcendent beings. Affirming their presence expands your healing team to include skilled and well-meaning invisible helpers. This acknowledgment also chases away interfering beings.
3. Acknowledge the Spirit
By appealing to the Oneness, you accomplish several vital goals. First, you free yourself from perfectionism. Ironically, when you’re more relaxed, you will function at a higher level. As well, your intuition will be more accurate, as you’ll only receive divinely approved messages. Secondly, you establish energetic boundaries between you and the client. The Spirit’s presence effectively ensures energetic safety for you and your client but also creates a buffer between you. Thirdly, this step guarantees that only the highest healing will occur. Speaking for myself, I know that the Spirit is far more equipped than I am to deliver healing and love.
Having put the Spirit in charge of the session, I sometimes wonder if there is anything left for me to do as the practitioner. There is. My job is to love, sharing the most formidable power there is. In the end, it is our very human presence that enables the calling of even greater help.
Note
1. Esoteric Interfaith Church, Inc. “Putting the Goddess, the Sacred Feminine, Back Into Judeo-Christianity,” accessed June 2016, www.northernway.org/goddess.html.
Cyndi Dale is an internationally renowned author, speaker, and intuitive consultant. Her books include the bestselling The Subtle Body: An Encyclopedia of Your Energetic Anatomy (Sounds True, 2009), The Complete Book of Chakra Healing (Llewellyn Publications, 2009), and Advanced Chakra Healing (Crossing Press, 2005). To learn more about Dale and her products, services, and classes, please visit www.cyndidale.com.