Therapeutic Touch and the Human Energy Field

Therapeutic Touch is an alternative health modality commonly used in hospitals by nurses, but it's a skill anyone can learn. It helps elicit a relaxation response from the client and it can reduce pain and support the body's natural healing process. While it can be performed without physical contact - making it the most non-invasive treatment possible - clients who are comfortable with touch generally benefit from some contact during a session of Therapeutic Touch.

While some practitioners are naturally sensitive to the human energy field and can sense it without assistance, most of us need some training to experience the field or enhance our ability to pick up and interpret the many nuances the field offers.

The field of energy in living things flows naturally from the head to the feet. The job of a Therapeutic Touch practitioner is to assess the field for disruptions in flow, which may manifest as congestion or depletion of energy at various locations in the field. The practitioner then restores the human energy field so that its flow is once again smooth and uninterrupted.

I cannot expound enough on the benefits of relaxation provided by Therapeutic Touch. I work with some of my clients in their homes, especially those with mobility issues. Some of them have chronic pain. Yet, it's not uncommon for them to fall asleep as soon as I begin the session. I often tiptoe out at the end, leaving them in a deep pain-free slumber. As a perk of performing Therapeutic Touch, I find myself relaxed and with energy to spare.

Therapeutic Touch is also useful as a calming agent for distressed animals. In my volunteer work as a driver for a wildlife rescue organization, I provide Therapeutic Touch in transit to help the animal cope with its injuries and the stress of transportation to the facility.

Courses in Therapeutic Touch are offered in three levels, but Level 1 is all that is needed for people who want to use it at home with their family and pets. While Level 1 is fine for home use, Levels 2 and 3 deepen one's ability to assess the finer nuances of the human energy field and its various layers, not only feeling tactile differences but using the other senses to spot changes as well. People who become very proficient in Therapeutic Touch, and learn to harness the energy available to all of us for healing, find great satisfaction in offering an alternative health modality that benefits not only the client but the practitioner as well.

(Bukisa ID #125065)

Content Source: Therapeutic Touch and the Human Energy Field - Bukisa.com

How to Find the Love of your Life

"Why do I always date losers?" Haven't we all had friends who've bemoaned their love life - or lack thereof - in this way? We've all known people whose chief complaint is that they keep attracting the wrong type of person into their life. If you count yourself among the lovelorn who never seems to find the right match, it's time to look at the common denominator in all these botched romances - you.

The mistake we often make when trying to solve any situation is to look outside ourselves for the answer. Dr. Harville Hendrix in his book "Getting the Love you Want" explains how the reptilian part of our brains - the brainstem - causes us to be attracted to people who represent the best and worst qualities of our original caretakers. So if your relationship with your parents was an unhealthy one, it stands to reason that you will attract people with similar characteristics as lovers - not because you're masochistic, but simply because your brain says, "Go for this one. There's something familiar here." Think about how often someone you met who seemed great at first turned out to be a total loser (at least, in your opinion). How often did you first see the desirable traits of your parents manifest in this person only to see the negative traits later on?

After the end of my first marriage, I found myself back on the dating scene and attracting more men who wound up reminding me of my father - and not in a good way. I took two major steps to rectify this situation:

1. I started going out with men for whom I felt no immediate attraction whatsoever. This may sound counterintuitive for dating, but it actually started a process of rewiring my brain to be attracted to the right kind of person. That part of me that loved the bad boy was looking for the dad who yelled at me and called me names. By ignoring that part and going out instead with the nice guys, I gradually found myself more attracted to men who showed kinder qualities and who also possessed the dynamism and drive my father had in the ways that were a positive part of his personality.

2. I thought about what qualities I wanted in a partner - and developed them in myself. All too often, we use a lover as a crutch, wanting that person to be everything we're not. When we become what we want to see in a partner, we attract someone with those characteristics.

Start with you and make these changes. You'll be surprised at who comes calling when you become what you're looking for.

(Bukisa ID #125450)

Content Source: How to Find the Love of your Life - Bukisa.com

Therapeutic Touch for Animals: A Day in the Life of a Practitioner

I've just arrived home from the office and the phone is ringing. Sue Meech at the Sandy Pines Animal Rescue Centre is calling. Can I go to a location in my town and pick up an injured bird? As a volunteer driver for Sandy Pines, I'm happy to comply.

I arrive at the location minutes later to find a very frightened and injured seagull in a cardboard box. I carefully set the box down in the car and perform Therapeutic Touch on the restless creature. She begins to calm down. During the drive, however, she becomes agitated by the journey and tries to free herself from her confines. "We've got a feisty one here," I tell the attendants when I arrive.

We take her into the flight cage where I can administer more Therapeutic Touch. She's hungry and scared but not too badly hurt. She'll make it. Not all of them do, but I have the honour of easing their passage with the modality in which I'm trained. Before I leave, I tend to other birds, and I calm a dog who's injured and terrified.

Since Therapeutic Touch works on the energy field of living things, it's not necessary to use physical contact (though it's desirable in some circumstances). This makes it immensely useful when treating animals that would be dangerous if handled. Therapeutic Touch can ease pain and it induces a state of deep relaxation. Animals are very sensitive to it and tend to respond well to the process. They will also let you know when they've had enough by moving away from you.

I arrive home to relax with my dogs, regular recipients of Therapeutic Touch along with our two cats. As evening descends, I hear a strange cry from one of the cats outside the front door. He has brought home a mouse - and it's still alive. I get him to drop it gently on the ground, and I take the cat inside the house where he can't cause further injury. I perform Therapeutic Touch on the mouse, which is breathing but not moving, even when I gently touch it to assess how badly injured it is. I do some more work on the mouse and step inside to get a towel for it, fearing the worst.

When I come back out, the mouse is upright. It peers at me quizzically before scurrying across the stone path and under the deck to a safe crevice. Apparently, a small dose of energy was all that was needed. It's been a good day for Therapeutic Touch.

(Bukisa ID #125455)

Content Source: Therapeutic Touch for Animals: A Day in the Life of a Practitioner - Bukisa.com

Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel

It's late afternoon, and I'm digging through the pantry cupboards in a vain attempt to create order amongst the cans of soup, crackers, and bags of rice. It shocks me how much food I can accumulate and not eat, month after month, even years at a time, because that particular food item loses its appeal. I have a huge stock of dried goods with which I have become bored.

What does it say about our society when food becomes entertainment? What do we know about scraping the bottom of the barrel? What do we comprehend about making do?

I haven't forgotten what it was like when I was a single mother with four children to feed. I knew how to work wonders with $20 and a week to go before the next cheque. I could make a pot of soup stretch, and do without a lot of things to ensure my children didn't suffer.

Then, with greater prosperity came that settling into the comfort zone where I had more choices, where I could spend more money on food and clothing - and even afford some luxury items. Sometimes, though, it feels like a prison, having so much and taking on the responsibility to maintain a certain lifestyle.

Friends of mine went on a mission to the Philippines with their children. They were gone for 2 years. When they came back, they only lasted a few months before they left again, back to the Philippines. This time, for good. They couldn't handle the amount of waste they see here, they told me. They said, "It's like living in Disneyland."

It makes me wonder what we've sacrificed in order to acquire all of this stuff, all of this excess food. Often, I think wistfully of shaving my head, donning the robes of a Buddhist nun and retiring to a life of meditation and karma yoga. What material goods would I really miss if I chose that life? Without all the distractions of getting and having, would my internal demons eat me up or could I survive their attacks to my psyche - that trial by fire of the unfettered, untamed mind - and emerge truly free?

The simplicity of that choice is very tempting...

2012: The Attunement

Please log on to www.bonitasummers.com and read the section on my upcoming book, 2012: The Attunement. Please let me know by way of email if you'd like to be on the advance notice list so you can be informed when we have a release date for the book.

Thanks for your support.

Bonita

Making Lists

I've always loved lists. They help me remember errands and purchases I need to make. There's a certain satisfaction in making lists of the most mundane tasks and ticking off each one at its completion.

Then there are the internal lists, the shoulds and shouldn'ts we have floating around in our psyches. You have them. We all do. Some you put there yourself, but most of the time, they were started by our parents, our schools, the culture in which we grew up. They gnaw at us, pester us from deep within, creating a distinct sense of unease. Am I doing the right thing? Am I reaching my potential? Am I failing to do something I should be doing? Often, the tension is there but ill-defined.

There's a positive function to that internal set of lists. No doubt, some of our best behaviour is a result of the list of do's and don'ts perpetuating within us from early childhood. However, it's also necessary to dig those lists up now and then and check them. Check them twice. Find out if they're naughty or nice. Do they ripple out of your head as judgement and denigration? Or do they inspire?

Scratch everything off of those lists that feels like a personal putdown - anything that tells you that you can't, that you're not capable. Better yet, create a new list and throw out the dysfunctional ones. Read inspiring books and jot down on your list the words of others that uplift and challenge you in positive ways. Now type up that list and post it somewhere you'll see it every day.

Read it often and imprint it on your mind. Live by it. The best lists don't involve any scratching off of items, because they are things you'll want to do each day for the rest of your life.

The Irony of the Red Rug

At Poetry & Company in Kingston on Thursday night, I performed my latest piece, entitled "Rug". The poem is about the last home occupied by our entire family before my parents split up and my mother moved us kids out of the house:

the rich red rug
ran all through the house
upper middle-class opulence
a la 1974

it muffled the sound of your feet
creeping down the hall

(Edited for adult content)

it brimmed over with
her keening pathos
and your snarling invective

running through the house
barking and lascivious
the rich red rug
absorbed our family secrets
congealed them in wealthy prominence

so when your self-congratulating colleagues
came to walk upon it
with their Italian leather shoes
we stiffly wore our happy plastic grins
while rich red rage
rumbled beneath our feet

This poem is indicative of the contrast in our family between the rage buried in each of us and the successful, happy exterior we were expected to show the world. The luxurious, deep-pile rug, which cloaked the floor of the entire house, save for the kitchen and laundry room was symbolic of this cover-up. In the 70's, such wall-to-wall carpeting was associated with wealth and, therefore, well-being.

Today, many of us would tear the rug out, knowing it off-gasses toxins of its own and harbours impurities. I think about that rug and the poison it carried from a deeply unhappy and violent family. I hope that the homeowners who came later had the good sense to rip it out.

However, with Father's Day approaching, I don't remember just the unhappiness, but the intelligence of my father, how hardworking he has always been, his artistic ability, his sense of humour, and the way I felt special as a very young girl, cuddling with him while he watched sports on TV, or the way I thrilled to the horror stories he read to me (at an age when I probably shouldn't have been privy to such tales, but they fueled my interest in the macabre in general and the works of Poe in particular).

I think it must be said that the ones who can inflict great pain upon us can also be the ones who teach and inspire us. From both of my parents, I got my drive, my intelligence, and artistic abilities that find their way into my writing, dancing and singing.

It is healing to remind myself that my parents are complex beings, and that there is nothing black and white about their behaviour. Just like me, they've sought to end their suffering - and as humans, we don't always choose a path to happiness that is kind to others. May they both have joy in their lives today. I wish they knew that they have a daughter who still loves them, even if it must be from afar.