Saturday, January 1, 2011

Me, GA, and SC-Part 5: Energy Work

Let's start out with a little giggle this morning. Truth be told--this is who I've been sleeping with for the past 17 years.
The "bunny stuff" bunny. He doesn't look too much the worse for wear for sleeping cuddled under my chin lo these many years. He had a big red ribbon around his neck when he was new but that got in the way and was removed posthaste. Oddly, he has no name. I, who name sooo many inanimate objects, have always just called him "the bunny stuff bunny". He's been fine with that. :)
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Okay--practicing on people.
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I really didn't know what to do. Kept "getting" to think about mother's and babies--and how mother's send energy to their babies without even knowing it. A love energy. How I knew to keep people who were upset (myself included) away from Dagan when he was an infant in the neo-natal unit--to surround him with positive energy. People send energy without knowing it--all the time--positive, negative, neutral.
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Well, all I could think of was to sit across from somebody--either cross-legged on the floor or seated in chairs--and hold hands. (I felt like I wanted to put my hands on people's heads, but that seemed a bit forward for a Minnesotan, ya know.) We'd try to send energy and see if we could feel anything. Naturally I started with very close friends, Dagan, and the man I was still living with at the time. We'd put on Music To Disappear In and sit quietly holding hands. Some people said they could feel a little something. Sometimes I could feel a little of that tingling down my arms like I got when I was zapped. Nothing too exciting or definite, to be perfectly honest. But it was pleasant and meditative.
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Found that if I stood up and the person was in the chair--then I felt more of that tingling sensation. Seemed more "right" for some reason. I was kind of surprised that people volunteered (I've always been a talker) from the pet shop where I worked and there were a few other people--relatives or friends of people I had done "bunny stuff" with. I started hearing about "energy work", of course. You know how when you move in a new direction, suddenly you hear what you need to hear? People would tell me that the "bunny stuff" must be energy work.
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To be honest, trying to remember back--well, I'm not sure about the order of things with the energy work. There was so much else going on in my life at the time, too. My relationship ended, I tried to stay in a place that was too expensive for me (we had a lease), I got my fingers in that pressure roller at the factory (crushed the bones in two fingertips and tore the fleshy part of the one almost off), moved to a cheaper apartment in Osseo, the muscles shredded in my wrist from compensating for the finger accident about a year or so later (lack of grip and had to lift 100 pound+ rolls of paper), eventually they let me go from my job (after they re-injured my wrist 4 times-no union-either I did what they said or I'd be fired with no workman's comp-didn't care that the doctors said I couldn't do the work-sent me to different ones till I got one who said it was all in my head, etc), had to file bankruptcy, Dagancollapsed at the driving range (heart failure-had surgery to save his life-but invalid-wheelchair-could barely walk), I was supposed to be looking for work (Workman's comp was threatening to cut me off), but Dagan needed 24 hour care, experimental surgery at University of Minnesota, Dagan made it back to college up here in Moorhead, and I was suddenly offered a position (off the record by my comp job lady, because it had no pay) as a live-in emergency response person in an elderly complex (didn't have to lift anybody because not allowed to for insurance reasons). Makes me tired just to write all that down--hehe!
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Anyways, during all these life happenings (a couple of years worth)...there was lots of energy stuff going on, too. I remember using visualization on my torn finger-imagining it looking like the other hand (it does and has feeling, too!). They made me wrap it and go clean and scrap machines since I couldn't run mine one-handed--and got a raging infection from it being wrapped in plastic and being around 100 or so degrees by the glue machines. Medications weren't helping-doctor was talking about having to cut it open again and drain it (awwwkk!)--so I tried to think about kind of imagining it draining (and it went down). And I used a kind of meditation to deal with the pain level.
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When the factory folk were trying to force me to leave the job (so they wouldn't have to pay me unemployment, either)--they had re-injured me so many times that my whole arm was really bad up to my arm pit and in a sling so they finally quit trying to force me to use my bad arm. BUT--they still made me come to work and made everybody else do my work for me. *sigh* All I could do was turn my machine off and on--other rewinders had to come and do all the physical work (90% of the job) and yet they were counting my output as a worker--so this effected our shift's bonuses! I worked the night shift. We used to illegally play radios on the night shift. They knew this and ignored it. But suddenly they actually had office people pop in during the night to make sure we weren't listening to the radio--or doing any of the other things we did for the ten minutes while our rolls were finally rewinding. So-no music, no reading, and no writing letters (me, of course). So all of us were punished on the whole shift because of me. I felt just horrible about it. Luckily people liked me. They knew I wasn't faking anything and that I'd be on the street if I had no job and the company was just trying to get out of paying me anything. What a wonderful group of people!!
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Anyways- *deep breath*-what better opportunity to learn how to meditate and be in the present moment. I had all night, every shift, for over three monthsbefore they finally relented and let me go. Thanks to them, tho, I learned a lot of things about energy and meditation, mind over matter, focus, sending positive energy (to all those wonderful people!)...lots of things.
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Along the line over those couple of years I took levels one and two in Reiki. I was searching for some kind of actual energy work that felt right for me. Reikididn't. Becoming a "master" was a long, very expensive, secretive process. I believed that positive energy was something that should be open and shared--shouted from the rooftops, actually. :)
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My friend, Lynnette, found out about a Healing Touch seminar. She's a nurse and this was one of the things she could attend for recertification. We went together. Healing Touch was awesome! It's an umbrella term for several modalities and they talked about how everyone can learn this and sharing the knowledge, etc. Ahhh! I attended all the classes for Level One and for Level Two at St. Catherine's college. (Finished Level Two certification while I lived at the senior complex.)
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Oh--and I went to classes called "Talk To Your Angels" (how could I resist!) and the lady running the class invited me to a Woman's Spiritual Group that rotated meeting at the women's homes. I felt totally out of my comfort zone, but I went. And I met these wonderful ladies! Some of them were energy workers, psychics, long distance healers, etc. Some were visual, audio,kinesthetic (learned a lot of new terms and of books to read). Had no idea why I was invited, but I was thrilled to be there. They disbanded years ago and I moved away from Minneapolis, but I still miss that group of women.
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When Dagan ended up an invalid for those months after his surgery at Children's--well, one of the things was that he'd had a blood clot land in a lung (thank God-watched him having a stroke as it passed through his brain). Couldn't dissolve it--even with a tube into his lung dripping directly onto the clot. They said he had permanent lung damage to the bottom third of his lung. Plus, when he sat upright he lost blood pressure and oxygen because he's always had a tendency in that direction and the pressure had been so high in his heart when they did the Fontan re-do after he collapsed in heart failure that they had to put a hole between the top two chambers.
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The experimental surgery at the University of Minnesota was to go in via acatherization procedure (wire up the groin into the heart) and attempt to close the hole. They'd release a patch on one side of the hole and then a patch on the other side. (Commonly done now and called something else.) But they weren't hopeful about the pressure in his heart because it had always been on the high side to begin with and there were no guarantees that they could leave the patch in. They'd have to try it and wait and see about the pressure and remove it right away if it was too high. The new procedure was called "angel wings". Need I say more. Dagan and I both thought he should go for it. :):)
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Meanwhile--the ladies in the Woman's Spiritual Group told me that had been doing long-distance healing on Dagan. Several of them had come over when he was still in Children's and we did a healing energy circle standing around his bed. The one lady, Jill, had been working on him a lot on her own, too, over those months and she told me he was better and that his lung was healed. Well, when Dagan went for the Angel Wings surgery they were shocked to find out the pressure in his heart was suddenly lower than it had ever been since he was born! So they were able to "install" his heart angel wings--hehe! And they thought as long as they were in there they took a camera down to look at the lung damage--"don't know what they were talking about at Children's, we couldn't find any damage in either lung." (Jill always said she could "see" into people's bodies when she was doing long distance work on them. Totally, totally believed her after that!!)
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Just writing about all of this makes me feel like dancing! :):)
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I was told about a Unity Church and a Lake Harriet Community Church in Minneapolis--that they both had people there who did energy work. I had to go check that out! Ended up volunteering at both churches doing Healing Touch. At Unity they worked on people while they sat in a chair. At Lake Harriet they had rooms with massage tables! I volunteered mostly at Lake Harriet. I could bring my boom box and MTDI cassette, a candle, and have a little privacy and quiet. Was wonderful! People tended to fall asleep on me--hehe!
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That's it for today. I'm still on schedule, I think. One more part left and you should be basically all filled in. TaDa!
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I just wanted to say that if anyone wants to talk to me privately or ask me questions or tell me their own stories...please feel free to email me. Just put something in the subject line so I know you're not spam--hehe! (soulcomfortat gmail dot com) I may be very open about myself, but I greatly respect other's privacy.
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This is food for my soul!! :):):)

4 comments:

Toriz said...

Never under estimate the power of positive thinking! :)

It's a sort of warm feeling I get... Whenever I massage an area to "heal" it. Like my hands get really warm, even though they don't actually change temperature as such.

Rita said...

Tori--Yes! That's very common that your hands would feel warm. Some people's hands actually get cold, some tingle, and some people don't feel anything at all but the person they're working on may feel changes. My hands usually get warm and I can feel warmth and/or tingling. One lady I worked on said one hand was cold and one was hot--and I didn't feel anything at all that time. But most of the people in all of my Healing Touch classes and my Reiki classes felt warmth. That is so cool that you have the healing touch! :)

graceonline said...

Thank you, once again, for sharing your story. I have done Reiki on myself for many years, long before I heard the term.

Several years ago, I did the Diane Stein Reiki I & II initiations, through someone who had received from one of her students, but I noticed no change whatsoever from the energy work I had done (and still do) spontaneously on myself all those years.

I'm too shy to attend more classes, and I don't seem to have a gift for channeling energy to others, but I have experienced healing many times myself.

I am aware, frequently, of a healing presence when I do this work.

May you be blessed far in abundance of that you share.

Rita said...

KathrynGrace--I went through Level 1&2 Reiki, too--and all the parts to get certified through Second Level Healing Touch (the third level is about running a business). But I still mostly do what I intuitively have done for as long as I can remember, too.

I was naturally more comfortable working on others and never thought about working on myself until I went to the Reiki and Healing Touch classes and they talked about it. Funny. I still completely forget unless it's a crisis--LOL!

You have a new follower, BTW. :)