It has been proven in the Western world decades ago that the mind and body are intimately connected, and emotion and thought impact the body. A number of scientists have highlighted this connection, including Candace Pert, PhD in Molecules of Emotion (1994) and James L. Oschman in Energy Medicine: The Scientific Basis (2000). But the importance of how emotion and thought affect our physicality, health and well-being has been slow to take hold.
The ancient art of shamanic energy medicine is one type of energy medicine. Shamans are well aware of our energetic basis; how we create our own reality by dreaming it into being; and how interconnected human beings are with nature, spirit and each other. Shamanic energy medicine helps us return to health and wholeness by releasing deeply held emotions from the physical body and its energetic fields, and by restoring one to full “being-ness”.
We have learned how to stay silent, ignore our feelings and push them away. But where is “away”? It is into us, into the body, organs and subconscious; when there is no longer room there, we push into the unconscious and then the collective unconscious. We do affect humanity by how we handle our emotional-thought content.
Many people are familiar with one law of the universe, which says “like attracts like.” It refers to our vibration of energy, or resonance; our thought-emotion content determines a vibration of energy, and that vibration then acts as an attractor out in the world. So anger attracts anger, happiness attracts happiness and so on. We are our emotions, we wear them and we are defined by them. We create our own reality through our desires, imagination and expectations. When our psyche is weighted down by layers of fear, pain, anger and other emotions, our imagination decreases, desire is lowered and expectations altered.
In powerful emotional moments as we were growing up, we made choices and decisions about ourselves that may have limited us for life. We need to discover hidden beliefs about ourselves and agreements we made in childhood in order to feel safe. One example is, “I am insignificant.” What kind of life can this person dream of with that belief on board? How does that person attract love?
The emotions of very low vibration are fear, jealousy and envy, blame, revenge (violence and hatred), loneliness, hopelessness, and despair. Mid-range emotions with a higher vibration but still self-limiting are anger, guilt and sadness, self pity, worry and doubt, frustration, confusion, and boredom. High vibration emotions are well-being, optimism, thrill and enthusiasm, trust, passion and compassion, happiness, joy, and love.
Developing conscious awareness of our state of thought-emotions and processing through them can help to handle them in the moment or shortly thereafter. An important question to consider is why we are feeling this. Often that first feeling of anger is hiding a fear of what will happen.
Energy medicine helps to shift and move out buried emotions, and release imprints of automatic behaviors. It also aids in exposing early established beliefs and contracts about ourselves, and bringing back the parts of self we blocked by trying to be safe. Many of us have heard those who had a traumatic experience mention later that they are not the same person or no longer feel like themselves. Energy medicine helps release the emotions of traumatic experiences so they feel distant and more matter of fact.
Releasing constricted emotions from the body helps us leave additional space to feel more love, happiness and joy. When we love our own self unconditionally and with compassion, we have more love and compassion to give to others and to humanity.
Experiencing the higher emotions raises our vibration. Living consciously is a joyful way to live life, accepting responsibility for our own emotion and thoughts. Having respect for our emotions—and using circumspection and inspection to better understand them—enables us to make needed changes, and grow and evolve to lead happy, healthy, loving lives.