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Healing from the Inside Out:
A Deeper Look
at
The Spirituality of Healing
Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of
Washington Theological Union in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Ministry
Presented at Virginia Theological Seminary March 24, 2014
By
Michelle S. Earnest Approved: Date: ___________________________________________________________________ _______________________
___________________________________________________________________ _______________________
___________________________________________________________________ _______________________
___________________________________________________________________ _______________________
Copyright © 2014 by Michelle S. Earnest
All rights reserved
Dedication This paper is dedicated to my late husband
Ralph P. Davis, who passed away while I was conducting my project
Love you, Ralph
The human person is conceived as an integral whole, and it is seen that health, wholeness, and holiness, being derived from the same root, are totally interrelated. The health of the body, the wholeness of the person and holiness itself are all aspects of the same reality and they cannot be separated.
—Father Bede Griffiths, A New Vision of Reality
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Contents
Tables vii
Acknowledgements viii
I. Chapter One 1
Background and Context 1 Healing as Spiritual Work 2 The Embodied Image of God 7 The Embodied Voice of Spirit 8 Hearing the Voice of Emotions 10 Premise and Purpose 11 The Project 12 Intended Outcome 13 Paper Design and Format 13 II. Chapter Two 15 Biblical-‐Theological Underpinning 15 Energy and the Spirit 15 Expanding the Healing Box 22 Theoretical Supporting Evidence 26 How Energy Heals 26 The Power to Heal 29 Noetic Science 34 Health and Wellness Theoretical Framework 36 A New Vision of Wellness 36 The Bodymind 38 Body Mapping 40 III. Chapter Three 43 Thesis Statement 43 Research Question 43 Research Method 44 Instruments Of Assessment and Evaluation 45 Visual Journaling 45 Body Mapping 47 The Spiritual Well-‐Being Scale 52 The Project 53 The Energy Work 62 The Body Map Interpretation Process 66 IV. Chapter Four 68 Self-‐Wholeness and Embodied Spirituality 68 Research Question Revisited 68 Visual Journaling and Emotional State Summaries 69
vi
The Spiritual Well-‐Being Scale Results 71 Body Mapping and Body Dialogue Summaries 80 Reflections on the Energy Techniques used for Emotional Processing 101 V. Chapter Five 103 Research Recap 103 Tillich and Energy 105 The Project, the Tools, and the Results 107 Visual Journaling 107 Body Mapping 108 The Spiritual Well-‐Being Scale 110 Current Relevance and Future Implications of this Study 111 Practical Applications 113 Moving Forward: Implications for Further Study 116 VI. Appendixes 122 Appendix A: The Roby Chart 122 Appendix B: Meridian Diagram 123 Appendix C: Emotions and Associated Meridians 124 Appendix D: The Spiritual Well-‐Being Scale 125 Appendix E: Visual Journaling Exercise 128 Appendix F: Body Mapping Exercise 129 Appendix G: Dealing with Difficult Emotions Handout 133 Appendix H: Demographic and Permission Forms 136 VII. Bibliography 138
vii
Tables
Participants SWBS Scores 1.1 Participant #1 60 1.2 Participant #2 60 1.3 Participant #3 61 1.4 Participant #4 61 1.5 Participant #5 61 1.6 Participant #6 61 1.7 Participant #7 61 1.8 Participant #8 62 1.9 Participant #9 62 1.10 Participant #10 62 Other Tables 2.0 Summary of SWB Scores and Levels 63 3.0 Summary of RWB Scores and Levels 64 4.0 Summary of EWB Scores and Levels 65 5.0 Summary of Changes in SWBS Levels 65 6.0 Summary of Changes in SWBS Scores 66
viii
Acknowledgments
In completing this project and paper I am indebted to many people who
encouraged, supported, and ultimately prodded me to persevere and finish my
doctoral work. My late husband Ralph was always my biggest supporter and never
doubted I would achieve this goal and anything else I set my mind to. His presence
was a gift in the second half of my life and I credit him with nudging me towards
wholeness as we both recovered from losing our previous spouses. His death in July
2014 was a devastating blow, but also a catalyst for further spiritual growth in my
own life. I finished this paper as the presence of his spirit whispered encouragement
in my ear.
Equally important, as cheerleaders and walls of support, was my combined
family of five children. JP, Zach, Jeff, Maggie, and Lauren are my most important
blessings and surround me with love in every circumstance. I am grateful beyond
measure for the privilege of having them in my life.
Further gratitude is extended to the faculty and staff of the Washington
Theological Union (especially Anne McLaughlin, RSM and Patricia A. Parachini,
SNJM) and my Doctor of Ministry cohort. I would also be remiss if I neglected to
express my profound thanks to my thesis director, Dr. Pat Fosarelli, for her
superlative editing and clarifying comments; as well as Dr. Beth Friend for her
insightful tweaking of the final copy.
To end, I acknowledge my love of God and dependence on my Christian faith
as the cornerstones of my life. Without daily reminders of grace, I am truly lost.
Love is all there is. Blessings.
1
Chapter One
Background and Context
The human body is a masterpiece of innovation. The multitude of chemical
processes that it performs each day, without our conscious input, is staggering.
Unnoticed by us, the body maintains its acid-‐base balance within a very delicate
margin. Outside of this, we would die. The exchange of fluids, nutrients, and waste
products at the cellular level is dependent on the precise movement of electrically
charged ions across cells walls. Without that, our bodies would dehydrate, starve,
and be overwhelmed with toxins. We truly are “fearfully and wonderfully made.”1
And yet the presence of God, so active in the design and function of our bodies, is
almost totally ignored by Western medicine when healing of the body is discussed.
Given this context, it is not surprising that many people do not see any relationship
between their health and their spirituality.
But what if people were given the opportunity to look at their health another
way? What if they looked at their body as a holistic map that embodies the physical,
emotional, energetic, and spiritual self as an integrated whole? Would they see
connections between their perceptions about God and self, how they feel emotions,
where they get sick, and how energy flows?
1 Psalm 139:14 NIV: “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
2
And if they did, what would that tell them about how all of these components
are interrelated in the body? Would they make the connection between energy and
the Holy Spirit? Would they realize that the Holy Spirit is God and that the energy
flowing through them is the presence of God within? Would they see how their
perceptions about self and the world are tied to how they perceive God? Would they
see the spiritual dimension of healing?
As I discuss these concepts of health, healing, and spirituality, there are
several terms I need to clarify. The word “energy” is used to describe the vital life-‐
force that is present within the human body. When I use the term “Spirit” (with a
capital “S”), I am referring to the person of the Holy Spirit. When I use “spirit”
without capitalization, I am referring to the power of the Holy Spirit that flows as
life-‐force energy within us.
Healing as Spiritual Work
After working in health care as a nurse practitioner for many years, I have a
good understanding of the physical healing process from the viewpoint of Western
or conventional medicine. Its focus is on curing, not healing. Curing is disease
oriented and compartmentalizes the body into “parts” that need to be fixed. It is a
passive process with a biomedical focus that aims to relieve symptoms. Since its
emphasis is on the diagnosis and treatment of illness, Western medicine appears to
be defining health as the absence of disease.2
2 Larry Trivieri, The American Holistic Medicine Association Guide to Holistic
Health: Healing Therapies for Optimal Wellness (NY: John Wiley &Sons, LTD, 2001), Kindle Edition, location 80.
3
Healing on the other hand, considers disease to be a part of the illness
experience. It is an active process that seeks to address the root cause of illness and
aims to restore wholeness to the entire person. Inherent in healing is a desire to find
meaning in the total experience of seeking wellness. 3 Health from a healing
perspective is much broader. The World Health Organization offers this definition:
“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely
the absence of disease or infirmity.”4
It is my belief that both of these approaches to health care have validity.
Certainly, Western medicine excels at trauma care, infectious disease management,
and in the development of equipment and devices to extend life and enhance the
functioning of worn-‐out body parts. Where it is more challenged, however, is in its
ability to see and treat the person as an integrated unit. As noetic science so
knowingly reminds us, we are more than just the sum of our parts; we are an
integrated, mutually dependent community of cells that function within an even
larger cosmic community of quantum energy. In short, we are one—both within
ourselves and within the universe.5 It is this expanded definition of ourselves that
3 John J. Pilch does a wonderful job of expounding on the difference between curing
and healing from an anthropological viewpoint. More information on the semantics of these terms can be found in his book Healing in the New Testament (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000).
4 Preamble to the Constitution of the World Health Organization as adopted by the International Health Conference, New York, 19-22 June, 1946; signed on 22 July 1946 by the representatives of 61 States (Official Records of the World Health Organization, no. 2, p. 100) and entered into force on 7 April 1948.
5 Dr. Bruce Lipton is on the forefront of noetic science and has several books that address this quantum understanding of health and healing and the infinite self, most notably The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, and Miracles (Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2008).
4
invites a larger view of the human person, his/her health, and the ways we approach
the experience of illness.
Several years ago, I made the shift to non-‐conventional medicine, because I
wanted to embrace that bigger understanding of health and healing. My work as a
hospital and hospice chaplain had already called me to see deeper into the spiritual
side of health care, and I had seen remarkable recoveries and beautiful deaths that
seemed Spirit-‐infused. Our bodies, made in the image and likeness of God, are
innately programmed for health and wholeness, and I believe that the work of the
Holy Spirit is the paramount reason we heal. 6 In my heart, I knew that nothing was
impossible for God, so I looked for a way that would allow me to combine my love of
ministry with my passion for healing work. I found my answer in the holistic healing
work of Donna Eden Energy Medicine. This modality is an expanded approach to
health and wellness that falls under the broad category of complementary (non-‐
conventional) medicine, which are therapies that work in partnership with Western
medicine. The word holistic simply means looking at something in its entirety, as a
whole. Holistic health care can be defined as care that focuses on the health of the
entire body and mind and not just parts of the body.7 To this I would add the spiritual
dimension, or the spirit, as well.
My ministry blends energy-‐based therapy with spiritual direction in that
holistic approach to healing.8 Energy healing is defined by The National Center for
6 Gen. 1:26 NIV “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our
likeness.” 7 Your Dictionary.com, “Holistic,” http://www.yourdictionary.com/holistic, accessed
January 2, 2013. 8 Spiritual Direction is a ministry of accompanying another person on his/her
5
Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) as “therapy (that) involves the
channeling of healing energy through the hands of a practitioner into the client’s
body to restore a normal energy balance and, therefore, health.”9 The use of energy
therapy is not a new concept in healing. Ancient cultures and traditions, as well as
current systems of medicine outside the Western medicine paradigm, incorporate it
as a vital part of their approach to health and healing. Albert Szent-‐Györgyi, Nobel
laureate in Medicine offered this perspective, “In every culture and in every medical
tradition before ours, healing was accomplished by moving energy.”10 Norm Shealy,
M.D., founding president of the American Holistic Medical Association and a noted
author on the intersection of medicine and mind-‐body therapies added, “Energy
medicine is the future of all medicine.”11 That means, energy as a healing tool brings
knowledge from the past to inform the future.
In my practice I see a variety of clients who present with a vast array of
physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. A good majority of them are suffering from
complex medical issues that seem to be deeply rooted in emotional or spiritual
dysfunction.
spiritual path. Excellent resources for more information include: William Reiser, Seeking God in All Things: Theology and Spiritual Direction (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2004) and Janet Ruffing, Spiritual Direction: Beyond the Beginnings (NY: Paulist Press, 2000).
9 National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), “Terms Related to Complementary and Alternative Medicine,” http://nccam.nih.gov/health/providers/camterms.htm?nav=gsa, accessed January 2, 2013.
10 Albert Szent-Györgyi, Introduction to a Submolecular Biology (New York: Academic Press, 1960), 135.
11 Norm Shealy, M.D., Acceptance speech upon receipt of the Alyce & Elmer Green Award for Excellence, 8th Annual Conference of the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine, Boulder, Colorado, June 20, 1998.
6
In my first session with a client, I take a comprehensive history, looking for
mind-‐body-‐spirit connections, and try to discover the hidden agenda that always
seems to be present in any healing encounter. The spiritual dimension of healing is
the foundation of my work, so I discuss my philosophy about healing, emphasizing
that it is her/his body that is doing the healing work and that this is Spirit-‐directed.
I tell them that I am the facilitator of their healing journey, a co-‐participant who
empowers the person to actively engage in the healing process, and not the cause or
determiner of what work is accomplished. I also talk about what healing is, and how
that differs from the Western medicine concept of curing. Finally we discuss the
forms healing can take-‐physical, emotional, and spiritual-‐ and how neither one of us
can know or direct the process that will unfold.
Focusing on the spiritual aspect of healing is what makes my approach to
energy work a bit different from many other holistic healers, and it is the
perspective that informs the design and interpretation of this project. My personal
faith is Christ-‐centered, so I see healing as a Christ-‐mediated event. This means that
I view “energy” as the tangible byproduct of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Although energy and the Holy Spirit share many attributes, they are also unique.
Healing occurs through the energy of the Holy Spirit, which is generated and
directed by the person of the Holy Spirit. Together, healing is possible and accessible
for the people of God.
7
The Embodied Image of God The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Gen 2:7 (NIV)
To embody something is to give it life. In Genesis, God breathes life into the
inert human creation, and it is filled with life-‐force energy, the “breath of life.” The
human has become a “being,” because it is now alive with spiritual energy. This has
important ramifications for how we view our bodies and for how we heal.
As physical beings, we are dependent on our senses for interpreting the
world. We process and relate to our environment by seeing, feeling, hearing, tasting,
and touching it. This means that we internalize our perceptions about everything
from this standpoint, including God and ourselves. Although we may understand, on
some level, that we are more than our physical selves, we cannot see our emotions,
our spirit, or God, so they seem less real. This idea of “not real” also translates into
“less important”, so the emotional and spiritual sides of our selves are often
discounted, dismissed, or ignored. When this perception becomes fixed, it allows us
to feel separate from those aspects of self, and from God.
What this means, is that the image of God we embody within ourselves is
often very small, constricted, and one-‐dimensional. The magnificence of God
becomes the pettiness of God, and we construct a humanized vision of God that
reflects only our own insecurities and limitations. The saving work of Christ is
meant to nullify this perception and bring us into a “right” or full relationship with
God. Once again, we become a new creation with a new infilling of the Holy Spirit
through Jesus Christ. It’s the perfect solution for the perfect world we will one day
8
realize. Until then, many people still live with limitation and see themselves as
separate, broken, and alone.
But, if wholeness is our natural state, then healing is a natural process. We
are “fully equipped” for our life in this world, and that implies that everything we
need for wholeness we already possess. 12 The life-‐force energy that enlivened us at
creation is still present, and Jesus has already shown us in the Gospels how to use it
to heal.13 The missing piece, I believe, is that we have forgotten how to hear the
voice of Spirit within our bodies.
The Embodied Voice of Spirit
If wholeness and healing are natural templates for our body, then the body
must know how to be whole and healed. So the question might be, how does the
body know when healing is needed?
As a physical being that is enlivened with spiritual energy, communication
must be a combination of both tangible body awareness and spiritual knowledge.
The interrelation of these two is embodied spirituality. To assess body awareness
through this lens, observations about emotional, physical, and spiritual/intuitive
perceptions can be made about the body and correlated to its energetic framework.
Emotions are the primary language of Spirit, and feelings are how that
message is communicated. Physical sensations are tangible registers of the emotions
12 2 Tim 3:17 NIV “…so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every
good work” 13 There are 28 accounts of Jesus healing in the New Testament. More information
on specific verses can be found at this website: http://www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/miracles.htm
9
being felt. Spiritual knowledge is the deep inner knowing we experience that
informs our intuition. The energetic framework of the body is the network of known
energetic pathways and centers that form our “energy anatomy”14. Considering all of
these components together reveals an interwoven structure of divine
communication. Spirit speaks with an emotional, physical, intuitive, and energetic
voice that we perceive and act on both consciously and sub-‐consciously. This
embodied voice of Spirit I call the four spiritual languages of the body.
The Four Spiritual Languages of the Body
1. Emotional Body Awareness: The emotional language of Spirit is
experienced through the feeling of emotions in the body.
2. Physical Body Awareness: The physical language of Spirit is
experienced through physical sensations like aches and pains, as well
as physical symptoms and patterns of illness in the body.
3. Intuitive Body Awareness: The intuitive language of Spirit is
experienced through observation, noting where the presence of God
(deep truth, wisdom) resides and is felt within the body.
4. Energetic Body Awareness: The energetic language of Spirit is
experienced by correlating patterns of emotional and physical body
awareness with known energy pathways and centers in the body.
14 The term “energy anatomy” refers to the subtle energy structures that move life-
force energy through the body. More information about this term and those structures can be found in Cyndi Dale, The Subtle Body: An Encylcopedia of Your Energy Anatomy (Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2009).
10
Hearing the Voice of Emotions
In their book Visual Journaling, Barbara Ganin and Susan Fox describe
emotions as the gateway to our “soul wisdom,” because they speak a language that
transcends words. Using an expressive journaling technique they developed, the
authors have found art, color, and image to be a powerful tool for tapping into the
spiritual flow that is expressed through emotion. Ganin and Fox believe that
recognizing the presence of emotions and giving them space to be expressed helps
them to clear from the body. Energetically, this makes a lot of sense, and in my
ministry, I assess energy flows as a way of tuning into this deeper spiritual language
of emotions.
Emotions are first experienced as physical sensations, and if we pay attention
to what we are feeling, the emotion can be recognized, processed, and released from
the body. Doing this validates the message that the Holy Spirit is communicating
through the presence of the felt emotion. But, if we ignore or deny what we are
feeling, the message is unheard. The emotion remains unrecognized, unprocessed,
and retained.
Donna Eden, the world-‐renowned healer with whom I studied, believes
emotions are the currency of the energy system, and the ebb and flow of energy
correlates with the emotional current of the body, providing a reliable way of
mapping patterns of balanced and unbalanced energy in the body’s energy fields.15
Energetically, suppressed emotions cause alterations in the energy flow that
15 Donna Eden, 2009, Class Five of the Eden Energy Medicine Certification
Program, Phoenix, AZ, May 9.
11
delivered them, resulting in blocks that diminish or distort the original flow. If this
new pattern becomes fixed, then pain, dysfunction, or illness can follow. Caroline
Myss, PhD, a well-‐respected medical intuitive and writer agrees, citing:
Research studying the impact of thoughts and emotions in relation to the physical body increase continually, and again and again, the results indicate that the body/mind/spirit system is the accurate portrait of the human being.16
Exploring this Spirit-‐energy-‐emotion connection in conjunction with the
occurrence of physical illness in the body has become the focus of my work.
Premise and Purpose
My premise in this project is that that we are often disconnected from the
emotional component that underlies illness and don’t see the connections that exist
between the emotional, physical, and spiritual/intuitive parts of ourselves. Because
of this, the body is often viewed as one-‐dimensional; all I am is what I experience
with my senses. This means that this limited view of self is used as the lens through
which we see the world. If I am one-‐dimensional, then everything else is too. God
becomes an extension of this perception, and Divine limitation is assumed as well.
This constrained view of self, the world, and God becomes a template for what is
possible and what is not, including the ability to self-‐heal.
My purpose in this project is to observe how these concepts of self, world,
and God interplay in our perceptions of self-‐wholeness, or how we integrate a sense
of unity into our selves. I am defining wholeness as a state of being, not a condition.
16 Caroline Myss, “Introduction To Energy Medicine,” in Donna Eden, Energy
Medicine (New York: Penguin Books, 1998), kindle edition, location 197.
12
To be self-‐whole is to be content and complete. It is to feel a deep integration
between one’s emotions, physical self, intuition, and connection to the Divine. It is
an awareness of the self as part of a Greater Whole (God, Source, Ultimate Reality, or
another term of transcendent reality) and inseparable from it.
Becoming self-‐whole may be a lifelong process, but I do believe it is possible
to assess a measure of self-‐wholeness by looking at tools that capture perceptions of
emotional, physical, energetic, and spiritual/intuitive body awareness, as well as
spiritual connection.
The Project
As I envisioned it, my project was to conduct a weekend retreat that focused
on exploring mind-‐body-‐spirit components of healing. From Friday night to Sunday
afternoon, retreat participants engaged in three activities for exploring the concept
of self-‐wholeness. These were visual journaling, body mapping, and the Spiritual
Well-‐Being Scale (SWBS). These tools were chosen to assess current emotional state
(visual journaling), emotional/physical/energetic/intuitive body awareness (body
mapping), and perceived connection to the Divine (SWBS).
Additional activities included energy techniques for processing emotions,
group discussion, private reflection time and journaling, optional morning yoga, and
opportunities for lunchtime prayer/meditation. A two-‐month follow up meeting
was conducted to re-‐administer the SWBS, conduct a visual journaling exercise, and
offer discussion time for further reflection and integration.
13
The project was designed to provide tools for exploring body awareness,
creative expression of emotions, and practical skills for processing and releasing
emotions through the movement of body energy. It is my hope that these tools for
self-‐growth can be re-‐utilized by the participants for continued personal
development and growth.
Intended Outcome By combining the SWBS with the visual journaling and body mapping
activities, I hope to offer the participants a method for visualizing the complex
relationships inherent in body awareness in a personal, but non-‐threatening way.
Specifically, I would hope that the relationship between embodied spirituality and
physical/emotional/energetic issues would be more apparent and act as a catalyst
for intentional self-‐healing on all of these levels. Ultimately, I hope that personal
spiritual well-‐being will be enhanced by that healing process, and the participants
will experience an expanded understanding of Divine embodiment within
themselves as children of a loving God in the arms of Jesus Christ.
Paper Design and Format The remaining chapters in this paper are organized as follows:
Chapter Two reviews the biblical-‐theological-‐spiritual and theoretical basis for my
project. Specifically it explores the perceptions of theologians Paul Tillich and
Teilhard de Chardin, as well as concepts from noetic science and Traditional Chinese
Medicine (TCM) as they relate to health, healing, and self-‐wholeness.
14
Chapter Three outlines the research question, procedures, and method. Included in
this is the hypothesis and detailed information about the research method, project
design and structure, tools, and implementation. Time is devoted to presenting and
understanding the research tools in relation to the concepts of self-‐wholeness and
body awareness, while keeping the hypothesis in the forefront of the discussion.
Chapter Four provides the results of the project and details the information
relevant to the hypothesis and research purpose and premise. The results are
categorized into those that relate to each tool, each participant, and each underlying
premise/purpose for the project.
Chapter Five discusses the results both in terms of current findings and
implications for further study and research. Specifically, it explores what has been
learned from this study and gives it a practical understanding in two time frames:
current knowledge and future possibilities. Since this project was specifically
designed to explore the mind-‐body-‐spirit interrelationship of embodied spirituality,
the discussion is focused on delving into these interwoven relationships and
plumbing them for insights on self-‐wholeness and self-‐awareness.
15
Chapter Two
Biblical-‐Theological Underpinning
This project examined the interrelatedness of emotional, physical, energetic,
and intuitive body awareness in conjunction with spiritual wellbeing and
perceptions of self-‐wholeness. To explore the basis for this research, I began the
literature review with key biblical and theological viewpoints, and then delved into
related supporting disciplines for additional background and substantiation.
Energy and the Spirit
Paul Tillich
Holding space in the background of my work is my belief that “Love is all
there is.” To explore that perspective in the context of this project, I considered the
writings and theology of Paul Tillich. Tillich was a German-‐born
theologian/philosopher who lived in the early-‐mid 20th century and brought an
existential focus to his understanding of God and salvation. Tillich coined a unique
vocabulary to express the nature and essence of God and invited readers to expand
their theological perceptions of the universe. I see his words as having a “cosmic”
focus that dovetails with current day explanations of energy and quantum physics.
Tillich saw God as the power and essence of unconditional love, calling God the
16
ground of being, ultimate reality, ultimate concern, and being itself.17 To Tillich, God
was infinite and indefinable but, at the same time, manifesting in the tangible as
finite reality.18 In other words, God is both in all things and above all things, so
creation completely embodies God and God completely embodies creation. In this
way of thinking, no separation is possible, because no separation exists.
According to Tillich, the universal human condition is estrangement, a
perceived separation from God, self, and others.19 This state of existence “results in
personal guilt and universal tragedy” which plays out in anxiety, limitation,
suffering, loneliness, doubt, meaninglessness, and death.20 Tillich stated that the
“cosmic disease” afflicting humankind is this “cosmic guilt” we manifest over being
estranged and this affects our ability to love on all levels. 21 To become healed from
this disease, Tillich believed, we need to experience the reconciliation of salvation
that comes from being “taken by the Spiritual Presence (the Spirit)” and drawn to
the transcendent. But what causes this to occur?
Love is the state of being taken by the Spiritual Presence into the transcendent unity of unambiguous life.… Love is the drive toward the reunion of the separated.… It is the “blood” of life … in which the dispersed elements of life are reunited. 22
17 Paul Tillich, Ultimate Concern: Tillich in Dialogue with D. Mackenzie Brown
(NY: Harper and Row, 1965), 43, 45. 18 Tillich, Ultimate Concern 49-51. 19 Paul Tillich, Existence and the Christ, vol. 2 of Systematic Theology (Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1957), 44-45. 20 Tillich, Existence and the Christ, 44-45. 21 Paul Tillich, The Meaning of Health, Edited by Perry Le Fevre (Chicago, IL:
Exploration Press, 1984), 20-21 22 Paul Tillich, Life and Spirit; History and Kingdom of God, vol. 3 of Systematic
Theology (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963) 134.
17
This means that it is love that heals and it is also healing that makes love possible.
Tillich puts it this way “He who is reconciled is able to love. Salvation is the healing
of the cosmic disease which prevents love.”23
Salvation then is a healing process of reconciliation, a return to the wholeness
that was lost in the process of estrangement. 24 This includes individual salvation, of
course, but within the greater scope of cosmic salvation, the saving of all creation.
When salvation has cosmic significance, healing is not only included in it, but salvation can be described as the act of cosmic healing…. Salvation is basically and essentially healing, the re-‐establishment of a whole that was broken, disrupted, or disintegrated.25
So the return to wholeness, our natural state, is the purpose of salvation.
Healing then is also restorative. It reestablishes our connection to the divine on both
an individual and cosmic level, and reunites us with grace. The return to right
relationship with God is also the return to right relationship with others and
ourselves. From a Christian perspective, this is the saving work of Jesus.
Healing with the Spiritual Presence
In the third volume of Tillich’s pivotal work, Systematic Theology, he devotes a
considerable amount of time to the process and dynamics of healing from a spiritual
perspective. He has several premises that I feel have direct application to this paper
and my project.
23 Tillich, The Meaning of Health, 21. 24 Tillich, Existence and the Christ, 166. 25 Tillich, The Meaning of Health, 17.
18
1. The Multidimensional Unity of Life (If) all dimensions of life are potentially or actually present in each dimension, happenings under the predominance of one dimension must imply happenings in other dimensions.… The multidimensional unity of life means that the impact of the Spiritual Presence on the human spirit is at the same time, an impact on the psyche, the cells, and the physical elements which constitute man.26
In this comment, Tillich was recognizing that the body heals on many different
levels at the same time and each aspect affects all the others. To me this means that
emotions, physical illness, and spirituality are all involved in the health, wellness,
and illness of the body. Tillich specifically mentioned the impact of the Spiritual
Presence on all aspects of the human person, underscoring the importance of the
Divine in healing. Nothing happens as an isolated occurrence. In a universe that is
“breathed” with the pulse of life, everything is connected. Tillich saw this as the
“multidimensional unity of life,” an acknowledgment of a deep interconnectivity that
is primal and inescapable. In other words, we are “one” because we are made in the
image of “One.” The energy that runs through us stems from God the universal
Source, or as Tillich would call it, our ground of being.
2. Disruption in the Balance of Life Causes Disease
Disintegration (disease) occurs if… the balance of life is disturbed.… Healing forces within organic processes…work for the self-‐integration of a centered life. Since disease is a disruption of centeredness under all dimensions of life, the drive for health, for healing, must also occur under all dimensions. 27
Balance is about equilibrium, the homeostasis of life. It is how we maintain healthy
functioning in our bodies and it is, for the most part, a completely neutral event. We
cannot tell our bodies to secrete hormones or turn off our heartbeat. Our body
26 Tillich, Life and Spirit, 276. 27 Tillich, Life and Spirit, 277.
19
manages these intricate functions without our conscious input. These are what
Tillich referred to as the “healing forces within organic processes” that keep us
centered (balanced) and healthy. Disruption of that balance (through emotional,
physical, or spiritual distress) disturbs life on all levels, according to Tillich, and the
stage is set for disintegration (disease). But, since we feel this disruption on all
levels, we also strive to heal from all levels. Our bodies are “equipped” to heal and
constantly endeavor to lead us back to our natural state of wholeness.
3. We Heal as a Whole Person
Health and disease are states of the whole person… (so) healing must be directed to the whole person.28
I see the fractured efforts of many parts of Western Medicine oblivious to this
understanding of health and disease. Health as the absence of symptoms is not
whole person wellness; it is just the absence of the presenting complaints, often
accomplished by using drugs to suppress what the body is trying so hard to express.
If health and disease are states of the whole person, as Tillich attested, then there is
a reason symptoms occurred in the first place. When emotions and energy flow are
considered in concert with the physical problem, the body can present its total
picture of disruption, and healing can address the illness in its totality. This is whole
person healing.
4. Healing is a Spiritual Activity Actualized by Love
The Integration of the personal center (healing) is possible only by elevation to…the divine center…and that is possible only through the…Spiritual Presence …and the actualizing function is love. 29
28 Tillich, Life and Spirit, 277. 29 Tillich, Life and Spirit, 280.
20
Tillich was saying that healing is first and foremost a spiritual event, a process that
happens (and perhaps is instigated) by that spiritual connection. If love is the drive
towards healing and that impetus comes from the Spiritual Presence, then that
Presence is also Love itself. To me, this means healing is a God-‐mediated event and
establishes the connection between the energy that runs through us, the power of
the Spiritual Presence, the act of healing, and the role of love.
5. Healing is a Multidimensional Activity The healing impact of the Spiritual Presence does not replace the ways of healing under the different dimensions of life. And, conversely, these ways of healing cannot replace the healing impact of the Spiritual Presence… …The ways of healing do not need to impede each other, as the dimensions of life do not conflict with each other. The correlate of the multidimensional unity of life is the multidimensional unity of healing.30
I believe what Tillich was saying here is that all methods of healing can have a place
and an impact in maintaining health. The crucial element though, is not to elevate
them over the spiritual aspect and to recognize the essential part of the Spiritual
Presence in the healing equation. This means that using healing tools like drugs,
surgery, acupuncture, massage, herbs, and other modalities all have a place in the
healing realm. Their power to heal though comes from their activation by the
spiritual energy that runs through us. The Spiritual Presence is the Master Healer
and it imparts the power to heal.
Tillich’s perception of God as ground of being, salvation as “healing through
love”, and healing as a multidimensional activity are important concepts for my
project. Seeing the energy of the universe as the power, essence, and love of God
means that our embodiment by the Holy Spirit is the flow of the power of God
30 Tillich, Life and Spirit, 280-281.
21
within us. This indwelling of power/energy/Spirit/God as both life-‐force and inner
healer opens the door to understanding both how healing occurs in us and through
us. It is natural then to see healing as a spiritual activity, a God-‐mediated process
that brings restoration of our inherent wholeness. This brings me back full circle to
the spiritual focus of my ministry. It is the Spirit that heals.
God is Love
Tillich was a philosopher-‐theologian who formulated a cosmic view of Christ
by considering an existential awareness of God. The wording he used to express the
Divine reveals a transcendent view of God, one that sees God as both the underlying
source of creation and the power that brought it into being. Paul Dirac, a gifted
mathematician of the early 20th century and the father of quantum theory, believed
that the physical universe floats on a sea of virtual energy that is anchored into a
point of ultimate energy that sounds very much like what Tillich is trying to explain.
Tillich took this further, though, seeing that energy as our ground of being and the
essence of unconditional love. To Tillich, the unification of matter and spirit
describes an indwelling of that essence within all of creation. In other words, that
love is not only what permeates us, but it is also the cosmic “soup” we live in. This is
expressed beautifully in this verse from the Book of John:
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:16 NIV)
From an energetic perspective, if each and every particle of creation is truly
an incarnation of divine love, then love is both the energy of the universe and also
what enlivens the human body. This means that not only is energy another word for
22
the presence of Spirit, it is also another word for love and life itself. To me, this
makes an interesting equation of sorts: God=Love=Energy=Spirit=God. In other
words, it is Love that flows through us. It is God that directs our healing. Love is
really all there is.
Expanding the Healing Box
Bringing unfamiliar terms into a theological discussion is a potential way to
disempower the message being conveyed. What is not immediately understood in a
common frame of reference is often dismissed as irrelevant, or worse, considered to
be the antithesis of commonly held opinions about what is valid to be included in a
frame of reference. In many avenues of current Christian thought, I believe Eastern
spiritual practices or methods of healing are challenging concepts and often met
with skepticism, ridicule, or even anger. Speculation could be made that practicing
or advocating their use is not Christian, or somehow dilutes or minimizes the
Christian message. Since I believe there is much to be gained by exploring these
concepts and my project is Christian-‐focused, I felt a discussion of relevance
between the two concepts seemed like a good way to invite a knowing perspective
about my intentions. My remarks are made within the context of the dialogue about
stages of faith that follows.
23
James W. Fowler
In his landmark book, Stages of Faith, James Fowler explored faith
development through studying levels of meaning in our relationship with God and
considering the understanding of theology we embrace along the way. Identifying
six stages of faith progression from a pre-‐stage undifferentiated viewpoint to one
that embraces a universalizing faith, Fowler tracks our views of God, self, and the
nature of our beliefs. A quick overview of each stage makes it easier to follow where
this discussion goes, so I provide this compilation here summarized from Fowler’s
book.31
• Pre-‐Stage: Infancy and Undifferentiated Faith Basis of trust established, courage, hope, and love introduced
• Stage One: Intuitive -‐Projective Faith Fantasy-‐filled, imitative phase when child is powerfully influenced by the faith of important adults in their lives
• Stage Two: Mythic-‐Literal Faith Beliefs, moral rules, and attitudes are appropriated with literal interpretations
• Stage Three: Synthetic-‐Conventional Faith
Conforming stage when expectations and values of significant others form beliefs. Personal ideology not well formed or explored. Deviations from expected values are met with resistance and authority is located in traditional roles and groups.
• Stage Four: Individuative-‐Reflective Faith Demythologizing stage. Self identify and worldview are differentiated from others and the person acknowledges a new frame of reference for meaning and belief.
31 James W Fowler, Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the
Quest for Meaning (NY: HarperCollins, 1981, 1995), 117-211.
24
• Stage Five: Conjunctive Faith Integrative Stage. Strives to unify opposites in mind and experience. Open to exploring other truths, practices, and ideas and to be changed by the experience. Goes to a greater depth in knowing and understanding God, self, others, and the world.
• Stage Six: Universalizing Faith Mother Teresa and Ghandi. Seeks to make real the imperatives of absolute love and justice in the world.
In the discussion that follows, I highlight Fowler’s fifth stage of conjunctive
faith because it provides a framework for understanding how concepts from other
philosophical paradigms can be seen to enhance a particular faith perspective. It is
this stage that serves to connect the theological basis of my project with the Eastern-‐
focused healing practices I chose to incorporate. I offer Bede Griffiths, the
Benedictine Catholic priest who moved to India in the 1950s and helped start the
Christian ashram movement, as an example of conjunctive faith in action.
Griffiths spent over 40 years in India and was firmly rooted in his Catholic
tradition, practicing his faith and saying mass until his death in 1993. Curious about
the Hindu faith, Griffiths also studied the sacred Vedic scriptures of Hinduism. In
these works he found ideas and concepts that were used to expand consciousness
and promote healing of the physical, emotional, and spiritual self. He explored these
practices for his own use and found they enhanced his understanding of spirituality
from both a Catholic and Hindu perspective. Griffiths called this meeting of Eastern
25
and Western traditions interspiritual thought, because it advocated movement
between paradigms while respecting the relative individuality of each paradigm.32
Griffiths found he could be a Catholic, find meaning and value in the
tradition he loved, and still explore the meaning and value of Hinduism as a
complementary path. Fowler calls this fifth stage characteristic dialogical knowing,
letting each entity “speak its own word in its own language.” 33 Griffiths found a
greater depth to his own faith by also listening to the wisdom of another. Fifth stage
faith welcomes the integration of wisdom into personal knowing as a key to
transformation.
Conjunctive faith welcomes opportunities to understand life and the deeper
truth that underlies reality. In my own life this has taken several forms. I have
broadened the scope of my medical practice to include Eastern healing practices
because they offered a different way to understand health and healing, while I
continued to see and value the contributions and practice of Western conventional
medicine. Working with these alternative-‐healing practices also gave me a greater
understanding and appreciation of the life-‐force energy that moves through the
human body. When I came to understand life-‐force energy as the power and love of
the Holy Spirit that, in turn, deepened my Christian faith. Building on that expanded
awareness of the Holy Spirit, I now understand the saving work of Jesus in a more
cosmic sense, and that enhances my belief in God as the ultimate source of energy
and the underlying current of love that permeates all of creation.
32 Wayne Teasdale, Bede Griffiths: An Introduction to His Interspiritual Thought
(Woodstock, VT: SkyLight Paths Publishing, 2003), xiv. 33 Fowler, Stages of Faith, 185.
26
Eastern healing concepts have served to enhance my faith and I offer them in
the context of this project as sacred tools for mind-‐body-‐spirit healing within a
Christian faith perspective. It is the Spirit who heals and Love that saves. To me, that
is a universal truth.
Theoretical Supporting Evidence
How Energy Heals
The energy centers and flows of the body were recognized and mapped by
ancient cultures thousands of years ago. While these energy structures are
generally attributed to Eastern cultures, the concept of energy centers was also
known among the Essenes of ancient Palestine as well as the Islamic Mystics of
Sufism. The Hindu Vedic literature identified seven energy centers called chakras
that function as powerful transformers of prana, which is life-‐force energy. 34 The
word chakra means “wheel of light” and describes the way chakras are understood
to function. Acting as energy transformers, the chakras spin as they shift energy
from higher to lower vibrations and vice versa.35 This transformed energy interacts
with the body in specific ways that support its physical and emotional functioning.
The chakras are named for the part of the body they spin over and exert a
balancing effect on the organs in that location. The seven chakras names are: Root,
34 Information on the chakras is found in the Upanishads, books of Vedic philosophy
that date to 1500 BC and are located in the last four books of the Vedas (called the Vedanta). The chakra information was probably added around 800 BC. These texts are called Tantras, a word that means to extend knowledge in spiritual ways.
35 Cyndi Dale, The Subtle Body: An Encylcopedia of Your Energy Anatomy (Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2009), 239.
27
Womb, Solar Plexus, Heart, Throat, Pituitary (Third Eye), and Pineal (Crown). Donna
Eden, author of Energy Medicine, believes that imbalances in chakra energies reflect
developing disease and “clearing and balancing impaired energies in a chakra can
head off brewing illness and help heal physical symptoms that have emerged.”36 In
addition, the chakras play a role in storing conscious and unconscious memories
and help us find meaning in those experiences by applying developmental and
archetypal filters that are specific to each chakra.37 The chakras also interact with a
system of energy channels called nadis, which are similar to the concept of
meridians in Chinese Medicine.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), prescribed pathways of energy flow
called meridians carry life-‐force energy and act as connectors between the physical
body and its surrounding energy field. The Chinese word for the energy that flows
through the meridians is Chi and is understood as life-‐force energy. Interestingly,
the Chinese character for the word Chi originated from the concept of cloud or
vapor, and the characteristics of Chi are generally thought of as air, breath of life,
and vitality. The Chinese see Chi as the essential life-‐force, the power within us that
brings, sustains, and informs life. 38 It is the flow of Chi that brings healing to the
body.
Healing energy in a Christian context is thought of as the energy of the Holy
Spirit, or what Tillich called the Spiritual Presence. In the Book of Genesis, the Spirit
36 Donna Eden, Energy Medicine (New York: Penguin Books, 1998), 148. 37 Eden, Energy Medicine, 149-‐150. 38 Grace Ji-Sun Kim, The Holy Spirit, Chi, and the Other (New York, NY: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2011), 5-6.
28
of God moves across the water bringing life to the formless earth and is breathed
into the human creation to give it life.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (Genesis 1:1-‐2 NIV) Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7 NIV)
The Hebrew word ruach, which is used to denote Spirit in the Hebrew Bible,
translates as wind, breath, mind, or spirit. God is seen as the creator of ruach.39 In
Hebrew, when the word ruach is applied to humankind, it also has a dimension of
intelligence, conscience, and will. When the ruach of God is inferred, it denotes God’s
own creative power to give life. 40
Similarly in the New Testament, the Greek word pneuma means breath,
movement of air, or wind. When used in reference to humankind, the connotation is
breath of life or life-‐force.41 This understanding of the Holy Spirit as the wind or
breath of God implies a living force that moves through the body, not unlike the
wind that moved across the face of the earth at creation. In each case, movement is
a key concept. The energy of the Spirit flows through the body bringing life, just as
the breath of God moved across the earth bringing life in Genesis 1:1. The Holy Spirit
is the bearer of life-‐force energy.
39 Job 27:3 NIV: “as long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils” 40 Hebrew for Christians.com, John Parsons, “Hebrew Names for God,”
http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Names_of_G-d/Spirit_of_God/spirit_of_god.html, accessed March 19, 2012.
41 Kim, 48.
29
God as Spirit, as wind, as breath could be seen as having some similarities to
the Chinese concept of Chi. Grace Ji-‐Sun Kim, a Methodist pastor and Chinese
National, equates Primordial Chi with the energy of the Holy Spirit as creation life-‐
force, and Substantial Chi as Holy Spirit energy present as the living life-‐force within
the body.42 It is interesting to consider that the prana of India, the Chi of China, and
the energy of the Holy Spirit are all seen as life-‐force energy, and it is that flow of
energy moving through the body that heals, sustains, enlivens, and brings
wholeness.
The Power to Heal
The ancient Greek word dunamis (δύναμις) means strength, power, or ability
and is the root of the English word dynamite. It is used 121 times in 116 verses in
the New Testament, with 83 of the times directly translated as power. The word is
used 15 times in the Book of Luke, more than any other Gospel. 43 According to the
Lukan Scholar, Leander E. Keck, the Gospel of Luke has three main overlying themes
that I see as related to power: the sovereignty of God, the fulfillment of Scripture,
and the scope of Jesus’ redemptive work.44 This book is all about power, but power
displayed in a personal and attentive way.
42 Kim, 57. 43 Thayer and Smith, "Greek Lexicon entry for Dunamis,” The NAS New Testament
Greek Lexicon, 1999. http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/dunamis.html, accessed March 12, 2012.
44 Leander E. Keck, Luke-John, vol. 9 of The New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abington Press, 1995), 20.
30
Luke wants to convey the importance of God’s purposes for the world and
Jesus as the compassionate Savior fulfills these purposes.45 Jesus announces that
salvation is for everyone and all are welcome to come and experience the
redemptive power of that promise. Luke, the masterful storyteller, portrays a Jesus
full of the power of God as he ministers to those in need.
I chose to highlight Scripture from Luke’s Gospel because of this emphasis on
Jesus as both the powerful healer and universal Savior. The verses I selected are
drawn from the healing stories about Jesus and talk about healing occurring as
power is emanating from him.
First, in Luke 6:17-‐19 NIV, when Jesus is choosing the disciples;
Jesus came down with them (the Apostles) and stood on a level place; and there was a large crowd of His disciples, and a great throng of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were being cured. And all the people were trying to touch Him, for power was coming from Him and healing them all. (Emphasis mine)
And second in Luke 8:43-‐46 NIV, in the story of the woman with the issue of blood:
And a woman who had a hemorrhage for twelve years, and could not be healed by anyone, came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak, and immediately her hemorrhage stopped. And Jesus said, "Who is the one who touched Me?" And while they were all denying it, Peter said, "Master, the people are crowding and pressing in on You." But Jesus said, "Someone did touch Me, for I was aware that power had gone out of Me." (Emphasis mine)
In the first pericope, Jesus has just come down from the mountain after
praying and choosing the Apostles. He is now ready to undertake the next phase of
his ministry. Keck states,
45 Keck, 21.
31
“Jesus turns from debates with the Pharisees to instruction for those who have been receptive to his announcement of the kingdom….
…Particularly in Luke, the call to follow Jesus is a call to imitate him.”46
Jesus is now speaking to a large crowd, healing is happening, and the Twelve are
watching. Simply hearing his words heals some, while others reach out to receive
what he is offering. The beauty of these simple words is that they show healing
being given to all, no matter how (or if) they ask. While the Apostles look on, the
NIBC says Luke is giving us another message as well —imitate Christ, do as he does.
In the second example, Jesus is actually on his way to do another healing—
for the daughter of Jarius. On the way there a pressing crowd accompanies him. In
the midst of this one woman is purposely trying to touch his garment. As she does,
her chronic ailment is cured and Jesus turns to notice who it is that touched him
with such intention. Keck contends that this story, in the last part of the eighth
chapter of Luke, concludes a theme of “The Power of God at Work in Jesus.” It is the
third of four miracles that show that “the one who brought the Word of God also
exercised the power of God.” 47 First Jesus calms the storm so he is the Master over
Nature. Then he heals the demoniac and sends the demons into a herd of pigs, so he
is the Master over demons. Finally Jesus heals the woman with the hemorrhage and
raises Jarius’ daughter from the dead; now he is Master over Sickness and Death.48
The message I see here is that nothing is impossible. The woman was healed
because she believed Jesus had the power to heal her. Her intent was to be healed.
46 Keck,136, 139. 47 Keck,183. 48 Keck,183-189.
32
Power is another word for energy and spirit.49 It is also another word for
inherent ability, something that resides in us by “virtue of our nature,” and can be
used for performing miracles.50 This means that we all possess this power through
the Spirit that indwells us so we are equipped to self-‐heal by “virtue of our nature.”
In the verses I cited, Jesus is emanating power. It could be said that his innate ability
to heal, magnified by the Spirit, was released through the flow of energy to those
who received it, so they were healed. Healing then could be seen as both a passive
and an active process. It is available to us through our nature, but we must be open
to receiving it. What Jesus did, he did by the power of the Holy Spirit flowing
through him, which is also energy. What was this accomplishing? People were being
restored to health, to wholeness. They were healed.
Self-‐Healing
It would be easy to say that it was the flow of supernatural energy coming
though Jesus that caused the healings in the Bible to occur, but Tillich had a slightly
different take on this.
Miracles cannot be interpreted in terms of a supernatural interference in natural process. If such an interpretation were true, the manifestation of the ground of being would destroy the structure of being; God would be split within himself. 51
49 Thesaurus.com, “Energy,” http://thesaurus.com/browse/energy?s=t, accessed
March 12, 2012. 50 Thayer and Smith, "Greek Lexicon entry for Dunamis,” The NAS New Testament
Greek Lexicon, 1999, http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/dunamis.html, accessed March 12, 2012
51 Paul Tillich, Reason and Revelation; Being and God, vol. 1 of Systematic Theology (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1951), 116.
33
He contended that nothing in creation happens outside of natural laws,
because that would violate the structure and purpose of the universe. Miracles, he
believed, are just examples of unusual occurrences that happen because we don’t
fully understand the natural laws that are programmed into creation. 52
From an energetic perspective, this makes sense. In Donna Eden Energy
Medicine (EEM), we understand that the body’s energies are both in need of healing
and the provider of healing. This means that it is the distorted energy flow that
shows up to be healed first. Then, after the flow is adjusted, that corrected flow
becomes the medicine for the body, so that the body self-‐heals by bringing all of the
other energies into harmony with the corrected flow. So did the healings in the Bible
occur because supernatural energy healed the body or because the energy coming
from Jesus helped the body to correct and then heal itself? Perhaps Tillich would
say the latter, because supernatural energy is not part of the natural healing
equation.
For this project, that comprehension of healing has interesting possibilities. If
the return to wholeness (healing) is accomplished by an adjustment of the body’s
energies, then an exchange of energy, say by the release of emotions, has the
potential to start a cascade of self-‐healing. From a spiritual perspective, this makes
sense. Jesus used many ways to heal, sometimes touching the person, extending a
hand, or simply speaking a word. All of these caused healing to occur, so all seem to
be ways for energy to be exchanged. If emotions are an expression of spiritual
energy in the body, then it seems plausible that the Holy Spirit could also direct
52 Tillich, Reason and Revelation, 117.
34
healing to occur by the movement of emotional energy. Perhaps this is why
emotional catharsis seems to be a healing occurrence for many people.
Noetic Science
I see the noetic science approach to health as combining the physical and
spiritual components of healing together, and it is pivotal to my work. Also known
as the “new” science, this understanding of life sees the universe as a holistic
enterprise that is made in the image of its underlying field. This “field” is like a
prism, containing a full spectrum of energies that are necessary for the field to be
expressed, and each individual component of the field represents a unique band of
that spectrum. 53
Noetic science believes that everything is part is everything else, and that we
are the field incarnate. In this way, the universe is like a hologram of the underlying
field and retains memory of every aspect of that field. Because of that, our
interconnectedness with each other (and everything else for that matter) is a
necessary part of life. This means we are not only an integral part of the universe,
but whatever we do affects everyone and everything else; it is this unified
integration and coordination of the physical and immaterial elements of the whole
that makes life possible.
This model of connection is not unlike some of the concepts of cosmic
interconnectedness that Tillich suggested in his writings. At the core of the noetic
53 Bruce H. Lipton, “Embracing the Immaterial Universe”, Shift: At the Frontiers of
Consciousness no. 9 December 2005-February 2006, 9.
35
understanding of life is this existentialistic view that we are more than just the sum
of our parts (materialistic reductionism). Each of us is a vital part of the mix and
collectively expresses, defines, and manifests the cosmic whole, which could be seen
as the universal mind of God or Being Itself.
Bruce Lipton is on the forefront of noetic science. A cellular biologist, cancer
researcher, professor, and author, Lipton opened the door to the study of
Epigenetics, the study of how the environment affects genetic expression. His
groundbreaking research connected cellular behavior with perceptions about our
environment and our beliefs, suggesting that not only do our perceptions or beliefs
about life directly affect our health, but also working with these constructs can
positively affect our state of health and wellbeing. Our bodies, he believes, heal or
get sick because of the way we are able to alter the chemical milieu of our bodies to
match the signals we perceive at the cellular level. So the question after this has to
be, how can we do this?
Perhaps Lipton’s words could be construed as saying that our bodies have a
Divine intelligence that comes from being embodied by the energy of the Holy Spirit.
Paul refers to this as the “mind of Christ” that instructs
… not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-‐taught words. (I Cor. 2:13, NIV)
Is the exchange of energy that precipitates healing a “deeper thing of God” that is
Spirit instructed?54 Maybe what Lipton is describing is a new spiritual reality of how
our bodies truly heal.
54 I Cor. 2:10, NIV “The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God”.
36
What this means for my project is that the health and wellness of each and
every one of us is directly affected by, and is impacting, the health and wellness of
everyone else. This would come as no surprise to Paul who had this to say about our
interconnectedness:
For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. (Romans 12:2-‐5 NIV)
Looking at it this way, it seems almost imperative that we embrace our own healing
as a necessary means for helping to heal the world. Perhaps, this is why Jesus was so
adamant about loving one’s neighbor as oneself. In a mystical sense, one’s neighbor
is one’s own self!
Health and Wellness Theoretical Framework
A New Vision of Wellness
A trend in Western medicine since the 1970s has been to see health as a
movable variable that coasts between the states of illness and wellness. John Travis,
a physician pioneer in the field of wellness medicine, developed a “Wellness Model”
that rests on three key concepts. 55
1. Health is a process that exists on an “Illness-‐Wellness Continuum” that is
never static.
2. The state of health or illness is only the tip of the iceberg and the true cause
of both rests on underlying causes.
55 John Travis, MD and Regina Sara Ryan, Wellness Workbook: How to Achieve Enduring Health and Vitality (NY: Ten Speed Press, 2004), xviii- xxv.
37
3. As interconnected human energy transformers, the way we process and
manage energy determines our state of health.
All of these concepts have something to add to the premise of this paper. If
health is not static, then our state of health must constantly be changing as it moves
along the illness-‐wellness continuum. But what is moving? Movement implies
vitality, which is another word for energy and spirit.56 So it could be said that our
state of health is a reflection of the movement of energy within us, which is spirit.
The second concept about the “iceberg” is equally intriguing. Since the base
of an iceberg is always many times larger than its protruding top on the surface, the
underlying factors that determine our health form the structure and support for
everything that follows. The base of our “health iceberg,” noted Travis, rests on
spiritual/being/meaning and includes “your reason for being, the real meaning of
your life, or your place in the universe.”57 This is just another way of saying your
state of spiritual well-‐being is a measure of your self-‐wholeness.
58
56 Thesaurus.com, “Energy,” http://thesaurus.com/browse/energy?s=t, accessed December 26, 2012.
57 Travis and Ryan, xxv. 58 Well People, “A New Vision of Wellness,”
http://www.wellpeople.com/What_Is_Wellness.aspx, accessed February 13, 2013.
38
The third concept says that how we process and manage energy in our
bodies affects how healthy we are. If energy is vitality, and vitality is spirit and
power, then how we relate to that movement of energy through our bodies is
extremely important. In Chapter One, I introduced the concept that emotions are
the primary language of Spirit. This implies that how well we process our emotions,
and their subsequent physical manifestations, is a reflection of that iceberg base in
concept number two. In other words, emotional and physical processing are related
to spiritual well-‐being and our perception of self-‐wholeness.
The Bodymind
This idea of connectedness between our emotions, health, and spirituality
forms the basis for holistic medicine through the mind-‐body-‐spirit paradigm. But
their interrelation is not just a nice idea. Since the 1970s, Western medicine has
been aware of special chemicals in the body called neuropeptides or “messenger
molecules” that can elicit changes in our biochemistry in response to our emotions.
Candace Pert calls these specialized molecules the “bodymind.” The author of
Molecules of Emotion and a pioneer in this field of biomolecular research, Pert made
an interesting statement about the role of emotions in understanding the physiology
of the body.
We can no longer think of the emotions as having less validity than physical, material substance, but instead must see them as cellular signals that are involved in the process of translating information into physical reality, literally transforming mind into matter. 59
59 Candace Pert, Molecules of Emotion (NY: Simon &Schuster, 1997), 189.
39
This means that how emotions are processed in the body makes a difference in the
health of the body. Healthy emotional processing allows the emotion to be
acknowledged, experienced, and released. Unhealthy processing ignores, represses,
and stuffs the emotion, which elicits a stress reaction in the body. Stress is
recognized by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) as a significant component in
over 90% of illness and has a profound effect on the overall health and vitality of the
body. 60 What we do with our emotions, then, appears to be vitally important to
what happens to our health.
The research field that studies this complex relationship is called
psychoneuroimmunology. It looks at how our feelings (psycho), our brain (neuro),
and our immune system (immunology) work together to affect our health and
wellness. Pert believes that the expression of emotions brings wholeness and
wellness to the body, while repressed emotions inhibit the biomolecular feedback
loop that strengthens the immune system and keeps us healthy. 61 Robert S. Ivker, a
physician and past president of the American Holistic Medical Association summed
up her findings this way,
In practical terms, this means that all of us are capable of both weakening and strengthening our immune system by virtue of how we think and feel. Moreover, scientists have also proven that these chemical messages can originate not only in the brain, but also in every cell in the body. As a result, many scientists now believe that the immune system actually functions as a type of circulating nervous system that is actively and acutely attuned to our every thought and emotion. 62
60 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “NIOSH Publications and Products:
Stress… at Work,” http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/99-101/, accessed January 12, 2013. 61 Pert, 273. 62 Larry Trivieri, Jr, The American Holistic Medical Association Guide to Holistic
Health: Healing Therapies for Optimal Wellness (NY: John Wiley and Sons, Inc, 2001), 100.
40
This means that how we feel affects how healthy we are. If emotions are the
primary language of Spirit, then our health is directly impacted by how well we hear
that voice. In other words, Spirit→Emotions→Health.
Deb Shapiro, a noted bodymind therapist and author of Your Body Speaks
Your Mind, made the connection between emotions, energy, and health.
The energy behind what you think and feel does not just disappear if it is held back or repressed. When you cannot, or do not, express what is happening on an emotional or psychological level, that feeling becomes embodied…until it manifests through the physical body.63
This means that when an emotion is not processed, the energy of it is retained. The
message hasn’t gone away just because it has been ignored. The retained energy is
stored somewhere in the body, a process of compartmentalizing that often leads to
somatic complaints that reflect where and what is being stored. For this study,
patterns of emotional and physical body awareness are studied to shed light on
where that compartmentalizing may be occurring, and how that correlates to
perceptions of spiritual well-‐being and self-‐wholeness.
Body Mapping
Body maps are interactive therapeutic embodiment tools for dialoging with
the physical body. Developed by Jonathan Morgan and Jane Solomon as a tool for
helping people living with HIV/AIDS to tell their life stories through expressive art,
63 Deb Shapiro, Your Body Speaks Your Mind (Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2006),
17.
41
the tool has subsequently been used by various researchers to explore a variety of
physical and emotional issues. The strength of the body mapping process lies in its
ability to directly connect the person with his or her story in a concrete and
observable fashion.
Morgan and Solomon believe that constructing a body map is a life-‐changing
event that gives people “a better understanding of themselves, their bodies and the
world they live in” by combining art therapy, narrative therapy, and body work.64
Because body mapping is an experiential method of story-‐telling, it allows issues,
traumatic memories, and body sensations to be processed in a non-‐threatening
manner. The body map functions as a projected image of the person it represents,
which provides some distance and safety from the memories being evoked through
the use of the tool. That unusual perspective offers a unique way to “be” the body
and view it at the same time, making it easier to dialogue with the self through a less
threatening third-‐party lens. This makes it an excellent tool for healing work as well
as a participatory qualitative research tool.65
The body mapping process has also been found useful in helping people to
talk about and relate to their bodies in situations that do not involve trauma or life-‐
threatening illness. Jacob Meiring and Julian Muller used it as a narrative research
tool to explore elements of body awareness and integration as a measure of
embodied holistic spirituality. Building on the work of James Nelson, Meiring and
64 Jane Solomon, Living with X: A Body Mapping Journey in the Time of HIV and
AIDS, Facilitator’s Guide (Johannesburg: REPSSI, 2007), 2-3. 65 Jacob Meiring and Julian Muller, ‘Deconstructing the Body: Body Theology,
Embodied Pastoral Anthropology and Body Mapping,’ (Verbum et Ecclesia 31(1) 2010), 4.
42
Muller drew on Nelson’s foundation of “body theology” to implement a study that
looked at body integration as an indicator of spiritual connectedness within
society.66 After studying the body maps from their participants, they concluded:
“Body mapping definitely increases awareness of one’s own bodylines and of a
holistic embodied spirituality and can contribute to a sense of acceptance of the
body-‐self.”67 Because of the ways that body mapping has been used in this and other
applications, it offers an open template for exploring patterns of body awareness
expressed in mind-‐body-‐spirit connections.
66 Meiring and Muller, 3. 67 Meiring and Muller, 6.
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Chapter Three
This chapter provides the nuts and bolts of my project. Starting with the
thesis statement, research question, and the objectives of the study, I establish a
firm foundation for understanding the flow of the project. Moving into the details of
methodology and implementation, I detail the research design, tools, and procedure
followed in the execution of the project. Time is devoted to presenting and
understanding the research tools in relation to the concepts of self-‐wholeness and
body awareness, while keeping the anchoring statements in the forefront of the
discussion.
Thesis Statement The body exists as a multidimensional being, indwelt by the Holy Spirit and infused
with spiritual life-‐force energy that communicates through the expression of
emotions. Patterns of emotional, physical, intuitive, and energetic body awareness
when correlated with spiritual wellbeing, can be seen as barometers of self-‐
wholeness.
Research Question How is the perception of self-‐wholeness, as assessed through the four spiritual
languages of the body and measures of spiritual well-‐being, an expression of the
embodied image of God within?
44
My objectives in exploring this thesis and question are:
1. To discover emotional-‐physical patterns in the body and analyze them in
relation to known energy flows and centers in the body.
2. To interpret these identified emotional-‐physical-‐energetic relationships
through a spiritual/intuitive-‐knowing lens that brings perceptions about
God, self, and the world into dialogue.
Research Method
This project is a type of narrative research based on The Spiritual Wisdom
style of theological reflection articulated by Groome, Killen, and de Beers in their
book Theological Reflection: Methods. This style of reflection utilizes “movements-‐
toward-‐insight”, a process of examining the details of one’s own story and coming to
insight by reflecting on the feelings and images generated by the experience.68
In designing this project, I looked for tools that would facilitate this
movement-‐toward-‐insight by offering opportunities to dialogue with the body on
many different levels. Acknowledging that the field of holistic health embraces a
mind-‐body-‐spirit orientation, I looked for resources that would be inclusive of this
direction. I settled on a combination of self-‐expressive tools that employ a focused
creative approach to body dialogue and a linear tool that evaluated perceptions
through a Likert scale. The self-‐expressive tools are subjective instruments that
move the participants from a passive observation of their current emotional state to
68 Robert L. Kinast, What are They Saying About Spiritual Reflection? Mahwah, NJ:
Paulist Press, 2000, 21.
45
active engagement with different types of body awareness. The Likert scale offers
an objective means to measure subjective perceptions about God, self, and world.
Instruments of Assessment and Evaluation In this project, I used three tools for assessment and evaluation: visual
journaling, body mapping, and The Spiritual Well-‐being Scale. Opportunities for
group discussion were also provided to allow for selective sharing of thoughts and
insights about the exercises and to allow for integration of the experience.
1. Visual journaling is a creative self-‐expression tool for exploring
emotional states through art. I used it three times during the project: at the
beginning of the retreat, at the end of the retreat, and at the two month
follow up meeting. The purpose in using it was to give the participants a
tangible reflection of where they were emotionally at different stages of the
project.
Visual journaling is the brainchild of two expressive art therapists,
Barbara Ganim and Susan Fox, who discovered that using the language of
visual imagery helps express deeply held thoughts, feelings, and emotions
which are barometers of spiritual connection Building on the belief that
“imagery is the bodymind’s primary means of inner communication” they
developed a series of focused art-‐based exercises to explore this internal
dialogue and give it expression. 69 I chose their “check-‐in” exercise for this
69 Ganin and Fox, 1-2.
46
project because it can be completed in about 10 minutes and provides an
overview of current emotional state.
a. The Check-‐in Exercise
1) Set the intention to be focusing on current emotional state.
2) Breathe deeply to relax and focus on the body.
3) Note which part of the body the participant is drawn to.
4) Notice what physical sensations become apparent in that
body area.
5) Imagine what that physical sensation would look like as a
visual image.
6) Draw the image.
7) Complete the eight clarifying and exploring questions about the image that was drawn.
b. The Eight Clarifying and Exploring Questions
a. As you look at your check-‐in drawing, how does it make you feel?
b. What does this drawing tell you about how you feel emotionally?
c. How do the colors make you feel?
d. Is there anything in your drawing that disturbs you? If so, what? Write a few sentences on your paper about how or why this part disturbs you.
e. What do you like best about your drawing? Write a few
sentences about how this part makes you feel.
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f. What have you learned from this drawing about what you feel?
g. Are these emotions related to a particular current issue or
concern? If so, what is it?
h. Does knowing what you feel about this issue or concern help
you deal with it? If so, how?
2. Body Mapping is a therapeutic embodiment technique that is also self-‐
expressive. I used it assess four types of body awareness: emotional,
physical, intuitive, and energetic. This technique allows for the participant’s
own story to be viewed in a concrete observable fashion (on the map), while
offering a safe space for the necessary insightful perceptions to be drawn and
considered. The participants were given a handout with detailed instructions
for completing the body map for each section of body awareness. After
making the annotations for emotional, physical, and intuitive body
awareness, the participants used a set of body-‐dialogue questions before
moving onto the energy mapping process.
a. Emotional Body Awareness
Using red letters (F, AN, Ax, W, S, H)* and notations, label on the body map where you experience each emotion, by answering the questions below.
1. Where do I feel this emotion in my body? 2. What does this emotion feel like (sharp, soft, big, little, jagged,
etc.)? 3. What is the message behind this emotion? 4. What would I like to say to this emotion?
48
*F is fear, AN is anger, Ax is anxiety, W is worry, S is sadness, H is happiness b. Physical Body Awareness Using Blue marks and notations, label on the body map where you experience physical issues, such as:
Aches and Pains Physical Symptoms Illnesses (current, chronic, or recurrent)
c. Intuitive Body Awareness Using green dots and notations, mark your answers to the questions below:
1. How (and where) do you experience a sense of God, deep
truth, or inner wisdom in your body? 2. How would you describe this understanding of God’s presence
in your body? d. Now look at the Body Map as a whole. Do you see any connections between where you placed your blue marks (physical issues), your red marks (where you feel your emotions), and your green marks (where you experience intuitive knowing)?
What do you see?
How do you feel when you look at your body map? What is your body saying to you? “I feel___________________________________________”
“I need__________________________________________” “I want__________________________________________” “I am____________________________________________” Other: “___________________________________________________” What do you want to say to your body?
Do you see a connection between how you perceive your body and how you sense God to be? If yes, in what way?
49
Do you think how you perceive your body and God affects how you see the world? If yes, in what way?
The body mapping exercise was completed over a three-‐hour time
frame. Once the map was finished, it provided a graphic depiction of where
emotions were felt, physical sensations or illness occurred, and intuitive
knowledge perceived. The map was then correlated to the energy centers
and flows of the body using The Roby Chart and a meridian map.
Meridians, key to traditional Chinese medicine, are channels of energy
that run along both the surface of the body and permeate its core. They are
named for the organ they govern or the primary function they serve. Each
meridian “lives” on a particular element in Traditional Chinese Medicine
(TCM) and has certain emotional characteristics associated with it because of
this relationship.70 TCM recognizes twelve regular meridians that traverse
the front and back of the body, and two special ones that wrap vertically
along the central core of the body. For the purpose of this study, only the
twelve regular meridians were considered. The meridian map I chose shows
these meridian pathways in color, using a different color for each meridian.
As an adjunct to this map, I also provided a table listing meridian-‐element-‐
emotion correspondences. The participants used the meridian map and table
to note correlations between their body map notations and these flows of
energy.
70 Five Element Theory, a staple of TCM, is beyond the scope of this paper. For
additional reading on this subject, see the Bibliography for appropriate resources.
50
The Roby Chart is a compilation aid that details correspondences
between body parts, energy structures (chakras), and emotions. Constructed
by Cheryl Roby, a former management executive turned holistic health
practitioner, the chart brings insights from medical intuition, psychotherapy,
and Eastern medicine to bear on the location of illness in the body. 71 The
project participants used The Roby Chart as an insight-‐guide to their
completed body maps.
Using Chakras and Meridians as tools for correlating energy flows to
emotions employs a transcultural approach to studying body awareness.
Much like the crossover of meditation with prayer in mystical Christianity,
using Eastern concepts of energy to inform a Western understanding of
healing brings a greater understanding of how the two complement each
other.
e. Energetic Body Awareness Step 1: Look at your completed body map and write down where you noted emotions and physical issues.
Now look at the Meridian Diagram and notice which meridians run through those areas. If you marked anything occurring on your back, consider that to be a Bladder Meridian area. Write down which meridians seem to be related.
Look at the chart below (See Appendix for Meridian-‐Emotion Chart). It lists emotions associated with each meridian.
Write down which emotions are related to the meridians you identified from your body map.
71 Cheryl Roby drew specifically the work of Caroline Myss and Louise Hays
(medical intuitives), as well as Dorothy Martin-Neville, PhD (psychotherapist). See Bibliography for additional resources by these authors.
51
Step 2:
Now look at The Roby Chart. The chart is color-‐coded to correspond to each chakra.
First chakra is Red Fifth chakra is Blue Second chakra is Orange Sixth chakra is Black Third chakra is Yellow Seventh chakra is Purple
Fourth chakra is Green
Notice which chakra areas contain your notations about emotions and physical issues. Write them below.
Look at The Roby Chart again. On the left side of the chart, each chakra is listed along with the theme that is associated with it. The main part of the chart shows beliefs that correspond to the different parts of the body in each chakra.
• Write down the themes that relate to each chakra you listed.
• Write down the beliefs that relate to any body parts you experience problems with.
What insights about your body map did you gain from looking at the meridians and chakras?
After completing the correlations between The Roby Chart and the
meridian map, the participants organized their responses from the whole
body mapping exercise into one final body dialogue summary. The purpose
of this last step was to highlight the conclusions they drew about body
awareness, self-‐wholeness, and embodied spirituality.
52
Concluding Body Dialogue
1. Where on your body map did you note emotions, physical issues, and intuitive knowing?
2. What connections did you see between all three?
3. Which meridians did you identify as being related?
4. Which chakras did you identify as being related?
5. What body parts did you identify that had beliefs noted on the Roby Chart?
6. How did you feel when you finished the whole exercise and observed all the connections on the body map?
7. How did you answer these body dialogue questions from your body’s perspective:
a. I feel_______________________ b. I need______________________ c. I want_____________________ d. I am_________________________
8. What did you say to your body in response?
9. Did you see a connection between how you view your body and how you see God? If yes, how?
10. Did you see a connection between how you see your body and God and how you view the world? If yes, how?
11. Do you have any additional insights or comments to add?
3. The Spiritual Well-‐Being Scale (SWBS) is an established and validated
Likert Scale inventory that measures three variables: Religious Well-‐Being
(RWB), Existential Well-‐Being (EWB), and overall Spiritual Well-‐Being
(SWB). I administered it twice to the participants: at the beginning of the
retreat and at the two-‐month follow-‐up meeting.
53
Developed by Raymond F. Paloutzian, PhD and Craig W. Ellison, Phd, the
scale was devised to measure perceived spiritual quality of life in both
religious and existential terms. The term “spiritual well-‐being” is meant to
describe two things: how people see their relationship with God (or their
spiritual being) and their sense of satisfaction with their life or purpose in
life. The SWBS has established good reliability and validity since its
publication in 1982 and has been used in over 1000 research studies across a
variety of disciplines, including health care and pastoral settings.72 The tool
is a twenty item self-‐administered instrument that takes 10-‐15 minutes to
complete. Each item is scored on a 6-‐point Likert scale that ranges between
“Strongly Agree” and “Strongly Disagree.” When tallied, the scores are
grouped into levels of well-‐being that reflect degrees of satisfaction with life,
self, and God.
The Project Overview
Wanting to look at the interconnectedness of spirituality and healing, I
devised a project that would allow me to blend my work in holistic healing with my
skills as a spiritual director. Coming from both a conventional and complementary
medical background, I knew that physical and emotional health are deeply
interrelated, but I wanted to explore how that relationship might be a mirror for our
72 Raymond F. Paloutzian, PhD, and Craig W. Ellison, PhD, Life Advance: Manual
for the Spiritual Well-Being Scale Version 1.1, 2009, http://www.lifeadvance.com/spiritual-well-being-scale.html, accessed 2/21/2013.
54
sense of spiritual connection as well. Postulating that our intuitive voice was an
internal spiritual director, I wondered if correlating physical, emotional, and
intuitive body awareness with some measure of spiritual connectedness might shed
light on what that mirror was actually reflecting. It was an intriguing idea and a
challenging possibility to consider. Armed with many books and a resonating
internal compass, I devised a weekend retreat to explore the possibilities.
The Retreat
My project was a weekend retreat that focused on exploring mind-‐body-‐
spirit components of healing by focusing on body awareness, spiritual connection,
and emotional processing through energy work. Run from Friday evening through
Sunday afternoon, the participants engaged in a mix of carefully selected activities
to explore this interrelationship of spirituality and healing. As emotions were
purposely being evoked through the weekend exercises, additional support staff
(energy medicine teaching assistants) was available to assist participants in moving
through emotionally charged reactions in a safe and supportive environment.
On Friday evening, the group gathered to consecrate the space for the
weekend. An altar was constructed on a low rectangular table covered with a
handmade Peruvian cloth. Participants had been invited to bring an object with
them that had special or sacred meaning for them and those were placed on the
altar along with a vase of flowers. Each participant also wrote an intention for the
weekend on a piece of paper, folded it, and added it to the altar. The group joined
hands encircling the altar, and it was blessed through Scripture and prayer. Two
55
verses of scripture were selected for the weekend and the participants were
encouraged to reflect on them throughout the weekend. They were:
I am fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14 NIV)
The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Gen 2:7 (NIV)
The first verse was selected to highlight the connection between the physical
and spiritual aspects of creation. If something is “made” with intention and declared
to be “wonderful,” it has great significance. One of the definitions of “fearful” is
reverence, which implies respect for what is being created. 73 The word
“wonderfully” means something that has been done in an outstanding or
exceedingly pleasing way. To be “wonderful” also means to be awesome, amazing,
and unique.74 To be created with reverence in an exceedingly pleasing way means
that we have been created with great care, respect, and amazement. We are unique
and awesome in Divine eyes. This perspective provides a foundation for the work to
follow in the retreat. If we are so valued by God in how we were made, what does
that say about how we should see ourselves as well?
I selected the second verse because it emphasizes our Divine embodiment.
Human life happened because we have the breath of life within us. This means that
without that breath, we are not alive. If it is Divine energy that gave us life, it is still
Divine energy that continues it. This verse implies the idea of “gift.” We were given
73 Dictionary.com, “Fearful,” http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fearful,
accessed 1/8/2014. 74 Dictionary.com, “Wonderfully,”
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wonderfully?s=t, accessed 1/8/14.
56
the gift of life by the Divine embodiment of the Holy Spirit. We are intimately
connected to God by that breath of life, because it is God’s breath within us.
The giving of a gift is a core concept in Christianity. Jesus is God’s gift to the
creation and he opens the doorway to the gift of eternal life. Gifts are given to those
who have value, so humankind is both highly valued and divinely gifted. One of the
key concepts of the weekend retreat was to bring this idea of personal value and
self-‐worth into focus. The gift of life, both ours and through Jesus, imbues us with
sacred worth through the power (and energy) of the Holy Spirit. How we perceive,
recognize, and attend to the flow of spirit energy within says a lot about how we
embody that divine image as well.
After the blessing of the altar, two preliminary activities were completed: the
Spiritual Well-‐Being Scale to assess a base line of spiritual connectedness and a
visual journaling exercise to explore current emotional state. The rest of the evening
was free time.
On Saturday morning, an optional yoga class was offered before breakfast
then followed by the morning group activity of body mapping. Using a detailed
handout of instructions for constructing and annotating the maps, participants
made color-‐coded markings to delineate where they experienced emotions, physical
sensations or illness, and intuitive guidance in their bodies. Then they considered
their completed body maps from an energetic perspective by correlating their
annotations with a meridian map and The Roby Chart. The activity ended by
dialoging with the body map using a series of guided questions to draw conclusions
about self-‐wholeness, body awareness, and embodied spirituality. After asking
57
permission from each participant, pictures were also taken of the body maps for use
in this study.
On Saturday afternoon, the group reconvened to discuss the body mapping
exercise and learn techniques to process emotions through energy work and
spiritual reflection. The afternoon concluded with free time, dinner, and an optional
visit to the ashram’s Saturday evening interfaith worship service.
On Sunday morning, yoga and breakfast were repeated, and then the group
reconvened for group check-‐in and discussion. The emphasis in this time was
reflecting on Saturday’s activities and where that had led them to today. The group
was also offered resources for follow up after the retreat. These included a list of
books for further reading, local energy practitioners, suggestions for continued
journaling and reflection, and the selection of a date for the two-‐month follow up
meeting. The discussion was followed by group energy work with partners to
deeply balance and clear the body’s energy flows and centers using a chakra-‐
clearing exercise and guided visualization. After lunch, the retreat was closed with
the following activities: dismantling the altar, expressing gratitude to the space and
each other, offering prayers for Divine guidance and grace, and a group blessing.
Anointing with oil for healing was also offered to those who wished to receive it.
A follow up activity of visual journaling, retaking the Spiritual Well-‐Being
Scale, and group discussion was offered two months after the retreat to reassess
spiritual self-‐awareness and self-‐wholeness after a period of integration.
58
The Location
An Interfaith Ashram in south-‐central Virginia was selected as the retreat
location. Secluded in the rolling hills at the base of the Shenandoah Mountains,
Yogaville offers beautiful and peaceful surroundings on 600 acres of Virginia
countryside. Sri Swami Satchidananda started the ashram in 1980 as a spiritual
center that welcomed all faiths. Best known as the “Woodstock Guru,” since he
opened that iconic music festival in 1969 with a prayer for peace and world unity,
the guru received many honors for his public service including the Albert
Schweitzer Humanitarian Award, the Juliet Hollister Interfaith Award, and the U
Thant Peace Award. Since his death in 2002, the ashram has continued its interfaith
outreach providing retreat facilities for religious and secular groups on its spacious
and serene grounds. Most important for my purposes, the ashram offered a private
house with spacious accommodations, a kitchen, and a large meeting room with
abundant windows that overlooked the river gorge. The hot tub onsite was a plus.
The natural setting with trees, water, and solitude provided a safe and nurturing
“container” for the deep healing work of spiritual connection, introspection,
emotional processing, and release that my project entailed. Finding a site that
would nourish and ground my participants was a primary consideration for the
retreat, and the ambience of Yogaville was instrumental in holding that space.
The Participants
The participants were elicited by emailing a flyer about the retreat to the
email list for my complementary medicine practice. I did this to ensure that the
59
people signing up for the retreat would already have an interest in spiritual work,
would be open to exploring body awareness, and would be familiar with the concept
of energy work. Those expressing an interest in the activity were prescreened to
determine an expressed belief in God (on some level of understanding) before being
accepted for participation and were told the retreat would have a Christian focus.
The workshop was limited to the first 10 people who met this criterion. While I was
not averse to having men in the workshop, my client population is 75% female, so I
was not surprised that those expressing interest in the retreat were all women.
The participants ranged in age from 30 to 73. One person was of Indian
ethnicity and the rest were Caucasian, which reflects the ethnic mix of my practice.
Seven participants worked outside the home, two were stay-‐at-‐home moms, and
one was retired. Seven women were married, one divorced, one widowed, and one
single. Religious affiliations expressed were: one Episcopal/Unitarian, one
Episcopal, one Baptist, four Catholic, one Methodist, one Hindu, and one Undeclared.
Declared income levels were: less than $50,000 (none), $50,000-‐$100,00 (four
people), $100,000 or greater (six people). Educational level attained: High School or
less (none), Some College (two people), Graduated College (four people), Graduate
Degree (four people). All participants lived in Virginia.
Two additional people attended the retreat to serve as assistants. Both were
female. One was in the process of completing her second year of energy medicine
practitioner certification, and the other was a yoga instructor who had taken one
year of energy medicine training.
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The Plan
Friday
1. The retreat was conducted on the weekend of October 11-‐13, 2013.
Participants had the option of meeting at a central location to carpool to
Yogaville or arriving separately. The drive from Fredericksburg, VA took 2 ½
hours, and directions were provided for everyone.
2. Arriving at the ashram, the participants were directed to the private retreat
house and spent an hour settling into their rooms and exploring the venue.
3. On check-‐in, each participant was given a special bag for the weekend
containing art materials (colored pencils, markers, and an art pad), a blank
journal and pen, a folder with retreat materials, and an index card to write an
intention for the weekend.
4. Dinner was served in the main ashram dining room at 5:30pm, and the
participants had free time until 7:00pm, when the group convened at the
retreat house for the first time.
5. The altar was constructed and blessed.
6. The Spiritual Well-‐being Scale was administered and the visual journaling
exercise completed.
7. Participants had free time for the rest of evening or could participate in
optional evening activities (hot tub, drumming on the terrace, etc).
Saturday
1. Optional morning yoga before breakfast, then breakfast in the retreat house.
2. Morning session of body mapping.
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3. Lunch in the ashram dining hall, then free time to rest/meditate/etc.
4. Afternoon session of group discussion about the body mapping activity,
followed by a lesson in processing emotions through energy work and
guidance on spiritual processing through journaling, prayer, and meditation.
5. Free time until dinner in the ashram’s dining hall, followed by optional
attendance at the ashram’s interfaith worship service or additional free time
in the evening.
Sunday
1. Optional morning yoga before breakfast, then breakfast in the retreat house.
2. Morning session of group check in, then energy work to balance and clear
stagnant energy flows and centers.
3. Lunch in the ashram’s dining hall.
4. Visual journaling exercise and retreat closing. Altar deconstructed and group
blessing.
5. Return home.
Two-‐Month Follow up
1. Gathered at a local yoga studio in Fredericksburg, VA for potluck lunch and
discussion on Sunday, December 15 from 1:00-‐4:00pm.
2. Re-‐administered the Spiritual Well-‐Being Scale and repeated the visual
journaling exercise. (With written permission of the participants, photos
were taken of all three visual journaling pictures created for this retreat.)
3. Group discussion and reflection about:
a. The retreat and where they are now.
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b. The difference between the visual journaling pictures they made at
the retreat and now, and what that means to them.
c. Comments about the body map interpretations I sent them.
d. Reflections about changes in their perceptions about God after the
retreat and in relation to their body maps.
e. Suggestions for going forward.
The Energy Work Inherent in body mapping is the realization that emotions will be evoked as
the story of the body is told. We are like onions. On the surface we have a thick skin
and keep ourselves well wrapped in this protective coating. Once an avenue for
emotional release is provided, though, the skin splits, and the tender flesh of the
underlying layers appears. As emotions are identified and the body mapping
experience unwraps itself onto the body map, the layers continue to peel away,
exposing more and more of our vulnerabilities and wounds.
When the map is finished, we are laid bare, the story of our emotional
wounds fully displayed in the pattern of physical symptoms and illness that present
before us. Coupled with correlations to the energy flows and centers of the body,
the map unravels the complex relationships between who we are and where we
hurt. Participating in body mapping is an invitation to vulnerability. Asking anyone
to do this without providing a cocoon of safety and support is unfathomable. That’s
why I brought additional energy practitioners to the retreat and why I devised the
retreat to couple body mapping with energy work. During the retreat the additional
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practitioners were utilized to assist in the activities and to offer support to the
participants. All of the participants experienced at least one emotional release
during the weekend and were attended to by the practitioners.
One of the most beautiful things about the human body is its ability to self-‐
heal. If we fall and skin a knee, it will heal by itself. The body releases chemicals into
the bloodstream that direct blood to clot and the skin cells to begin the process of
repair and restoration. Overnight the body produces a living Band-‐Aid that seals the
wound and protects it from further injury. When healing is complete, the scab falls
off and new skin is revealed; we did nothing consciously to make this happen. The
body is equipped to heal. This is also true for emotional healing. When emotions
become overwhelming we cry, letting our bodies release the feelings of sadness
along with our tears. Other times strong emotions produce wailing, yelling or verbal
barrages that serve as cathartic releases for emotions that need releasing. This is
healthy and good and means that the normal process of acknowledging the emotion,
feeling it, and letting it release are functioning, as they should. When this doesn’t
happen, and emotions become stuck and compartmentalized, the healing ability of
the body is hindered. Energy work helps the body remember how to move and
process those stuck emotions through simple, gentle techniques.
The energy techniques that were chosen for the retreat are based on the
work of Donna Eden and her Energy Medicine modality. Each participant was given
a handout in their folder called “Dealing with Difficult Emotions” that detailed seven
energy techniques for processing emotions and handling stress. These techniques
were taught during the retreat on Saturday afternoon. On Sunday morning, an
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additional deeper healing technique was done in pairs that allowed emotions to be
cleared from different layers of the chakras, helping old and stagnant emotional
energy to release and clear.
1. The Seven Energy Techniques for Emotional Processing
a. Deep breathing for emotional healing • Hold the center of the breastbone as you begin • Close your eyes and breathe deeply into your belly while
inhaling through your nose. Exhale though your mouth while pulling in the belly muscles. 1. As you inhale say: “I breathe in forgiveness.” 2. As you exhale say: “I breathe out guilt ”
Continue 3-‐5 minutes
b. Heart Chakra Clearing • Make slow, counter-‐clockwise circles over the middle of your
chest with one of your hands for several minutes while breathing slowly
c. Forehead Hold • Lay the palm of one hand across your forehead • Lay the palm of the other hand across the back of the head • Breathe and hold for several minutes while allowing the
emotion to be felt
d. Mellow Mudra • Make an "O" with your thumb and first finger, with the thumb
covering the nail of the finger • Place thumbs on your temples and lay the 2nd and 3rd fingers
over your forehead • Breathe slowly and deeply while you lightly hold this
position for several minutes and focus on what is bothering you
e. Releasing the Venom
• Starts with both arms by your sides • Make a fist with both hands and swing arms over your head. • Come down forcefully, making a “shh” sound while you
release your fists. Repeat two more times. • Repeat one more time, but this time come down slow and
controlled.
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f. Nine Hearts • Nine Hearts: activates all your radiant joy circuits!! • Trace three hearts around your face starting at the
forehead • Trace three hearts starting at mid-‐chest and going down to
the pubic bone • Trace hands back up to chest and put hands in prayer
position • Trace heart upwards over head and down to mid-‐thigh,
repeat x2 more
g. Heart Prayer • Cross hands over the indentation in center of your breastbone
and intertwine thumbs • Close eyes and breathe gratitude into your heart • Hold for 2 minutes or longer
2. The Chakra Clearing and Balancing Technique Divide into pairs, with one person acting as the practitioner and the other as the client.
Easy Chakra Balancing
a. Do a spinal flush on your client
• Have the person sit backwards on a chair then:
• Put one hand on the top of the spinal column and one hand on the bottom and hold for one minute
• Stretch the back • Go down each side of the spinal column (not on the spine
itself), starting at the top, with your thumbs or knuckles. Use firm pressure. Do this twice.
• Sweep the energy down from shoulders to sacrum twice, then on the diagonal from shoulder to opposite hip twice.
b. Have the client lay down on her back on a padded surface. Cover her with a blanket.
c. Place one hand under her body below the waist and one hand on top of the body below the naval.
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• Gently rock her for a minute or two, then stop and leave your hands in place for another minute.
d. Remove your hands and place them about 6 inches above the body over the first and second chakras (above pubic bone and right below naval)
e. Circle both hands counterclockwise (towards your left) for two minutes.
f. Move hands to second and third chakra (one hand below naval and one hand above) and repeat the circling motion.
g. Move to third and fourth chakras (one hand above naval and one over heart) and repeat the circling motion.
h. Move to fourth and fifth chakras (heart and throat) and repeat circling motion.
i. Move to fifth and sixth chakras (throat and forehead) and repeat circling motion.
j. Move to sixth and seventh chakras (forehead and crown of head). Leave forehead hand still, and circle crown hand for one minute.
k. Go back down to first chakra and make clockwise circles (toward your right) for two minutes with one hand.
l. Make large clockwise circles over all the chakras together for one minute.
m. Make figure 8’s over all the chakras together for one minute.
The Body Map Interpretation Process
As a way of tying up loose ends that the body mapping process may have left
for the participants, I prepared a summary and interpretation for each person’s
body map, which was emailed to them several weeks after the retreat. Drawing from
their final body dialogue summary and picture of their completed body map, I pulled
together the highlights of the map and commented on themes I observed using my
energy medicine background and Shapiro’s book Your Body Speaks Your Mind as a
guide. These synopsis summaries of the completed body maps were shared with
the individual participants for their own knowledge and understanding. I used the
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summaries as a way to bring the information from the body maps into dialogue with
my research question and thesis statement. Those discussions are part of my next
chapter.
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Chapter Four
In this chapter, I will look at the information I collected from my retreat
project and consider how it answers my research question, addresses my thesis
statement, and fulfills my objectives. I have assigned a number to each participant in
the study to protect their privacy and am using selected pictures of their visual
journaling exercises and body maps with their written permission.
Self-‐Wholeness and Embodied Spirituality
My premise in this project was that connections between the emotional-‐
physical-‐spiritual dimensions of our selves are not always apparent on a conscious
level. This plays out in having a somewhat constricted view of self, which translates
into a constricted view of God and the world. This means that the image of God we
hold externally is really the image of God we hold internally. That image is our
perception of embodiment, or how we see God living within us. Our grasp of that
interrelationship between how we see ourselves, and how we see God, is our degree
of spiritual embodiment, where the spiritual and physical come together.
Research Question Revisited
My research question addressed the interrelationship of self-‐wholeness and
embodied spirituality. In the thesis statement, I ventured that these concepts could
be studied by looking at body awareness and spiritual well-‐being. To study these, I
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used three assessment tools: visual journaling, body mapping, and The Spiritual
Well-‐Being Scale. The information they provided allowed me to meet my stated
objectives:
• To study emotional-‐physical patterns in the body and analyze them in
relation to known energy flows and centers in the body.
• To interpret these identified emotional-‐physical-‐energetic relationships
through a spiritual/intuitive-‐knowing lens that brings perceptions about
God, self, and the world into dialogue.
The project results are presented by examining what the tools captured:
A. Visual Journaling and Emotional State Summaries
B. The Spiritual Well-‐Being Scale Results
C. Body Mapping and Body Dialogue Summaries
In addition, I have included a reflection on the energy techniques that were used to
process the emotions evoked by the body-‐mapping activity.
A. Visual Journaling and Emotional State Summaries
The project participants were asked to complete the visual journaling
exercise three times: at the beginning of the retreat, at the end of the retreat, and at
the two-‐month follow up meeting. Three of the participants did not do the exercise
at the end of the retreat for unknown reasons, and three were not able to attend the
two-‐month follow up meeting and did not do a third drawing. Four people
completed all three of the visual journaling exercises. After completing a drawing,
the participants were asked to reflect on it through the lens of eight clarifying
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questions (See Appendix A) that looked at the feelings embedded in the picture, and
then journal about their perceptions. At the two-‐month follow up meeting, I asked
the participants to sum up, in a few words, what had changed emotionally for them
in their drawings. All of the participants indicated experiences of growth
characterized by these statements:
“I am ready to fly instead of hide.”
“I see the fear that has been hidden and needs to come out.”
“I had so much anger and now I don’t.”
“I am comfortable seeing myself.”
“I love myself a lot more.”
“I know I can heal now.”
The drawings below, from Participant #2, are an example of how the
drawings progressed from the first to the last exercise. Her comment was “I
understand so much better who I am, my pieces are coming together.”
First Drawing Second Drawing Third Drawing
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B. The Spiritual Well-‐Being Scale (SBWS) Results
The SBWS gives three scores: Overall Spiritual Well-‐Being (SWB), Religious Well-‐
Being (RWB), and Existential Well-‐Being (EWB). Once tallied, the scores are divided
into three levels of perceived well-‐being relevant to the category they were
assessing. 75
Scoring Interpretation
SWB Score Interpretation
100-‐120 High overall spiritual well-‐being
41-‐99 Moderate overall spiritual well-‐being
20-‐40 Low overall spiritual well-‐being
RWB Score Interpretation
50-‐60 Reflects a positive view of one’s relationship with God
21-‐49 Reflects a moderate sense of religious well-‐being
10-‐20 Reflects a sense of unsatisfactory relationship with God
75 All scoring information taken from Raymond F. Paloutzian, PhD, and Craig W. Ellison, PhD, Life Advance: Manual for the Spiritual Well-Being Scale, Version 1.1, 2009, 5-6.
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EWB Score Interpretation
50-‐60 Suggests a high level of life satisfaction with one’s life and a clear sense of purpose
21-‐49 Suggests a moderate level of life satisfaction and purpose
10-‐20 Suggests a low satisfaction with one’s life and possible lack of clarity about one’s purpose in life
Participants SWBS Scores
Two sets of scores are presented for each participant. The first set is from
administration of the scale at the beginning of the first evening of the retreat. The
second set was collected at the two-‐month follow-‐up meeting. Since three
participants did not attend the two-‐month follow up, only one set of scores is
presented for them. Their second set is marked “NA.”
Table 1.1: Participant #1 SWBS Beginning
of Retreat Level of Well-‐being
Two Months Later
Level of Well-‐being
SWB 103 High 103 High
RWB 48 Moderate 52 Positive
EWB 55 High 51 High
Table 1.2: Participant #2 SWBS Beginning
of Retreat Level of Well-‐being
Two Months Later
Level of Well-‐being
SWB 112 High 113 High
RWB 55 Positive 55 Positive
EWB 57 High 58 High
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Table 1.3: Participant #3 SWBS Beginning
of Retreat Level of Well-‐being
Two Months Later
Level of Well-‐being
SWB 82 Moderate 86 Moderate
RWB 45 Moderate 47 Moderate
EWB 37 Moderate 39 Moderate
Table 1.4: Participant #4 SWBS Beginning
of Retreat Level of Well-‐being
Two Months Later
Level of Well-‐being
SWB 77 Moderate NA NA
RWB 40 Moderate NA NA
EWB 37 Moderate NA NA
Table 1.5: Participant #5 SWBS Beginning
of Retreat Level of Well-‐being
Two Months Later
Level of Well-‐being
SWB 82 Moderate 103 High
RWB 45 Moderate 52 Positive
EWB 37 Moderate 51 High
Table 1.6: Participant #6 SWBS Beginning
of Retreat Level of Well-‐being
Two Months Later
Level of Well-‐being
SWB 101 High NA NA
RWB 50 Positive NA NA
EWB 51 High NA NA
Table 1.7: Participant #7 SWBS Beginning
of Retreat Level of Well-‐being
Two Months Later
Level of Well-‐being
SWB 82 Moderate 85 Moderate
RWB 43 Moderate 45 Moderate
EWB 37 Moderate 40 Moderate
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Table 1.8: Participant #8 SWBS Beginning
of Retreat Level of Well-‐being
Two Months Later
Level of Well-‐being
SWB 107 Moderate 113 High
RWB 56 Positive 60 Positive
EWB 51 High 53 High
Table 1.9: Participant #9 SWBS Beginning
of Retreat Level of Well-‐being
Two Months Later
Level of Well-‐being
SWB 109 High NA NA
RWB 60 Positive NA NA
EWB 49 Moderate NA NA
Table 1.10: Participant #10 SWBS Beginning
of Retreat Level of Well-‐being
Two Months Later
Level of Well-‐being
SWB 83 Moderate 100 High
RWB 40 Moderate 48 Moderate
EWB 43 Moderate 54 High
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Discussion of SWBS Scores
SWB
On the first administration of the SWBS, four participants tallied a “high” SWB score,
and six tallied a “moderate.” There was no one in the low category. On the second
administration two months later, there were five “high” scores and two
“moderates,” with three not available (NA). Two participants advanced from a
“moderate” to a “high” level. Six participants increased their SWB scores, one stayed
the same, and three are not available.
Table 2.0: Summary of SWB Scores and Levels Score Participants
#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10
SWB 1 103 112 82 77 82 101 82 107 109 83
Level of Well-‐being
High High Mod Mod Mod High Mod High High Mod
SWB 2 103 113 86 NA 103 NA 85 113 NA 100
Level of Well-‐being
High High Mod NA High NA Mod High NA High
Score +/-‐ 0 +1 +4 NA +20 NA +3 +6 NA +17
Level Changed?
No No No ? Yes ? No No ? Yes
RWB
On the first administration of the SWBS, four participants tallied a “positive” RWB
score, and six tallied a “moderate.” There was no one in the low category. On the
second administration two months later, there were five “high” scores and two
“moderates,” with three not available (NA). Two participants advanced from a
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“moderate” to a “positive” level. Six participants increased their RWB scores, one
stayed the same, and three are not available.
Table 3.0: Summary of RWB Scores and Levels Score/Level Participants #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10
RWB 1 48 55 45 40 45 50 43 56 60 40
Level of Well-‐being
Mod Pos Mod Mod Mod Pos Mod Pos Pos Mod
RWB 2 52 55 47 NA 52 NA 45 60 NA 48
Level of Well-‐being
Pos Pos Mod NA Pos NA Mod Pos NA Mod
Score +/-‐ +4 0 +2 NA +7 NA +2 +4 NA +8
Level Changed?
Yes No No ? Yes ? No No ? No
EWB
On the first administration of the SWBS, four participants tallied a “high” EWB score,
and six tallied a “moderate.” There was no one in the low category. On the second
administration two months later, there were four “positive” scores and three
“moderates,” with three not available (NA). Two participants advanced from a
“moderate” to a “high” level. Six participants increased their EWB scores, one
decreased their score, and three are not available
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Table 4.0: Summary of EWB Scores and Levels Score/Level Participants #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10
EWB 1 55 57 37 37 37 51 37 51 49 43
Level of Well-‐being
High High Mod Mod Mod High Mod High Mod Mod
EWB 2 51 58 39 NA 51 NA 40 53 NA 54
Level of Well-‐being
High High Mod NA High NA Mod High NA High
Score +/-‐ -‐4 +1 +2 NA +14 NA +3 +2 NA +9
Level Changed?
No No No ? Yes ? No No ? Yes
Summary of Score/Level Changes
SWBS Levels
One participant increased levels on all three scores on the second administration of
the SWBS. One participant increased on two levels (SWB and EWB), and one
participant one level (RWB).
Table 5.0: Summary of Changes in SWBS Levels Levels Participants #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10
↑SWB Level
X X
↑RWB Level
X X
↑EWB Level
X X
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SWBS Scores
Five participants increased all three scores on the second administration of the
SWBS. One participant increased in two categories (SWB and EWB), and one
participant went up in one category (RWB) and down in one category (EWB). Three
were not available.
Table 6.0: Summary of Changes in SWBS Scores Scores Participants #1 #2 #3 #4
NA #5 #6
NA #7 #8 #9
NA #10
↑SWB Score
X X X X X X
↑RWB Score
X X X X X X
↑EWB Score
X X X X X X
↓SWB Score
↓RWB Score
↓EWB Score
X
Summary of Discussion of Scores and Implications of SWBS Scores
In looking at the SWBS scores, two things stand out for me. First, all of the
participants experienced an increase in at least one score from the first to the
second administration (except for the three participants who are NA), and most
increased in all of them. This tells me something altered their perceptions of
spiritual well-‐being between the first and second administration. Of course, I can’t
know what occurred in their lives in that time period, but the one thing they all have
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in common is their experience of the retreat. While my subject number is very low,
and the results can’t really be extrapolated to larger groups, it is of interest to note
this occurrence and speculate that the retreat activities may have caused a shift in
some level of spiritual embodiment to make this possible.
The second thing that stands out is the dramatic increase in the scores of two
participants (#5 and #10). On SWB, participant #5 increased her score 20 points
and advanced from the “moderate” to the “high” level of spiritual well-‐being. The
other participant increased 17 points and increased her level from “moderate” to
“high” as well. Both of them had the greatest increase in the EWB score, increasing
14 points and 9 points respectively. This suggests a great shift in spiritual
embodiment, again possibly caused by the retreat activities.
One of the strengths of the SWBS is that it provides a measure of the spiritual
dimension of overall health, and the scores (overall and in subsets) have been
validated to correlate positively with positive self-‐concept, sense of purpose in life,
physical health, and emotional adjustment. They have the converse relationship
with ill health, emotional maladjustment, and lack of purpose in life. 76 Considering
the increase in scores across the board for the majority of the participants, it seems
reasonable to conclude that self-‐concept, purpose in life, physical health, and
emotional adjustment were positively impacted by the retreat in some way and
reflected in the increase in scores.
76 Raymond F. Paloutzian, PhD, and Craig W. Ellison, PhD, Life Advance: Manual for the Spiritual Well-Being Scale, Version 1.1, 2009, 4.
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C. Body Mapping and Body Dialogue Summaries
The body mapping exercise had four components to be annotated: emotions,
physical symptoms and illness, intuitive knowing (God awareness), and energy
correlations. Each participant dialogued with the map by considering each of these
components separately, then considered the map as a whole. Some of the maps
were very detailed, with additional notes, illustrations, and comments scattered
around the body outline. Others were constructed with minimal markings, detailing
only the specific questions asked. The individual body maps are detailed in the next
section in conjunction with the overall SWBS for each participant.
The Spiritual Well-‐Being Scale in Dialogue with the Body Maps
The SWBS offers an objective measurement of the spiritual dimension of overall
health. Body mapping provides a visual picture of perceived overall health. How
does one inform the other? For each participant I have brought together the initial
SBW score (SWB 1), a summary of their body map, a brief interpretation of the map,
a picture of the map, and a discussion of the findings.
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Participant #1
Age: 40
SWB 1: 103 (High sense of spiritual well-‐being)
Emotional/Physical/Intuitive: • Feels most emotions in head, chest, and gut.
o Anxiety in gut, especially lower belly o Sadness in chest o Fear in gut o Anger in head and wrists
• Physical issues experienced in head and gut (headaches, tension, Irritable Bowel Syndrome)
• Intuitive knowing experienced in chest, gut, and hands. • Body parts identified through The Roby Chart as problematic: head, stomach,
intestines, rectum Energy Assessment:
o Primary chakras affected: second (joy and intuition) and seventh (spiritual connection)
o Primary meridians affected: stomach (worry), GB (anger), TW/small intestine (anxiety), large intestine (letting go). I also felt kidney had a role too (fear).
Map as a whole:
• “I am holding lots of emotion in my gut and I am trying to ignore it, and that gives me headaches.”
• “My body is trying to tell me to let it all go” • “I see my body as an expression of God within, so I might be having trouble
hearing God too.” • “The world is a filter through which I see God, but it sounds like my body is
too. If my body is full of anger, anxiety, and tension maybe that is what is keeping me from hearing God.”
Interpretation: Experiences most emotions and physical ailments in the core of the body, along the
midline. Energies suggest issues with releasing worry, anxiety, and fear, as well as
difficulties with embracing joy and feeling connected to God.
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Discussion: The SWB score indicates high overall SWB, yet the participant expresses difficulty
hearing (and connecting) with God. This is supported by the energy assessment,
which suggests difficulty with spiritual connection and joy. What does this mean?
One possibility is a disconnection between what she perceives God to be and what
her experience of God is. She seems to be having trouble hearing her body as well.
While the body expresses a need to “let go,” that may also be the filter she needs to
apply to her experience of God. “Letting go” makes space for a new perspective to
come in, perhaps one of joy.
Participant #1
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Participant #2
Age: 50
SWB 1: 112 (High sense of spiritual well-‐being)
Emotional/Physical/Intuitive: • Feels most emotions in throat, chest, neck, and solar plexus
o Anxiety in chest o Sadness in chest, neck o Fear in gut o Anger in side/back of head, neck o Worry in gut
• Physical issues experienced in back of head (migraines), heart (palpitations), gut (GERD)
• Intuitive knowing experienced in heart, lower belly, head, left palm • Body parts identified through The Roby Chart as problematic: head, brain,
knee, feet Energy Assessment:
o Primary chakras affected: second (joy and intuition), fourth (love and connection), fifth (self-‐expression), sixth (abstract thought)
o Primary meridians affected: kidney (fear), stomach (worry), gallbladder (anger), bladder (fear)
Map as a whole:
• “I feel my body has a lot to tell me, but I haven’t been listening.” • “I feel God is unknowable…but that is shifting…now feel appreciation and
love…and awe. Tuning into my body really is connecting with God.” • “Can I accept myself the way I am? Can I accept God?”
Interpretation: Experiences most emotions and physical ailments from the waist up. Energies
suggest issues with stagnant worry, anger, and fear, as well as difficulties with
embracing joy, expressing love for self, and seeing the bigger picture of her life.
Heart issues are related to the fourth chakra with its themes of love and connection
and may reflect feeling disconnected from both God and self. Since this participant
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sees God as unknowable, this may also reflect seeing self as unknowable, which may
confound the feeling of disconnection.
Discussion: The SWB score indicates high overall SWB, yet the comments express that God is
“unknowable.” The participant also mentions that listening to her body has been an
issue. Perhaps the body is unknowable as well? Her perception seems to be shifting
as she acknowledges that knowing and accepting self may be the keys for doing the
same with God. The energy assessment suggests that the keys for this may be in
embracing joy, loving self, and seeing her purpose.
Participant #2
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Participant #3
Age: 56
SWB 1: 82 (Moderate sense of spiritual well-‐being)
Emotional/Physical/Intuitive: • Feels most emotions in gut and throat
o Sadness in gut o Fear in gut and throat o Anger in throat
• Physical issues experienced in sinuses, neck, stomach, left arm and knee, right ankle, lower back
• Intuitive knowing experienced in throat • Body parts identified through The Roby Chart as problematic: back, neck,
throat, lower back, large intestine Energy Assessment:
o Primary chakras affected: first (safety and security), second (joy and intuition), and fifth (self-‐expression)
o Primary meridians affected: kidney (fear), stomach (worry), gallbladder (anger), bladder (fear), large intestine (letting go), Triple Warmer (anxiety)
Map as a whole:
• “I am afraid to stand up for my self. I don’t have any support.” • “I took my body and God for granted.” • “I am here in the world to experience trials so I can grow. Life is stressful” • “I guess God wants me to go through this stuff.”
Interpretation: Experiences most emotions and physical ailments in torso and neck. Energies
suggest issues with releasing worry, anger, anxiety, and fear; as well as difficulties
with feeling safe, embracing joy and expressing her needs. Sees God as potential
source of her estrangement from self.
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Discussion: The SWB score indicates moderate overall SWB, which is reflected in the comments
about God “wanting” her to experience trials and seeing life experience as difficult
and unsupported. The energy assessment parallels this by indicating issues with
safety (vulnerability), joy, and unspoken needs.
Participant #3
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Participant #4
Age: 61
SWB 1: 77 (Moderate sense of spiritual well-‐being)
Emotional/Physical/Intuitive: • Feels most emotions in the center part of her body
o Sadness in chest and throat o Fear in the solar plexus o Worry in the lower abdomen
• Physical issues experienced with her gut (digestion, and GERD). • Intuitive knowing experienced in chest and gut. • Body parts identified through The Roby Chart as problematic: stomach,
intestines, throat, ankle Energy Assessment:
o Primary chakras affected: second (joy and intuition) and third (empowerment)
o Primary meridians affected: stomach (worry), kidney (fear), liver (anger)
Map as a whole:
• “I feel like my body is trying to get rid of my stuck emotions, but I don’t know how to let them out.”
• I feel like the world is overwhelming and I have too much to do and no one to help me.”
• “I feel like God is too busy for my needs. My stuff is not important enough for God to care about. I should be able to take care of myself.”
Interpretation: Experiences most emotions and physical ailments from the neck to the lower belly.
Energies suggest issues with stagnant worry, anger, and fear, as well as difficulties
with embracing joy and feeling empowered. Sees God as distant and unconcerned.
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Discussion: The SWB score indicates moderate overall SWB, which is reflected in her comments
about feeling the world is “overwhelming” and God “too busy” for her needs.
Additionally she refers to being unworthy of God’s attention. The energy
assessment underscores this by noting issues with empowerment. She may also
perceive her body as disempowered by not knowing how to release stuck emotions,
which is overwhelming as well.
Participant #4
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Participant #5
Age: 44
SWB 1: 82 (Moderate sense of spiritual well-‐being)
Emotional/Physical/Intuitive: • Feels most emotions in head, neck, shoulders, back, heart, hip, uterine area
o Sadness in heart, head and lower belly o Fear in lower belly and chest o Anger in throat, shoulders o Anxiety in jaw, throat, shoulders, chest, lower belly
• Physical issues experienced in head and neck (headaches and tension), lower belly (infertility and pain)
• Intuitive knowing experienced in heart and perimeter of body • Body parts identified through The Roby Chart as problematic: head, neck,
shoulders, collar bone, uterine area, right hip and SI joint, calves, jaw, back Energy Assessment:
o Primary chakras affected: second (joy and intuition), and fifth (self-‐expression)
o Primary meridians affected: kidney (fear), stomach (worry), gallbladder (anger), liver (anger), large intestine (letting go), Triple Warmer and small intestine (anxiety)
Map as a whole:
• “I feel betrayed by God because I couldn’t get pregnant.” • “I feel like a failure in the eyes of the world, self, and God.” • “My body feels closed, tight, and stagnant.” • “I feel like I can’t let go of anything.” • “God forgot about me.”
Interpretation: Experiences most emotions and physical ailments in her head, neck, and torso.
Energies suggest issues with releasing worry, anger, anxiety, and fear; as well as
difficulties with embracing joy and expressing her needs. Sees God as unconcerned
and unreliable.
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Discussion: The SWB score indicates moderate overall SWB, which is reflected in her
disappointment with God and herself, and her perceived disapproval by God. The
energy assessment suggests that joy may be found by paying attention to her own
needs. If she can allow herself to feel and express concern for self, then may be she
can allow God to do the same.
Participant #5
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Participant #6 Age: 52
SWB 1: 101 (High sense of spiritual well-‐being)
Emotional/Physical/Intuitive: • Feels most emotions in throat, solar plexus (stomach), jaw and eyes
o Worry in jaw, stomach and lower belly o Anxiety in jaw, stomach, lower belly, and Right wrist o Sadness in stomach o Fear in stomach, neck, lungs, and heart o Anger in eyes and jaw
• Physical issues experienced in thyroid and excess weight • Intuitive knowing experienced in gut • Body parts identified through The Roby Chart as problematic: neck, thyroid,
stomach, jaw Energy Assessment:
o Primary chakras affected: second (joy and intuition), third (empowerment), fourth (love and connection), fifth (self-‐expression)
o Primary meridians affected: stomach (worry) and kidney (fear) Map as a whole:
• “The world has perfections and imperfections. I guess I do too and probably God. Maybe we are all the same.”
• “I feel God is an intelligent life-‐force that I have no control over. I seem to have some control over my body, but I’m not always able to figure out how to best express that control or get that desired outcome”
• “I don’t feel as connected to my body as I would like, and probably not to God either.”
Interpretation: Experiences most emotions and physical ailments in the head and torso. Energies
suggest issues with stagnant worry and fear, as well as difficulties with embracing
joy, feeling empowered, and expressing love for self. Feels disconnected from God
and self.
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Discussion: The SWB score indicates high overall SWB. While the participant expresses
conflicting views about God and self, there is also an overall feeling of acceptance
expressed in her comments about the world, self, and God all having perfections and
imperfections. The energy assessment suggests that worry and fear may be affecting
her ability to feel joyful and empowered, perhaps informing her feelings of
disconnection to God and self.
Participant #6
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Participant #7
Age: 43
SWB 1: 82 (Moderate sense of spiritual well-‐being)
Emotional/Physical/Intuitive: • Feels most emotions down core of body, head, throat, diaphragm, large
intestine, rectum o Sadness in throat and torso (core) o Fear in groin o Anger in head o Worry in head o Anxiety in lower belly
• Physical issues experienced in throat (hoarseness), Stomach (GERD), lower belly (Constipation)
• Intuitive knowing experienced in hands, arms, head, and gut • Body parts identified through The Roby Chart as problematic: sinuses,
mouth, wrists, ankles, ovaries, gut, upper back and shoulders, neck Energy Assessment:
o Primary chakras affected: first (safety and security), second (joy and intuition), fifth (self-‐expression), sixth (abstract thought)
o Primary meridians affected: kidney (fear), bladder (fear), Triple Warmer (anxiety), and stomach (worry)
Map as a whole:
• “I tend to sense God being outside my body.” • “I don’t feel connected to the world and subsequently don’t feel connected to
my body.” • “I feel like I don’t know my body. I feel isolated and alone. God is far away.”
Interpretation: Experiences most emotions and physical ailments in head, throat, and belly.
Energies suggest issues with stagnant worry, anxiety, and fear; as well as difficulties
with feeling safe, embracing joy, expressing her needs, and seeing the bigger picture
of her life. Sees God as distant.
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Discussion: The SWB score indicates moderate overall SWB, which is reflected in her statements
about feeling God is far away. The energy assessment suggests that worry and fear
may be contributing to feelings that it is unsafe to be joyful and express her needs,
and perhaps to allow herself to have a closer relationship with God.
Participant #7
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Participant #8
Age: 44
SWB 1: 107 (High sense of spiritual well-‐being)
Emotional/Physical/Intuitive: • Feels most emotions in core of body, extending up to head, down back of
head and neck and through upper back. o Worry in head o Anxiety in chest and belly o Sad and achy in right upper torso (breast?) o Fear in belly
• Physical issues experienced in lower belly (constipation and pain) • Intuitive knowing experienced in chest • Body parts identified through The Roby Chart as problematic: head, back,
and lower belly. Energy Assessment:
o Primary chakras affected: second (joy and intuition), third (empowerment), fourth (love and connection), and sixth (abstract thought)
o Primary meridians affected: kidney (fear), stomach (worry), large intestine and lung (letting go), Triple Warmer (anxiety)
Map as a whole:
• “I feel God is not there to answer my questions. It’s hard to feel his presence.” • “I feel the world is a weight on my shoulders when my connection to myself
and God are not in sync.” • “I feel like my body is saying lighten up, give me room…uncontrollable/out of
control.” Interpretation: Experiences most emotions and physical ailments in head, chest, and belly. Energies
suggest issues with releasing worry, anxiety, and fear, as well as difficulties with
embracing joy, feeling empowered, feeling love for self, and seeing the bigger
picture of her life. Sees God as unresponsive and disconnected from self.
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Discussion: The SWB score indicates high overall SWB, although the participant feels that God is
unresponsive to her needs. The energy assessment suggests that worry, anxiety,
and fear maybe keeping her from embracing the fullness of love and joy in her life,
including the closer relationship with God that she desires.
Participant #8
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Participant #9
Age: 73
SWB 1: 109 (High sense of spiritual well-‐being)
Emotional/Physical/Intuitive: • Feels most emotions in core of body, from top of head to groin.
o Worry in throat o Anger in head and chest. o Sadness ears and in lower belly o Fear in lower belly
• Physical issues experienced in eyes, ears, throat, lungs • Intuitive knowing experienced in heart, hands, feet • Body parts identified through The Roby Chart as problematic: ankles, knees,
and shoulder Energy Assessment:
o Primary chakras affected: first (safety and security), second (joy and intuition), third (empowerment), fifth (self-‐expression), seventh (spiritual connection)
o Primary meridians affected: spleen (worry), stomach (worry), kidney (fear), heart (anxiety)
Map as a whole:
• “I feel like God is in me and I in God.” • “I see my body, God, and the world this way: in the way that nature abhors a
vacuum…the strength of my body to create and hold space so that the winds rush in and out…there is no tension in a being that allows itself to be breathed, sung, etc…” “being breathed/sung, I value the strength to choose to remain expanded. Letting God/spirit whoosh in/out, no tension in the mind of the universe.”
Interpretation: Experiences most emotions and physical ailments in head and torso. Energies
suggest issues with stagnant worry, anxiety, and fear, as well as difficulties with
feeling safe, embracing joy, feeling empowered, speaking her truth, and feeling
spiritually connected. Sees God as part of her.
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Discussion: The SWB score indicates high overall SWB and this is reflected in the participants
feeling that she and God are intertwined. The energy assessment suggests that
worry, anxiety, and fear may be keeping her from experiencing that relationship in
all its fullness, even though she does express apparent satisfaction with it.
Participant #9
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Participant #10
Age: 58
SWB 1: 83 (Moderate sense of spiritual well-‐being)
Emotional/Physical/Intuitive: • Feels most emotions in chest, back, and head
o Worry in stomach o Anger in back o Anxiety in gut o Fear in chest and back o Sadness in chest
• Physical issues experienced in back, gut, chest, excessive weight • Intuitive knowing experienced in chest • Body parts identified through The Roby Chart as problematic: back, lungs,
intestines, stomach, feet Energy Assessment:
o Primary chakras affected: second (joy and intuition), third (empowerment), fourth (love and connection)
o Primary meridians affected: stomach (worry), kidney and bladder (fear), lung (letting go)
Map as a whole:
• “I feel that the world is a difficult place. Life has a lot of trials.” • “I feel like conventional church stifles me. God feels unapproachable most of
the time. Some times I feel him in nature, but I know I have to do this myself.” • “I feel like my body is saying we have to be careful. I need to protect myself.”
Interpretation: Experiences most emotions and physical ailments in chest, back, and gut. Energies
suggest issues with releasing worry and fear, as well as difficulties with embracing
joy, feeling empowered, and feeling love for self. Sees God as unapproachable and
distant.
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Discussion: The SWB score indicates moderate overall SWB, which is reflected in the
participant’s comments about the world been a difficult place with trials and God’s
unapproachability. The energy assessment suggests that worry and fear about those
issues may be blocking her ability to feel self-‐empowered, joyful, and able to connect
with God.
Participant #10
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Reflections on the Energy Techniques used for Emotional Processing
A. Seven Techniques for “Dealing With Difficult Emotions”
During the day as the participants were participating in the body
mapping activity, many of them experienced an emotional release. Several
expressed this by crying, one by getting angry and yelling at her body map,
one by going outside and ranting at God, and one by pounding her fists on the
floor and berating herself. As each of these releases happened, an assisting
practitioner used one or more of the seven energy techniques to help the
participant process the emotion.
On Saturday evening, after concluding the body mapping activity, the
participants were taught all seven of the energy techniques so they could
continue to use them for self-‐care. As the participants continued to release
emotions throughout the rest of the weekend, many of them commented on
the usefulness of the techniques for helping them to move through the
underlying emotion and return to a state of calmness. At the two-‐month
follow up meeting, these seven techniques were mentioned repeatedly as the
most useful thing they took away from the retreat and continued to use.
B. “Easy Chakra Balancing”
On Sunday morning, a deeper energy healing technique was
introduced as a group exercise. Energetically, emotions that are not
acknowledged, processed, and released can become stuck in the body and
contribute to physical illness. The body mapping process highlighted where
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some of those emotional and physical patterns were being held. While the
physical releases that the participants experienced helped to move some of
these stuck patterns, a deeper technique produces more profound healing.
The chakra balancing activity required the participants to work in
pairs and use their hands to interact with their partner’s energy fields. After
the exercise concluded, the participants reported a deep sense of calm and a
great feeling of love for the person they ministered to. At our closing
ceremony later in the day, many of the participants expressed appreciation
for learning and experiencing the technique and asked for a written copy of
the technique so they could use it with others.
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Chapter Five
In this chapter, everything comes together. I begin with a review of why this
study was undertaken, revisit key concepts culled from the biblical-‐theological
underpinning, summarize pertinent points drawn from the study results, and
explore the current relevance and future implications of what I found through this
research. Woven throughout all of my discussion, the web of embodied spirituality
encircles my conclusions and supports the possibilities they suggest. God is truly in
the details.
Research Recap
I started this paper by looking at perceptions of health from two
perspectives: the Western (allopathic) medicine paradigm, which is largely based on
disease management, and the holistic approach that considers disease just a part of
the whole picture of illness and health. My study has a holistically-‐based context,
because it looks at the interwoven relationship of all dimensions of healing. It
branches off to become more spiritually focused when the container for the project
becomes the interrelationship of the holistic paradigm with embodied spirituality,
and uses that as a measure for self-‐wholeness.
I speculated that how we see ourselves as “whole” beings has a lot to do with
how we see our bodies, and that perception of self has a lot to do with how we see
God and the world. In designing my project, I built upon that speculation by using
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research tools that captured perceptions about wholeness by bringing the body into
dialogue with the self in an intentional way. I looked at emotions, physical
symptoms and illness, and intuitive knowledge as barometers of this sense of
wholeness, and then brought those concepts into play as harbingers of our relative
connectedness to God and our spiritual selves. In short, I wanted to consider if how
we saw God was a reflection of how we saw ourselves, and if so, was that perception
an indicator of how self-‐whole we saw ourselves to be.
I refined that question by bringing in the concept of spiritual embodiment, or
how we perceive the image of God as an integral part of ourselves. I proposed that
having a greater perception of spiritual embodiment would be an indicator of a high
degree of self-‐wholeness, as well as the converse relationship. If the God we embody
is a mirror of how we see ourselves, then our degree of spiritual embodiment is a
product of our perceived self-‐wholeness.
This means the more constricted the view of self, the more constricted the
view of God. The God we embody is as big, or as small, as we allow the Divine to be.
Because we can’t see the spiritual part of who we are, it becomes easy to minimize
or marginalize its significance. We like to feel in control of life; something you can’t
reach out and grasp with your five senses is uncontrollable, so God is externalized in
an attempt to maintain control of the physical body. But just because we choose to
see God “out there” instead of “in here” doesn’t make it so. Our bodies know, on
some level, that God is very much a part of the picture, and our emotions are the
indicators of that presence.
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Tillich and Energy
Spiritual embodiment depicts the relationship between our inner spiritual
awareness and the other aspects of self. If we consider that the body is constantly in
dialogue with itself in an attempt to maintain functioning balance, it makes sense
that something is directing that discussion. As a Christian, I see that “something” as
the Holy Spirit. As the director of our healing, the Spirit perfuses our body with the
life-‐force energy that makes life, and the process of healing, possible.
In the New Testament, Jesus heals with the power of the Holy Spirit through
the energy the Spirit imparts. These healing stories are miraculous because they
defy the limitations we define for how healing happens. Paul Tillich, the 20th
century philosopher/theologian I discussed in chapter two, saw miracles as things
we don’t understand, because our definitions are lacking. Spirit-‐generated life-‐force
energy is the power of creation given to us for our self-‐healing, and it is unlocked by
acknowledging the presence of the Creator within who lives in that flow of energy.
Spiritual embodiment is as much about recognizing our own imprint of divinity as it
is seeing the Divine within.
This is a perspective that I believe Tillich would have no difficulty
understanding. Tillich saw God and the creation as fully manifest within each other.
How much we acknowledge that presence of Spirit as the source of our life-‐force
energy has everything to do with how we see our relationship with the Source itself.
God as life-‐force energy is also God of power, love, light, and creation.
As Christians, we are taught early in our faith-‐journey that God lives in us
through the indwelling Spirit, so the concept of spiritual embodiment is a tenet of
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our faith. We might equate this with salvation, the mystical act of Jesus taking up
residence in our hearts that comes with accepting the gift of everlasting life that he
offers. Tillich expanded that definition of salvation to include a return to the
“wholeness” we were given in our creative beginning. Jesus, as Savior, turns on the
energetic “switch” that helps that wholeness to fully manifest. Perhaps Tillich might
call spiritual embodiment an awareness of cosmic salvation on an individual basis,
because both are intertwined and mutually dependent.
By using the SWBS as a measure of spiritual connection in this study, I am
inviting that concept of salvific awareness to extend to positive perceptions of God,
self, and world. If self-‐wholeness means to feel a sense of completeness that reflects
a deep integration of all aspects of self—physical, emotional, and spiritual—then
unity of the self-‐whole person brings contentment and a sense of connection to the
Divine that awakens an awareness of joy. This means self-‐wholeness is a state of
being that is constantly in the process of becoming, or in Tillich-‐terms, constantly
becoming aware of salvation. Is salvation a process? To consider salvation as a
healing return to wholeness means it is a dynamic occurrence and a living process.
This is not so different from what Paul said when he states in Philippians 2:12-‐13
NIV:
…continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
How does God “work” in us? Through the power (energy) of the Holy Spirit that
indwells all of us. What is “God’s good purpose?” In Chapter two I noted that Tillich
says it is to bring us to wholeness. If God’s good purpose is for us to be healed,
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saved, and restored as Tillich implied, then how spiritually embodied we perceive
ourselves to be reflects how well we are living out that divine purpose. Stated
another way, spiritual embodiment and self-‐wholeness are two sides of the same
coin.
The Project, the Tools, and the Results
In the ongoing dialogue with the body, Spirit speaks with an emotional,
physical, intuitive, and energetic voice that we perceive and act on both consciously
and subconsciously. This embodied voice of Spirit I call the Four Spiritual
Languages of the Body, because it encompasses four types of body awareness. To
tap into this divine communication system, I considered body awareness to be a
reflection of spiritual embodiment, and I used three tools to address this
relationship— visual journaling, body mapping, and The Spiritual Well-‐Being Scale
(SWBS).
1. Visual Journaling
The visual journaling exercise gave the participants a tool to creatively
express their emotional state before, after, and two months after the retreat.
Through observing changes in their drawings and discussing their symbolic
meaning, the participants drew conclusions about their emotional/spiritual growth.
Across the board, the comments indicated movement towards a greater
understanding of self and a greater comfort with the process. I believe this reflects
more compassion for self that came from experiencing the body mapping exercise
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on the retreat, and learning to process and release the emotions that were
associated with it.
2. Body Mapping
In the body mapping exercise, the participants used the map as a sort of
“external” self that became a projected view of themselves. In a sense, they were
observing their total-‐self from a third party perspective. In doing so, they gained a
deeper understanding of the Four Spiritual Languages of the Body by observing the
markings they made on the map.
If body awareness is considered a measure of self-‐wholeness, then increased
perceptions of self-‐wholeness would seem to have occurred by participating in the
body mapping exercise. All of the participants reported a greater understanding of
their body, emotions, and patterns of illness after completing the map. By observing
the map over the course of the weekend, and later at home, the participants
reported at the two-‐month follow up meeting that they continued to feel a greater
connection to themselves and God. One participant mentioned that she felt God must
be loving to have given her such a strong body that was able to endure so much, a
marked change from her expressed feelings prior that God was “too busy” for her
needs.
It appears that seeing the body in this mirrored way on the body map also led
to some surprising conclusions about how this external map of themselves reflected
their internal map of spiritual embodiment. In their concluding statements about
the body maps, the participants dialogued with the completed map in an intentional
way about God awareness. Most of the participants saw similarities between how
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they saw themselves and the world, and how they viewed God. This, in turn, seems
to reflect a greater perception of their degree of spiritual embodiment.
Surprising to many of them were the overlapping patterns of different types
of body awareness that the maps visibly displayed. Areas where they experienced
the most emotions and intuitive hits also tended to be areas where they experienced
physical issues, and these associations were mirrored in the meridian and chakra
correlations.
Equally interesting to me was the response the body mapping exercise
evoked in the participants. Prior to the activity, three of the ten participants
expressed fear about doing it. Two were excited but seemed unsure about how
difficult it would be to complete the body map, while the remaining five participants
seemed ready to just roll with experience. During the activity, a range of emotions
were evoked and expressed, including anger, fear, sadness, anxiety, confusion, joy,
and compassion for self. Although the energy practitioners who were assisting with
the retreat were excellent about helping the participants process the more difficult
emotions, I wondered how the participants would view the overall body mapping
experience. During the group discussions that followed the exercise, I asked about
their perceptions of the activity, and this is what they said:
“This is the best thing I have ever done in my life.”
“I’m not the same person I was when I got here Friday night.”
“I had no idea I was holding all this stuff.”
“I feel like someone just pulled a veil off my eyes.”
“I have so much more compassion for myself now when I look at what my body has been through and what it’s been trying to tell me.”
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“I wish I could have done this years ago.”
“ I never knew God spoke to me in so many ways in my body.”
“I feel much closer to God and myself now.”
“I didn’t know anger and pain were related, but I sure see it now.”
“I want to hug my body and tell it thank you for being so strong.”
Overall, the body mapping exercise seemed to be a positive, emotionally charged,
insightful activity for enhancing a deeper understanding of how body awareness
affects our feelings about the relationship between God and us.
3. The Spiritual Well-‐Being Scale (SWBS)
The first two assessment tools I selected were subjective measures that
would give me self-‐creative data from my project participants. I also wanted a
linear instrument to provide objective information, so I chose the SWBS as my third
tool. Since the SWBS is referenced as a qualitative tool for evaluating spirituality, I
hoped it would give me a reference point for determining how spiritual embodiment
might relate to self-‐wholeness. The scale gives three sets of scores: overall spiritual
well-‐being (SWB), religious well-‐being (RWB), and existential well-‐being (EWB).
An overview of my results showed an increase in at least one of the SWBS
sub-‐scores for all of the participants who took both tests from the first to second
administration of the scale (two months later). Most of these participants increased
in all of the sub-‐scores. This indicates that overall spiritual well-‐being improved
after participating in the retreat. Since the body mapping exercise was designed to
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assess body awareness as a measure of self-‐wholeness, it can be inferred that
improved spiritual well-‐being reflects positive changes in both body awareness and
self-‐wholeness. This supports my thesis statement that “Patterns of emotional,
physical, intuitive, and energetic body awareness, when correlated with spiritual
well-‐being, can be seen as barometers of self-‐wholeness.”
Current Relevance and Future Implications of this Study Drawing Conclusions
My research question asked how self-‐wholeness was an expression of
spiritual embodiment. My thesis statement said looking at body awareness and
spiritual well-‐being could assess self-‐wholeness. Paul Tillich seemed to suggest that
individual and cosmic wholeness were the same thing, because one informed the
other. I inferred that Tillich, through his definition of salvation as a return to
wholeness, was implying that healing was a salvific event. Taken together, this
means that healing occurs when we recognize our inherent self-‐wholeness, as a
product of the spiritual embodiment we possess, as a redemptive gift of the Spirit.
It would appear that self-‐wholeness and spiritual embodiment are in a
reciprocal relationship. As self-‐wholeness increases, through body awareness or
other introspective/self-‐awakening activities, perception of spiritual embodiment
becomes more positive as well. One could also speculate that a greater awareness of
spiritual embodiment would be reflected in a higher degree of perceived self-‐
wholeness, and this seemed to be reflected in the results of my study. So, the more
we see God as an intimate partner in our being, the more we come to see the self-‐
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wholeness we possess. This is not surprising, considering the integral nature of the
body-‐mind-‐spirit relationship I have been discussing from the beginning of this
paper.
The next step in all of this would be to consider where this information takes
us from both a Christian standpoint and a holistic healing view. If salvation is, as
Tillich implied, a healing event that brings both a return to personal wholeness and
a deeper connection with cosmic wholeness, then the body’s ability to heal is a
natural process that is the result of coming into resonance with the life-‐force energy
we already possess. As a Christian, I believe this is greatly facilitated by a
relationship with Jesus Christ, although the template for self-‐healing is part of the
creative design of all humankind. I also believe that Jesus, in the New Testament
stories of healing, uses his own resonance with the Spirit to perform the miraculous.
And since we are told in Scripture that we will do “greater things than these,”77 that
leaves the door open for us to tap into the power of that energy that also resides
within each of us.
Healing miracles continue to occur in this day and age. Most medical
professionals have their own personal witness to this and will tell you about it with
a wistful and far-‐away look in their eyes as they relate it. Every “healer” I have come
into contact with, no matter which side of the East/West healing coin they reside on,
wants to help people heal in every way they can. I believe this is because each healer
is called, by nature of our own resonance with Spirit, to engage the healing process
77 John 14:12 NIV: “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, because I am going to the Father.”
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first hand. I think the implications of this study have far reaching applications to the
practice of professional healing in both the allopathic and holistic worlds.
Practical Applications Health Care
John Travis and his Illness-‐Wellness continuum and “Iceberg” Theory of
wellness is a good example of how holistic health principles can be applied to
contemporary understandings of health and wellness, and I discussed his work in
chapter two of this paper. Travis, in describing the bottom of his floating health
iceberg, put “Spiritual/Being/Meaning Realm” as the supporting base for our state
of health. In the context of my study, this means that self-‐wholeness is supported by
spiritual embodiment. How well we recognize that grace-‐embodied image of God
within us translates into how self-‐whole we are, and that impacts our state of health.
On the Western side of the healing paradigm, this translates into
acknowledging that state of health is a lot more than just absence of symptoms.
Some of my frustrations as a nurse practitioner working in primary care were the
dependence on medications as healing tools and the lack of time to explore the
emotional connections of illness that I could sense were a part of my patient’s health
scenario. The current crisis in American health care underscores this disconnect
between illness and emotions, because it focuses on more-‐of-‐the-‐same for disease
management and does not look at expanding the solution to include a more holistic
paradigm.
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If state of health does, as my study and Travis suggest, rest on our spiritual
underpinning and resultant connection to our purpose in life (spiritual well-‐being),
then it would seem Western medicine is ignoring the elephant in the room. I am
hopeful though that a shift is coming. As the price of health care skyrockets beyond
what even corporations are willing to accept as doable, change will come out of
necessity rather than choice. The National Center for Complementary and
Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) surmised in 2007 that at least 40% of Americans
were already using some sort of complementary therapy to support their health.78
These numbers have grown substantially in the past decade, and I believe that
increase reflects the discouragement people have with the health care offerings they
are being given.
Perhaps what is also resonating here though, is an inner awareness that a big
piece of “something missing” in the conventional disease-‐oriented model that sees
only pieces of a person in their illness and not the whole picture of an integrated
emotional/physical/spiritual/energetic being. As an energy practitioner, I see the
difference that making space for emotions to be recognized-‐acknowledged-‐
processed-‐released makes in how energy flows shift in the body. To me, this means
that emotions hold the key to self-‐healing. Understanding that unrecognized and
retained emotions cause illness is not a new concept. Nor is seeing illness as the by-‐
product of our lifestyle choices. While Western medicine is slowly coming to realize
the latter, they haven’t put much credence on the former.
78 National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM),
“Complementary, Alternative, or Integrative Health: What’s In a Name?” http://nccam.nih.gov/health/whatiscam, accessed January 5, 2014.
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The whole alternative/complementary health movement in this country that
sprung out of the volatile cultural shifting of the 1960s was a reaction to a loss of
personalization in health care and a movement away from a more organic way of
taking care of one’s health that characterized earlier forms of medicine. Enlarging
our circle of healing to include wisdom from other paradigms that recognize the
important role of spirituality and energy movement seems like a positive step
forward, and one that I hope Western medicine will be willing to embrace.
Spiritual Direction
If healing is a natural and salvific process, then it is also a spiritual topic. I
have already established in this paper that spiritual embodiment and self-‐wholeness
are directly related and impact spiritual well-‐being, so it seems appropriate to bring
them into dialogue with healing in a spiritual context.
As a spiritual director, I can see the value in encouraging a dialogue around
health and spirituality, especially if the directee has enumerated health concerns in
our discussions. Inherent in the envelope that surrounds the spiritual direction
relationship is the belief that the spiritual journey is a unique one for each of us.
Spiritual embodiment is really about seeing the image of God within us. What that
image looks like and how it manifests for the individual reflects their individual
relationship with God. One of the things I have learned from doing this study is that
the image of God I carry is directly related to how self-‐whole I feel, and that degree
of self-‐wholeness determines my spiritual well-‐being. It would make sense that
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bringing that image to light could be a healing trigger for all dimensions of healing in
the directee and a profound mechanism for spiritual growth and empowerment.
Moving Forward: Implications for Further Study The East/West Conundrum
Inherent in the study of spirituality is the willingness to embrace an
expanded understanding of God across cultures. In the same way that Western
medicine has tended to discount the contributions of Eastern medicine in
understanding the complexities of healing, I believe Christianity has tended to be
dismissive of Eastern spiritual and healing practices. Since the 1960s, some of these
practices have gradually been making their way into American culture, and it is now
commonplace to see meditation and yoga classes in even the smallest cities in this
country.
As with any new idea, I believe fear of the unknown contributes to the
reluctance to explore what is different. As noted in chapter two, Bede Griffiths was a
pioneer in inter-‐spiritual thought and helped to demystify some of these practices
by studying them within their context and bringing them into his own practice of
spiritual disciplines. I mention him here because Griffiths saw no difficulty in
exploring alternative ways of understanding spirituality, wrote extensively on the
subject, and shed light on how Eastern principles can be useful in expanding our
own spiritual paradigm.79
79 Further reading on Bede Griffiths, his spiritual writings, and the concept of interspiritual thought can be found in the Bibliography.
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In a related way, my study invites an expanded view of healing and
spirituality that may be challenging to some readers. Although a spiritual focus to
healing is not new, what may be new is the terminology and concepts I used in
discussing energy and its movement through the body. Talking about energy centers
(chakras) and pathways (meridians) is foreign to Western thinking, but I have
already established in chapter 2 that the movement of energy through these centers
and pathways is consistent with the Christian view of ruach and pneuma in the
Hebrew Bible.
Griffiths was also an advocate of alternative healing practices and believed
they held the key to the marriage of spirituality and healing. In the concluding
chapter of one of his most well known books, A New Vision of Reality, he talked
about the “New Age” of inter-‐spiritual thinking that will characterize spirituality and
health practices in the years to come. He stated,
In medicine, rather than making use almost entirely of modern allopathic methods, there will be a turn to alternative methods such as homeopathy, acupuncture, Ayurvedic and Tibetan medicine, and herbal medicine in general, all of which are concerned with the health of the whole person. These forms of treatment always relate the body to the soul and the spirit and never regard it as something that can be treated in isolation. 80
So the body is a unified whole that needs to be treated with an approach to health
and wellness that honors that connection. Isolating “parts” to be treated without
giving credence to the whole integrated system is like removing the shoelaces from
your shoes and wondering why they fall off your feet. The body is more than just the
80 Bede Griffiths, A New Vision of Reality (Springfield, IL: Templegate Publishers,
1990), 286.
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sum of its parts; it is a dynamic organism that relies on communication among all its
components for healing to occur. That communication is accomplished by the flow
of life-‐force energy that innervates the body and connects it to its spiritual source.
The chakras and meridians are energy vessels that move, store, and release energy
as the body needs it for functioning. Griffiths studied the chakra system during his
time in India and believed it was a necessary part of how consciousness is expanded
during prayer and meditation.81 This means understanding what these “foreign”
terms are, and incorporating them into our world view around healing, is the perfect
partnership between East and West and expands our traditional healing paradigm
in new and important ways.
Emotional Body Awareness
This understanding of energy as a necessary part of our physical and
spiritual communication system underscores its importance in helping the body to
heal. Just as Jesus may have healed by intentionally moving energy through his
hands and presence, our bodies heal by the movement of energy through the
resultant pathways and centers in the body. This has importance in understanding
the role of emotions in healing and has implications for constructing new models of
healing that include energy in the equation.
For the purposes of this paper, I considered emotions as the primary voice of
Spirit. Going forward with this idea, it becomes obvious that recognizing the
important role of emotions in healing is paramount. With the current trend in
81 Wayne Teasdale, Bede Griffiths: An Introduction to His Interspiritual Thought (Woodstock, VT: SkyLight Paths Publishing, 2003), 153.
119
mental health management in Western medicine, exploring emotions has taken a
back seat to drug therapy. This is particularly concerning in the treatment of
children. In my experience as a nurse practitioner working with children, I was
appalled at the number of medications that were being prescribed for children to
treat emotional issues. To me, this points to a disturbing trend to isolate emotions
from the rest of the body and to make them something to be repressed rather than
explored.
In light of the results from this paper, where self-‐wholeness is intricately tied
to body awareness, spiritual well-‐being and spiritual embodiment, I have to wonder
what will be the long term result for those children who are not assisted in working
through their emotional healing at a young age. If the emotional voice of Spirit is
discounted, what does that say about the potential for self-‐wholeness? How does
that affect the underlying spiritual base of Travis’ healing iceberg when a child is
taught that emotions are something to be medicated away and not expressed? How
spiritually aware can a child become when she is taught she can’t depend on her
body to give her correct information through her emotions? The answers to these
questions aren’t easy to think about.
Healing Through The Four Spiritual Languages of The Body
A nice development of doing this project was discovering that the body
awareness template I was constructing around the body mapping activity was
solidifying into a workable tool for studying the spirituality of healing. While the
well-‐known triad of body-‐mind-‐spirit isn’t anything new in the holistic healing
120
world, adding an energetic overlay to it is a different wrinkle. The definition of
wholeness is evolving in the health care world, so it seems natural to expand its
dimensions to include the flow of energy through the body as a consideration. As
the separation between Western and Eastern medicine continues to decrease,
energy flow in the body will become another parameter of assessing wellness and
planning treatment in an expanded health care arena. This trend is even becoming
apparent in the popular media.
The other difference in this model of healing is that the spiritual component
of the triad is defined as intuitive knowing. I also see this as “God knowledge” or
“God awareness” because it taps into that inner sense of knowing that is felt when
deep truth resonates. Often, people will describe this as a “gut feeling” or something
they “just knew to be true” inside of themselves, often in their heart. This intuitive
body awareness is actually a vibrational partner to the energetic awareness I
mentioned previously. When something resonates inside of us, it means that the
vibration of the thought is an energetic match to one of our energy centers or flows.
When we consider that the energy flowing through us is generated and directed by
the Holy Spirit, this resonance takes on a spiritual dimension that connects us
directly to that divine current within.
Combining the imagery of the four spiritual languages of the body with body
mapping opens up new doors for healing on many levels. The process of body
mapping has been used for many purposes since it was first developed in the 1990s
for use with patients who had HIV/AIDS. As a tool for self-‐expressively telling one’s
story though body annotation, the body map becomes a living storybook of one’s life
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and carries powerful meaning for how that story is told. In my project, the body map
displayed its four spiritual languages and became a tool for studying spiritual
embodiment and self-‐wholeness, giving the map a divine connectivity role.
Going forward, this process of body mapping the four spiritual languages of
the body could be a useful tool for health care and mental health professionals, as
well as chaplains and spiritual directors. Providing opportunities to view the body
as an integrated whole reinforces the holistic paradigm that our bodies are
interdependent organisms that need to be considered as one dynamic unit. This
discourages fragmentation of the body into “parts” and encourages self-‐wholeness
as our natural state. Seeing our interconnectivity so plainly displayed on a body map
makes it easier to see that same connectivity to the greater whole. We are truly
fearfully and wonderfully made.
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Appendix A
• Used with permission of the author, granted 2/14/2013
123
Appendix B
Meridian Diagram
http://tcmencyclopaedia.com/Acupuncture-‐Moxibustion/info/20081121_303.html
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Appendix C
Emotions and Associated Meridians
Emotion
Associated Meridians
Fear
Bladder and Kidney
Anger
Gallbladder and Liver
Panic, Anxiety
Triple Heater/Triple Warmer, Small Intestine,
Heart, Circulation/Sex
Worry
Stomach and Spleen
Grief, Letting Go
Large Intestine and Lung
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Appendix D
The Spiritual Well-‐Being Scale
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Scoring the SWB Scale To Obtain the Overall Spiritual Well-Being Score: The Spiritual Well-Being score is a measure of perceived overall well-being. Each SWBS item is scored from 1 to 6, with a higher number representing greater well-being. Negatively worded items are reverse scored. The positively worded items are numbered 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, 19, and 20. For these items, an answer of "Strongly Agree" is given a score of 6, "Moderately Agree" is scored 5, "Agree" is scored 4, "Disagree" is scored 3, "Moderately Disagree" is scored 2, and "Strongly Disagree" is scored 1. The negatively worded items are numbered 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 12, 13, 16, and 18. For these items, an answer of "Strongly Agree" is given a score of 1, "Moderately Agree" is scored 2, "Agree" is scored 3, "Disagree" is scored 4, "Moderately Disagree" is scored 5, and "Strongly Disagree" is scored 6. Total the scores for the positively and negatively worded items and this will give the total score for spiritual well-being (SWB): A score in the range of 20 – 40 reflects a sense of low overall spiritual well-being. A score in the range of 41 – 99 reflects a sense of moderate spiritual well-being. A score in the range of 100 – 120 reflects a sense of high spiritual well-being. To Obtain the Religious Well-Being Score: The Religious Well-Being Score is a measure of how one views their relationship with God. It reflects one’s sense of satisfaction and positive connection with God. The odd numbered items 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, and 19 give the score for religious well-being. Using the values of 1 to 6 that the respondent gave these items, add the total for religious well-being (RWB). A score in the range of 10 – 20 reflects a sense of unsatisfactory relationship with God. A score in the range of 21 – 49 reflect a moderate sense of religious well-being. A score in the range of 50 – 60 reflects a positive view of one’s relationship with God. To Obtain the Existential Well-Being Score: The Existential Well-Being score measures one’s level of life satisfaction and life purpose. The even numbered items 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, and 20 give the score for existential well-being. Using the values of 1 to 6 that the respondent gave these items, add the total for existential well-being (EWB). A score in the range of 10 – 20 suggests a low satisfaction with one’s life and possible lack of clarity about one’s purpose in life. A score in the range of 21 – 49 suggests a moderate level of life satisfaction and purpose. A score in the range of 50 – 60 suggests a high level of life satisfaction with one’s life and a clear sense of purpose.
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Permission letter to use Spiritual Well-‐Being Scale
From: Life Advance Inc. <[email protected]> To: enhealing <[email protected]>
Subject:
Spiritual Well-Being Scale (English) Purchase
Date: Thu, Feb 21, 2013 10:19 am Dear Michelle, You can download Spiritual Well-Being Scale (English) at https://www.e-junkie.com/d/?t=66C954732D4702825&d=gu8am&c=1fpy Please note, the download link will expire after 120 hours from now or after 99 attempts, whichever event happens first. Thank you for purchasing the Spiritual Well-Being Scale (English version) from Life Advance, Inc. You are now hereby authorized by Life Advance, Inc. to print [%quantity%] copies of the Spiritual Well-Being Scale (English version), which you purchased in this order. Please follow the link given to download the scale in PDF format. We hope you enjoy using this assessment tool in your work. If you have further questions please email us at: [email protected]
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Appendix E
Visual Journaling Exercise
1. As you look at your check-‐in drawing, how does it make you feel?
2. What does this drawing tell you about how you feel emotionally?
3. How do the colors make you feel?
4. Is there anything in your drawing that disturbs you? If so, what? Write a few sentences on your paper about how or why this part disturbs you.
5. What do you like best about your drawing? Write a few sentences about how this part makes you feel.
6. What have you learned from this drawing about what you feel?
7. Are these emotions related to a particular current issue or concern? If so, what is it?
8. Does knowing what you feel about this issue or concern help you deal with it? If so, how?
(Excerpted from Barbara Ganim and Susan Fox’s book, Visual Journaling Journaling: Going Deeper than Words. Wheaton, IL: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1999, 37-‐38.)
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Appendix F
Body Mapping Exercise Body Mapping Exercise
This activity looks at three things: physical, emotional, and Intuitive knowing body awareness. For the physical part you will mark on the body map where you have physical illness or symptoms. For the emotional part you will mark where (and how) you experience emotions in your body. For the Intuitive knowing part you will mark where (and how) you experience a sense of God, deep truth, or inner wisdom in your body.
Let’s get started! 1. Have a friend trace the outline of your body on a large sheet of paper 2. Label the paper with your name in BIG letters by your head Physical Awareness Using Blue marks and notations, label on the body map where you experience
physical issues, such as: Aches and Pains Physical Symptoms Illnesses (current, chronic, or recurrent)
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Example Emotional Awareness Using red letters (F, AN, Ax, W, S, H) and notations, label on the body map where you experience each emotion, by answering the questions below.
5. Where do I feel this emotion in my body? 6. What does this emotion feel like (sharp, soft, big, little, jagged, etc...)? 7. What is the message behind this emotion? 8. What would I like to say to this emotion?
Emotions
Fear (F): think about something that makes you fearful. Anger (An): think about something that makes you angry. Anxiety (Ax): think about something that makes you anxious. Worry (W): think about something that makes you worried. Sadness (S): think about something that makes you sad. Happiness (H): think about something that makes you happy.
Example
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Intuitive Knowing Awareness Using green dots and notations, mark your answers to the questions below:
3. How (and where) do you experience a sense of God, deep truth, or inner wisdom in your body?
4. How would you describe this understanding of God’s presence in your body?
Example
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Now look at the Body Map as a whole.
Do you see any connections between where you placed your blue marks (physical issues), your red marks (where you feel your emotions), and your green marks (where you experience intuitive knowing)?
What do you see?
How do you feel when you look at your body map? What is your body saying to you? “I feel___________________________________________”
“I need__________________________________________”
“I want__________________________________________”
“I am____________________________________________”
Other: “___________________________________________________”
What do you want to say to your body?
Do you see a connection between how you perceive your body and how you
sense God to be? If yes, in what way? Do you think how you perceive your body and God affects how you see the
world? If yes, in what way? © Michelle Earnest 2013
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Appendix G
Dealing with Difficult Emotions Handout
Emotions ‘R Us Emotions make us who we are. They enrich our lives by allowing us to fully engage the experiences of life. Our bodies sense emotion physically and mentally and react by altering the release of different chemicals that influence body functions. Your body truly expresses physically how you feel emotionally. For example, joy causes the mood elevator serotonin to be secreted in the brain while sadness suppresses it. Stress emotions like fear and anxiety trigger the release of adrenaline. This prepares your body to make a quick get-away when a threat is perceived and causes physical sensations like rapid heart rate, nausea, sweating, and abdominal cramping to occur. This feedback mechanism between the body and the emotions is necessary for adapting to changes in your internal and external environment. It is a “mind-body” connection that keeps you tuned into how well you are coping with what you are experiencing. When we pay attention, this is a good thing. Getting Stuck The problem comes when we ignore or misinterpret the signals our bodies are sending. Sometimes this is done intentionally, because we want or need to continue doing something for a certain period of time. Other times it is unintentional, because the situation is too overwhelming or frightening to confront. When this happens the emotional-physical reaction can get “locked” into place and the body forms a habit of reactive behavior that can be hard to shift. Difficult emotions like sadness, depression, fear, anxiety, grief, and anger are often behind “locked-in” reactions, because they haven’t been processed through the body yet. Intense experiences such as physical and emotional trauma can produce a “shock” reaction that holds and then suppresses the feelings associated with the experience. Chronic stress can also set up a reactive behavior pattern, because the emotions associated with the stress aren’t easy to understand or talk about. What happens then? Your body continues to react physically to the difficult emotion until it can be processed and released. Normally we process and release fairly quickly in our day-to-day life. We feel an emotion, such as sadness, feel ourselves tearing up, have a good cry, perhaps reflect a bit on what was happening to cause the emotion, and then move on with our day. The emotion is triggered-acknowledged-experienced-processed-released. The physical sensations associated with it disappear after the cycle is completed. When the emotional process gets interrupted/stuck/suppressed at any point, then the physical sensation has nowhere to go. The reaction continues because the emotion
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continues, although maybe not consciously. Because the body is now working overtime to keep the reaction going, it gets depleted. Energy Imbalance Energetically, this is called a Triple-Warmer (TW)/Spleen imbalance. TW is the meridian that governs the fight/flight/freeze response and when it is over stimulated it pulls energy from other body systems to sustain itself. This is a healthy coping mechanism when danger is real, but detrimental when the threat is chronic stress and cannot easily be resolved. Spleen is the meridian that governs your immune system, processes emotions, helps you digest food, and works as “self-care” central. TW pulls energy most often from Spleen because of the way they are related energetically, so Spleen meridian depletion is a pretty serious issue for your body. What can you do? Learn how to help yourself release pent up emotions in healthy ways. This includes: Compassionate self-care like gentle exercise, enough sleep, healthy regular meals, plenty of water, a regular spiritual practice that reflects your beliefs, spending time in nature, and a creative outlet like journaling or gardening. Accept who you are right now and go forward from here. What’s past is past…let it go. Deep breathing for emotional healing
Hold CV 17 (center of breastbone) as you begin Close your eyes and breathe deeply into your belly while inhaling through
your nose. Exhale though your mouth while pulling in the belly muscles. As you inhale say: “I breathe in forgiveness.” As you exhale say: “I breathe out guilt ”
Continue 3-5 minutes
Practice emotional processing energetically using the following techniques
Heart Chakra Clearing Make slow, counter-clockwise circles over the middle of your chest with one of
your hands for several minutes while breathing slowly Forehead/back of head hold
Lay the palm of one hand across your forehead Lay the palm of the other hand across the back of the head Breathe and hold for several minutes while allowing the emotion to be felt
135
Mellow Mudra Make an "O" with your thumb and first finger, with the thumb covering the nail of
the finger Place thumbs on your temples and lay the 2nd and 3rd fingers over your
forehead Breathe slowly and deeply while you lightly hold this position for several minutes
and focus on what is bothering you Releasing the Venom
• Starts with both arms by your sides • Make a fist with both hands and swing arms over your
head. • Come down forcefully, making a “shh” sound while you
release your fists. Repeat two more times. • Repeat one more time, but this time come down slow and
controlled. Practice joy and acceptance
Nine Hearts: activates all your radiant joy circuits!! • Trace three hearts around your face starting at the forehead • Trace three hearts starting at mid-chest and going down to
the pubic bone • Trace hands back up to chest and put hands in prayer
position • Trace heart upwards over head and down to mid-thigh,
repeat x2 more Heart Prayer
Cross hands over CV 17 (indentation in center of breastbone) and intertwine thumbs
Close eyes and breathe gratitude into your heart Hold for 2 minutes or longer
© Michelle Earnest 2012
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Appendix H
Demographics
Name:_________________________________________ Age:______________________
Marital Status: single married widowed divorced
Race/Ethnicity: _________________________________________________________
Religious Denomination: ______________________ None__________________
Highest level of education attained:___________________________________
Occupation:________________________________________________ FT PT
Household Income: Less than $50,000/yr
$50,000-‐100,000/yr
Greater than $100,000/yr
Emergency Contact Information
Name:_________________________________________ relationship:_______________
Phone #_______________________________________
Address:_____________________________________________________________________
Office Use Only
Participant No._________
Date of Retreat:__________________ Location:_________________________________________
Name of Retreat:_______________________________________________________
Attended Follow-‐up meeting: yes no Date:__________________
Completed Evaluation: yes no
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Spirituality and Healing Retreat
October 11-‐13, 2013
Permission to Use Body Map Picture
I,_____________________________________________, give Michelle Earnest my permission to
use a picture of the body map I created during the retreat in her research paper. I
understand that my map will not show my name or other identifying information.
Signature:____________________________________________
Date:___________________________________
138
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