Shedding Light on your Energy Questions Series
Sometimes clients ask, usually with a slight tinge of guilt, “I just unloaded all my problems – how do you avoid taking all this stuff home with you?! Do you ever feel infected by your clients’ energy?”
This month’s Shedding Light question addresses hygiene. No, not showers and hand sanitizer! Rather, how EHI practitioners energetically manage themselves and their treatment space to avoid taking on their clients’ stuff. In short, how they keep things clean!
I’m exited to talk about this topic as it’s quite important, often overlooked and misunderstood. Energy hygiene is a foundational tenet of EHI and is a differentiator among energy healing practitioner programs. I wouldn’t be without my energy hygiene protocols and practices!
Shedding light on: energy hygiene
Energy is always in motion. In the context of a client session, it starts the moment a client walks through the treatment space door and begins to answer the question, “What would you like to work on today?”
As a client’s story and emotional material is raised through the intake process, the energy of the emotional material moves. It moves out of the client’s field and into the treatment space. Because the practitioner is also in the treatment space, it rolls right toward him or her! Unless the practitioner is using hygiene protocols, they are likely to become awash in their client’s energy.
I reassure my clients that listening is part of my job. Getting enough context around their issue, relationship, or trauma story is a necessary part of the process. Once there is context, clients are invited to climb on the massage table and relax while their energetic ‘trash’ is cleared and released down into the Earth and out of the treatment space.
Energy hygiene: Beyond soap, salt and smudge
EHI places special emphasis on energy hygiene in its energy healing certification programs for practitioners. We go well beyond hand-washing, ungrounded New Age myths and cultural appropriation. In fact, ‘Beyond Soap, Salt & Smudge’ used to be a course at EHI before being folded into the practitioner programs.
Energy hygiene is defined as practitioner-centric practices that ensure clean space, separation from client issues, neutrality and compassion (rather than empathy). It is maintained through the practitioner’s own energy regulation and adhering to EHI’s guidelines for intentional practice throughout case management with clients.
Practitioners are taught to hold the process, facilitate the session, which supports the client to hold themselves and be responsible for their healing.
Energy hygiene: boundaries, not enmeshment
Healers are often empathic. Which can sounds like an important attribute for a healer. In reality, there’s a BIG difference between holding compassionate space for a client to do their own inner work, and being energetically enmeshed with a client and their journey.
Empathic healers merge with the energy of their clients’ emotions, and ‘sense into’ or ‘feel into’ their space. Because of this, they frequently take on the physical and emotional symptoms of their clients – low back pain, headaches, joint pain, myalgia, depression, anxiety & stress are frequent scenarios.
Sometimes perceived as a badge of brilliance, or a zone of genius, it’s actually poor energy boundaries and lack of separation. Over time, merging with clients’ energies can negatively impact the healer’s body, emotions and vitality. Burnout and/or illness can result.
EHI practitioners focus on Energy Hygiene
EHI practitioners are taught how to hold space with compassion, neutrality and clarity so that they can clear energy without merging with clients. They apply their energy hygiene practices before and after every session. The goal is for the client to leave the session feeling relief, release and resolution. The practitioner leaves the workday feeling aligned, balanced and integrated, the same way they started the day.
Energy Hygiene is essential
We take energy hygiene seriously at EHI, because we truly believe that each client deserves to have a session where they are at the center of the work, their practitioner is focused on facilitating a clean, evolutionary experience, and real healing takes place.
What topics can we shed light on?
Got questions about energy, consciousness and evolution that you’d like us to shed light on in a future post? Drop them in the Comments below and we’ll add them to our growing list!
