Energy Healing & the Nervous System
Understanding Psychic Work Through The Lens Of Polyvagal Theory
"The nervous system speaks in its own language and in order to listen, we need to understand that language." ~ Deb Dana
Something I've tried to do on my own healing journey is get creative and integrate the holistic power of functional health with the spiritual practices of accessing higher consciousness.
Time and again this has revealed how accepting the full animal nature and the sensitive honesty of our nervous systems provides a key to truly safe transcendental experiences that both reveal our deepest soul and bring us into joyful alignment with the earth.
In a world of so much trauma - both current and epigenetically and karmically inherited - it's imperative we look at how spirituality needs to support this return to sacred union with our bodies, identify the impact of violence - both interpersonal and structural - on how we experience ourselves, and not (often unintentionally) get in the way.
When we open to energy healing practices such as Reiki we attune and work with the subtlest levels of the human body and its own biofield (that acts as a part of the greater field of consciousness).
This includes the autonomic nervous system made up of both sympathetic and para sympathetic systems, with the vagus nerve that begins in the brain stem providing the latter pathway through the ventral vagus branches (above diaphragm in the chest and heart) and dorsal (beneath the diaphragm in the abdomen and digestive tract).
This system plays a vital role in all levels of our physical health, safety (both real and perceived) and emotional and spiritual well being.
When the nervous system is on a state of high alert, whether from a current threat or repeated exposure in the past, we'll experience a healthy autonomic fight or flight response.
However, when on occasion/s it was not possible to safely express this, the human nervous system - like any instinctive mammal - shuts down and goes into a protective 'freeze' state of disassociation and numbing of feeling.
This can be expressed as long term 'functional' freeze or a 'fawn' socialised response of hypervigilance, chronic busyness and people pleasing, increased by childhood developmental trauma whereby the health myelination of the vagus nerve, grown by secure co-oriented connection, was not adequately nurtured.
When in functional freeze we may experience many physical and emotional health issues including chronic fatigue, depression and anxiety.
We may not know what we're missing because we've forgotten or never felt it.
And yet paradoxically even though we're disassociated from our bodies and possibly experiencing health issues, we may still experience moments of deep bliss and spiritual insights via our pineal and crown chakras.
And thus approaches a cross roads - how to channel high frequency energy safely in a way that doesn't leave us vulnerable to psychic attack and absorbing the emotional energies of the environment and others whilst - often unconsciously - stuck in trauma freeze.
I believe we can turn to Polyvagal Theory as a useful way to understand the crucial hierarchy and sequencing for regulating our nervous system back to its homeostatic state, allowing us to anchor our psychic abilities with discernment and accepting how deep our spiritual humanity aligns with the wild intelligence of our bodies.
Polyvagal Theory, developed by Dr Stephen Porges, explores the neurophysiological foundations of childhood attachment, proprioception (kinesthesia or spatial orientation of the body) emotions and communication.
Our conscious and pre-conscious memories of nervous system co-regulation and parenting, such as sounds, sight and touch, can determine how easily we self-regulate, including meditation practices and healthy solitude, as adults.
Developing conscious bodily felt pathways to connection - through self, others, the environment and spirit - can give the nervous system the appropriate cues of safety and allow us to slowly and compassionately 'thaw' out of freeze.
It can also help us understand how neuroception - our autonomic surveillance system that scans from inside our body, outside in our environment, and between the interaction of two people - shapes our responses and subconscious beliefs about ourselves and the world.
"We may not be responsible for the world that created our minds, but we can take responsibility for the mind with which we create our world." ~ Gabor Mate
Energy healers when safely regulated can often sense the subtle energies of dysregulation in their clients and support them with attuning to and vocalising their own neuroception.
Somatic Experiencing Practitioners (see the work of Peter Levine) further support this felt insight of sensation and the building of nervous system capacity through slow pendulation and titration between challenging sensations (including repressed emotions such as rage and terror, disgust and shame) and safe pleasure, releasing stored trauma and working back up the nervous system hierarchy to healthy sympathetic and active mobilisation.
In psychic energy healing there is often a conscious invite of higher frequency morphic fields of heart coherence from Source teams, ascended masters, angels and God (of which we are).
It's crucial we reflect on how our nervous system states and stored trauma can be an unconscious filter of how we experience these energies. For example, having a submissive unquestioning stance due to a childhood fear of saying no.
Similarly channelling these loving frequencies for yourself and/or clients may trigger states of dorsal vagal shut down (not the same as a detox or healing crisis) due to stored trauma and their current nervous system capacity to hold them.
Think of an electric circuit that receives a sudden bolt of high voltage and then crashes!
Supporting them to fully arrive in their own felt sense before the session begins and being grounded yourself is essential.
Setting the conscious intention that the healing being channelled will be in their highest good for their highest soul purpose. Following that guidance throughout.
Something I have learnt to incorporate in my own healing practice is listening and pendulating between energy healing and the safe grounding of massage therapy as a way of slowly anchoring their nervous system and building capacity.
Being aware of the following is also helpful:
- Psychic states of oneness consciousness may be easier to experience (and sometimes addictive) than the slow reconnection to inner neuroception.
- Negative infiltration of the crown chakra due to disassociation from the lower chakras (where ancestral and past live trapped emotions are often stored and can be fully felt, integrated and released).
- The act & invitation of breathing can be loaded for trauma survivors.
- Orientation to a physical space may not be soothing if the client has learnt over time to shutdown an awareness of their surroundings. Open up a discussion about how they feel in their body when they scan a room.
- Lying down prone on a therapy table can (but not always) trigger memories of trauma, especially sexual abuse.
Listening, discernment & attunement is crucial and so is compassion for ourselves.
We're undoing centuries of conditioning that kept us separate from contented embodiment.
A De-armouring philosophy I vastly respect:
'Of utmost importance in this practice is -
1) the practitioner never pushes
2) practitioner is aware when the client pushes.'
Energy healing can be a safe and empowering experience for those with stored trauma when integrated within a sensitive nervous system aware co-created container.
Thanks for reading 🫶
Recommended Guides and Resources:
One of my faves 'Anchored: How to befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory.' Deb Dana
Peter Levine, Kimberly Ann Johnson, Bessel van der Kolk, Gabor Maté & Irene Lyon (great nervous system support programmes).
Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash