What is energy? The chinese call it "chi".
In acupuncture, they talk about chi flowing through energy channels, the so-called meridians. German analyst Wilhelm Reich named it "orgon" and he created the wise theory that energy attracts fluid and forms energy blockages.
Norwegian Psychotherapist Gerda Boyesen introduced the use of a stethoscope on the belly to listen to the sounds of the peristalsis which, she found out, were as a direct accoustic feedback from the body - an indication for the freeing of blocked energies.
So why is it so importamt to balance our body energy and how can we do it without spending a vast amount of money on therapy sessions?
In this series of articles the patient reader will get to know a number of tools and exercises to use as a key to balance their energies. It might as well be a key to the door which leads them into the house of their suppressed past emotional and physical history.
This process can sometimes be painful and they might do everything to resist it and avoid getting back in touch with it. With some people it might even become a journey to past lives. Who knows?
I am a qualified biodynamic psychotherapist and I have studied the body and the psyche for a long time. I find it important that we learn to give more attention to our body, feelings and thoughts.
It is not always necessary to pay a therapist in order to achieve that. There is a lot of things we can do ourselves. It is vital to be as independant as possible.
I have put a series of seven workshops together called "Energy in Balance" and I have taught them to small groups of people for the last five years, whilst for the last fourteen years I have been seeing individual clients.
You can ask me questions and I will try to answer them if I find the time. Email editor'othernews.co.uk and make the "subject" line `Gabriele`.
The first image you might see if you are thinking about energy in balance could perhaps be a set of old fashioned scales. To achieve a balance, you have to put the same amout of weight on both sides of the scales.
Visualize Leonardo da Vinci's symmetrical man - his arms and legs stretched out and think of your own body. Compare the feeling in your right and left hand, your right and left foot. Is there any difference?
Do you feel symmetrical like Leonardo's man? And what about your head and your feet? Is there more energy in your head or in your feet? Do you breathe with an open mouth ? And how deep is your breath? If you want to balance youself, all these things will matter!
Are your neck, shoulders or back stiff while you are reading these lines and do you wear glasses?
Before I start with the first lecture I would like to introduce you to the seven tools which I am going to use all the way through: Biodynamic self-massage
Counselling
Bioenergetic and yoga exercises
Breathing
Healing
Flower and Gem essences
Creative expression
Those are all natural tools and the use of them can eventually enable you to balance the energies in your body.
Why would we want to be grounded? Most of us have too much energy in our heads, because we are thinking too much. Many of us find it difficult to relax and stop thinking.
What has happened ?
The energy might be all blocked inside the head not wanting to go down any more into the rest of our body.
Grounding our feet is one way to get the energy back into the body.Fashion has always made it difficult for women to be grounded. Wearing high heels with pointed fronts does not allow any energy to move through toes and heels. Stockings made from synthetic materials won't let the legs and feet "breathe". Women who wear short, tight skirts in the cold might very soon stop their energies moving into the legs, feet and buttocks.
Men often have a habit of wearing their boots all the time. Thus the feet never have a chance to breathe. As soon as athelet's feet develops, they feel ashamed of the smell and this makes things even worse.
I hope that you will, while you are reading this, be courageous enough to take your shoes and socks off.
We are going to massage our own feet. It is important to sit in a comfortable and straight position, where we can breathe deeply. Try to breathe through your mouth all the time. That will help the massage to have a deeper effect on your body.
Start to massage your little toe. Toes are the main exits for our energies. Through them energy travels out and in just as through doors.
The feet do a lot of work for us all through the day. But we very seldom think of giving them any attention. Lets think of our toes as children who might want some of our attention before they will claim it through tension and pain.
When you massage each toe it is a good idea to imagine that the energy you are using for thinking is travelling into your hands. Imagine that your hands are curious to find out more about the little toe through touching it. We are all born with healing forces in our hands, but by having been forced to use them in a tense and controlled way most of the time, they have turned into stiff and tense "robots".
Think of a blind person who tries to find textures and shapes without seeing them. Try to feel the shape of your bones, muscles, tendons and tissue.
Sometimes you have to press quite hard to feel something. Massage your little toe with rubbing strokes. You might feel that the area aroud the nuckle is knotted or tighter then the rest of the toe. Small"fluid-cushions" might be felt on the inside of your toes. Numbness or pain is an alarm sign for you to spend more time with massage.
You can use some oil or cream if you wish. Almond oil mixed with lavender oil, for example, would be good.
Painful or numb areas often indicate that there is an energy blockage. It can very well be the beginning of arthritis.
Go through massaging all your toes slowly. If you find yourself getting bored or thinking of other things, you might need to press much harder to get a response to your massage.
Imagine that the feet are a telephone where you can phone different parts of your body. The first answers will be responses such as a deep breath, a feeling of electrical currents running through the body, sounds from your intestines, known as peristalsis, a meditative sensation of emptiness in the head, burping, yawning, wanting to stretch and sensations in the stomach or belly - similar to those you get before writing a test or meeting someone you are scared of.
Getting some of the above responses will make you more interested in carrying on with the massage.If you should not get any of those responses, do not give up but be patient. You will get them eventually.
After having massaged the toes go to your instep.
Humans tend to tense their muscles and breathe more shallow or stop breathing when they are afraid. This is a simple survival mechanism and creates a muscular armour for protection. Thus the muscles of toes, fingers, instep and heals are quite often very tense. To release the tension, we sometimes have to work quite hard.
On the instep it could be a good idea to use a stone for the massage in order to be able to apply a stronger pressure.
After that work on the achilles tendon. Take the muscle and tendon between thumb and middle and index finger and press. Do not forget to breathe with an open mouth. Now compare how this foot feels different from the other one, which you haven't treated yet.
Thats enough for today. Next week I will share with you a very helpful exercise of creative visualisation that can help you to ground your feet.