As the lessons progress, you will be able to draw energy into and through your body, in two easy circuits. For now, we learn how to sense and direct our personal energy flows. Your energy body, in some ways, is like a map – energy flows along pathways, as well as having ‘main roads’ or conduits. By doing lesson 1, the sensations this cause can be quite marked. This system is so simple and effective, you will quickly see just how practical NEW is by the sensations it generates. Even in the early stages of development, you will see just how effectively it enhances or boosts any other form of bodywork you may practice.
Mobile Body Awareness
Your body awareness is normally centred in eyes.
It doesn’t have to stay there.
Learning mobile body awareness and following skills, enables you to sense, stimulate and work with the energy body.
The main techniques are targeting and highlighting (or tactile imaging).
In the beginning, the NEW system works with the minor chakras or energy centres. This lays the foundation for an increase in energy levels, efficiency, strength and confidence in the energy support system. It is also a safe way of development, reducing or eliminating many of the negative side effects of energy work.
Mobile Body Awareness Exercise
NOTE: try to do this with your eyes closed, if you can. Also, try to do it without targeting, although this is useful in early stages. Do your best to not look towards the area you are focusing on, behind your closed eyes.
Lightly scratch skin of left knee – just hard enough to leave tingling sensation
Close eyes and feel this with your body awareness. Become really aware of the feeling until it stands out. You can easily feel your knee tingling. Focus – forget the rest of your body… Now gently move your knee and feel more of the same knee… become aware of it as a whole joint. Feel its outline and shape and really get the feel of it with your body awareness
Your centre of body awareness is now in your left knee. Write down what you felt. Was it easy to do? What did you feel? Do the exercise on your right knee now, without scratching to target.
Sensations – Get the Buzz on It
No results indicates blockages – keep trying, but do not focus just on these areas (working around them helps).
- Tingling, tickling, buzzing and vibrating, in soles and palms, fingers and toes.
- Rushing water sensation, up legs and arms.
- Bone-deep tingling inside hands, feet, legs and arms
- Heaviness and fuzziness, especially in hands and feet
- Tingling, energetic body-rush feelings, up arms, legs and spine
- Localized fluttering and pulsing in flesh and on skin
- Muscular spasms and twitching limbs
- Cobweb like tickling, like ants crawling all over you
- Localized stinging and prickling sensations
- Aching or burning hot or cold patches, especially in soles and palms
- Needle-like pricking pains
- Muscular cramps
Note: The energy body is usually bi-lateral in nature – one side will respond more easily than the other. Please remember that while you are beginning your work, you may experience some physical tiredness.
Question of the day: How could an increased awareness of body and energy be useful to have?
Handy tip! Practice MBA in real life – eating, brushing teeth or hair, dressing, in shower, shaving, cooking, exercising, etc. Can you think of other times you could practice MBA?
Tactile Imaging
When you are asked to use a stirring or brushing motion, pretend you have imaginary hands in the following exercise.
Hands on lap, fingers slightly spread. Shift your point of body awareness to the top of the large joint where your thumb joins your right hand. If you have trouble locating this joint, flex your thumb and press until you feel it.
Lightly scratch a circular area clockwise on top of thumb joint, about half an inch, or 1 ½ cm across, to highlight it with your awareness. Continue following this action until you can remember the exact feel of this circular movement, and can recreate it with your mind alone…
Feel the tingling target area on top of your thumb joint. Recreate this and feel this circular motion inside the skin of your thumb. Imagine you are stirring the area with a pencil, with one or two cycling actions per second. After a short while, this movement will gain its own momentum. It will become almost automatic and take little effort to continue. After a while, you will start feeling a localized heaviness or pressure, buzzing or bone-deep tickling or fuzzy sensation in your thumb joint and thumb – this indicates you have successfully activated the energy centre there. Don’t worry if you feel nothing.
Now change your action to a straight brushing movement, up and down along the top of your right thumb, as if someone were actually brushing it with a soft brush. Feel this imaginary brush, moving from just below the joint to just above the fingertip. Move your point of awareness through the entire thumb joint, back and forth through the area.
(“Help! I can’t feel a thing!” “Try using a paintbrush, or even a hairbrush, gently across the skin to help you become familiar with the sensations.”)
Repeat with your left thumb.
Which side of your body seemed to respond more? Were the sensations on one side stronger than the other?
Now do the above exercise on your left and right big toes, then split awareness and do both of these toes at the same time, together.
(“Man, this is one big con! Scratching to highlight an area is causing the feelings, it’s nuffin’ to do with NRG!” “Try focusing behind your knee, without scratching. The try a spot in the middle of your forearm, or bicep. Notice the difference between these two areas!”)
Tactile imaging is an effective way of learning to navigate your energy body. This new way of feeling, or sensing, allows you to quickly identify your energy flows. Practise, when you can, this skill – you will find there are many opportunities, i.e. dressing, eating, and so on.
Awareness Hands
The most natural way to stimulate your energy body is to feel you have an imaginary pair of hands. These are extensions of active body awareness. The arms are not important, but the hands should be felt as if extending from an imaginary pair of arms. Using awareness hands is progressive, the more you use them, the stronger they get.
Quick exercise
Scratch or rub top of left foot to highlight it. Now take your awareness hands down to your left foot, as if grabbing it. Draw your hands through your left foot, to your ankle, then slowly thru your leg. Feel your whole leg, inside and out, as you move your awareness hands thru it. Feel your awareness hands moving through your calves, through your knee, thigh and hip. When you get to your hip, flick our awareness back down to your feet.
Move again up your leg. Imagine now, your leg is a sponge, and your awareness hands are pushing water through the whole of your leg. Feel this water moving up through your leg, in it and outside of it.
Split awareness. If you have trouble with this, just focus for now on the right leg.
Note: Practice drawing energy up through the legs, using split awareness, until you are comfortable doing each sweep in just 2 or 3 seconds. If you are not able to do them both at the side time, do them individually until your confidence increases.
Energy Breathing
This simple exercise can be used with minimal concentration in just about any situation. It has the effect of increasing and purifying personal energy levels, and encourages positive development of the energy body. You cannot do this exercise too much, and is recommended becoming a daily habit.
It also has a calming effect on the mind and can enhance your ability to concentrate. You can use this exercise for releasing negative feelings, such as worry, anger, tensions, nervousness, depression, etc. Just replace the colour with the feeling.
To the IN breath, imagine the air you are breathing in is made of a bright, sparkling colour. Any colour can be used, but never a dull, murky, gray or black colour.
Feel the leading edge of this brightly coloured energy moving into you with each IN breath and filling you with life giving energy. Feel this energy being absorbed into your whole body as your lungs fill.
With each OUT breath, imagine the air is dirty yellow-brown like cigarette smoke, murky gray, or even black, and feel this as being dirty used-up energy and disease leaving your body.
Can you think of different ways and situations you can use energy breathing?
A suggestion: it can be used for releasing any negative habit or conditioning. Whenever you feel that urge to eat, drink, smoke, or behave in a way that doesn’t benefit you (i.e. being angry, critical, depressive, nervous, various emotional patterns and behaviours,) practise energy breathing.
Both words – energy and breathing – can remind us of life and that each moment is a chance to be the best we can be. Energy breathing can be done in any situation where you need to be clear headed and calm. Try breathing in a positive statement – I am calm, I am at peace, I am energy…
If your focus is projection, it would help a lot to start doing reality checks. Put up notices to remind you, and make a point of looking at them. And any habits - drinking, eating, toilet, brushing teeth, washing, on the phone, putting car key in ignition, etc start asking yourself "am I awake?"
This helps a lot in remembering your projection. The biggest problem with OBE is 'downloading' the memory of it. By doing reality checks, making them a habit, you will do it out of body, greatly increasing your chances of remembering what has happened, and of having control.
Look at your hands too, when asking yourself, if you can. Out of body, your hands can change in appearance, thus reminding you, you are out of body.
Final Notes
Practice tactile imaging until you no longer need to use it as a tool to highlight the area you are focusing on. Mobile body awareness is an important skill to develop in these early stages, and spending time with this will greatly assist you in the following exercises. You might wish to practise the mouth exercise presented in the introduction to the lessons as well.
Working with energy is progressive – the more you learn how to sense it within yourself, the easier it gets. An analogy is an visual illusion – it’s learning the right way of perceiving before something is seen or recognized.
And remember, Energy Breathing will decrease any of the effects of tiredness that early development may cause. It is a technique you can use virtually anywhere, anytime.