Exercises to Experience Energy

The Energy Ball. This exercise appears in most energy healing techniques as the basic standard means of experiencing human energy.

Hold your hands so that your palms are facing each other, about two inches apart. Take a few deep breaths, focusing your attention on the space between your hands. Move your palms apart until there is about six inches between them, and then move them forward till they are almost touching. Continue moving them gently, apart and together, for a minute or two. Pay attention to the sensations between your hands. (If after a few minutes of this, you don’t feel any sensations, try rubbing your hands together vigorously for a minute, and then repeating this experiment.)

Then move your hands till they are about 12” apart, and begin moving them slowly toward each other, focusing on the sensations. You may feel some tingling or warmth. You may find that at some point, it feels as if there is resistance; it may feel like “the air is thicker” or like there’s outward pressure like magnets pushing each other away. This is because you have met the edge of the energy field emanating from the other palm. Gently move the hands a little closer together (about an inch). You may now feel tingling on the back of your hands. The energy field of each hand has passed through the other hand.

Move your hands to 12” apart again. Move them toward each other, until you feel resistance. Imagine this energy is a ball, and curl your fingers around the edges of it. Play with this, moving one palm up along the top side of the ball, while the other moves below, and so on, exploring how the energy feels.

Learning to Run Energy through your Body: (Summarized from Gordon, pp. 30-39) This exercise is a good way to learn how to pull energy up from the ground, and send it out through your hands.

Feeling your finger: Hold a finger in the air, tune into the sensations in your finger. Spend 2 minutes or more feeling as much sensation as you can by focusing your awareness there. By increasing the awareness of the sensations, “you are causing physiological changes to occur there as well… actually sensing life-force energy.” (Gordon, 30) You might feel tingling, or a sense of vibration, heat, thickness, or heaviness. If you can’t feel any of these sensations, try imagining you are stroking your finger with a feather, and pay close attention to the sensation.
Feeling your body. While you are lying down, have a friend lightly stroke upwards from your feet to your ankles with a gentle sweeping motion for 2-5 seconds, then move away. Focus on the sensation of her touch, and then hold the awareness of that feeling in your head for as long as you can. When you are ready, have your friend stroke from your ankles to your shins. Focus on that sensation for a while. Continue this pattern up to the head working in short sweeps, and then down from the shoulders to the hands.
18” sweeps. Repeat the exercise above, doing longer sweeps: about 18” long, still lasting only 2-5 seconds. This will help you more fluidly and consciously move the energy through your body. If there’s a blocked area you’re having trouble feeling, have your partner sweep it again. If you can’t bring sensation to that area after three times, just move on to the next exercise.
Full body sweeps. Have your friend do one quick stroke from your feet all the way up your front, down your arms and out your hands. Then try to re-create for yourself the experience and bring as much sensation through your body as possible. Do this until it becomes easy to bring about whole body sensation with the power of intention. Then do one large sweep on the back.
Recreate the sensations of the full body sweep using your mind. You can practice running this energy any time, anywhere. The more you practice, the easier it becomes. Use your inhale to pull the energy up from your feet to your head, then send it down your arms and out your hands on the exhale.

Circling Palms (Cohen, 260)

This experiment can help you understand the principles of transmitting therapeutic energy.

“Ask a friend to hold out his left hand, palm up. Place your right hand a few inches above his hand, finding the distance that allows maximum qi sensation. Now as your partner’s hand remains still, slowly rotate your right hand in tiny counterclockwise circles, as though the center of your palm is a laser beam, drawing a circle around your friend’s palm. Then increase the circumference of your circle, so that your palm is shining light on each of your partner’s fingertips and then moving down to the top of the wrist. After several circles, reverse direction, circling clockwise. Ask your friend what he or she felt… What sensation is produced by counterclockwise circles, what sensation by clockwise circles?”

Group Experiences of Energy

Synchronize the energy of the group. Make a circle and join hands. Have all the members inhale deeply together, imagining that they are gathering in energy and pulling it up from the earth. Then all exhale together, sending the energy out their hands. Do this for several breaths, then “allow the energy of your auric fields to flow around the circle. Sense this pulsating flow for a while…. Now, without changing anything or moving your hands, stop the flow of energy. Keep it stopped for a while (everyone at once) and then let it flow again.” (Brennan, page 41)

Have everyone stand in a circle, not quite holding hands. Each person holds their left palms facing up, about one inch above their neighbor’s right hand. Right palms are all facing down. One person in the group uses his right palm to “circle palms” over his neighbor’s hand. Afterwards, others in circle can discuss what they felt. Was there a difference in the sensations between their right hands and left hands? Was there a difference depending on the direction of circling? (From Cohen’s workshop)

“Seeing” the Rotation of a Chakra. (This technique is described in Brennan, Baggott, and Batie.)

Find something to use as a pendulum: it should hang from a string or chain, and be symmetrical around its vertical axis. A ring or large bead hung on a string can work.

“Hold the pendulum on a string about 6” long over the chakra and empty your mind of all bias as to the state of the chakra… Be sure that the pendulum is as close to the body as possible without touching it. Your energy flows into the field of the pendulum to energize it. This combined field of the pendulum and your energy then interacts with the field of the subject, causing the pendulum to move.” (Brennan, 81) Observe the motion of the pendulum.

Batie says that circular motion indicates a healthy energy condition, “whereas movement of the pendulum in a straight line [back and forth] might indicate that an energy block exists.” (Batie, 16)

Brennan states that open chakras tend to circle in a clockwise direction, versus blocked chakras circle in a counterclockwise direction. In experimenting with this, I discovered that it is relevant which hand you hold the pendulum in, and where you are located in reference to the person you are ‘testing.’ If I held the pendulum in my right hand while I was sitting up, holding it above my partner who was lying down, then his chakras all spun clockwise. If I laid down next to him and held the pendulum in my left hand, his chakras spun counterclockwise.

Normally, a circle that’s an inch or two in diameter indicates a healthy energy condition. (Batie, 16) Active, open chakras may cause the pendulum to swing in circles as big as 6” in diameter. (Brennan)

Note that this exercise is also used as a healing technique to balance the chakras, and thus can affect the energy of the chakras of the person you are observing. One author who described it noted that you should only do this exercise if your own chakras are balanced and unblocked.

Affecting Inanimate Objects with Energy – The Quantum Touch Wine Experiment

Start with some cheap wine, with a nasty aftertaste. Pour two glasses of wine. Take one glass, and run energy into it for three to five minutes. Then compare the taste of your “charged” glass with the “control” glass. You may find that some of the aftertaste is gone. (No, it doesn’t mean that it will be great wine, it just may be lacking the aftertaste…)

Techniques to Build Energy and to Keep Your Energy Balanced:

Like any skill, your ability to feel energy will increase with practice. The more you work with any of the techniques described above, the more proficient you will become. There are also additional helpful exercises.

Joy describes a spiral meditation, which connects and strengthens chakras. His tape includes a guided version of this meditation.

Any form of breathwork is helpful. Consciously working with your breath helps you to work with your energy. An Indian technique involves alternate nostril breathing to balance energies. Use a finger to hold your right nostril closed while you breathe in through your left nostril for 2 seconds. Then close off both nostrils and hold breath for 8 seconds, then close off left nostril only and breathe out through your right nostril for 4 seconds. Repeat about 6 times, switching sides. This may calm you if you’re feeling stressed; it may help when you can’t figure out a solution to a problem, as it helps to connect the right and left hemispheres of the brain.

Practice yoga or meditation on a regular basis. Practice qi gong, a Chinese exercise practice which specifically focuses on moving qi (energy) through the body. There are several videos available for learning qi gong, and tai chi, one of the forms of qi gong.

Dahn Hak. There is a Korean system of energy exercise called Dahn Hak, which combines yoga, qi gong, and meditation, and works a lot with the idea of healing energy. I have been taking classes since April, and have had a great experience with it, and find it to be great physical exercise for building strength and flexibility, and also good for mental, emotional, and spiritual health, so I’ll put in a commercial plug here for: Holistic Tao Center in Bellevue (425-373-9959) and Yoga Café in Ballinger/Shoreline (206-366-1122). They also have a center in the U District, and are starting one in downtown Seattle.

Based on the healing dances of the Ju|’hoansi of the Kalahari, it also appears that healing energy can be raised by ecstatic dance, drumming, and singing within a circle of people.

Energetic Effects of an Energy-Building Practice:

“Magnetic brain waves associated with the sensory and motor cortex become stronger when an action is practiced again and again… Similar changes may occur with repeated practice of various ‘hands-on’ therapies… While more research is needed, the most logical explanation for amplification is that the waves of electrical and magnetic activity from the brain are amplified as they pass through the peripheral tissues. Vibrating molecules throughout the body may become cooperatively entrained with the brain rhythms. As more and more molecules within the crystalline living matrix become vibrationally entrained, the fields get stronger. Bodywork and other repetitive practices such as yoga, QiGong, tai chi, meditation, therapeutic touch, etc. may gradually lead to more structural coherence (crystallinity) in the tissues, facilitating both the detection and radiation of energy fields.” (Oschman, 221)

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