Clients' Stories

David is a therapist who lives with his wife in Columbia County, New York, which is immediately west of Berkshire County, Massachusetts. When I interviewed David, we tried to reconstruct our relationship, and we estimated that he had had about 10 sessions over the course of two years. David is spiritually inclined and follows a regular practice. He consciously applies his spirituality to his professional practice. Many of our early sessions helped him deal with wounds he had suffered from an upbringing in an un-supportive working class family.

“This work has been cumulative. After the first session I felt that something had shifted in my consciousness. It wasn’t just relaxation; it was a re-integration of deeper parts of my consciousness. I felt even more so after the second session. With each session, this pattern has continued, only more deeply each time. This involves less understanding from my mind, and letting a deeper voice come through, sensing what I need to do, instead of having to think about it. It feels like this voice is deeper and I hear it more often – listening to a deeper place inside me that includes intuition, inner direction, guidance, trusting the Universe, and trusting myself. I now know that there is an order to things. I might have heard that this is so before our work, but now I experience it. I don’t try to fight it any more. Is this faith? Yes it involves faith in myself and faith in the Universe. I still struggle with this, but it’s like there is a container that holds these things in check.

“Our early sessions dealt with my childhood issues involving both parents. They seldom encouraged me. I’ve had to do most of it on my own. I used to lack confidence in myself, and felt like God had abandoned me. Now I live with more confidence. My life seems like a miracle to me. I’ve done a lot of psychological work that has helped me intellectually, emotionally, and somewhat spiritually. This work has shifted my emphasis to the spiritual. Before, I was concerned with changing aspects of my personality and my ego. This work has shifted me to living in the essence of my being.

“My work with my clients has changed, too. It used to be more analytical, sorting through a personality and an ego. Now I’m concerned with understanding who that being really is, and honoring them.

“My spiritual practice takes 45 minutes to an hour every morning. I meditate for 20 minutes, and then go into nature and ask for guidance from the four directions. I have a place by a brook where I observe nature and watch the changes. My practice also involves my work with clients. I honor them. When I’m listening to someone, even someone I disagree with (like Sarah Palin talking on television), I try to remember who they are in their essence. My intention is to be conscious of where I am and to honor them. Since we’ve worked together, my mediations are slower. My mind doesn’t race as much. I feel safer and more connected in all my encounters with people and with nature. I feel more relaxed, and more conscious, more focused, more confidence, and more grounded. I have more tools now. I had psychological tools before. Now I have some spiritual tools. I feel like I’m giving birth – I’m giving life to parts of me that I hadn’t expressed before our work.”

Did you ever say something in anger or blurt out words you wish you could take back? Have you ever obsessed over something someone said or did? Of course you have. Haven’t we all?

While this may happen to you only once in a great while, there are those who live in a reactive state much of the time. For some people, this is the result of a trauma experienced long ago. Remaining stuck in negative patterns of thinking or behavior, they lose track of what they actually feel, believe, want or need. Having cultivated a lifetime of defenses, they live with anger, depression, panic or obsession.

Traumatized Individuals were the subject of a gathering of health practitioners, including a yoga instructor, social worker, psychotherapist and myself; all of us interested in helping these people make changes through an integrative approach to healing.

As a result of this meeting Jill was referred to me by her therapist, whom she’d been seeing for 3 years. While therapy was helping Jill to face the severe traumas of her childhood, she had become deeply depressed and suffered from profound anxiety. She and her therapist were looking for new ways to dig deeper into her issues, and her therapist suggested energy healing to help her become less reactive to the events of her daily life and to what was welling up from inside her.

The specifics of Jill’s history were not the focus of our sessions.  Bringing in positive energy and creating a safe place for her to acknowledge her issues, was where we began the work. Her relief was palpable.

After three sessions over a three month period, I spoke with Jill about her experiences and what had changed for her as a result of our work. Excerpts from that interview follow:

“One of the first changes I noticed is that I am able to tell in advance when I am going to have an episode of depression. I can counter it better because I know it’s on its way. I have more awareness of what is happening in me; I have more clarity. I’m not as afraid to look inside to see what caused an episode, and I can understand how I associate something from my past with what’s happening now, and I can keep them separate. I can see the triggers, and understand that’s what they are.”

“I’ve also been more aware of positive emotions. That’s huge. I’d say the last 3 sessions I’ve had with my therapist have been the best sessions I’ve had with her. My work with you cleared the way for me to be able to look inside and find something positive.” 

“I also noticed that my dreaming has improved. I used to have vivid detailed dreams in color, and I used to journal my dreams and learn from them,  but I had lost that for the last 3 or 4 years, but now I’ve gotten that back, and I can talk about my dreams with my therapist. She helps me understand them, too. It made me feel good to get that back.

“The quality of my sleep has improved too. I’m better rested. I used to wake up with my jaw clenched and a stiff neck. I’m probably not sleeping any more hours than before, but since I’m more relaxed, I sleep better.

“In our last session we worked on my heart chakra, and the balance between my male and female, and since then, I’ve noticed that I can let one or the other take over, and that causes me a lot of depression or anxiety. I can control them better now. I have a lot more awareness about what’s going on inside me, and I don’t have the confusion about my emotions I had before. I have a long way to go, but I really think that my energy sessions have been key to being aware of  things that used to lurk in the background.”

Change usually does not happen all at once; everything is a process. Believing that she had the wherewithal to create order and make positive changes, is what Jill needed to elevate her to the next level.

Her self-awareness, self-acceptance and self-discipline, along with professional support, will continue to help her on her path to inner peace.

TESTAMONIAL (excerpts of two E-mails from the same client after one session):

Since our session, I am feeling more energy running through me and have been able to key in on many things from my past that have led me on the path I am on today. I always thought being timid and passive was the way I was brought up and that there was nothing wrong with that. What it actually was doing was keeping my wounded ego from expressing itself and making me angry at myself. Which of course brings about negativity leading to illness. I am getting it all now. I'm having another "aha" moment. I thank "you" for that one. 

I have a clearer mind and am able to understand why I act a certain way or why I am afraid of certain things. I don't know how this has happened so quickly but I don't feel as ashamed and afraid to stand up for myself anymore. I sternly answered my son back when he said something obnoxious to me at dinner in front of my husband and other son which I usually just ignore and take it in, and his mouth dropped and he quietly ate dinner. My husband and my other son just sat there stunned and later my husband said "it's about time you stopped letting people walk all over you." Funny thing Robert , even my dog who doesn't listen to anyone and tries to be alpha dog has started listening to me with a kind of respect. It’s such a good feeling to be respected--something I have never had the pleasure of feeling. I hope I haven't burdened you with my life story but I just wanted you to know how grateful I am to you for bringing these past issues to light and for clearing those energy blocks.

Natalie first came to see me at Canyon Ranch and later she has had a series of sessions in Manhattan, where she lives. It has taken Natalie a number of years to overcome the traumas of loosing her husband in 9/11 and being diagnosed with breast cancer shortly afterwards. Her two daughters were teenagers when their father died. Until that time, Natalie took care of everyone except herself. Since then, she has been on a journey of self-discovery and spiritual growth which has included taking my course in Heart Centered Spiritual Growth.

“I first came to see you at the beginning of my period of development. I had been married for a long time, and when my husband died, I didn’t know how to help my daughter who was still living at home. She withdrew, and I didn’t know how to reach her, and I was dealing with breast cancer surgery and chemotherapy. I shut down emotionally. I’ve since realized that I had been shut down before 9/11. I was taking care of my husband and my kids, and was never alone enough to consider my own needs, and I adapted to meet the needs of my family. I never even knew what kinds of foods I wanted to eat. I put myself in the back seat. So 9/11 forced me to deal with myself, what was going on inside, and what kind of person I was. I was on a journey. My trip to Canyon Ranch was the first step I made on that journey, when I had my first session with you, and it started me thinking more. When I first came to Canyon Ranch I was totally disconnected to myself.  I think the first step was that it opened me up to the idea of working on the physical part of me, to get healthy.  I joined a gym and started working on making my body stronger.  I think that was important prior to my connecting to my heart center, especially with the body scans. It made me more receptive to sitting within myself and for me to be more in my home. On the beginning of this journey, I needed to be out all the time, from early morning to late at night. 

“I didn’t realize how this work was affecting me until I’d had several sessions, and I started to feel so much lighter and uplifted. When I took your course, I became aware of this huge block in my heart center, and after a session about 2 months ago, the block was removed and I felt lighter, happier, and more joyous. I don’t think I was ready to feel this until that time. I had so many things to take care of first, particularly with the breast cancer and complications from all the treatments. This work has helped me in a gradual way. I am feeling much more optimistic and hopeful. I feel more secure with the direction I need to follow. I feel more directed on my path, more empowered, and more open creatively.

“In order for me to be more creative, and accept my artistic ability, I needed to be okay with me.  Lately, within the past two weeks I have submitted watercolors to two juried shows.  That is something I would have shrugged off in the past, thinking I wasn't ready, still developing as an artist.  Now, it doesn't seem to matter if I am ready or not because I believe just the idea of submitting to shows is part of my process. The empowerment comes from showing more of who I am to the world and feeling stronger, and more committed to making my own mark.

“The course has been great. I love sitting with a group of people and sharing my experiences with them. I like the group dynamics that is forming with the people in the course. My spiritual yearnings had been buried in me for so long, and I love being able to ask questions and get a good answer. I’ve learned to be patient with myself, so I don’t expect myself to get it all at once. I like that the classes are once a month because that gives me time to practice the exercises.”

Michele is a 40-something nurse from New Jersey. She left her husband 2 years ago after many years of what she described as verbal, emotional, and physical abuse. Her ex-husband often threatened her, and she lived with constant fear. He also abused alcohol. Leaving the marriage was a big step for Michele, for with her traditional Catholic upbringing, she had believed that marriage was for life. The divorce and visitation arrangements are still not final.  She has one child, a 10 year old son. I have seen Michele twice, both times at Canyon Ranch, both within the last 4 months.

“Before our first session, I had tremendous pressure and tremendous guilt. Leaving the marriage meant that I would have to expose my son to ex-husband without my protection for limited periods of time. I felt guilt and shame that I had allowed the abuse to continue for so long, and guilty because I couldn’t keep my family together.

“After our first session, I felt unburdened, and I still feel unburdened. I didn’t analyze what had happened. I know what I feel. The situation with my ex is getting worse by the minute and I still feel unburdened. I can’t understand how I can still feel unburdened because of all the stunts he is still pulling, and all the unknowns. But I feel empowered.

“I feel so positive and free. I was around two strange animals over the weekend, a dog and cat, and right away the cat was on my lap and the dog was licking my hand. My father says that I now have positive energy that emanates from me. I have also been able to stand up for myself and explain how I feel in situations. I can stand up for myself without getting upset.

“I feel less overwhelmed, more centered, less burdened, and more hope. I feel like I can have a positive life. I feel like I have the ability to change even more. I used to think that I was finished – I couldn’t grow any more. Now I feel like I can’t wait! I’m very impressed with what you do!”

“A close friend sent Robert my way after I told her that due to family pressure, frustration, and feeling taken advantage of, I found myself consumed with anger and afraid that I was becoming depressed. Without any real expectations, I went to see Robert in his Manhattan office. I came away from the experience feeling totally at peace and feeling that I had had a complete attitude adjustment. He had me forgive myself for the rage, frustration, shrillness, victimization and guilt that I was feeling. He said, we choose. We’re responsible for our own consciousness. If we’re angry, we have to take responsibility for that anger and not blame others and that we shouldn’t make decisions based on anger, frustration or feeling like a victim. I asked him if the anger would come back. He said that the negative energy won’t come back if I say no to it. I have to nip it in the bud before it has a chance to gain momentum. A week has passed since my session and I still feel less angry. Thoughts pop into my head. Annoyances, but I tell myself to cut it out. My husband has noticed the difference and a neighbor even remarked to me how much lighter I seem. I was very stuck and Robert got everything flowing again.”

Normally I write clients’ stories anonymously. I change the names to obscure the identity of the client. Frans wanted me to use his name, and so I am respecting his wish.

Frans is married to one of my energy healing students in the Berkshires. He has cancer, and his trips to town for chemotherapy often coincided with his wife’s energy healing classes, so he volunteered to be a subject (or guinea pig) for the students on several occasions. This is what he said about his experience with energy healing –

“For the past few years I have been having a hard time, both before and after my cancer diagnosis. I was having a miserable time. I was told that my life span was limited, and I had so much anger in me, both before and after learning the diagnosis. Then about a month ago, I noticed that my anger was just gone. I started to look at my life and my marriage differently. My mood elevated significantly. I started the cancer treatments with a smile inside, instead of crying inside, like I had been doing for years. Then I looked back and realized that I started feeling more positive right after my first energy healing session. I didn’t realize this until a few months afterwards. I felt happy again, like there was a huge weight lifted off me. The anger was totally gone. I had been struggling with this for a long time. Even when I’m having pain with chemo, I am still upbeat and happy for my circumstances.

“What stands out about the sessions for me was forgiving myself. That had a significant impact on me. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this eased my mind so I could get to the next level and give up the anger. I was aware I had an anger problem. I had seen a therapist, and the therapist I was seeing didn’t know what do to with my anger. I told him several times that I felt I had an underlying anger problem. I told him I didn’t know where it came from. I feel like I’ve had it my whole life. He wouldn’t go into it. All of a sudden, overnight, it was gone. I noticed this a few weeks after my first session. I call it my big attitude change. It coincides with my sessions, and with the beginning of chemotherapy. A close friend put something about this on her Facebook page, and I thought that this was OK, my life is an open book, it doesn’t matter that it’s on the internet.”

(I have seen Dolores Rose about once a year for 3 years. Dolores tells her own story very well, and is in the process of writing a book about her life and her healing process. When her book is available, I will give particulars how to purchase it in this newsletter.)

“A couple of years ago when I started with you, I was already interested in healing. My husband had died and I was grieving. My heart chakra was closed and there was a lot of pain there. Many of the issues that came up in the session were related to how I had handled being molested as a child. I had turned to drugs and alcohol. On my spiritual journey, I had focused on spiritual and emotional healing; when I had contact with you, I became aware that there is a physical component to this, that I had stored pain in my body. This is the first time this concept had entered my mind. After having this experience with you, I started going to reiki sessions, and found the same things – my heart chakra was closed, and so was my throat chakra, for I had no expression. When I saw you again, there was a big improvement in how my chakras worked.

“We worked on a number of things. I was unable to forgive myself, for I had secrets inside me for many years. I felt shame and embarrassment. These secrets needed to be told. Healing wasn’t just about going to a therapist and talking, for my body also holds memory, and this was the first time I had understood this. I had a painful childhood, particularly with sexual molestation, and this was the first time I understood that I was holding these memories in my body, and I could let them go. When I left the room after my first session, I was uplifted. I had an immediate feeling of being lifted.

“Last year when I saw you, I got messages for the first time. Archangel Gabriel told me that I needed to write a book about my experiences and share them with the world. He said that they knew I had done a lot of work on myself, and I should be proud of myself for this. There was a mission for me, and I knew I had to write a book about my experiences. I felt spiritually validated, that I had something to share with others to help them heal. At that time, I was having problems with holding on to my last secret, and I didn’t want to put that into the book, about another molestation, where I had blamed myself. All my life I had been looking for love. I thought that if I did what was wanted I would be loved. My mother had overwhelmed me with her abandonment and rejection. I didn’t know where I belonged, so I tried to please other people. My parents had crushed me with rejections and put-downs, so I reached out to other family members for love.

“These sessions helped me be able to forgive those people because I wanted to move on. Healing has given me the ability to move forward and follow my mission. I feel that all the things that have happened to me have happened for a reason – so I can help other people heal their issues. I am writing my story from my heart. This work has also brought me to a higher spiritual level. I’m more aware of my ego, and how that is a blockage. I feel closer to Higher Power. I am more grounded and my channels are open. I feel much better about myself.”

I saw Christopher once, about 2 years ago, and we have stayed in touch since then. He is around 40, and operates his own business. He was ready for his session because he had been doing his homework for years, in therapy, dealing with issues from an abusive childhood. Before we started working, he told me that he had been in therapy for 20 years and he understood his issues and that he owned them because he accepted that they were his karma, but that he was still tortured by his emotional baggage. This is his story, in his words -

“My father was narcissistic and authoritarian by nature. He expected his orders to be carried out without questioning, and I was a challenging child for him. I was athletic but not academic. As an adolescent, I started to rebel, and I was often sent away from the dinner table, locked in my room, verbally abused, and sometimes strapped. I felt unprotected and unsupported.

“I was dyslexic and labeled as non-academic, stupid, unable to learn, and unable to behave properly. I was fortunate enough to have a family friend to confide in. She told me that I was developing a skill set that the other children were not, and that I had chosen to have these issues so they would force me to come up with different antennae in life, spiritual, emotional, visual, and other things too. And I was so busy dealing with what I wasn’t during that time that I didn’t see it. There is no mistake in how the Universe operates. The problem is in how we align with it.

“Self-discovery and self-acceptance are a daily task for me. I started on this path about 20 years ago when I was about 20, and went to see an out-of-the-box therapist who helped me get in touch with my heart. I cried every day for 6 months. Our sessions were both joyous and painful.

“I still look back upon our session frequently. I’ve lost some of the detail of it, but this session restored something to me I never knew I had, or could have. It gave me inner understanding that I have “a goldmine” inside me, my inner resources, my connection, my spirituality. You guided me through this process in a way that made me comfortable with looking at my wounds. You walked me through a series of visual images that were symbolic of my life. It was like watching a movie. My first image was a place of desolation, looking like an atomic bomb had exploded. Gradually, as I became cleared, I saw colors and more visual metaphors through my different chakras that were symbolic of my growth. This brought me back to my heart chakra, where everything just is, and everything has its meaning and its place. It helped me put aside the residue of blame I still harbored.

“I felt whole for a long time after the session. I’ve only felt this way a few times in my life. My body, my mind, my heart, my chakras were working in unison. I knew I had made progress when I saw something on the street, like litter or garbage, and I realized that people must dislike themselves and their world so much that they run around and litter it. This helped me to understand that I don’t have to come back and go through what I’ve been through again. It helped motivate me to want to change myself, and the world around me.

“I believe that in this time, many of us are following the path of Siddhartha, and choosing internal acceptance over external validation.”

Jim came to me first at Canyon Ranch at the recommendation of a friend, who told him that she had met the most unusual man, who twirls stones around you as you lie on a treatment table, and it’s called energy healing. (!) Jim has been especially receptive to this work, partly because of his temperament, and partially because he practices yoga. I wouldn’t describe him as particularly spiritual in his inclinations. Our first session was in August 2007. Jim had no idea what to expect. His wife had died of cancer in 2003, he had been across the street from the WTC on 9/11, and his son has been diagnosed as paranoid-schizophrenic.

Jim had worked on the 35th floor of a building near the WTC. He lived in suburban Connecticut and had an apartment in Battery Park City. From his office, he could see where the first plane hit, and he said that the steel falling to ground looked like confetti. He and some co-workers took the stairs to the ground, fearing that a power failure would trap them in an elevator. The second plane hit when they were in the stairs. He walked to his apartment, and his first thought was to get his car and drive away, until a policeman told him that no one was allowed to drive (expletives deleted). He was a few hundred yards from the WTC when the first tower collapsed. He ran to the water, and found tug boats offering rides to evacuate people to Jersey City, (“woman and children first”). Bill described himself as on automatic, covered in ashes, trying to get home. Eventually he made it.  Jim feels that there is stuff in his lungs that will never come out, and found it hard to talk about his 9/11 experiences afterward.

Emotionally, he described himself as running on adrenalin, hyper-alert, and never gave himself a chance to process what he’d seen. Much of it assumed a surreal quality. I don’t feel that he was traumatized by the experience, but he was angry about what had happened. He never gave himself a chance to think about the horrible things he had seen, and when asked what happened to him, he’d make up flip answers. It’s stayed with him and he had trouble speaking about what he’d seen.

In our first session, we dealt with this 9/11 experiences, and how he had processed his wife’s death a few years later. “I had my eyes closed and it felt like you were exorcizing all my demons, all this horrible stuff, watching my wife die, 9/11, and I felt so much energy that I honestly felt I was levitating off the table. I knew I wasn’t, but it felt like I was. I couldn’t feel what I was lying on. I was shaking violently, like a plane in a thunderstorm, and when it was over, I was calm.

“When my wife died, she had been sick for 3 ½ years, and I was exhausted by the suffering. She decided to die at home, and be at peace when died, she and insisted that I leave home for 3 nights, go to the apartment in New York. She died when I was away. In retrospect, I think she wanted a peaceful place to die without my hysteria, but my immediate emotional reaction was guilt, that I had abandoned her when she died. I couldn’t talk about this with anyone. After that session, I achieved peace with her death. I had been a great husband for 35 years, I had loved her, and had taken care of her through 3 ½ years of illness, and the circumstances of her death were something she had wanted, and it wasn’t about me doing something wrong. I had respected her wishes, but I hadn’t seen it that way, and couldn’t talk to anyone about it. After that session, these things never bothered me any more.

“The second session was taking out other garbage. I feel like if someone had weighed me precisely before and after that session, I lost weight. Emotionally, I lost weight. I think that everyone has horrors that happen to them that they bury, that they can’t come to peace with, can’t put behind them. Your sessions helped me let these things go.

“The third session last May gave me clarity about a relationship I’m involved in now. I don’t know what decision I’m going to make yet, but I feel like I have more clarity and centered, more focus now. Your sessions are not like going to see a therapist; they add value to my day to day life, far better than drugs or liquor! Because of 9/11 and my wife’s death, I have much less fear of dying. I’m not terrified of it anymore.

“Your therapy works with anybody who has traumas they haven’t dealt with, if they can let themselves go and believe it can help them. You’ve to believe, and you’ve got to be able to let it go.”

Joanne is a forty-something divorced single mom in the Boston area. She operates a family business started by her father, who had passed-on about 3 years before her first session with me, which was in the autumn of 2006.

“The first session was really good. I had been struggling with a ton of things. I felt really stuck in every area of my life, particularly with things having to do with my Dad. During that session, you said that this doesn’t usually happen in my work, but I can feel that your Father is here. I felt him, too. The session addressed just about everything I had been hanging onto – his lack of approval of me, his trying to control everything, and hurtful things he had done over time. Once when I was a shy 21-year old, he told me that nobody like me. Part of me knew he was doing these things because he loved me, but they were very hurtful to me.

“The feeling I had in the session was a deep realization that my father didn’t know that what he had done had hurt me so deeply, and he was very sorry; he never intended his words to have these consequences for me. During that session, a wall came down within me. You know how you tense up before an accident, how your body gets tight and tense – it felt like a release. I wasn’t holding onto it any more. I wasn’t protecting that part of me, and it was OK to let it go. I now feel like I’ve reconciled with my father, and I’ve been able to forgive him, and remember him with the love that is deep in my heart.

“After that, what I remember the most was at dinner that night, everybody said “What happened to you?”. They could see that I was different, free from these burdens I had been carrying. It was visible to them when I walked in the room, and these were people I had met less than 24 hours before.

“I have vivid memory of driving home a few days later, and I felt like I was leaving a trail of stuff behind me on the highway. This went on for at least 15 minutes, and I felt physically lighter. Stuff was just falling off. I’ve felt the same thing in my other sessions with you. When I leave, I feel so much lighter, and it takes me a while to come down to earth. I make sure I have someone with me after the sessions because they are so powerful.

“Other sessions have built on the first one. The first session was the most dramatic. Other sessions have been confirmations that I was on the right path. I have been following a path of personal and spiritual growth that really began with my first my first session with you over two years ago.”

Ryan has been a client for the last 6 months. His story is interesting to me because it can be interpreted on several levels; Ryan’s personal growth issues, his issues with his ex-wife and mother, and his karma with his mother are all part of his story.

Ryan is in his mid 30’s. He is currently involved in a contentious divorce with his ex-wife over custody of his infant son. While most members of Ryan’s family are testifying for him at the court hearings, his mother has chosen to support his ex-wife. Ryan has been in therapy for several years, and believes that both his mother and his ex-wife both have borderline personalities.

“A person with borderline personality disorder has had an early life trauma that prevents them from being able to empathize with other people. They hold lots of hostility and negativity, and they blame others for what they feel inside themselves. They become paranoid, and distort what’s going on around them. They interpret fairly innocuous interactions as hostile. They are very good manipulators; ‘If you loved me you would . . . .‘ They try to control the people around them. They are very good at setting up situations to get what they want, alternating between being charming or solicitous and being hostile, cold, or aggressive. Many people with borderline personalities can be very charming and socially successful.

“Our sessions have helped me achieve some distance, to have detachment from my mother and my ex-wife, so I can deal with them with greater understanding and less emotion. I’ve also learned a lot about how to take responsibility for myself, and to gain awareness of what is my responsibility and what is not. Many of my problems with them involved feeling responsible their issues. Deep down, I had a feeling that I had something to be ashamed or embarrassed about. This made me an easy target for a relationship with a borderline. They seek out people like me. They preyed on my weakness, on feelings of culpability. Karmicly, I’ve come to see my mother as a very powerful person, and I sought to escape her power by escaping into fantasy and passivity, which only weakened me further. Through fantasy, I could disappear into hypothetical situations where I’d have acclaim or approval. In real life, when faced with similar situations, I was usually shy and timid. I’ve come to see that disappearing into fantasy is a way of alleviating pain, and in the long term, it adds to my pain. Its effectiveness is only short-term.

“I’ve come to see many of the events of my life as being like a really nasty ground war, and when we’re working together, I feel like I’m able to float upward, and away from the fray; that the people who are trying to attack me are still swinging away wildly, and I’m out of their reach. I’m removing myself from a battle that can’t be won. Our work has helped me strengthen my inner core. It’s not running away; it’s a strategic withdrawal. It’s an un-winnable fight. I’ve stopped fighting on their terms, and I’m learning to contest this on my terms, like going to court.”

Sarah is a 32 year old massage student who has been depressed for as long as she can remember. She was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder in her late 20’s. She is currently on medication. She describes herself as being neither spiritual nor religious. While she received emotional and financial support from her family, she said it was hard for them to understand what she was going through, and it’s also been hard for Sarah to find a clear direction in her life. She attended art school, worked in a museum, and was an esthetician for a number of years, but she also spent months at a time in severe depression, unable to leave her home. More recently she has found her calling as a massage therapist. She’s nearly finished with her course of study.

I have treated Sarah twice – once at Canyon Ranch in July 2008, and once by distance a month later. Most of the deep clearing happened during the first session. I have treated many people for depressive energies, and Sarah had lot and was ready to let them go. I also encountered manic energy – mental euphoria, a sort of false sense of euphoria in the mental realms. True euphoria is spiritually based.

I recently interviewed Sarah by telephone. “I felt all this negativity just sort of lift away, and I felt tingly, and it changed my whole perception of everything. It changed my sense of what was possible. I became a lot lighter, and more accepting of my life, both then and afterward. It’s been hard for my friends to accept that I’ve changed so much, but they’re coming around now. Lately a bit of the negativity has come back, but not like before, and I’m under a lot of stress with school for 10 hours a day, so that might be part of it. Now I don’t have any depression at all, whereas I did have some before the first session, and the manic episodes are irregular and not as intense. Overall, I have a much more positive attitude about my life, and it’s now easy for me to accept myself and what happens to me. Not bad for an hour’s work! The second session was a maintenance session. This work has changed my life. I have very different and more positive perceptions of myself.”

Since our session, I am feeling more energy running through me and have been able to key in on many things from my past that have led me on the path I am on today. I always thought being timid and passive was the way I was brought up and that there was nothing wrong with that. What it actually was doing was keeping my wounded ego from expressing itself and making me angry at myself. Which of course brings about negativity leading to illness. I am getting it all now. I'm having another "aha" moment. I thank "you" for that one. 

I have a clearer mind and am able to understand why I act a certain way or why I am afraid of certain things. I don't know how this has happened so quickly but I don't feel as ashamed and afraid to stand up for myself anymore. I sternly answered my son back when he said something obnoxious to me at dinner in front of my husband and other son which I usually just ignore and take it in, and his mouth dropped and he quietly ate dinner. My husband and my other son just sat there stunned and later my husband said "it's about time you stopped letting people walk all over you." Funny thing Robert , even my dog who doesn't listen to anyone and tries to be alpha dog has started listening to me with a kind of respect. It’s such a good feeling to be respected--something I have never had the pleasure of feeling. I hope I haven't burdened you with my life story but I just wanted you to know how grateful I am to you for bringing these past issues to light and for clearing those energy blocks.