Energy Healing: What It Is (and isn’t)
Energy healing is many things… but I bet it’s not quite what you think it is. Arriving at a concrete definition is challenging. Energy work is confusing, a bit mysterious. For one thing, energy is mostly “invisible,” so easily dismissed or ignored. There’s a wide range of people practicing energy healing in a wide range of ways. And let’s be honest- it’s all completely unregulated. Of course it’s hard to figure out what you’re getting into. Especially if you’ve done energy healing of some kind before, it’s tempting to define all energy healing from that experience. Don’t.
Choosing an energy healer
isn’t like finding a dentist or an accountant, where you basically know what to expect and just need to choose someone with the most education or experience, or maybe a good office location or personality that you resonate well with.
That’s because energetics encompasses a very broad range of practices, ranging from the more scientific quantum physics end of things {I think of Dr. Joe Dispenza and Dr. Bruce Lipton here} to the really “woo.” And by woo, I think you know what I’m talking about. Remember this episode of Seinfeld?!
Energy healing and spirituality
are often strongly associated by individual practitioners. However, energy is as scientific as you can get. No branch of science has been more studied than quantum physics {it’s all about the relationship between matter and energy}. But many practitioners focus on the spirituality, philosophy, or belief behind their personal practice. Super confusing, right?
Energetics isn’t a belief system, philosophy, or spiritual practice
although many healers bring their personal spirituality to their work. Using prayer or New Age spirituality or angels or crystals or tarot cards or whatever else is common. It makes it seem that energy healing itself comes that spirituality or belief system or tool. It doesn’t. Correlation doesn’t mean causation, right? They’re separate things; simply useful props or tools or beliefs that facilitate the healing process. For YOU.
If you believe that an amethyst crystal has the power to help you heal, it can. Because it may facilitate your ability to tap into your innate healing process. If you think crystals are nothing more than completely useless rocks that have no influence on you whatsoever, then than will be true for you. Don’t get me wrong, I love crystals! But it doesn’t matter what I think about them, it matters what YOU think of them. Ultimately, they are simply one possible tool that may facilitate your ability to tap into and align with your natural self-healing process.
The power to heal belongs to you
… not the crystal. Not the spiritual belief system or philosophy. Not even the healer. Your innate healing ability is always present and accessible to you- you just might engage with it better with the help of an external prop. I think this is often most true at the beginning of your journey with consciousness, healing, and self development- because trusting self is often hard at that stage. Placing faith, trust, and hope in something outside of ourselves feels more do-able at first. No worries. You do you. You’ll regain the self-trust in time.
One thing that’s such a bummer to me is that more traditionally religious people often discount working with their personal energetics at all, because they want to avoid New Age spirituality or steer clear of “witchcraft.” There’s often an assumption that energy healing itself must come from that spirituality or opens some kind of doorway to it.
There’s nothing “witchy” or magical about energy
… other than the fact that some people who happen to align with those things find them to be personally useful tools in exploring or accessing energetics. I promise, you can be a straight-laced attorney or by-the-books math professor and engage with energy just as well as that “hippy-dippy” woman you met at the coffee shop. Energy just is. It’s predictable. And highly useful. What you believe about it beyond that can be influential {as any belief is in your life} but doesn’t inherently define it.
Energy is a super practical system that can be balanced, healed, and optimally used every single day in your own life. It’s part of all of us. Yes, someone like me who has trained and worked with energy can help when you get stuck, but you can also learn to work with your energetics yourself.
I made this handy eGuide to give you my favorite energetic self-help tools. They’re great to use in between sessions with your practitioner- kinda like when the dentist asks you to floss or the massage therapist recommends foam rolling between appointments.
Working energetically in the quantum field
is possible because EVERYTHING, including you, is made of energy and communicates via that energy. Whether or not you realize this or acknowledge how it works in your life doesn’t change that it happens. It’s simple fact proven by quantum physics. We’ve just all been taught {completely incorrectly, as it happens} Newtonian physics by our education system so this may sound new to you. Humans being made of energy- because energy is proven to be the smallest unit of all matter- is not a new scientific discovery. Let’s save that rabbit hole for another day, though.
Everything, including you, is energy
and you engage in an energetic exchange {or communication} with the energy of the people, places, and things all around you. Energy is your currency. Overspending, spending on crappy stuff, or refusing to ever buy anything at all may be ways your energetic system is signaling imbalance. Where and how you invest energetically is such a clean way of seeing how you move through life. Redirecting your energetic spending habits and finding integrity in the exchange is a clear, irrefutable way of being.
Energy is the catalyst for wellness on all levels
because each of the bodies that make up a human being communicates energetically. Health in your physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological bodies supports a whole, integrated, healthy being. Each of these bodies influences- and is influenced by- the others through healthful energetic communication.
So yes, care for each of your bodies individually- eat well, move healthfully, learn how to work with your emotions and reactions, pursue spiritual learning, heal past emotional hurts and traumas, etc. etc. etc. …and also care for the energetic system, learning how this communication system works and functions optimally for you. Because it’s the most directive way of moving through life if you’ll let it be. Think about it…
Energy can’t be fooled, distracted or overridden
unless you allow it to be. Your energy can inform decisions far more than you likely realize. Which is a good thing- your brain is easily fooled, manipulated, and lied to. And we’ve all found it problematic to lead with our hearts at times- because feelings can’t always be trusted to lead us straight. But, when you learn to read and use your energy… making decisions, finding balance and wellness, and choosing the path forward actually becomes more clear than ever.
And isn’t clarity what you’re REALLY after?
