Teaching about Energy

In class today, my clique and I were discussing last week's lesson in Energy. I guess you can say that these are the students who are more Traditional, coming to Massage Therapy to learn to work muscles and fascia, as opposed to approaching it from a Spiritual perspective... No prior experience working with, or even consciously exploring someone else's Energy. They complained of feeling foolish after being told to experience their partner's Energy, having no idea what to do, "just standing there" with their arms over another student waiting until the 5 minutes have gone by...

All the while, I sit there smiling and listening, cause I have to say, it's some of my favorite time in class. Admittedly, I am spoiled, growing up in my family; Energy and such metaphysical discourse is as natural as dissecting Anderson Cooper or the weather.

...So how would one go about "teaching" Energy?

My classmates had wanted our instructor to "say something about it," instead of shoving them into an experience. But what would you say? How do you describe Red to someone who's never seen it before? Two individuals who are aware can discuss it for hours and hours and still have so much to say, and never say it all. How could you even begin a discussion with an individual who is then closed to this Energy experience? Can pushing them into experience be effective? Or will it more often than not just discourage and drive away, adding to a negative and/or "flaky" stereotype?

Hmm.... I'll let you know how this develops.

My first week at Massage school...

In class last Thursday, we performed exercises exploring Presence, Energy, Tension, Attention, as well as other ideas. When we were exploring Energy in a Client/Therapist exercise, I was the Therapist, and my client was lying supine on a table. We were to walk in and not verbally address our Clients, and we were also not to touch them. At first I felt awkward just walking up to someone and introducing myself so intimately to their Energy field, but I went with it! First I placed my hands about 2-3” above Bridget and quickly scanned her body’s field. I was drawn to her legs and to her 4th chakra, the heart. Her legs had a “heavy” sort of tense feel, so I just concentrated on them, as though I were using an iron to get the wrinkles out of a pair of linen pants. Later, she did mention that the sore body part she had been focused on was her legs, and that at some point during this exercise, they began to relax and feel better. (The Energy at her Heart chakra felt like it was radiating quite strongly, not sure what that means, I haven’t studied this much. It felt positive though.)
We also participated in an exercise in which we entered the classroom, chose a partner, sat down and were to proceed in sharing something that was very important to us. When I sat down, my partner Emmanuelle was reading a book and barely acknowledged my presence. Her energy was very obviously somewhere else and also seemed deliberately closed off to me, so I didn’t even bother attempting to proceed sharing with her as some of my classmates were still trying with their partners. I did try to get her attention by joking around, and while it did work a little, she made a conscious effort to shut me out, so I gave up. We were then to leave the room, return to the same partner and try again. Though this time Emmanuelle was obviously opened to me, at first the rejection of the first time made me wary of trying again, a sort of “once burned, twice shy” situation. However I did, she was very engaging, and soon we were talking about things quite unrelated to my original topic. She engaged me, asked questions, kept wonderful eye contact and opened her Energy towards me, and soon the rejection of the first part of the exercise was forgotten and made up for. I learned soo much about practical Energy! Our instructor for this class is a Reiki Master, so I'm excited about what I can learn from her...