The lowest level is to get in order to get
The next to give in order to get
The 3rd to give in order to give
The highest level is to get in order to give.
(Rabbi Ashlag)
I check with myself the question what is building me up as a therapist.
We, therapists, spend plenty of time and money to get education. We learn, years over years, great deal of materials, we get a diploma. Then we join a clinic of a senior therapist to get some more education, we turn to different kinds of treatment fields, in order to expand and have more tools that will assist us to work with patients and in the clinic.
We invest many years in tearing all we know into little pieces – just in order to put it back together again to a personal unique therapeutic approach. We participate in seminars and lectures of the best professionals, dive into ancient books and study more of the origins. Learn Chinese, Japanese, Sanskrit.
But what is keeping a therapist in the clinic, facing hundreds of patients over many years? What is magnetizing more and more people to get treatments from us – and I don't mean "modern marketing".
What gives our body and soul vitality and exists all the time in our surroundings? Prevents us from emptying ourselves, wearing a masque of detaching and businesslike, exhausting ourselves day after day, treatment after treatment. Or absorbing to our bodies and hearts the pain and burden and tension of our patients.
Therapists are sensitive beings. Physically, emotionally, energetically. Aware, and at the time exposed to the energy of everybody who's in touch with them, naturally patients with difficult life experience. Therapists must know well the fields in which they act, in order to rejuvenates Qi or recycle it back to the ground.
Many therapists suffer from exhaustion and physical disorders, caused by lack of understanding how to manage their own Qi.
I examine these issues myself, and with patients and students. My comparative advantage is my age, and many years in practice. And the blessed maturation, that's forcing me to sign up a whole new contract with my body and soul, because the old one has expired.
The wonderful uplifting energy that we sense in the first year of school, that expands our minds and spirits, fades out over the years and a practical approach takes over. How to do, what to do, when to do and to whom, how much. At some point we will realize it's not enough. That these tools - Kata, method, knowledge – can only support the healing process, allowing the therapist grow within self-observation. Not create it.
An aware therapist lives in acceptance, in a daily persistence to a personal development. Only ongoing transformation can create a stable ground to healing that is beyond the knowledge in the books, beyond technique, beyond skill.
The space we live in: our body, the energetic field that surrounds us, the house, the clinic – are active, living entities, that pays us back more than a double when wer'e attentive and nourish it. We must live in a notion of giving, providing our immediate inviroment – instead of the common notion of "using". Using the body, using a room, using a house, using knowledge.
Field. A therapist should be familiar with the energetic field in which he acts and lives, like a multi-lingual creature. It begins with a simple acquaintance with anchors in the Qi field like Dan-tien (Tanden), the option of rejuvenating Qi connecting heaven and earth, the simple action of grounding.
When we are well aware of the boarders of our energetic field, Qi freely moves within. We will not invade other's field, not get damaged from powerful Qi of the other. We are in our center.
When we are well aware of the fact that it is borderless and vast to infinity – we recognize the one that connects us all, and become responsible for the other as for ourselves. we can sense our hearts expand in recognition of unification.
The field surrounds and supports us all the time. It has a lively, active, breathing contact with us. When we nourish it and are aware to it and its influence, we can safely cradle in it and move on.
Every therapist needs a temple. A corner that we can sit in, silently stare or meditate
The temple is a breathing and alive organ in our environment. And we keep being aware of its existence
Temple. We need a clean, clear environment, fine-tuned by us. Every therapist needs a temple. A corner that we can sit in, silently stare or meditate. A well nurtured, impeccable place. We build our mini-temple to our own needs and taste. Light candles. Put crystals. A picture of an admirable person or heart expanding scenery. Placed objects of empowerment.
In the east the existence of a personal mini-temple is ordinary. In our culture we almost need to re-invent it, in our language, by our faiths, and according to our own sacred aesthetics and beauty.
The temple need maintenance: changing water for the flowers, dusting, washing the tablecloth. Sustaining the clarity. Only than it can support and nourish us. In front of a living well kept temple we can rest, make wishes, staring at its beauty that expands our soul. The temple is a breathing and alive organ in our environment. And we keep being aware of its existence.
We can have more than one. Create few places in a room in which we sit down and stare at beauty. Splendor. A living memoir of the sacred.
Body, room. Vegetarianism. Proteins and vegetables. Veganism. Macrobiotics. Ayurveda food. No nightshades vegetables. Gluten free. Lactose free. Row food. Smoothies. Fruit shakes. Only mom's cooking. Concerning nutrition, we already know that there's no food that is "right" for everybody. That even what's right for me changes continuously.
A healthy dialogue with food is deep and wide, it's colorful and sensuous and has flavors, it has a proportions and ongoing choice of what is right for me now.
The body needs a conscious movement. I can say unequivocally, and it's no secret, that after the age of forty we can no longer use our reservoirs. The body gets more easily weary, starts to squeak. By the age of fifty the daily movement is like food and water. One day without it - Tai Qi, walking, running, biking, swimming, Pilates, Qi gong, yoga – and we're tired and focus-less.
Joining movement and consciousness together is not a choice for the on-going developing therapist. It's an endless work of observing ourselves and our thoughts, knowing it has a crucial effect on the Qi around us. A permanent exercise, a Kata – is a state in which we do not have to think of our next move, only let ourselves move within and observe. Be the movement. Be here and now. Be free of the past and the next to come.
The mutual movement of consciousness and body cures the body. New connections are created and what seemed worn and incurable is renewing.
I put my body in the treatments room. I sit in every corner. I look around intentionally. With my eyes I connect all the details that create my own temple. I water the plant. Light candles. I expand my body and fill the whole room with it. Charge it with QI. Later on, during the treatments, the room will support me and my body. The room is my body. It’s a powerful magnet that influences Qi in the treatment.
Silence. A developed therapist meditates. Acknowledge the value of silence in life, not in a workshop or in theory, in action. Day after day we dedicate time for cessation. For stopping the external movement. To observe the mind.
We know that every thought that occurs in our minds during treatment reflects in Qi. Even the most talented brilliant therapist will not manage to assist people for long, to keep mind and body clear – as long as the motivation for treating others is to get something in return: recognition, status, the notion that I'm good, money, the feeling that I'm better than the others, that I'm a saint.
Meditation, as prayer to a higher force, keeps us in proportion. Knowing that the world wad created for us, nonetheless we are no more than a dust in the time of the universe. Understanding that creates, time after time, the recognition that we responsible the others, guarantee them. That the only motivation in treatment is to assist others to grow and become givers.
Silence
Teacher. Every therapist needs a teacher. Even the greatest therapists needs someone to look up to. It’s essencial for observing our ego. Even if the teacher has long ago passed from this world. A teacher provides us the opportunity of devotion and dedication. The lineage of teacher-student preserves within the energy of the knowledge, values and honor.
In the east it is common to put the teacher's picture in treatments room. It's not about guruism or blind worship: the essence is to summon the Qi of the teacher to assist in the healing process. To sense the teacher-student connection. To honor the origins and the sources of the living knowledge, that we are privileged to be a part of. To maintain this energetic movement, that exists many years, to keep moving on. To always remember that the treatment and knowledge do not derive from me, from my education, experience, wisdom. Healing goes through me, and all the work I'm doing is to empty myself in order to let Qi come through.
The teacher is a mirror to the student that chose him. When the teacher is nice, the student needs "niceness". When he's tough, the student needs boarders. There's no point trying to analyze the teacher's characters or his limitation, as long as we keep choosing him as our teacher.
The moment we chose a teacher – we must stop wanting to learn from him or to get knowledge from him. In order to learn something – one needs to empty oneself. A student that come full of himself, the knowledge he acquired, the insights – cannot learn anything, as his cup is too full. Taking care of the teacher's sustenance, of the teaching hall, nourishing the school – all those empty the student and allow new knowledge to come in.
It's a well-known fact that humanity is obsessively occupied with itself. This is comfortable. This is not my taste. That is hard. This is accurate for me. I'm bad. I'm good. This is important. I want this. When all this is put aside and we ask what the needs of the other are – the vanity of this self-occupation fades away.
Galit Shaviv