Energy Healing Case History: The Shoulder That Was Stuck In The Past

Different Ways Of Perceiving Energy
Different Ways That Energy Healing Can Benefit

Here's a case history from my practice that illustrates two things: 1) how we sense energy in different ways and 2) how energy healing can benefit people on different levels.

The Case Of The Shoulder That Was Stuck In The Past

A recent client (I'll call her Pam) had a shoulder injury that was healing more slowly than she liked. We'd been making progress using energy healing and body-mind work. She also started seeing a PT, who was helping, but the shoulder still wasn't back to normal.

Near the end of our last session, I was gently stretching a shoulder muscle with the intention to gently bring her awareness to it and to how it was protecting against a danger (the initial injury) that was no longer present. This is common with physical trauma: a person's energy and the muscles associated with the trauma get "stuck" in a past reality.

I had Pam hold the intention to have the guarded, protective muscle (and its energy) become more fluid, and to bring it into the present. I invited her to feel the energy flow more freely through the restricted area. Then I had her imagine feeling the blood flowing through the tiny capillaries and the lymph fluid flowing through the tiny lymph vessels of her shoulder. (They are energy, too.)

As we did this, my hand was resting on Pam's arm. Suddenly I felt a burst of energy. It was unmistakable: the energy had released from her shoulder and rushed through her arm. It's suddenness startled me. "Oh!" I blurted out. "There's the energy! Cool!"

Just then, she started to cry, and then to sob. She sobbed for a couple of minutes while I held her hand. I wasn't concerned, knowing that it was just the energy releasing in another way. Then she started to laugh. "That was good!" she exclaimed, smiling broadly. We finished up and I left the treatment room to let her integrate the treatment.

When Pam came out, she said she'd had some major insights. She realized that she had been angry at her shoulder for not healing as fast as she wanted it to. She also realized that the PT treatment, though useful, had been harsh and painful, and that it was also important to have gentle treatment like what had happened in our session. But it seemed to me that her most important insight was that it was important to treat herself gently when she is injured, sending compassion rather than anger to the injured part of herself, and that it is critical to allow herself the time she really needs to heal, rather than just some intellectually based idea of how long healing should take.

So Many Ways To Experience Energy

One of the things I like about this story is that it shows some of the many ways we can experience energy. The most obvious was when my hand was on Pam's arm and I felt the surge of energy releasing from her shoulder. It was a strong, physical feeling, almost like a jolt of electricity, plus a clear, sudden knowing of what was happening. My perception of energy is usually tactile like that, but most often more subtle. Sometimes I get a "knowing" of what's going on, and sometimes I don't.

Pam simultaneously experienced the energy as a powerful flow of emotion, both tears and laughter. Then she experienced it as insight, or knowing.

Other people might have seen the energy flowing, either literally or with their mind's eye. Others might have heard it or felt it in other parts of their bodies. The nuances of how any given person perceives the energy at any given time are almost endless.

I think many of us tend to assign a hierarchy to perception of energy, with powerful perceptions, especially visual ones, at the top. But one form or intensity of perception really isn't better than any other form or intensity.

As energy healers, it's important to maintain the principle of non-attachment to outcomes in the area of our own perception as well as in the area of client "results." In my experience we really don't have control over how our perceptions come, and striving for a particular form of perception is usually counter-productive, so non-attachment to the form of perception is the only thing that makes sense.

So Many Ways To Benefit From Energy Healing

One of the other things this story illustrates is that we can benefit from energy healing on different levels. In Pam's case, there was a slow but steady physical healing of her shoulder. There was also personal growth or evolution in the form of powerful new insights.

As with perceptions, I think many of us also tend to assign a hierarchy to energy healing outcomes, with dramatic physical results at the top. Who doesn’t love a “Hallelujah, I’m healed!” moment.

But Pam’s insights are likely to have a broad ripple effect in many areas of her life, and in my opinion, though they are more subtle than a dramatic physical healing, they are the more valuable outcome, with potential broad, long-term implications for her emotional and mental quality of life as well as for her physical well-being.

I hope this was of interest.

Namaste, Nancy

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Image Credit: By Emmanuel HEREDIA (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons