Energy healing

GUY SHAHAR embarked on a career in energy healing with little understanding of what it entailed, after experiencing Dr. Bradley Nelson’s method, The Emotion Code. The results spoke for themselves. After becoming certified as a healer, Guy is now watching with wonder how the method is unfolding and evolving, and how he is growing through the process.

I never gave energy healing any serious consideration until after my first visit to Kanha Shanti Vanam Ashram in 2020.  The idea of sitting in a room and being able to heal another person in another town or on another continent seemed interesting but fantastical to me.

A few years before that, I’d had a health breakdown following a long difficult situation at work. I was housebound for 3 months, and one of the things I’d been doing was receiving online energy healing with a practitioner. I didn’t really know what it was or how it worked, but I figured it was worth a try.

It was during one session after that visit to Kanha that I heard a voice in my own head saying, “You should do this!” I almost dismissed it because energy healing was so far from anything I ever thought I’d do, or would be able to do.

The Emotion Code

But having heard the voice, I couldn’t ignore it. So I half-heartedly looked up the method I’d been receiving, The Emotion Code. It is based on the idea of releasing “trapped emotions” that come up at various points in our lives but are not fully processed. Perhaps it is because we are too overwhelmed or triggered at the time, and instead repress them, so they lodge as excess and disruptive energy in our system, and lead to all sorts of physical and mental issues.

I discovered that it was actually a very simple method, and very easy to do, but required an ability that I didn’t think I had – “muscle-testing” to obtain clear yes or no answers from the subconscious mind of the person being treated.

The man who created The Emotion Code, Dr. Bradley Nelson, has written a book of the same name which guides people how to do it. It includes a chapter on how to muscle test. I had zero confidence that a written chapter in a book would enable me to learn this important new skill, but I picked up a copy and by the end of the chapter, doing the exercises he suggested, I was surprised to get some reasonably clear answers.

So I persisted with learning the method, using it on myself and my family, without any expectation of results. None came until one day when I was suffering from severe back pain and inflammation, and my wife suggested I try The Emotion Code to help. I wasn’t hopeful but had nothing to lose, so I went upstairs and released a number of trapped emotions. By the time I had finished, I was surprised to find that the pain had halved, and it continued to diminish as the day went on. When I told my wife, she took a look at my back and exclaimed that the inflammation had also gone down. That was the first time I genuinely felt there was something in energy healing.

I had similar results when working with others in need. People’s pains disappeared in front of my eyes on Zoom calls. People who’d been depressed started smiling with an inner joy they’d not felt for ages. Children’s issues started to be resolved when we worked on them through their parents. Even pets showed dramatic improvement. And each time, it was me who was more surprised than the other person, as if I couldn’t quite believe the results that were happening. 

I had the good fortune to record an interview with Dr. Nelson recently, where he said that he shared the same surprise at good results, even after many years of practicing his own system. When asked how his approach brings about changes, he just shrugs and says, “I just work here.”

My surprise at the results was a little ironic, however, because I’d been a Heartfulness trainer for nearly 20 years, and I was used to sitting at home giving meditation sessions to people far away, which I had no doubt were effective. But for some reason the idea of working in the same way to bring about more material health benefits hadn’t occurred to me.

I was starting to field calls from people who’d been referred to me by friends and family, and I realized I needed to start doing this professionally. So I got certified in The Emotion Code, and then in a vastly expanded version of it known as The Body Code, and then launched a company, Heartful Healing.

Perhaps it is because we are too overwhelmed or triggered at the
time, and instead repress our emotions, so they lodge as excess and
disruptive energy in our system, and lead to all sorts of
physical and mental issues.

How does energy healing work?

One of the questions I’m often asked is how energy healing actually works, and I’m no closer to having an answer. But having reflected on it, there are now 3 steps I always take at the start of a session: 

1. Connect to a Higher Power
   Make a deep connection to a higher power, whatever that means to you. Dr. Nelson advocates this. As a Heartfulness practitioner, this is an easy step: I bring my attention to the constant inner presence in the heart that we’re gifted when we meditate with Heartfulness regularly and sincerely. It becomes an ever-present and vital part of our existence. That way, I’m not dependent of my own ultra-limited capabilities.
2. Connect with the client
   I focus my attention on them so that the answers I get from muscle testing reflect their own responses. I do this with as much love and prayerfulness for their well-being as possible.
3. Positive intention
   Together with the client, we set a positive intention for the results of the work. This is really important, as dwelling on problems actually exacerbates them. As the old saying goes, “Where attention goes, energy flows.” I invite them to put their attention on the positive outcome that they want, rather than the current negative situation they don’t.

I bring my attention to the constant inner presence in the heart
that we’re gifted when we meditate with Heartfulness
regularly and sincerely.

“Where attention goes, energy flows.”

For example, if they can’t sleep, we don’t focus on “I want to be free of these sleeping problems,” but rather, they picture themselves waking up happy and refreshed in the morning, full of positive energy. They connect with how that will feel, and experience joy and gratitude as if they have it now. If they do this while the work is going on, it is especially powerful. The more they keep this changed perspective through their daily lives, the better.

Then the session begins. We identify the imbalances in the person’s system which need to be released, and use a simple technique to release them. But I can’t help feeling that this and other healing methods are a little superfluous, as the essentials of the work are established in those initial 3 steps. 

Those 3 steps are a sort of prayer for a particular manifestation, and perhaps it is the ultimate destination of any healer to end up in a place where the healing occurs through prayer alone.

I’ve started to move in this direction with some more pioneering clients, using a method I call “Accelerated Healing,” which bypasses the need to identify each individual imbalance. It uses the release technique to release or rebalance whatever needs it, to bring the result they want. I find the results to be at least as effective as an established modality. It’s a step in the direction of where I suspect healing will ultimately take me.

Illustrations by JASMEE MUDGAL