Adele Interviews Joyce Hawkes, PhD, Energy Healer and Cellular Scientist - Part 2

(Adele's Note: This is Part 2 of this interview with Dr. Hawkes. Click here for Part 1.)

AW: Dr. Hawkes, I’m struck by what you just said, how you look for what’s underneath the expression. Say if you were to look at 5 people with the same stage of cancer, and yet they’re all different. Do you just get an intuitive sense, that in this situation there was a toxin in the environment and I think it’s still there. And in that situation, there are lots of books written about trauma, and how something happened and about 18 months later after a divorce or something happened to knock out that immune system, and that part of the spirit is still a bit unclaimed and got kicked out of the body. Or is it DNA – “My mom had breast cancer and so I’m going to get breast cancer.” It’s a very complicated situation.

JH: It’s very complicated. And we’re very complex beings. I take a pretty good history. So I listen for what people say. Because often people kind of know inside, even though they can’t express it, per se. And there are times when nothing lights up as positive. Like, it’s unknown, you don’t know, it’s a mystery. So I take that, and put it in my analytical brain, and then I try to forget it as best I can, and just go where the energy moves and where the guidance is. And sometimes those two will dance together really closely. And sometimes they don’t. So I don’t have a "1, 2, 3" protocol that says, “Do it this way.”

AW: If it could only be so easy...

JH: I’m just grateful any one of us can actually help another human being in the midst of their journey. And you know, another point on this is that not all allopathic treatments work for everybody. Even though there are all kinds of studies, one medication may work for 10 people, but on the next 5 people, it makes them sick as can be and it doesn’t work at all. And so new methods are continually developed in chemotherapy for cancer. One type of chemotherapy will knock down those cancerous cells for one person, but it doesn’t work for another. So they’re facing the same dilemma, “How do we help all these people when everybody really is pretty different?”

AW: Yes. We’re not all in the median on the bell curve, with the average of this or a median of that, and your chances are within a certain confidence interval that this drug will work.

JH: Right...

AW: It doesn’t quite work that way. You know, it surprises me that even modern medicine is as unpredictable as it is. I mean, it seems like it should work. A medicine should do this, a dosage should do that. But even Rosalyn Bruyere said the same thing. She said 30% of the time, antibiotics don’t work. The doctor can give you an average. “The average is this.” But the bell curve could be really flat, and you could be on the wing end of one. I understand how this question is very frustrating for patients and clients when someone is ill. I’m curious what you recommend in situations where people are sick. There’s limited amount of resources of time, money, energy. Can’t go around trying every modality. It’d be exhausting.

JH: Oh yeah...

AW: How is someone to know, if they were to do energy healing which person to go to? They all say different things, they do different modalities. Or should they consider homeopathy? Or is it an herb? It seems each patient is out there on their own, patchwork for themselves.

JH: Yeah, it’s tough and I really have a compassionate appreciation for what people who are ill are facing, in trying to make those decisions and sort through all the offerings, and all the [sigh] – you know, there’s hype out there on what’s going to fix you and obviously that doesn’t work...

AW: Absolutely.

JH: I pretty much take the person who comes to me as they show up. My prayer all these years has been, “May the people who I can actually help show up.” So I assume when someone calls me that I can help them in some way. So part of it is, OK in what way can I, and how much? I don’t send them with a list of, “Go do this, this and this,” or, “Stop doing this this and this.” Make an assessment of what is actually benefiting you. When they’re working with me I do an hour session, and then for the next 5 mornings I do an additional 5 minutes or so in my morning meditation of sending to them that’s just part of the session. I don’t call them back, I don’t charge for that, but I support the work we started over the next week. I ask them take a week and see what’s happened to their body. Make an assessment after the biology of their body has had a chance to catch up with these treatments. And that has worked really well. Because sometimes stuff happen instantaneously. Woohoo!

AW: Yeah, oh we love those!  [laughs]

JH: Oh yeah, definitely! And sometimes it happens 4 or 4 days down the road.

AW: I’m curious about your technique. There are so many out there. I didn’t see any reference that you do “X” or “Y”, whether it’s Reconnection or qi gong, or specific schools of ways of working with energy. When you work, are you holding a vibration? Are you sending? Are you unwinding? Are you using a laser? You know, one day we’ll have a lab that can measure the differences of all these different focuses...

JH: Right.

AW: Is your work chakra based? Are you following the flow of the meridians? Or are you in the shamanic world and retrieving things?

JH: You know, I’ve had direct experience and training in a pretty much all of that. And so I pick out whatever I’m guided to do that’s going to work for this person. So I don’t have a bunch of certificates hanging on my wall. The first part of my work was guided directly by, um, beings not in body, [laughs] and I still rely on them. In the book, “Cell Level Healing”, I talk about how early on, I learned about chakras healing. So people would come in and I’d be busy balancing chakras. Red, the traditional colors on up to purple. And I get people who were sick. They’d get sick. They’d almost throw up on my table. And I’d go, “Yikes, what is this?”And so I began looking at this and working with it, I began looking at what I didn’t know at the time, the shushmna, which is the channel which lies just above the spine, and the two nadis channels on either side. I saw them!

JH: And I saw this one woman who was just so sickly. And her whole area was silver. And I went, “Oh, ok” So I started supporting silver, with little shiny sparklies in each of the chakras. And she’d go, “Oh I can’t tell you! What’d you do? That feels so good!” She was becoming a Jungian therapist and she was so ill it was really tough for her. She wasn’t sure she was going to make it. And that began to strengthen her. And then I started mixing. And this wasn’t by someone’s technique or book or anything else. It was just pure, straight forward guidance. Mixing a little of red in her first chakra with the silver, and it let her incorporate that and handle it. And it allowed her to have more of a sense of [laughs] actually being comfortable on the earth! And then I taught her how to do that. And now she’s became totally healthy, very successful and well known in her field.

AW: Wonderful...

JH: So, I don’t have a protocol. I do teach this work, and I teach at Omega Institute. I love teaching there and other places. I try and help each student find what are the tools that work best for them, from what they’ve studied before, or what they can by study about knowing about cells. And then let’s practice. Let’s figure out what it will take for you to learn to move energy and get it to the right place.

AW: And that brings me to a question I’ve been sitting with. Why do you think there are so many different ideas about how energy works, in terms of different ways of healing. You should do this, or the 2nd chakra should look like that. There’s not an agreement, even amongst different modalities within the energy medicine profession. It’s very confusing. Why do you think that is?

JH: It’s kind of fascinating, I think. It’s based on healer age and experience. I did it this way “Whooa, and it worked!”

AW: So everybody should do it that way...

JH: “And I did it this other way and it worked even better and so...”. You know, it’s like religion. They all have an approach that goes, “I did it this way and that’s cool so it needs to be done this way by every body every time all the time.” It’s a mystery, it’s just a mystery. And who knows? Maybe one person you work on, maybe their genetic background is Native American and they need a certain way of energy work. And another one is Norwegian and theirs works different. And maybe someone actually flew in from some other planet. I don’t know. I wish I knew!

AW: [laughs]

JH: But people are different. And I think it’s sad that healers have to create their own cosmology and fight each other about their cosmology. You know, if it works, cool.

AW: Great! I’m pragmatic. Whatever works. You know, if I have to stand on my head and that somehow changed the energy in the room and your migraine went away, fabulous!

JH: [laughs]

AW: But it’s trying to put a scientific framework around this... because humans are weird. We want to know why. It’s like, I can’t trust that this is really working unless I know why and the theory and I can learn everything about the right colors of the chakras, and then I might feel comfortable in just being with it. It’s funny.

JH: Right. But even in science, things are changing all the time. Right now, the Big Bang is no longer the most important theory of how the universe happened. It is in question. Everything changes. It’s evolving in our understanding as our tools and technology evolves. For example, in the cells, it was thought that the mitochondria power pack in the cells float around and deliver their energy, gets picked up by a certain enzyme and then is utilized by another part of the cell that makes all these proteins and enzymes within the plasma particulum. And they just kind of float around. Well, within the year or 18 months of when this article was published in the journal of science about how there’s a molecular link that couples the power pack and the plasma particulum together! It makes such sense! It’s not just left to just floating around and maybe it will work. The complexity of how those cells work is exquisite. And the more we know the more we can technologically ask ourselves to tell its secrets to us.

AW: I’m fascinated with science. I remember one time, earlier in my career, I was in a meeting where we took a drop of someone’s blood and put it on a slab and put it under a microscope. We took a visual look of the cell activity – how quickly the blood cells were moving under the microscope -- because they start to slow down after leave the body. And I moved 30 feet away and someone told me to send energy to that blood drop under the microscope. And I’m 30 feet away, and I thought, “Oh God, this is crazy”. And I sent it energy. And we looked under the microscope. And sure enough, everyone could see the cells were starting to get peppy. And you can see that something is happening. Science cannot quite understand it yet. Like, “How can this be?"

JH: Interesting...

AW: When you look at cancer, what does it look like to you? I see cancer a certain way. Rosalyn Bruyere sees it a certain way. Every healer I’ve interviewed sees it differently. We all see it differently. Some people see a mist. Other people see this grey stuff. I see things that looks like a cell with TV antenna wires coming out of it, that don’t belong there. Like, wall is not smooth. It’s got things poking through it, like metal shrapnel. That’s what I see. I’m interested in what you see, when you work with cancer at the cellular level.

JH: Interesting. I haven’t experienced those images with cancer. But there are a lot of images of cells with stuff poking out of them in both normal and ill cells. They’re receptors on the cell. That would be at a level the electron microscope can’t even see, but has been researched by other biochemical techniques and such and artists’ depiction of them. They look like they have a variety of different kinds of shapes and sizes all over them. They are part of cell signaling. They’re part of how cells actually communicate with each other, and how they grab whatever that cell needs and pulls it in. So that’s interesting description.

JH: When I work with cancer, once again, each individual is really different. There aren’t any two exactly the same. Sometimes I’ll seee the tumor mass itself. And sometimes there’s the sense of almost rapid vision that’s making that cell divide too fast. So I’m drawn to the inside mechanism that has gone awry, and has taken that particular cell population out of balance of what its normal rate of division would be.

AW: Do you use any destructive methods? There are some healers who will use energy like a sanding block to whittle down a tumor in a destructive way. Do you do that?

JH: Yes and no. The strongest answer is No. What I do is ask the cell to do a natural process. There’s a very interesting properly of cells that they can actually dissolve themselves. They have the ability and enzymes in them to dissolve and give it up through cytolisis. So I ask them to do that for the benefit of the whole.

AW: Wonderful. So you’re talking to the cells and having a conversation.

JH: Yes, in a sense. We’ve had really good luck with that with people. There are other times when I hit up against a cancer it feels really aggressive. And it perks up my warrior and I go, “Allright, I’m stuck in the light by you baby” [laughs]

AW: I’m coming in! [laughs] Wonderful!

JH: That’s part of the shamanic training. I don’t apply that all over the place and every time.

AW: Well, sometimes time is of the essence, you know?

JH: Sometimes being a warrior is what we’re called to do.

AW: Absolutely.  What thoughts do you have for aspiring healers?

JH: I would encourage aspiring healers to develop their own practice. First of all, that they develop a real solid meditation, which is a catch all phrase, so they’re in touch deeply with themselves and with however they connect with the universe. That’s how they develop a sense of confidence in their calling in the first place, and then the unfolding of their own journey. And realize whatever training they have, training wheels are wonderful, but not everything everybody teaches you is going to be applicable, that you sort through it. And to stay open to learning. I mean, I’ve been at this for almost 30 days. Every single day at the office, I learn something new. Stay open to guidance, stay open to discovery. Otherwise, that’s when we begin to die inside, when we begin to lose our enthusiasm and we’re no longer learning. Because stuff changes all the time. Our bodies aren’t the same. Our bodies totally aren’t the same. Our red blood cells only live 4 months in a human. They’re recycled by the spleen constantly. So every single second you and I have sat and talked, our bodies have cleaned up 2 to 3 million old red blood cells and produced 2 to 3 million new ones! That’s every single second!

AW: Wow! Do you think people need to be specially trained to do this work? There are more and more people interested in pursuing this work.

JH: Well, that’s a really good question. In Great Britain, people are trained and certified by certain organizations. They can work in hospitals, and that organization is quite conservative and they have a way of doing it. Here, there’s no real certification for it like there are for other professions. So people are kind of doing whatever. Who knows where that will go in the future. I think some people are born with the gift. I think some people acquire one way or another along in their life time. I think it’s natural for every one of us to be healers. And so, to be aware of how we can share with another person comes with a skill or calling. Right now, there’s a plethora of different styles, techniques and schools. When young people ask me, I ask them, “What lights up for you? What feels juicy? What makes you feel truly alive?” And for some people, it’s going to medical school. For some people, it’s acupuncture school. And for some, it’s studying various forms of energy healing. I just honor all of the paths, and it is important for people to have an integrity about what they do and what they say and what they can offer.

AW: Yes

JH: Rather than, “Hey, yo! I have the supplement that will keep you alive until you’re 175”.

AW: What would you like to see happen in this profession? You’ve been doing this for a few decades. You’ve probably seen all kinds of things changing.

JH: I have. I think the conferences that are out there draw people together so they can hear each other and hopefully honor each others’ paths and learn from each other. (Adele's Note: Stay tuned for my posts on having attended the 2011 NICBAM conference in Hilton Head, SC. I'll be posting some interviews with some fascinating folks I spoke with there.) I see an energy medicine group in Boulder CO. I’ll be key-noting and doing a workshop in Montreal that’s going for 35 years, called the International Association for Integral Human Sciences. www.IIIHS.org. They draw all kinds of people doing all sorts of different sorts of things. And a consciousness group out in Santa Fe that is no longer operational, but that drew a lot of people that were interested in the intersection of both science and healing work. Conferences are helpful. And Hay House sets up and runs a number of conferences all over the United States that draw thousands of people. And people are presenting what they’ve found actually works, not trying to find the end-all be-all, or the, “This is it, this is the one pill that will do it,” or one style. And there are international conferences. And so, as a community that can talk to each other, and a community that can encourage each other and explore together, the question is, “How we help each other the most? What are we called to, and what are the ways in which any one of us as an individual can benefit on earth?” And at some time, there will be someone or a group has the ability to take all of that and, with synthesis, go, “OK, here’s the bottom line.” But we’re not there yet. And we’re not there in medicine yet, either. Or alternative.

AW: Right, right. Do you think that will get easier as more data becomes available? Do you think research is helpful for getting the two sides to talk? It seems like without data, there’s always a certain skepticism.

JH: Yes I definitely think that levels of research are really helpful. Right now, there’s not a lot of funding, which is one of the bottom lines for setting up any kind of research. It’d be very fascinating to see what cells look like with the electron microscope in someone whose had healing work or not healing work. You know, take a sample biopsy from someone and run it through all the processing it takes to actually get a picture on the electron scope. It’s not like taking a smear and putting it on a slide and viewing it. It’s very complicated. It takes at least a week or two weeks to get tissue ready to look at with the electron microscope. It’s very expensive work. Very expensive. And there are a few places worldwide where there’s funding for interesting research. There’s a neurological center in Germany, Singer has a lab that has presented material at the Mind and Life Conferences that the Dalai Lama goes to. Very interesting. So here’s a hotspot in the world that’s doing some of that. There are some places in the United States now where alternative medicine is actively studied. The NIH -- their alternative and complimentary medicine group is funding various studies. Richard Davidson’s lab at the University of Wisconsin has made fabulous headway on the brain states of people in deep meditation. And so there’re little sparkly places here and there. I was in Japan and tested at Nahan University in Dr Akio Mori’s lab on what goes on with my brain when I’m doing healing work. What’s the signature pattern? How does it work? What does it look like? So here’s another place where people have some curiousity and somehow [laughs] some funding.

AW: [laughs] Oh yeah, that...

JH: And I think as our work as alternative healers becomes more accepted and there’s more observational data on, “Hmm, some of this works! It’s not just hokey stuff,” society pushes for changes and studies and for acceptance. Goodness, when I started several decades now to where it is now, our culture is much more open. We’re seeing much more of it. Something between 40 to 60% of Americans use some form of alternative healing. And that wouldn’t have been the case 15 or 30 years ago.

AW: And I think because of our healthcare system and how outrageously expensive everything is, people are considering cheaper, less invasive and natural ways of healing. So there can be an opportunity that this work can be part of an offering that includes everything else.

JH: Um-hmmm.

AW: Certainly cuts down on a lot of chemical reactions. It’s drug-free, and it feels good.

AW: Well this has been so wonderful to speak with you, Dr. Hawkes! You have such an amazing background and wisdom and perspective on this profession. For everyone, if you want more information on Dr. Hawkes work or her book, go to http://www.celllevelhealing.com/. Thank you!

JH: You’re welcome.



Copyright 2011 Adele Wang. All Rights Reserved

Adele Interviews Joyce Hawkes, PhD, Cellular Energy Healer and Cellular Scientist - Part 1

(Adele's Note: I'm excited to share with you the following interview I did a few months ago with energy healer and scientist Joyce Hawkes, PhD. One of the reasons why I selected Dr. Hawkes is because she has such an interesting background of both healer and scientist. Not only has she been a pioneer in energy healing, with almost 30 years of experience in the field, but she also has an impressive background in scientific research in studing cells. The way she brings together her experience doing energy healing at a cellular level and her scientific background with cellular research is fascinating. In this interview, Dr. Hawkes also shares how a near death experience helped pave the way for her decision to leave her prestigious scientific career to become an energy healer. 

Dr. Hawkes is the author of, "Cell Level Healing -- The Bridge From Soul to Cell" and "Resonance: 9 Practices for Harmonious Health and Vitality." You can read more about Dr Hawkes at celllevelhealing.com.

This excerpt is Part 1 of 2.
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AW: Hi everybody, I’m so excited and privileged to have our guest today. Her name is Dr. Joyce Hawkes. Dr. Hawkes is a very accomplished and unusual healer with her background, as you’ll hear. She is the author of a couple books, one is “Cell-Level Healing – The Bridge From Soul to Cell” And she’s got a new book out, “Resonance: 9 Practices for Harmonious Health and Vitality.” So welcome to the call, Dr Hawkes!

JH: Thank you! It’s just an honor and delight to be here with you and your audience.

AW: I was so struck by your background. It is unusual. I’m especially interested in people who have had a science background, just because I think that’s kind of where our profession is headed. And I’m wondering if you can give our listeners a brief summary of how you came to be doing your work, how you started.

JH: Thank you, I’m delighted to share that. The science part started when I was in high school. I had one of those incredible science biology teachers who actually really inspired me. My family were not people of higher education but I did a science fair project which won me a scholarship to college, and away I went. From there, on to a Masters degree and then I did my PhD in biophysics at Penn State University. My main area of work was with electron microsity, which is looking inside of cells magnified up to a million times. It was like entering a whole other world of reality. You know, you turn on the knobs of this machine which is about 7 feet high. It works under 100,000 volts of electricity under very high vacuum inside these rooms, and all the sudden you’re looking at the secret inside of individual cells. You know, each of us is made up of between 75 and 100 trillion cells. We don’t see them individually without the help of microscopes. And this whole technology allows looking at the secrets inside of cells. So that was really fun.

JH: Then after graduate school, I had a postdoctoral fellowship with the National Institute of Health, which brought me back up to the west coast, where I had grown up and climbed mountains and skiied my head off, and loved northwest living. And I was offered a job in Seattle, Washington where I am still living now, with National Marine Fisheries Service, which is a part of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. There, I set up, from scratch, from the test tubes to the forklifts, to two electron microscopes, state of the art labs. And I began doing research on what happens to the critters in the ocean, particularly fish, when they are exposed to pollutants. And it was very astonishing, looking at a wide range of organs and systems and ages of fish of what is affected by pollutants, because it is deadly stuff. And it affects things way down inside of cells before we see any effects on the outside of fish. So I did that, published a lot of papers, traveled the world giving lectures. I had a lab full of people working away for me. And I loved it, just loved it.

AW: Um-hmmm...

JH: At the height of my career, I was cleaning up. And I had a leaded glass window that was a decorative piece, about a yard long set in an oak frame. The thing was heavy. It was sitting on the mantle of my double fireplace. I was vacuuming. I did not bump the mantle, I didn’t disturb it, I know I didn’t. And this thing vaulted off and smacked me on the head. And I’m crumbling on the ground going, “Ooh-h-h...”

AW: Oh my gosh!

JH: All the sudden I am experiencing being in a long dark tunnel drawn towards this incredible light that had this quality of joy, compassion and urgency...

JH: Anyway, I had never heard of near death experiences. I had never read the one book that was out at that time by Ray Moody. I could have cared less about anything that had anything to do with that weird stuff. And so here I am, in the midst of this experience, which is still as fresh to me now when I think about, it as it was at the time. You know, there are things that impact you like that, like "Whoa!" They’re so... [pause]. They change our lives.

AW: Yes, they absolutely do.  It certainly sounds like this near death experience changed you, or changed your perspective on a lot of things.

JH: Right, it certainly did. It was quite long. I was there probably an hour of a half. Because when I came back, my head had a big gash but the blood on the top of my head was dry. And that doesn’t happen in a minute or two. So I think they kind of gave me a tour and rewired me and looked me over and said, “Bye! See you later, girl!” [laughs]. I got back into my body with a very sore head. And had to take some time off from work for a while. And I got interested. At first, I just went, “Hmm, that was interesting. That must be what happens when you have low oxygen or you get smacked.” And the scientist in me said, “Ahh, forget it.” But the energy was so strong. The impact of the emotions was so intense. I saw my mother and grandmother greeting me at the opening to the entrance to the place of light, comforting me. And they had been dead for years. I didn’t believe in an after life. And here they were, looking healthy and able to communicate. It was just incredible.

JH: Anyway, I started reading and talking to people. And one thing lead to another. It took me almost 7 years of exploring and taking some classes on healing. Eventually, I had a very clear calling, a direct calling, “You are called to heal”. I came back from that experience, which was on a weekend, and resigned my position at the lab the next business day.

AW: Wow!

JH: Now, it took me a couple months to get out of this I had to train someone to take over the lab. And the person I trained just retired and I was at her retirement party...[laughs]

AW: Did you have a sense, or maybe you have a sense now, that your near death experience may have contributed to it all? On your website you talk about how you have very unusual brain wave patterns that have been measured in a lab. I’m curious if there was ever a causal "because-you-had-a-near-death- experience" that may have contributed to rewiring your brain pattern in some way? And that was helping you in your healing abilities? Or do you think it was a chicken and egg thing? Because I know a lot of healers that, as they progress, their vibration changes also. So I was curious if it was an organic thing, or if you thought this near death experience had something to do with it.

JH: It’s hard to tell, because I didn’t have testing at the time. So I don’t know. It’ be cool to have a comparison of what my brain before versus what it does now. My inner experience is that my vibration, if you will, my consciousness has changed, certainly with the near death experience. It really got my attention, for one thing. But it also changed with simply practicing full attention, full presence in the Now. And meditation, connection with the divine and source. So that has been a progressive evolution of what’s changed. And I know now from the testing that I run delta waves all the time in a waking state. They peak 6 – 7 times higher in my brain when I’m doing healing work, whether it’s with a person in front of me or distance. Probably 2/3 of my clients now are all over the world. I work with people in New Zealand, Australia, Poland, and across the US and Canada. And the work is as strong doing that as it is when people are in the office with me. It’s still just a mystery to me. It’s wonderful. I feel like I came back different, but I don’t have any measurements of what those differences were.

AW: Um-hmmm.

JH: But I know, Adele, that it initiated a search. It initiated practice. It initiated the beginning of developing skill. People don’t have to have a near death experience to bring forth their healing gifts. And they don’t have to be as stubborn as I was and get smacked on the head to do that either. There’s so much available to all of us now, in many different arenas. That you kind of have to go, “Where’s the resonance? Where do I click with system or that system, or this school or that practice that allows me to develop a sense of connection, the bliss that’s with that connection that’s absolutely, totally priceless?” And then with that, the unfolding of “What is my highest joy of service in the world, while I’m also taking care of myself” [laughs] Together.

AW: Exactly. I’ve noticed that healers can be in two groups. One that uses their personal energy, chi. There’s another group that uses more of a universal energy, such that in working, one would not feel depleted.

JH: Yes...

AW: It sounds like you’re working more with the universal energies.

JH: That’s really interesting that you bring that up because a whole lot of what I’m doing in my new book is the process of trying to express how it works for me but also to help people find a sense of union between the two. When I’m working, there’s a certain amount of cognition, there’s a certain amount of knowing that comes from understanding the science of various conditions that people show up. And, I also know that crucial to this work for me is my connection to spirit with God and universe, and that that comes through me, but I’m also responsible for what I say about it and how I work with people. I’m a certified counselor in the state of Washington. And so, you know, we wear a number of different hats I think, most of us in this field. So for me, Adele, it’s kind of both, finding a place of balance and harmony, and dance, almost, where they’re working together.

AW: Yes. We need to have these pieces come together. I’m curious, because you came from such a scientific background, was it a challenge for you to embrace this new calling that didn’t have as much data behind it, didn’t have as many fine tools to measure things? I know we’re getting better at it these days, in the lab. But I can imagine when you started, it may have felt a little bit challenging to go in this direction...

JH: [Laughs] Well, you know, I didn’t leave the lab in a hurry. It took me almost 7 years, because I just loved science. I was very attached to it, and all this other stuff was kind of interesting, but I was like ,“Woah!”

AW: Yes I can relate. I experienced some of that same skepticism, that I had an inner knowing that things were happening that I could not explain, but I just knew I was bending reality in a certain way.

JH: Um-hmmm..

AW: But each client was one data point. So if the scientist in me that wanted to know the mass controlled studies, whether it be of cancer or some other illness, the data just wasn’t there.

JH: Um-hmm...

AW: But just because the data isn’t there wouldn’t mean we don’t do what we know is working.

JH: Yes.

AW: It’s a funny paradox, isn’t it?

JH: It’s a very funny paradox. You know, after the calling, which was as intense an experience of my near death experience, I just thought,“Well, crap, why, if this is my life’s path, did I spent all those years doing all that study and research? I was doing karate for a while about it, and I dumped all my science. You know, I just said,“Science is useless”. And I was in Bali and my main teacher that I met in Bali (she was not in the tourist area). I worked with her for 10 years. I went back and forth from Seattle to Indonesia to Bali to spend incredible times with her. She was a profoundly adept shaman in their tradition. And she’s never seen a book about cells. She’s never even heard about cells and all the things inside of cells, like mitochondria and stuff. And yet, when she was in trance and describing what she saw in people who came to her for healing, she was penetrating to the cellular level. And as she described it, I went, “She’s seeing that deep! She’s describing like she’s sitting at an electron microscope!”.

AW: How amazing is that!

JH: And so that changed it. I said, “Here’s a place to put it together.” And then what then kept coming to me was, because I have a really solid background in the science part, and then, by then, oh let’s see, that was ‘84, a good 10 12 years after I left the lab, that I actually had enough experience under my belt with both training and working with people, that part of my job was to put it together. So that’s what happened in my first book, “Cell Level Healing” which is now in 7 foreign editions, released in to paperback, e-book and blah blah blah, and has done quite well. And I’m so thrilled like an instrument like this interview and the kind of work you’re doing and such like the book can take work past anything any one of can do out walking around the street, you know?

AW: Right. I love to collect the wisdom of pioneers such as yourself. It’s fascinating to me. I’m curious how your scientific colleagues felt about your new calling. I know, for myself, I hid this for the longest time. I lived in two worlds, and it didn’t occur to share them, until the very end when I was much more comfortable with it. But how was that, because you were working with very scientific oriented communities. And quite esteemed in that regard. I mean, did you have a sense of, “Wow, they’re going to think I’m crazy if I want to do this?

JH: Well, of course. And I had won a very high and prestigious level in science in the US and the world because I had done and published research on the effects of very high speed lasers. They deliver a pulse in nanoseconds – 10 minus 9th, it’s so fast you can conceive of it...anyway, that effect on cell structures. That won me the elected position as fellow in America Association for the Advancement of Science. And I still hold that position. It’s interesting they don’t pull your creds from you the minute you leave the field, thank goodness. [laughs] So yeah, I had a lot invested in that image. And some of the people in the lab came to me as clients! And other people said, “You’re just wacko!!”

AW: It’s interesting how people will find us. Even though we don’t say anything. Did your background in science inspire you? I mean, you’ve talked about lasers and cell structures. When you do your work with people on cellular level, are you borrowing from your scientific knowledge about cell structure? For example, when I work, sometimes I will simulate a laser or a beam of a certain color. I’m just curious if your scientific background actually helps you in that regard? Or was it just too different?

JH: No, no it absolutely does help. And after the experience with my teacher, then I was able to put those together. So there are times when I’m in deep, deep meditation to work with someone. I don’t have a standard protocol of work. I work with each person very individually. And there are times when we’re just moving energy. And each session is a little different each time. And there are times there’s a very distinct focus of energy at places within the cells. And I understand those and I know what they look like. And so id an image comes when I’m working, it is more like a visionary image. Then from the cognitive part, from an analytical part, I can say, “Match these two dots, this is where we’re working.” And I can teach people as clients, how to do some of that for themselves. And what it seems to do is enhance the work.

AW: Uh-hmmm...juicy!

JH: Particularly with people who are attracted to work with me. I think we each have our own community. And for some people, this would be like, [sounding very bored] “Oh yeah..” And for others, it’s a really totally cool thing.

AW: I love how you talk abut this. In the woo-woo community, for lack of a better word, there might be talk about things being stored at the cellular level, whether it be a trauma, or down to the DNA and such. But I’ve always wanted to ask, well, what does that mean? I mean, if we were to look at a cell under a microscope -- "OK, there’s your cell, and I see the structures" -- when you work with people on a cellular level, and let’s say you’re clearing a trauma, what are you seeing? Are you seeing the trauma all the way down there in the DNA and releasing it in that way? In many healing communities, there’s a lot of talk of things being stored the cellular level. But I’m not sure everyone knows what that means.

JH: Great question. There is a lot of talk about cells out there right now. And unfortunately, some people who are saying that aren’t really that familiar with cells to be able to go to that level.

AW: Or multi strand DNA, that the number of strands are now going to change, the number of strands. It sounds great, but on a scientific level, we’re born with our DNA and I can’t imagine that a special technique would be changing our DNA. Or are we?

JH: Well, I don’t think we change the number of strands or the number of codons, gene pairs. But I do think we can probably change the expression of genes.

AW: Ahh!

JH: We know that, in fact, some of the latest research out is huge amount of what’s called "junk DNA", that no one thought had any function at all. But it’snot junk at all. In some of the latest research journals, this is actually the part of DNA that controls the expression of the genes that create your blue eyes, your new heart cells, your new pancreatic cells and so on. So there’s a lot of mystery and unknown still, in the exactly what’s the mechanism. How does it work? Nobody knows yet. But we know that, at least from what’s currently going on in neuroplasticity plus the field of the genome of how new things are being published in the journal of science and nature and National Academy of Science all the time on the exquisite mechanism of how our genetic codes create the biochemistry of our cells that then create the new you in which the incredible sacred pile of molecules we call a body becomes a vehicle of our consciousness, and in union with our consciousness, at some point.

AW: I’m fascinated, because there is a school of thought that illness is an energy that is somehow in our DNA (in whichever way people are thinking about that). That somehow healing would involve releasing something from the DNA. And of course, we’re using words in a very inexact way because we don’t have a vocabulary that’s evolved yet to be more specific. Like what you’re saying...the expression..

JH: Right.

AW: So when you’re working with an illness, do you see yourself actually going into the DNA, especially when it’s an inherited type of illness? Or are you working with energy in other capacities, not the DNA, but you can work on the nervous system and things like that? I’m really curious about your cell background and how you work.

JH: You know it’s kind of multi-layered, Adele. There are times when I feel like I’m working just in energy flow, and people get better with that. And then there’re times where it’s at a level, clear down at the level of DNA expression. Which genes are turned on, which are turned off. In some genetic diseases, all it takes is for a gene sequence – that’s just only three base pairs -- one codon -- to turn off. And they turn on and off all the time. That’s the function of the so-called junk DNA. And there are certain proteins that can be produced that turn the gene on, or uncover a gene and let it be expressed. Let me give you an example of that, an actual case history...and I’m changing gender and place, all of that and not identifying the person...

AW: Oh sure...

JH: A woman called me from back east. She had tried to commit suicide in a really grim way. She was diagnosed schizophrenic and had ingested lye. Had horrible stomach and intestinal problems. Came to me to try to see if that could be repaired. At this point in time, she was on public assistance, could not own or drive a vehicle, and was in public housing. And so we started working. And her body really responded to this work. So part of it was getting energy moving. And then I focused on the lining cells of the stomach and intestines, helping those cells repair. Boosting their vitality, boosting their repair potential. And whoosh! All the sudden, everything is much better. It didn’t take a whole lot of sessions to do that (it took more than one). And then she said, “You know, this is all working pretty well. Would you work on my schizophrenia?” And I was went, “Uh, well.. uh, well, um.. yeah, but I haven’t done that before but let’s try it.” And I said, “You must promise me you will not go off your medications and that you will continue to work with your psychiatrist very closely.”. And she said “Yes, yes”. And so I put my hand – she came out here to Seattle sometimes and sometimes by phone – on her head or imagined touching her head. And I just allowed energy to go to the nerve cells in the brain, to those neurons. And the way it felt is that energy then deepened to the expression of her DNA in her cells, that things were coming on and turning off. Now, it wasn’t like I was fine tuning it, “Oh, we’re going to flip this one on and turn this one off.”

AW: Um-hmm...yeah, that was my next question. What was your intention? Were you purposely going in there and manipulating anything?

JH: No. Allowing guidance to take the energy. It was my job to get the energy to that level. And at that level, trusting her body and her guidance – a kind of this multidimensional thing --to do the changes that were for her highest good

AW: Um-hmmm.

JH: And then, all the sudden, she was no longer having some of the main symptoms she had before, which were tactile hallucinations, feeling like a hand was on her moving around and stuff. And that dropped off and dropped off for several months. And then her psychiatrist said we’re reducing her meds and reducing her meds. And no more tactile hallucinations. Now, some time later, she is no longer on any medication. She owns a car. She vacationed in Europe. She has a very fun job. She owns her own condo. And so her life has come back. Her psychiatrist told her, not that long ago, “Do you realize you are in less than 1% of the people who ever diagnosed with this condition that have actually healed from it?

AW: Oh wonderful is that!

JH: It is. And it’s an example of how we can bring these fields together. And I taught her to bless the meds. I said, “Every time you take one of these pills, I want ou to sit for a moment and think about it bless it and welcome it to your body. I can’t tell you, and I’m sure you’ve experienced this too, how many people come to us for healing and say, “Oh God, I have this condition and I have to take this medicine or this infusion. And I hate it!” And you’ve set up so much stress! And when you look at it from that level alone -- so much stress in your body that when you actually swallow the things, you’re harming yourself. It’s not that the medicine necessarily is harming you. So I encourage people who are going to use western medicine, bless it. Take it to your body, ask it to do its very best and highest good, and ask the body release any side effects as fast as possible.

AW: Uh-huhh. Wow. That’s such a wonderful story. And yes, people do tend to hate their medicines, especially if they’re taking a lot.

JH: Yeah.

AW: I’d be curious on your perspective on the kinds of illness, what disease or conditions have you found easier to work with, versus others that are more complex. From my perspective, I haven’t been able to generalize. Because I might say that, for example, schizophrenia. We might get a great a result in one situation, not as dramatic of a result in another. And this is the thing that modern medicine would jump up and down and say “See, you don’t have any controlled study and there’s no data”. It becomes very hard to predict. I’d be curious your perspective on what you’re noticing and why it’s been so difficult to get a concrete sense of, “Energy work is really good for 'X'”. Because for every one we say energy works well with, there’s going to be an exception. For every person we say energy work doesn’t work as well with, there’s going to be a miraculous exception.

JH: Yeah, it’s an interesting conundrum, isn’t it. And I’ve certainly experienced that, because over these approaching 30 years that I’ve been doing this work, I’ve pretty much worked with everything. And early on, there were certain things I was really hot with and I still am, and other things I’ve learned to work with also. I do see a lot of people with cancer, neurological diseases, auto immune disease. Out here in the northwest, multiple sclerosis is a fairly major problem and we’ve had some good results with people. But I agree with you, it’s not 100% in any condition. And that’s why with each person I work with, I ask, “What is going to serve this individual the best?” Because everybody’s different. That’s why I’m always asking, “What’s the key piece here? Where is it?” Is it a trauma somewhere? Is it genetic? Is it an exposure to a toxin? Is it a virus that kicked this off? So it’s kind of looking for what’s underneath the expression of the symptoms. So you have to be very adaptable to the individual and their situation, first of all. And secondly, how well the individual can combine modalities and work together. There are times I work with a psychotherapist, for example. Or psychiatrist or a naturopathic MD or an acupuncturist. Putting several modalities together, and woohoo! Seems to really help a person.
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Stay tuned for Part 2 of this interview.

What do you think? I welcome your comments!

Adele Wang
Reiki, Energy Medicine, EFT Anxiety Specialist
Website: www.safehavenhealing.net
Blog: blog.safehavenhealing.net
Facebook: www.facebook.com/SafeHavenHealing.net

What's the Difference Between Different Kinds of Energy Healing?

As a healer in the field of energy medicine, people sometimes ask me what the differences are between all the types of energy work that are available. For example, people often ask if energy medicine is the same as Reiki. Reiki is a popular form of energy work that more people are becoming familiar with, which I think is great. I usually explain that Reiki is one type of energy work, but it isn’t the only one available. Not all energy work is Reiki, as there are many kinds of energy work. Since I use several different energy methods in my work (including Reiki), I prefer to use the global term of “energy medicine” to describe what I do, rather than limiting myself to a specific technique.

Since people often have questions about different energy work, I decided to write a post with my thoughts on this. Perhaps this may help people better understand the different approaches in energy work, when they are looking for a practitioner.

In organizing my thoughts around this topic, I took a look into my energetic toolbox and thought about all the modalities that I use in my work. I noticed that I can divide these techniques into roughly two groups: chi-based methods of energy work and non-chi based methods of energy work. The following are my notes about the similarities/differences between these two groups.

Chi-based Energy Healing
Some forms of energy work are what I call “chi-based energy healing,” meaning they work directly with the body’s bio-energetic field. Everybody has an aura which surrounds their body, which extends out about 4 feet around them. When there is an illness or an issue in the body, there is usually a distortion or disturbance in the body’s energy field. Chronic pain, for example, always appears to me as a blue-ish grey, dense or mottled looking blob in the aura. Chi-based healing methods strive to clear those imbalances so that the body can heal itself more easily. Chi-based approaches seem to fall into two subcategories: chakra based approaches and meridian-based approaches. Both are ways of working with the body's energy fields to restore balance.

Chakra Based Approaches
Chakra based healing addresses the chakras, or the 7 main power centers in the body. I won't go too much into a description of chakras here, as there is plenty of information available on them already. Suffice to say that the energy of the body's chakras is something that scientists are just now beginning to be able to measure, and I think that is really exciting. When chakras are blocked or not in alignment, people can experience feelings of discomfort. One chakra may be overcompensating for another less developed one, for example. Chakra based methods are ways chi energy can be channeled to release blockages or clear stagnant energies in the chakras. Sometimes this can bring about a deep release of energies and emotions which have been held in the body for a long time.

Examples of chakra-based healing methods include: Reiki, qi-gong, therapeutic touch, healing touch, quantum touch, energetic unwinding, Emotrance, cranio sacral therapy, and others. Each of these modalities has its unique ways of working, to help balance the body’s energetic field. They may have some similarities, but each may be experienced differently.

Reiki in particular is one form of chakra based energy work that has become popular in recent years. Reiki is a way of working with energy that involves no specific intent. (In Reiki, the practitioner channels universal energy through the hands into the client.) In other words, the energy is non-directed. In contrast, energetic unwinding, another way of working with chi energy, is a more directed approach. It is an excellent way to relieve blockages from places like the back. To do this, the healer must follow the body's natural energetic movement with a lot of focus.

Qi gong involves gentle physical movement and mindful breath work. Crystal healing, another form of chakra based work, involves the use of specific stones with the chakras. The practitioner does not expend any energy themselves. Some forms of yoga incorporate chakra consciousness into pose movements, which can be beneficial. Meditations that include chakra awareness can be very helpful, and are a good way to work with chakras for healing.

Chakra based systems are often very helpful when people are unable to express what they are feeling in their body or their heart. Since the body never lies, by having a silent conversation and engagement with the client’s chakras, shifting can happen without the client needing to consciously revisit a trauma. After a session, people often report feeling clearer, more comfortable in their bodies, and better able to deal with life’s challenges. “Brain fog” often lifts, pain is reduced, and concentration improves.

Chi-based healing is often profoundly relaxing and calming for the body. Many of my clients fall asleep during this process. Sometimes they feel warmth, other times tingling, and some report having vivid dreams on the table. Chi-based healing is very helpful for people healing from injuries and/or recovering from surgeries.

Meridian Based Approaches
Meridian-based approaches focus on energy meridians of the body, rather than chakras. Meridian methods focus on balancing the energy meridians of the body so that healing expedited. (One can think of energy meridians as rivers of energy running in the body. An illness in the body might be seen as a rock in the river that needs to be removed.) Since many of these methods are based on the ancient science of acupuncture, they tend to be a bit more technical than chakra-based methods. The directional flow of meridian energy becomes an important consideration.

Examples of meridian-based methods include EFT, Touch For Health kinesiology and, of course, acupuncture. All are helpful for helping the body reset its natural patterns. Sometimes it is as if one meridian gets overtaxed while other meridians are weak or stagnant. For example, stress can cause causes people to have a hyper active Liver or Triple Warmer meridians (fight or flight response), and a correspondingly stagnant Kidney meridian. As a result, people experience adrenal fatigue and feeling of being exhausted and "wired" at the same time. It’s as if the body has trouble resetting itself back to its optimal state, and is in a feedback loop. By doing some balancing work, the body is put back in its natural state, and fatigue is diminished.

EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) is one of my favorite tools in this group of methods because it often goes the extra step to address the emotional distress of why issues occurred to begin with. I have found EFT to be very helpful in supporting peoples’ true healing. (For more information, see my previous blog entry “EFT is a Great Option for Treating Anxiety.”) Through this process, people seem to evolve and grow, in terms of better understanding themselves. It’s more than just providing temporary relief to a stress. The results of EFT tend to “stick”.

Other forms of meridian-based work include acupressure, shin jin jitsu, and energy medicine, as coined by Donna Eden. Meridian work is painfree, fairly quick, and often works when chakra work has reached its limit. (And vice versa as well – the two are complementary approaches). People often report feeling a big sense of relief, and the body relaxes and reduces its stress hormone levels. I have found meridian work very helpful for people healing from OCD, trauma, and anxiety. It is also helpful for creating new belief systems so that people can move ahead in their lives to create something new.

Regardless of whether a practitioner uses a chakra-based or a meridian-based system, the goal is the same: to restore balance to the energy systems of the body. In doing so, the body is better able to heal itself. Often emotional stress and pain are greatly is reduced, and as a result, the body is able to optimize its natural healing ability.

A common thing I’ve noticed is that people are often able to get better sleep after their energy sessions. Good sleep is so important to good health. Many of my clients come to me with chronic issues with sleep, on top of other issues. Thus, their bodies are always chronically deprived, in addition to dealing with whatever else is going on. In many cases it has become rather “normal” for them to not get a good night's rest. After some solid EFT work, along with other energy work, I notice that their sleep is often greatly improved, and along with that, theiroverall health.

Non-Chi Based Energy Healing
The other important group of energy approaches are what I call “non-chi based”. These modalities do not focus on the meridian or chakra system of the body directly. They are often less well-known, but quite powerful in affecting change. Some of them are focused on consciousness, while others are more generally vibrational in nature. Examples of non-chi based methods include shamanic work, Matrix Energetics, flower essences, angelic healing, dream work, and spiritual inquiry.

This body of work often draws upon the assistance from unseen realms, and focuses on opening up possibilities for personal transformation. This involves consciousness development on the soul level, as well as support for the physical issues that are up for healing, since the two are often related. Issues that I’ve worked on with this type of work include depression, anxiety and peoples’ sense of feeling cut off from the flow of life.

This is the realm of the angels and the Divine. Some methods, such as Matrix Energetics, are specific ways of finding, inviting and connecting new possibilities into the current reality. This type of work approaches what has been described in the quantum physics literature, as it involves the accessing of unseen states and possibilities, to help manifest a change from what is currently showing itself.

It is also why healing can often occur much faster than expected by conventional medicine. In quantum time, there is no concept of how long healing from an illness “should” take. By opening up the possibilities of what can happen through an energetic bridge, often some very pleasing results can occur. It is not always predictable, but it is possible.

For example, I recently had a client who had undergone knee replacement surgery. When she first came in, she could barely walk. Her pain level was very high, and she had to take pain killer medications just to get by. The knee was very hot and swollen. Her physicians had told her to expect a recovery time of several months. I decided to see what could be done to create a different reality for her than what was expected by allopathic medicine. Since quantum physics dictates that all time and reality is rather elastic, this means that the realm of possibilities for her was actually quite wide. In the quantum world of possibilities, there are no hard and fast rules. It is not written in down anywhere in the cosmos how long a recovery from a knee surgery “should” take. So I simply looked to find a route and possibility for healing that was much faster than what was already here. Immediately after we started working together, her recovery rate began to accelerate markedly. I mixed in some chi-based work to address the heat in the knee. Each time, at the end of our sessions, she noticed more improvement. Pain was reduced, and her sleep improved because she needed less drugs. Meanwhile, the physical therapy she was doing started to pay off handsomely, because she had less pain. She’s now doing very well.

Non-chi based methods are also very helpful at clearing what I call psychic clutter from peoples’ fields. As sensitive beings, we are all prone to picking up energetic debris from our environment that does not benefit us. The cumulative affect of this can leave one rather drained and irritable, for no particular reason. Simple shamanic techniques can clean people off so they can feel more themselves again. Because I have a music background, I particularly like the use of sound for this purpose, since sound amplifies intent. It’s fast, and for many people, it is preferable to taking drugs.

I hope this helps explain, at a very high level, the different kinds of energy work that are available. I use a combination of all the methods I’ve mentioned here. They all have value. There’s no one approach that is better than all others. It’s just a matter of where each client is, in terms of which approach would work for them. There is also no way to say one way works the same guaranteed way for everyone. This is because each person is so uniquely and amazingly different.

For me, it’s about finding what works best with each individual. What is the best way to optimize physical healing and/or help people find a stronger connection to feeling alive? I’ve found that a combination of all of different energetic approaches yields more satisfying results than using only one alone. Since people fascinate me and energy fascinates me also, I'm forever fascinated. And that makes my work so much fun!

[Edited to add: Click here for a follow-up post I wrote on different kinds of energy work for cancer.]
Copyright Adele Wang
http://www.safehavenhealing.net/
All Rights Reserved

90 minutes of focus could have saved 10 months of struggle

Recently, "Beverly" called me for a phone session. Right away, it was obvious she was feeling pretty miserable, both physically and emotionally. She told me that for more than 10 months, she had been experiencing a painful, tight knot in her stomach that never went away. Sometimes the tightness literally took her breath away. Also upsetting was the way that sometimes the painful knot would inexplicably move around inside her body.

For months, Beverly had gone to numerous doctors, specialists, acupuncturists, chiropractors and others but no one could determine what was wrong. She had had multiple tests done, including X-rays, MRIs and other kinds of scans. Doctor after doctor had checked her digestive track, including her stomach and her gall bladder. Everything that could have been checked by modern medicine had been checked. Yet all the scans and tests turned up negative results, and failed to find anything wrong.

This was beyond frustrating for Beverly. “I can’t live like this!” she cried. “I feel so horrible and I need some help! Adele, what’s wrong with me!? I’ve been to so many people and no one can tell me what’s wrong!”

I asked her to tell me more on what she was feeling. Beverly described feeling a constant, painful tightness in her lower stomach, just behind her navel. She said it felt like a knot the size of a golf ball. When I asked her to describe the knot, she said it was blue and hot. This golf ball pressure knot had been tormenting her constantly for over 10 months. Sometimes the pressure was so high that it was unbearable. She said it was as if a fist was punching into her body. Sometimes it would move inside her body, and it would move down to her right side, and then move back again. This made Beverly absolutely miserable. In fact, the night before we spoke, things had gotten so bad that she had been in a hospital ER having more tests run.

Immediately, even before Beverly finished talking, I had the strong impression that there was at least 1 energetic entity attached to her. I usually don’t go looking for entities, (a fancy word for foreign energies that don’t belong to people), so this impression surprised me a bit. But in this case, I could see something attached to Beverly’s energy field. It felt like a depression in her field, kind of like how meteorologists talk about a low pressure front hovering over a geographical area.

I decided not to mention what I saw to Beverly right away. First of all, I don’t like to talk about entities too much, because sometimes people can overreact and it just causes more issues than it solves. ("Oh no! Is it like on the X files??") My preference is that if I can do some work that clears things up, quickly and easily, there wouldn't be a need to even have a discussion about attachments.

So I used a bit of sound shamanism, right there on the phone.  Yet even as I sent the tones through the phone and into Beverly’s energy field, I still had the feeling that more would be needed. Whatever it was, it felt like it was a stubborn presence.

Just as I was trying to come up with a way to broach the subject in a nonthreatening way, Beverly told me that she had also been experiencing the most uncomfortable feeling that there had been spirits whispering loudly in her ear, and did I think she was completely crazy?

No, I didn't think she was crazy, and in fact, it was the perfect opening I needed to start a conversation about something that often does sound crazy. I’m not a psychiatrist, but I could feel that this was not an issue of mental illness. It was about something that was attached to Beverly that didn’t need to be there.

I asked her who or what she sensed.

“A man and his son,” she replied, after a long moment. In her field, I could feel this whatever-it-was, so close, as if 3 inches away from her face. It didn’t feel malicious or “bad”. But it clearly felt out of time and space. More annoying than anything. 

I asked Beverly to hold the intention that these energies needed to leave. Meanwhile, I did a bit more clearing using my voice. I directed the work right into her field at the place where I felt the energies had attached to her. Once I was done, I held the silence on the phone, just tuning in to the change.

“I felt that – it’s better,” she said. .

I asked her to tune in and check to see if the presences were still there.

“The man is gone, but the boy is still here,” she said.

“About 5 years old?” I asked.

“Yes”.

I instructed Beverly to go thru a simple body tapping sequence while talking to this little boy, while I held the space and opened up a channel to allow the foreign energy to move. This energy was attracted to Beverly and did not want to leave. We gently but firmly spoke to the energy of the little boy and told him that he was not allowed to use Beverly’s energy or her body anymore, and that he needed to leave. We reminded him that he had other things to do, as did Beverly, and he was not allowed to use her energy. We invited in the energy of the angels to help escort this little boy on to wherever he needed to go. It was a gentle process, and I gave Beverly the time she needed to absorb and process what she felt.

I asked Beverly to check again, and after a moment, she confirmed that this time, the presences were gone. She no longer felt that whatever-it-was right next to her ear.

With the foreign energies removed, I then turned my attention to her body in a different way. In our conversation, Beverly had shared with me some important clues that I felt were critical to what was going on. She told me she had very little memory of her childhood, and the memories she did have were quite sad. She had been abused by her father, and her mother had done nothing to protect her. I had the feeling that the body was actually acting as a reservoir to hold Beverly’s deep emotional pain, and that reservoir was now overflowing, unable to hold things check. I also had the feeling that the body was holding pain that Beverly did not consciously remember from her early childhood. That was possibly why it was all so confusing for her. She had felt like she had been getting "worse" for 10 months, but from my perspective, it was more like her body could no longer hold back so much emotional pain. Things was finally starting to shake loose because they needed to be healed. It's not a bad thing, but at the same time, it is no fun at all when someone is going through it. 

I knew this was a very sensitive place, and so I did my utmost to be as gentle and reassuring as possible.  I saw in Beverly's field that what she really needed wasn't more energy being sent to her. She needed help moving 'stuck' energy out. And more importantly, for the shift to stick, I knew I'd have to use a way that involved active engagement with her body and spirt at the same time. So I knew a silent approach wouldn't work (qi gong, matrix energetics, energetic unwinding, Reiki, etc). The crisis and panic were simply too overwhelming, and I would need to engage with her in a way that addressed that pain.

After taking a moment to look at her field, I asked her, "Beverly, if that blue hot golf ball knot in your stomach held a feeling, what feeling do you think it might be?

Beverly thought for a moment, and then replied, “Disappointment.” I noticed she couldn't quite give much more voice to that painful energetic. It was ok because in my body, as I "pinged" her, I could feel just how huge that disappointment was. It simply went beyond words.

We used EFT and did multiple rounds of tapping around the physical discomfort of the golf ball knot in her stomach. Then we moved into tapping on releasing the pain of that disappointment in the tight knot. For good measure, I had Beverly tap on disappointment she did not even consciously remember. (It is one of those things I thank God every day, that the way I work, it isn't necessary that people remember every trauma in order to release it from their bodies). Then we mapped out how her body might have been just holding on to deep emotional pain until such time that it could be released. Now that Beverly was able to feel this sadness and make that connection with what she was feeling, her body didn’t have to hold on to it anymore.

Throughout the process, I asked Beverly to check in on the size, color and location of the knot. After about 25 minutes of work, she said that the blue, hot golf ball knot in her stomach had changed to a silver pinball-sized knot under her left arm. In addition, the knot was loosening. She also felt flash twinges of light pain throughout her body, but it was lighter, fleeting and tolerable.

I knew from my experience in working with the body’s energies that Beverly’s body was starting to loosen and release some very tightly held emotions. I knew this was a good thing.

Things were starting to loosen, and like they often do, Beverly was starting to be able to speak on what she was feeling inside. Beverly told me she was deeply disappointed with her financial situation and the fact that she had not yet met a suitable life partner. It was a source of deep, emotional pain. I felt a lot of empathy for her. More emotional pain that was heaped on top of the pain she had already been carrying since she was a little girl.

“Ooh, now I feel pain going down my left side!” she said, as I asked her to trace what the pain was doing now.

“Yes, but it is no longer a tight golf ball, right? More now like a wider shape, looser feeling, like a spread-out pancake?”

“Yes,” she said.

We continued to work some more. She reported that the silver pinball size knot in her stomach shrank even further, down to the size of a BB gun pellet. Smaller, less tight.

I knew in a crisis like this, it's about working in layers. We moved through different layers of disappointment. I didn't know how it was going to end. I never know. But I could feel the heat moving, and I trusted that.

By the end of the call, I asked Beverly how she felt. She was actually laughing. “I feel like I’m drunk!” she said. She reported that the painful pressure knot in her stomach was gone, though there were occasional light twinges of pain still flitting about. They were dissipating, though. She worried that the terrible knot might come back. I encouraged her to at least enjoy the moment and release she was experiencing. I told her that if the tension were to come back, which it probably would not, it would likely be much milder and not nearly as overwhelming. From my end of the phone, I could see her aura had shifted dramatically. Much lighter and brighter, with less dense pockets in it. The panic was gone, as was the deep sobbing sadness of disappointment.

Beverly finished the phone session much relieved, and I was happy for her. What she had been experiencing for 10 months was no fun at all. Add to that the frustration of doctors not being able to tell her what was wrong. I only wish Beverly had called me sooner than waiting 10 months and seeing so many doctors and spending so much money on needless tests. Things could have been cleared up so much sooner for her. Nevertheless, I am just very glad she was able to the healing that she did.  There's more that can be done for Beverly's healing, of course, if she wants to pursue it. There's still a lot more for Beverly to move. But the horrible crisis had been shifted, and her body is much happier for it.  And I'm now wiser to the experience of how clearing the energy of pain that people don’t even consciously remember can be very helpful. I hadn’t thought to work that way, and I learned something new with Beverly. For that, I am thankful.

Like a lot of things in energy work, none of this may make “sense”. It can sound totally nuts but it works. And sometimes this work can do what nothing else can, including modern medicine, and I think that is exciting.

What do you think? I welcome your comments!

Adele Wang
Reiki, Energy Medicine, EFT Anxiety Specialist
Website: www.safehavenhealing.net
Blog: blog.safehavenhealing.net
Facebook: www.facebook.com/SafeHavenHealing.net

Adele Interviews Rosalyn Bruyere - Part 2

Rosalyn L. Bruyere

[Adele's Note: This is Part 2 of this interview with medicine woman Rosalyn Bruyere. Click here for Part 1.]

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RB:  We could all be much more generous with energy, since energy is all there is. And I think there’s this --  commercialism battle that goes on, between “I’m not a real professional if someone doesn’t pay me”. And one of the early things that helped me in my career is that I figured out how to make a living that wasn’t dependent on desperately sick people paying me, who maybe were already broke from what medicine cost them.

AW: Oh yeah.

RB: So I have, built into my system, a little bit of sloth. And I’m very careful to live well within my means, so I’m never in debt. And it’s kind of a philosophy, because some of my early students were such profound metaphysicians. A lot of the metaphysical churches teach certain prosperity principles that go back into antiquity. And one of them is, you know, if you’re careful and more generous, more is given to you. But it doesn’t have to be given from one source.

AW: Um hmmm.

RB: And in the ministry, that’s especially true. In my case, I’m a pastor. So I get a lot of things given to me. That means I probably do live beyond my income. Because things are given to me. In my early career, when my boys were little and I was single mom, here in California, people who lived on welfare were also given foodstuffs. And can’t tell you how many people paid me with a flat of eggs. Or a 5 lb tin of peanut butter. Or processed cheese. Or loafs of bread. And I was happy to get it. I mean, when you have small kids, you are so happy for that 5 lbs of peanut butter!

AW: Well, yes, I think this is something the field is sort of grappling with issue. Because in some ways, it’s a profession, like any other. And yet, there does need to be a certain generosity of spirit, at the same time.

RB: Well, let me give a story that might help all the people who might try this. When I first started in this field, my mother’s side of the family thought I was turning into something like a con artist, like my father’s side of the family. And my father’s side of the family thought I was turning into a religious fanatic, poor white trash, like my mother’s side of the family. Do you get the dynamic?

AW: [laughs]

RB: 6 years later we published at UCLA, and both sides of the family told me all about how the gift came from their side of the family.

AW: Well isn’t that interesting.

RB: So when it was legitimized, their fears that I was becoming so different, and that I would no longer be a member of the family, which is what all of it was, like, “Oh no, she’s gone weird.” Once that fear was erased, both sides of the family embraced it.

AW: Wonderful, wonderful.

RB: And it’s a funny thing. Our families do embrace success. But not all of them will see what we do as the kind of success they would have hoped for us.

AW: Um hmmm.

RB: I’m sure that my family had all kinds of other plans for me – I even know what some of those plans were. One side of the family wants me to become a famous decorator. Well, that would have been interesting. I would have been surrounded by color and light. [laughs]

AW: Cool!

RB: Once you have this attitude that energy is all there is, that helps you. You just can’t let it become the principle that makes you lazy.

AW: Exactly. Exactly. And that brings me to my next question. What do you see as the biggest challenge for this profession? What would you like to see happening in this field, moving forward? You were a pioneer in the beginning, and now more people are looking to holistic or complementary medicine practices. What do you see as the biggest challenge for energy healers moving forward?

RB: I think the biggest challenge for us is to bring back old fashioned values, like fighting your own ego.

AW: Ahh!

RB: Because in the same way that egos hurt science and medicine, they will hurt us. [pause] And I think we need to have places where healers go to work with each other, on each other. You know, I’m a scholar of ancient history, and the Egyptians had this fascinating system, where all the people in the priesthood went away for 30 days. And they basically did their prayer meditation and worked on each other and then they went back to their villages. And that is such a wonderful process, of having a chance to spend time with fellow seekers. And to build it into your life, in a way that makes sense. I do a program in Germany which I’ve been doing for 20 years. A lot of my students spend 2 weeks with me in the spring and 2 weeks with me in the fall. So they spend 4 weeks with me, where we discuss different topics, where we work on each other. They’re long days for me. I work from 10:00 in the morning to 11:00 at night, every day.

AW: Goodness!

RB: That’s why they’re called ‘intensives.’ But you know, when you’re in the energy, you actually kind of enjoy being immersed in it. And we have long breaks and rules with my students. Every day they’re in a program like that, the rule is every day you give a treatment, you get a treatment, and you take a nap. So we work 2 hours after lunch and then they have off until 7:00 at night. So they can give a treatment, get a treatment and take a nap, before dinner. And that gives you a way to get away from the day that you spend every day, worrying about clients and this and that. And I really can’t tell you how much I hate cell phones. Because they’ve disrupted that process so much. So people can still call their clients, every time they have a minute off.

AW: Right.

RB: So here’s the good news and the bad news. The good news is they can stay in touch with clients, the bad news is they don’t get the rest they would get, if they were really isolated. Which, in the early part of this program, we were. We were totally isolated.

AW: How have you seen this profession change, over the past few decades?

RB: Well, first of all, there’s general acceptance. I don’t have to explain what I do. So there’s less resistance.

AW: What about the number of different modalities showing up? Or the depth of the work?

RB: I share with you my concern about the shallowness. And I’ve always shared that concern with other people. That shallowness was actually here at the beginning of my career. But it was mostly in religion at the time. Now you see it in the general profession, because people are intellectually lazy.

AW: Hmmmm…

RB: And we think because we have the data, we know the data. Do you read a lot?

AW: Oh yeah, constantly.

RB: How many books have you bought that you haven’t read?

AW: [laughs] Well…

RB: Do you see what I mean? You bought the data…

AW: I bought the data…

RB: Exactly.

AW: I need to get to it.

RB: Yeah. I’m a book collector. But I don’t read all of that. I have a reading disability, I read pretty slowly. So I read a lot, in hours, but not in quantity. So I buy a lot of books. And there are a lot of books published in our field that I probably shouldn’t have bought because there wasn’t anything in them.

AW: Hmmm.

RB: But, that doesn’t mean there isn’t something in there for somebody, that never heard the data before.

AW: Gotcha. And how would you respond to people who say, “It moves this way.” You know, "The first chakra goes like this. And if it’s healthy it moves this way, and if it isn’t healthy, it goes that way." Some healers say…

RB: Well, it’s shallow reckoning, is all.

AW: Hmm.

RB: It’s better than no reckoning. But only by a little.

AW: [laughs]

RB: I mean, well, they’re learning. But they’re trying to pin it down like if I take this antibiotic, the bacteria will die. It’s the same kind of reckoning that actually doesn’t work anywhere. But I understand their need to sound smart to themselves. Because so much of what we do is so vague, they’re trying to make something out of nothing. And they haven’t studied the system well enough to know that. [pause]

RB: I like the theory that says men’s chakras go one way and women’s go another.

AW: Oh yeah, that’s kind of cute, isn’t it.

RB: It’s silly. It’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.

AW: [laughing]

RB: Because it’s a magnetic field, and if you’re north of the equator, it goes one way, and if you’re south of the equator, it goes another way. Like water going down the toilet.

AW: And of course, this confusing for novices. If you read 3 books and they all say different things about how the chakras move, of course there’s some confusion there.

RB: Well, that’s the other thing. Let’s be honest here. You cannot learn this from a book. You can’t. The books are helpful to open your mind and give you a language. You have to learn this by running energy, feeling energy, making energy. It has to be experiential. And the more experiential it is for you, the more you’ve prepared yourself to study. But if you don’t feel energy, if you don’t sense energy, then the emperor has no clothes. And that’s the danger here. People get full of all of these intellectual ideas. In fact, later today I’m talking to someone who’s writing a book, and she’s got a bunch of stuff wrong in it, that the field just doesn’t do. And it’s going to be hard for me to tell her, “Guess what, it doesn’t actually work that way.” But you know, it’s something that somebody has to tell them...

AW: And how would you address how different readers read differently? I know sometimes when I look at a client, I’ll see a specific color or something, and it’s quite different from what someone else would see. I mean, this is a perceptual science…

RB: Oh, I’m so glad you asked that. Did you know no 2 humans see pink as the same color?

AW: Really?

RB: Some see it warmer, some see it cooler. Some see pink bluer, some see it hotter. If you ask them what color orange is, they’re really going to be in a mystery.

AW: [laughs]

RB: In 1976 at UCLA, we took 10 really skilled aura readers into a lab. And that was the problem we were working on for two weeks. What we found was that green was not green to everybody, brown was not brown to everybody.

AW: Isn’t that interesting…

RB: And my husband’s an artist, and I do take art classes with him. And it’s the funniest thing listening to artists talking about color. Because they spend their whole lives painting and using color, but they don’t see color the same way. I have a very close friend who is a famous muralist, and she and I were out shopping for clothes. And I’ll say, “I really like that taupe.” And she’ll say, “No it’s not, it’s lavender.” And I said “What?” [laughs]

AW: Yeah, this is a perceptual science.

RB: It is.

AW: It’s not measuring wavelengths as much as what each healer sees and trusting that.

RB: Well, one of the studies I did about 5 years ago was at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago. And we developed for our research we were doing was an inter-rater reliability scale.

AW: Oh fabulous! What did you find?

RB: Well, what we found, and I started teaching it to the doctors because it worked so well, was that if you look at the data in a particular way, like if I took 5 doctors and 5 nurses, and I put a patient on the table and had them all scan with their hands, they would all put data in the same place on the little chart of the body. But some of them would describe the problem area as hot. Some of them would describe it as cold. Some of them would describe it as a hole. Others would describe it as a bump. But, they all described it over a kidney tumor. So the data was right. But the perception was what was in question.

AW: Yeah.

RB: So when I’m teaching this to people, I have to have them understand, “You might feel this as hot, where I feel this as cold.” It’s where it is that tells us what it is. Not our absolute perception. So I think this is the part that is the maturation. And when you first learn this, it’s such a big world. And you want so badly for there to be a fact instead of a trend. But you’re dealing with energy. It’s all moving. There’s no “fact”. It’s only trends.

AW: Do you think this is why it has been so hard for Western medicine to set up good studies of energy healing?

RB: Yes. They like to study badly.

AW: [snickers]

RB: Seriously.

AW: Well, it seems like part of it is related to consciousness of the researcher. You think you’re studying “X”. But the data is really showing you “Y”.

RB: Yes. It's that principle...

AW: And if you don’t have the consciousness to see “Y”, you’ll only conclude that “Y” didn’t happen. [laughs]

RB: Correct.

AW: I see on your website that you’re still involved with many ongoing research studies. Do you have any nuggets you can share with us, in terms of what has been found so far?

RB: Well, I’m kind of involved in two areas, one is the raw research, the science of this, and right now I’m not involved with any of those right now. In the last decades, I’ve been working more inside hospitals, setting up programs. I kind of not collecting the data any more, I’m teaching people to utilize the techniques in a clinical setting.

AW: Oh I see.

RB: And in a clinical setting, what we’ve discovered, you could take someone who already had a skill, say physical therapy, and you could teach them energy work, and they could more efficiently do physical therapy while running energy. So you can get a frozen joint to unlock and move, in half the treatment time.

AW: Wonderful.

RB: So what we’re seeing is energy making everything easier. I know, from my own private practice for many years with patients, is that my treatments make their drugs work more efficiently. Because it makes the medicine more digestible. People who get energy treatments while going through chemotherapy not only have less side effects, the chemotherapy more efficiently kills the tumors. Because you’re actually adding a component of – I’ll call it “Divine intelligence” for lack of a better term – to a process that not only should it work, but it could work better, if we helped it.

AW: Yes. I’ve noticed that everything works better with energy. It’s difficult to say what energy can’t help with. I mean, although we can’t always predict the outcome…

RB: Actually, I have one contraindication -- and this is a big one.

AW: Ok…

RB: I don’t recommend energy work be given to psychiatric patients.

AW: Ok.

RB: Because it exaggerates their condition. It gives them more energy to be strange with.

AW: That’s a great note for anyone listening on this call. Would you include things like schizophrenia, like that type of disorder?

RB: Oh, especially. Especially. Bipolar disease is another one you have to be really careful with.

AW: So in you work with energy, you don’t typically delve into, say, the consciousness side. It’s more the aura.

RB: I actually do a fair amount of spiritual counseling. I do no psychological counseling. I’m not a psychotherapist. And I believe in psychotherapy. And I believe it is a very difficult skill to acquire. I respect the psychotherapists I work with. I often work in conjunction with a psychotherapist but I don’t, you know--

AW: Gotcha. You stay on the spiritual side of things.

RB: I do.

AW: Wonderful. Well, that’s a great observation. Finally, I just want to grab your thoughts for consumers out there that might be looking for a way to heal from an illness, or sometimes just feeling stuck. Given the crisis in healthcare in this country…

RB: And we thought we’d all be unemployed, right? [laughs]

AW: Oh my goodness. It seems like energy work should have an important place, somewhere in this healthcare provider structure. What would you like the public to know, in terms of what is possible? How do they know where to go? How do you pick who to work with? It’s kind of like everyone is out there for themselves, like patchwork, figuring it out.

RB: I think it’s going to be that way for a while, I’m sorry to say. I think the best way to access might be to access the nurse healers. Or, access someone in the alternative medical profession to get advice on how to get an energy healer who can help you.

AW: Is it gut feel? Or look for someone specializes in, say, cancer, like in regular medicine.

RB: No, we’re general practictioners.

AW: I think there are a few that are developing a speciality, as in “I only treat cancer”, for example.

RB: Right.

AW: I have not seen that as a trend yet, in the profession.

RB: Because it’s holistic. We’re not compartmentalized.

AW: Because you could have 10 folks with breast cancer in front of you. Same age, same stage of illness. And yet end up doing 10 very different things with all of them.

RB: Right.

What do you think? I welcome your comments!

Adele Wang
Reiki, Energy Medicine, EFT Anxiety Specialist
Website: www.safehavenhealing.net
Blog: blog.safehavenhealing.net
Facebook: www.facebook.com/SafeHavenHealing.net

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