Small comparative example of energy work variations

[Korpo]

Hello, all.

Today I felt playful and tried several variations of energy work. Here is what I experienced:

I have a longstanding block in my right shoulder, which becomes focus of my energy work again and again, and has been treated medically as well. The therapeutic movements have restored functionality, but not the same absolute health level as in the rest of the body. The whole area in all directions surrounding the shoulder joint and energy port / channel is very densely blocked.

So I started out with my standard method, "ice to water, water to gas", which is pretty similar to "Etheric Wrap" from NEW, but without visualisation. It includes releasing the energy to the edges of the aura at the end. The goings were comparatively slow, but constant progress was made. Working away a layer exposed another. Dissolving a block created a free space, but chunks were small. Excitement was minimal and could quickly be calmed by releasing out- and downward.

Next I tried out of curiosity the Small Circulation of energy up the back and down the front. I hadn't tried in half a year, and had done a lot of major energy vessel cleaning since then. Closing the first circulation at the perineum/pelvis bottom I had an audio illusion sounding like the sharp electric pang of closing a heavy duty electric circuit. It was more real than a memory and less real than "real". After three circulations I stopped, since my spine has gotten very warm and was starting to get hot. Energy had overflowed from the back and front vessels into the major meridians and could at some places be felt in very fine ternary channels (Luo in Chinese). (This is the nature of Small Circulation as it overflows from big to small and if the energy is strong enough "flushes" blockages). On the shoulder blockage it had left little impact. I felt energised and hot, and had to apply some practise to cool me down and contain excessive energy in the Lower Tantien or "vent" it.

The third was the NEW Brush/Bounce action. Again I applied it to the blockages in my shoulder. When I found a knot denoting a blockage I brushed several times through it, sometimes with sligth variation of angle, until I felt the area to be "conductable" again. I felt like reopening one conduit after another, was brushing and bouncing along my shoulder and arm, sometimes more locally with more short strokes, and then with longer ones along the limb and its channels. Progress seemed pretty good. Blockages seemed to be going early and fast with few strokes. I progressed some time until I felt a rather strange sensation - I felt like my energy system had filled up with small "chunks". I felt exhausted. I continued with other techniques to clean up the chunks, and expel them. I still felt somewhat exhausted, and the tissue I had worked with felt achy - though now I felt something there.

My summary is that with the first technique progress seemed slow but not agitate me. It is sometimes at odds with my impatience. Circulating can have a strong energising and cleaning effect, but this can leave you hot and what is cleared is rather "random". Circulating in reverse is said to cool, but I did not try. NEW helped reanimate rather severely blocked areas, and can take out a block very quickly, but if the blocks are strong this can - for me - quickly lead to exhaustion. I do not know one would have cleaned up the chunky energy fragments that resulted within the NEW system, perhaps with the full body bounce or by trying to pull them into the sub-navel storage? I'm not sure.

The latter two techniques I do not do regularly to be fair.

What are your experiences when you compare energy systems? Have you tried different stuff?

Regards,
Oliver

[Korpo]

Okay, back to the old stuff. ;)

IIRC back then I used NEW rather forcibly. I penetrating more like a stabbing motion, which made the blocks break up well enough, but not in a very wholesome way. :?

But I have another comparison I find interesting. This week I had three days when I did things you can basically consider to be "the NEW approach". ;)

First thing I tried was brushing my insides with big rotating brushes like you would find in a car wash. I would brush against my blockages or brush out the inside of a channel or "empty" space. Another thing I tried was applying a "file" to my toe, working more intensely on a persistent blockage. The third thing I tried was like an electric drill with a polishing plate on top. The rotating circular plate had something similar to cotton or lambswool on it, polishing from different angles on my blockages. I did this on three consecutive days. Progress was good.

What I observed then was the following: On the second day I awoke in the morning and immediately had the drive to do something physical. I went out and mowed the lawn until the lawnmower broke down. :lol: Actually the grass was too wet. ;) Then I went into the kitchen and did the dishes. That was a lot of drive for a Saturday morning right after waking up, at least for me.

The three nights belonging to these three days I each awoke at about 3 or 3:30 am and could not sleep anymore. I tossed and turned as if I had drunk a bottle of cola, and could not find sleep at all until way later, which was rather annoying and not pleasant at all. After the third such night I just decided should I awake the next night I would get up, leave the room and do a looong meditation session instead of tossing and turning.

On the following day, however, I did not do NEW. I for some reason instead did intensely my dissolving practices, even right before falling asleep. I slept like a baby.

It seems like that NEW done like this energises and agitates, while dissolving relaxes and deagitates, while both have good effect on blockages. IMO a good combination would be to do both, first NEW, then dissolving, so to get things moving and to clear them out and relax them afterward. That's at least my current understanding of it. It was fun to experiment with this and I will continue to do so. Doing NEW really boosted my dissolving practices, but the sensitivity I got from practicing dissolving also boosted my NEW skills. :)

Oliver

[mrsix]

I find your knowledge on energy and blockages extremely interesting to read (ive been searching for blockages all day and read all your comments!)

Im very interested in your 'dissolving' technique, could you elaborate on this more?

I have just tried your 'car-wash' brushing technique on my right arm while I read through your posts, and it is very good, in fact I will use it from now on on my arms!! :D

[Korpo]

The car wash technique derives from another person - someone called his technique "hairy balls" IIRC. :lol: That actually meant fluffy energy balls, though. :? ;) So on top of Robert's NEW (version 2) of using energy balls to bounce around in the body to clean stuff up, that person visualised these balls to have hairs or fluff on them to act as brushes, too. I would consider a car wash brush just a slight variation on this. Drill and file are variations on Robert's "heavy duty energy work thoughtforms" from "Energy Work".

Dissolving is a different thing. It simply requires becoming aware of a blocked spot and then just keeping your attention on it with the intent to release it. You don't have to do much, you just wait. You just watch it, being aware of the contours of the blockage, being aware of its sensations. You don't apply pressure to it, and if so only in a very light way to be able to feel its contours and keep in touch. You can also watch your breath while doing this to anchor your awareness so that you do not drift or "blank out" or "space out" (= become distracted).

This continuous observation is an act of "inner feeling". Just as you have a sense of touch, you also have an inner sense of touch. This sense needs developing, but over time it can be trained to allow you to feel the energies of your energy bodies, first your physical body and its tissues, organs, muscles, tendons and nerves, then the energy and the channels that animate the body and make it alive, then the emotional, mental, psychic and karmic energies beyond (I'm touching the emotional level now). This sense of feeling is inborn in you, but due to our focus on the external world often very dormant. Being perceptive to the sensations within you, being able to stay focussed and aware to your inner world, to your energies, that's what dissolving trains, furthers and uses.

The more blockages you dissolve, the less of your energy is blocked, the more of your body, mind and soul you can feel. The more you train this way of actually feeling your energy, the more unblocked your energy and awareness will become. This starts as pure energy work, and then sets the stage for meditation and becoming truly present to your experience and life.

So, active watching has a very surprising effect. When you actually watch the blockage it will, almost on its own accord, start to change. The blocked energy softens, becomes fluid again, and finally disperses. Without doing anything other than just not *looking away*. That seems counter-intuitive, but it actually takes courage to look your problems in the face, and that's what dissolving means. You take a good look at your problems - your physical pain, your negative emotions, your less-than-openminded beliefs - and they start to loosen. Then they might resolve and be gone. However, as long as you continue looking "the other way", your problems stay as they are, your inner world remains blocked.

Robert's method work a bit differently, but the underlying principle is the same: Application of concentrated awareness over a prolonged time to get blocked energy moving again. Robert's methods are more Yang - more active, more energizing, more emphasis on creating change. Dissolving is more Yin - more passive, more relaxing, more emphasis on finding what really is there.

Oliver

[CFTraveler]

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=4875 (http://forums.astraldynamics.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=4875)
:wink:

[Mickey]

Oliver, I like your practical, no-nonsense approach to energy work and dissolving blockages! My personal experience with stuck energy supports everything you mentioned.

[Korpo]

Thanks, Mickey, but I didn't invent this. I just learn from people like Robert Bruce or Bruce Frantzis (who brought the Daoist dissolving practice to the West). Robert's big achievement was giving us evidence that it is worthwhile to experiment with energy work and that we should be curious, openminded and observant. His scientifically minded approach to the phenomena he encountered laid down in his writings helps all of us approach this with a different confidence.

IMO it is important to succeed in energy work to have an attitude like his - an inquiring and curious mind. Else all the fine subtleties bypass us and we just go through the motions. People who go through the motions without developing this curiosity about what is happening inside them cannot do in 20 years what other do in 2 or 3. IMO that is encouraging for all of us. So, in that sense I just learned from Robert's no-nonsense approach, and from Bruce's no-nonsense approach, and got "infected" with their love of energy and inner work.

Oliver

[Mickey]

Yeah, it's easy to get sidetracked with the more arcane and murky aspects of this type of work and not see any tangible results. Since I have some rather tricky and somewhat debilitating energy-related issues to deal with, I'm really motivated to use techniques that actually work! :D

[Korpo]

Mickey,

I agree. I personally continue to investigate more into the practical aspects of energy work and the actual mechanisms behind simply because I need it in my life. Nothing motivates people better than "an itch to scratch", and it also is an excellent test setting to what works, too.

Oliver

[sleeper]

I just wanted to say "keep 'em comin'."

I look forward to more of your detailed posts.

[Korpo]

Currently I believe that an approach that shaves off the outer layers of a blockage is better than one that penetrates it. I do the "polishing" to take off the outer layers, then dissolve and ground the energies in the area, and then continue. I think I'm getting good results.

In the original post I was more like "piercing" the blockage, try to move through it with force. That brought unnecessary discomfort and disarray into my energy system. Even if only because the blockages I tried to work with were too big to just try them "head on". Take a layer off, resolve, ground, repeat makes "chunks" of a more manageable size to work on, or at least I believe so at the moment.

Oliver

[Mickey]

I've recently begun to do a variation on the microcosmic orbit and the dissolving techniques mentioned above. After just loosely focussing on the target area, which will usually be a main energy center/chakra, I intensify the concentration and then start rotating the energy around, first inside the chakra within the physical body and then outwards into the sensed inner space in a spiral-like motion.

There's been some very interesting sensations of the inner planes opening up and a distinct feeling of shifting consciousness through the various layers/subtle bodies as a result.

[Korpo]

This sounds interesting and confusing at the same time. ;) :)

Oliver

[Mickey]

This sounds interesting and confusing at the same time. ;) :)

Oliver

...hehe. Sorry, it's hard to put into words, English not being my first language and everything.

But in essence it's fairly straightforward: due to the rotational movement of the energy - as opposed to just being still and focussing on the energy center - it feels as if inner space expands beyond the boundaries of the physical body. As the attention moves outward there seems to be a distinct shift in awareness from being located in the physical to being located first in the pathways of the energy structure and then beyond that in what in traditional occultist terms would probably be the astral and mental bodies.

8)

[Korpo]

Now, that makes sense! :D

So - your precise technique is rotating energy in the chakra vortex, moving from inward to outward? Or what do you do? Which chakra?

Oliver

[Mickey]

Now, that makes sense! :D

So - your precise technique is rotating energy in the chakra vortex, moving from inward to outward? Or what do you do? Which chakra?

Oliver

Yeah, that's pretty much it. It works in all chakras, but the sense of expansion and dissolution of boundaries seems to be largest in the chakras with free flow of energy. Not surprising really. 8)

[Korpo]

I will see what to make of this - I will give it a try. :)

Thanks,
Oliver

[selfknowing]

I just learned about NEW a few months ago and have been practicing some of the basics to good effect. My hands and feet will tingle now just when I go to this website for example. I have a pretty big block on my shoulder too so I'm looking for methods to break up the blockages too. My massage therapist said there was a lot of lymph blockage in that area and knot connected to knot. My sponging and full body bounces don't seem to affect the shoulder much yet. That reminds me that I need to get Robert Bruce's latest energy book which I hadn't heard of until a few weeks ago.

Following with interest....

-Kelly

[Korpo]

Hi, Kelly.

Some blocks are more resistant than others. Some give way easily. Some reoccur after being cleaned. Some only seem to reoccur (you found and felt the next-deeper layer in the next session). Sometimes you clean something physical-etheric to have it return someplace else as the underlying deeper personal problem persists (but might start to solve as well). Etc.

Any problem that has progressed to giving you serious or medium consequences will take some time to clean up. My shoulder muscles are calcified in the trouble spot, and muscles and circulation are blocked all throughout my should. Energy work can even produce crunching and cracking sounds within my shoulder as the restoring of flow unwinds muscles in a way that they break up the calcifications. Still it is an ongoing endeavour and I've been working the deeper layers of my shoulder on and off (while doing energy work in general persistently every day) for over a year. The difference and improvement is quite perceptible, but the problem is deeply wound into me and takes its time.

Sometimes when you work such a long-standing blockage it can show you related memories that tie into how the blockage formed. When working my shoulder I even found memories of the days I was unhappily in love as a teenager - more than ten years ago! That's how these bigger problems form - one emotional knot attracts another, and as they block out more and more flow and accumulate they start to distort the workings of the physical body. Pain reflexes and avoidance reactions (you subconsciously try to avoid movements that hurt) change the movement patterns of the body, which over time through repetition can impede circulation and function - just as with your lymph knots. Lymph depends on muscle movement to circulate. Change the movement pattern or keep an area immobile, and problems creep up.

"Energy work" is a good book to get. Many people benefit from it. It is Robert's best book so far IMO when it comes to practical value and learning - well - energy work! ;)

Take good care,
Oliver

[selfknowing]

Wow. Interesting how it's all related. I must order Robert's Energy Work book this week since the library doesn't have it and it sounds like a keeper.

I can't recall how I first got my knots in the right shoulder. The massage therapist/Reiki healer asked me if there was a past injury there, and I was straining to remember too but couldn't. Maybe the energy work will bring up some memories. I'm sure it's related to past emotional stress at least partly. It's been there at least 10 years since I had massages at work in my 20's!

I'll need to reread your posts as I work on my blockages... thanks.

-Kelly

[Korpo]

Hello, Kelly.

My shoulder problem developed from posture, habit and avoidance reactions. There wasn't an injury to point to initially.

However, when I tried to use those blocked up muscles, overuse triggered inflammation and I had to go into physiotherapy and other treatments to stop having pain there at the least move. But this condition just derived from the original problem - posture. And the posture derived from my habits, how I lived my life, what things I did repeatedly...

The good thing is energy work can be a comparatively quick way to ease such situations. It can speed up other recovery measures and help circulation a lot in my experience. It still can take time, but coming to think of it it took me a decade to put the problem there and I believe it will take me much less to reverse or heal it.

Take good care,
Oliver