I am always seeking new tools for myself and others that assist in self-perfection, healing, and empowerment. I believe that having an understanding of subtle energies is one of those tools. So at the library, I decided to type “energy body” into the keyword search.
This lead me to Robert Bruce’s book. I was immediately drawn in when reading the introduction of how the author discovered Body Awareness Tactile Imaging in order to better teach energetics to blind students. Since energetics are most commonly taught through visualization, as a teacher, I was fascinated with another approach. In teaching, being able to alter the way that you present information to different learners in order to maximize their understanding is a very desirable skill. Since a vast majority of people have difficulty with visualizing I wanted to learn the technique myself.
Body Awareness Tactile Imaging is all about moving your sense of touch through your body. The first practice exercise that he recommends trying involves lightly rubbing or scratching a specified area to help focus the body awareness. For example, rub your knee to cause a mild tingling. Feel for the tingling. Then feel for more of your knee and become more away of it as a joint. Move your point of body awareness all around the knee as if you are bandaging it. You can try this on any point of your body. The touch helps you focus on the point, but with practice you do not need to rub or scratch the area you are focusing on.
Most of the exercises involve creating a physical stimulation of some kind in order to create a memory to draw from. This is the same as visualization. The mind depends on the memory to assist it in energy work.
Bruce also had some other helpful tips. For calming the mind, he suggests journaling before a relaxation or energy work session. If the mind starts chattering, firmly state, “I choose not to think about that. I choose to relax and clear my mind.”
By Chapter 3, you will be creating energy balls and learning different energy work actions that assist you in manipulating energy. Bruce guides you in how to use the inhale and exhale of the breath with each action; this is something that I use and teach myself.
The book covers chakra work – or as Bruce calls it “primary energy center work” – as well as charging energy with intention, energy blockages, self-healing and healing others with energy. There is a LOT of information contained in the book and he quite thoroughly covers the topic of energy work. I still haven’t digested it all.
Bruce does slip visualization in with the tactile imaging (i.e. – “make a green ball”). Also, at several points, Bruce’s perspective of energy did not align perfectly with my own. However, I’d still recommend this book to anyone who seeks to deepen their understanding of the energy body and its systems. He explains things simply and systematically with a grounded, approachable style that I appreciated. I think it would be particularly helpful for Reiki practitioners as well as other healers that work or want to work with energy.