All posts by michael1947

Choosing Not to Heal #7

Necklace and religious symbolic pendants laying on a wooden table.

If you are reading this, I bet many of you are healers, too. By using this term “healers” I mean you feel responsible for the well-being of others. You might be in the medical professions, a counselor, a social worker, a care giver, or just someone people go to feel better. I am a healer myself and much of my personal identity has been wrapped up in feeling obligated to heal others.

One of issues I faced is deciding when NOT to heal. For most of my life, however, I felt compelled to heal. I spent many years in the helping professions: as a counselor, a community organizer, a professor and as a minister. Often, after a hard week, I would have to hide out to recover from giving so much of myself away.  I had to learn, the hard way, to choose when to heal AND to choose when NOT to heal.

In a previous section, I mentioned that healers need to learn how to separate from their clients. You need to learn, and practice, ending the healing session by consciously separating your energy from that of your client and recharging your own energy levels. This will help you not feel depleted after a healing session. Remember, do this after each healing session because if you don’t their energy and problems will be yours.  There are far too many sick healers out there who have become ill by not taking care of themselves in this way.

Another issue I have faced is the fear of not being able to heal someone. There have been times when I have faced clients with tumors or gangrene limbs, or some other insurmountable disease or injury. What I have noticed cropping up is my own feelings of fear and inadequacy. Instead of focusing on these negative thoughts, patiently step back and gather yourself and allow yourself to do the healing. Know that the limits you have placed on a healing’s success are your own. There are really no limits, except for what the client or God have set.

For example, I met a woman who had stage 4 cancer. She had worked hard to do everything possible to get her cancer in remission. I noticed that she was still struggling and offered to give her a healing. She refused my help because she wanted to continue the struggle and learn, for herself, how to heal her body. She wanted to validate her experience and power to heal herself, so I let her.

In another example I was asked to heal a woman suffering from an unknown digestive tract disease that was killing her. I asked her to seek out medical help, but she had a real fear of western medicine and hospitals. I did multiple healings on her over several weeks, but I noticed, for the first time, that my healing only slowed the disease process, but did not eliminate it. I was troubled by this result and told her. I did not understand why my efforts seemed to not create the results that she, and I, wanted. So, I asked God. He/she said that he/she had other plans for her. The woman died within two weeks in hospice care. A healing works with the grace of God, so I had to learn how to let go, and let God.

A manuscript painting of birds in a tree.

Two Methods of Healing

After my seminary training I traveled around the world to see how other spiritual practitioners performed healings. I witnessed Filipino, Tibetan, Asian-Indian, church-sponsored healers, psychics, and Indigenous healers practice their healing skills. Some of the rituals used were very ancient and primitive. Some healers knew how they manipulated energy, but most had no real awareness or understanding of how, or why, their healings worked, or failed to work. Most were trained by some previous practitioner and peddled their skills solely on their faith in their teachers.

Please do not misunderstand me, I am not making a judgement on the skills of these healers. Many are excellent healers! I am, however, asking you to “know” how your style of healing works, or fails to be successful. Having faith in yourself, and your God, is only one component of a healing. The other is to consciously (intentionally) know what you are actually doing in directing a healing.

I have seen healers sacrifice some animal, wave a feather or some other prop, or chant over patient—all to change the energy. However, most of these healers are not aware of what they are actually doing, except for performing a ritual. I want you to know, see and feel what you are doing. I want you to understand how you are manipulating the energy to heal. It takes only a slight shift in your perception to do this.

Use the techniques in Series 4 to clear out the energy in your own space that does not allow you to know, see, and/or feel how the healing is working. Trust yourself—there is no one better. You can do anything in a healing from changing the energy alignment to repairing the cells in the body. After performing the healing consciously make a separation and replenish your own energy.

A pottery vase with yellow, orange, and black color by Carol R. Wolfe.

Rule #3 How do you know what energy you have (or you are using)? You do so by knowing, seeing, and/or feeling the energy. Trust yourself. There is no fixed definition of a particular energy. Look at it for yourself.

Healing

Healing is the ability to change energy with the intent of improving some outcome. In your normal ritual practice, you ARE giving yourself a healing by consciously directing the flow of the energy in your space. The same dynamic occurs when you are directing a healing to another person.

“Dis-ease” is just that! It is an energy, often, coupled with an emotionally-charged experience, embedded in your body causing a disease, or discomfort.  It is “yours’ to fix, with the help of others, because it is in your personal universe. Do not disown it. To change the dis-ease, you need to own it to command a change. You may encounter the feelings of fear that the disease is more powerful than you. However, nothing is more powerful than you. You have the power to command energy, and thus you can change the dis-ease.

For example, I was repeatedly medically tested and diagnosed with COPD. This is a chronic, progressive, and terminal lung disease. My lung capacity fell to 47% and was worsening quickly. I, then, decided to change the energy of this disease. After four months of daily energy work focusing on my COPD, I was tested again, but this time my lung capacity score was 110% for my age and gender. I had fixed my damaged lungs and created ones that were similar to a competitive athlete.

A key component of a healing is the decision to change. A healing will not be successful without an agreement to be healed.  To illustrate this point, a person who has an alcohol abuse problem cannot be healed, until and unless, they choose to change. Even if you do a healing, they will recreate the energy of the disease until they choose to change. Therefore, gaining one’s permission to be healed is key because it denotes a willingness to change and the acceptance of a healing.

“Let go and let God” is a phrase you can use to guide you in a healing.

A healing is an active decision to make to change (with permission). A healing should be effortless. If it is not, it means you have hit the energy of fear that has curtailed your own self-confidence. Recognize this, and patiently find your way through it. Discover a sense of playfulness to command the energy to change. Being in alignment with your concept of God will allow you to create miracles with ease.

“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, …” (John 14:12)

Use the tools in “Series 4 Energy Flow” to change the energy. Remember to replace and create energy in affinity to the person you are healing. Other- wise, they will not be able to continue to heal themselves.

I have often seen people pray “at” someone.  This prayer energy often blocks the ability of the person to heal themselves because the energy is foreign to their body. One should, instead direct their prayers to God for help in a healing. God will ensure the energy is in affinity to the one being healed.

I have witnessed two types of healings. There is often some differences in the ritual props or practices involved in the healings, but a healing usually is done with 1. Your own energy or 2. The energy of a spirit guide, ancestor, or deceased teacher. Either one can be effective.

If you choose to use your own energy to heal another, there are a few things you need to pay attention to. The first, is whether or not your energy will work well in your patient. Make sure the energy you use is in affinity with the one you are healing. Another concern is that you, the healer, may feel depleted or exhausted after giving away your energy. Remember to separate from the healing when you finish and replenish your energy.

In the second type of healing, the healer uses a spirit guide to perform the healing. The healer often does not know or see how they are actually doing the healing. They are just performing the mechanics of the healing in the way they were taught—something akin to being a blind surgeon.

In this latter case the healer needs to create, and enforce, an agreement with the spirit guide performing the healing. What I have seen far too often is that the spirit guide “takes over” the body of the healer. Over time this injures the healer’s body because it is “foreign” energy. As a healer, you need to direct the spirit guide to not only heal the patient, but also to not injure you. Clear boundaries and separation from a spirit guide will allow you to continue your work without ill-health consequences.


Using a spirit guide is often sold to the healer as being better than directing the healing himself. The healer often succumbs to this belief as his ego is praised by his patients and the spirit guide. In time the healer, then, loses his own faith in himself and his control over the spirit guide.

Spiritual Healing

Explaining the Process of Spiritual Healing of Critically-ill Patients: A Grounded Theory Study (National Institute of Health)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8054459/

Spiritual Healing: What is it?

https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/docs/default-source/members/sigs/spirituality-spsig/su-mason-spiritual-healing-in-modern-healthcare-x.pdf?sfvrsn=4fc21449_2

Spirituality and Healing (Harvard University)

https://hms.harvard.edu/news/spirituality-healing

A black and white photo with a child looking towards the horizon on the beach.

Rule #2: Whatever you can think of, you can create. Do it with ease, clarity, and certainty. (Beware: I had a friend who once who prayed for a lot of money. He was successful. He got it in a car accident insurance settlement, but also had to live with hideous pain for the rest of his life.)

Creating

Energy flow follows simple rules of physics that you can control. As you should know there is an infinite amount of energy in the universe and you can command, direct, control, create and destroy it as you wish. This, in itself, is a God-like power.

One has to remember there is no ethics in spiritual matters. Some people are good and others are, in fact, hurtful or evil. You have to choose what ethics you will abide by and how you deal with others not sharing your code of behavior.

Everyone uses energy to protect themselves, to further their creations, to control their environment and influence others. Some, however, are better, i.e. more skilled, at it than others. This often creates conflict and competition, yet you can choose not to play their games, and instead choose your own.

The first step is to understand you have your own energy universe made up of your body and your personal space (aura). This is yours! And, you should take care of it.

You can change the energy in your body and aura at will. I would do so by creating energy in affinity with your body and goals and, then, bring it into your space to replace the energy you do not want. Your intention to do so, makes it happen!  Your ritual practice is your opportunity to realign your energy with your conception of God’s energy.

I begin by “grounding” my body and aura from the first charka at the base of the spine. This grounding cord is a chute where I can dump all of my unwanted energy in my body and aura deep into the ground (similar to a lightning rod).This anchoring tool also helps define my personal space and will help keep me safe. It can be, and should be used, all of the time. Refresh your grounding cord often by destroying the old one and creating a new one.

Then, choose the energy’s flow, or pattern, in your personal space. Remember to direct it through all of your body and aura. Create a pattern of doing so during your ritual practice.  This pattern will become second nature to you, so you can use it at any time and in any circumstance. Many religious traditions teach different patterns in this flow of energy. Choose one and practice it.

For example, I direct energy, that I have made my own, to flow from my crown charka (top of my head) downward though my charkas to my first charka (at the base of my spine) and then upward through all of my charkas and out of the top of my head and into my aura, with some splitting off into my arms and out my hands. Using this pattern I can clear out my charkas and body of all the energy that does not serve me while replacing it with energy that does.

I also bring up earth energy, in affinity with my body, up thorough my feet charkas and through my legs to my first charka where is will mix with the energy explained in the previous paragraph and dump it down my grounding cord.

Since I am the master of all that I create, I can change my energy even more quickly by also creating a symbol outside of my aura to “pull out” energy I do not want from my space. By exploding this symbol you will return the energy to the universe. Again, you need to remember to replace the energy you have removed with the energy you do want. To do so, gather up some energy and make it your own, with the qualities you want, and bring it into your personal space. Again, if you do not replace the depleted energy, your body will sense a vacuum and recreate the energy it “knows,” i.e. the energy you just removed. So, fill up your space with your energy and own it!

Finally, you can also use a symbol of your own creation to protect your space from unwanted energy directed at you. This tool will get “hammered” over time, so it will have to be destroyed, then, updated and replaced. You can also use this tool give you a warning of what energy is being sent your way. Don’t use this symbol to block all energy, you still want to experience life.

These tools, or techniques, are useful in changing (healing) your energy. They, however, need to be refreshed periodically because just like any other tools, they will show signs of wear and tear. In my ritual practice I recreate these techniques, “in present time,” for my use in every new moment. I can, also refresh these tools at any time as the need arises.


The percentage of the mixture of earth energy flowing with your chosen universe’s energy in your upper body should be explored by you. Native Americans, often, run a lot of earth energy in their body. This makes them “heavy” and more earth-bound. Asian meditation techniques, however, often forget about the feet and legs when directing their energy. Discover what works for you. Any “surplus” energy can, of course, be eliminated through your grounding cord.

A white daily like looking flower with yellow and orange center.

Rule #1: Do not believe what I say, or do.  Try it out for yourself to see if it is TRUE for you. (Too many spiritual teachers are manipulators who do not honor even their professed beliefs.)

Energy Work Flow

The goal of your practice is to intentionally change your energy—to let God flow within.

Most ritual practices “do” change your energy, for example, prayer, meditation and yoga—all a change how your energy flows within you. The act of “doing” your practice is important, but are you choosing the energy of your God-within?

There are many meditation (or prayer or yoga) styles taught by different religious traditions. Each has its own form and rules. If you look at the various styles you can see how the energy pattern flows in the body. You will also see the strengths and weaknesses of each technique in changing your own energy.

Some techniques teach you to choose a particular energy and have it flow in a circle around your body. Some have an energy flow through your limbs, torso and head in a specific direction. Even others demand that your eyes be open (or closed), and your hands and legs be in a particular position.

Does it matter? Yes, it does… but only to you. Look for yourself to see what works and what doesn’t. You can create whatever style works for you.

My recommendation is to intentionally choose the style that fits your requirements.  Mine are:

  1. I have chosen the direction and flow of the energy in my body and aura
  2. I choose the energy that I want to flow in my body and aura
  3. I have chosen a technique(s) to change my energy i.e. to get rid of energy I do not want and to replace it with energy I do want
  4. I have chosen to make myself safer by creating a technique to ground my body and aura
  5. I choose to change any of the above at will, and often, to keep the energy techniques I am using fresh

I will offer more details on each component later in the Series.


Meditation’s potential has been demonstrated by numerous contemplative, philosophical, religious and spiritual traditions that teach it as a core element that leads to enlightenment or salvation. Buddhism, Vedic and Hindu practices, Jewish kabbalism, Islamic Sufism and shamanism, among others, have all explored meditation in their traditions. Some of them have multimillennial-long histories and en¬¬compass experiences that include states of ecstasy, insights into the nature of the self and the world around us, the cultivation of empathy, and the pursuit of altruistic goals. Such experiences have also been reported to sometimes lead to a sense of transcendence.

https://www.xavier.edu/jesuitresource/online-resources/quote-archive1/quotes-about-prayer

(Read: Finding Grace at the Center, Fr. Thomas Keating)

https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/types-of-meditation#takeaway

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/the-11-major-types-of-yoga-explained-simply