Month: April 2019

   In my last blog post, I wrote about the importance of a safe loving container for children as the energetic field from the first few years determines, to a large extent, the lens through which we perceive and experience reality.  I was asked how an energy field of anger, neglect and abuse can be healed.  The first step is to recognize that you have an energy body that carries the differing vibrations of all of your experiences, including negative ones. For instance, the unexpected rage or shame that arises from out of the blue may not in actuality belong to you, but may be that of a key figure from your childhood. Often parents project their own feelings and the energies that they carry onto their children perpetuating an energetic pattern that can go on for generations. As babies our first experiences are affective or felt experiences creating a way of perceiving reality before there is cognition.  Often this becomes the container that holds the growing psyche structure in place.  Because of this, it may be challenging to identify the energies that we carry that block us from knowing and experiencing who we really are. Fortunately there are ways to do this.

When a negative feeling state arises, take some time to meditate or be in nature and ask yourself the origin of what you are feeling. If you are mad at a friend for saying something hurtful, ask yourself the first time that you felt this way. As the scene emerges into consciousness, try to discern not only the content leading up to the feeling state, but what you were feeling at the time. Did you stay present to the encounter or is the memory a hazy one with important elements missing? If this is the case, a part of you might have left the encounter leaving a vacuum for the energy of the incident or the energy of the person who is being hurtful to enter your energy body. Ask yourself if these energies are you, if you need to carry them or if you are willing to let them go. If so, gently ask your guides, higher self or angels to help you release that which is not yours. If there was a lot of early trauma and a secure attachment figure was missing from one’s early life, it may feel as if you might dissolve if you released this early trauma from your field. There are a couple of things to do if this is the case. One is to envision the type of energetic container that you would like.  One of my clients was born into a cult and as we prepared to release the destructive energetic container in which she was born, we first needed to create a new one in which she felt safe and held.  In this case she decided upon a container of the loving energy of her favorite plants. The second is to seek out a shamanic practitioner that is skilled in removing the energies that do not belong from your field, replacing them with healed parts of yourself that may have been lost or pushed out by the hurtful actions of another. There are many practitioners who are skilled in doing this.  They key is to realize that many of the energies we carry are not who we are and can be released and healed so that the true essence of who we are may be experienced.

There are several types of love; the love between friends and family, romantic love, agape love and the love between parents and children.  The latter provides the foundation for how one views and experiences love.  If a baby is held, nurtured and securely loved, she grows up in an energy field that is safe and accepting.  It does not matter if one has money or possessions if there is a secure bond or attachment.  If a baby is brought into a field of anger, chaos and coldness, this will be the lens from which life is experienced.  This assessment is the foundation of attachment theory.  But there is another dimension to this understanding, which is the energetic one.  We are not only born into a family, a cultural community and country, but we are born into an energetic field that creates the felt experience of our lives.  In a series of posts, I will be exploring what we intuitively know to be true regarding energetic pulls or aversion to others with scant awareness of the power of these energies to attract or repel others.

   Since the beginning of modern psychological thought, the first five years of life are considered to be the most important in shaping a person’s cognitive, intellectual and emotional well- being. The formation of the energetic base of our being begins in utero as the baby grows in and absorbs the mother’s energy field.  The old adage of the importance of not upsetting a pregnant women is actually old wisdom rather than silly superstition. Over the years I have worked with people, as both a psychologist and healer, whose life began in a field of grief or trauma from a significant loss or traumatic experience that the mother suffered while she was with child.  How each child reacts to this field of grief or trauma varies as some absorb the energy of despair or panic laying the foundation for a life of sadness, depression or anxiety.  Others feel that it is their job to compensate for their mother’s distress, even sending part of their pure energy to the mother while absorbing the grief and pain in its place.  Fortunately these energies can be healed and transformed, but first we need to be aware that they are there and to realize that there are thousands of people who have the skill and knowledge to do this healing work.  These energies can also be transformed by the existence of loving and caring people in the child’s life, whose own ability to gradually emerge from the shroud of grief and suffering enables them to be able to love and experience joy, providing the child with the foundation for a sense of resiliency in the human spirit.

   In this time when so many suffer from depression, anxiety and addiction and are crippled with anger, frustration and despair, it is imperative that we begin to rethink the care and attention we give to the early years of a child’s life as a way to break this cycle.  When I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the remote jungle of Borneo, the people had little in regards to basic comfort, food or hygienic conditions, but the children were loved and cherished.  They embodied a sense of internal peace and tranquility that is rarely experienced in the West.  The children were constantly held and played with and participated, at an early age, in the daily tasks of living. When discipline was needed a sharp Heh was spoken, the child immediately stopped her mischievous behavior and within moments was cuddling with the disciplining adult.  In over two years, I rarely witnessed a break in the loving energetic container in which the children were engulfed. In order to heal the wounded souls of so many, we must put time and resources into healing those in distress and reawaken to the importance of a loving container for the smallest and most vulnerable among us.