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How To Avoid Creating A Dead Ritual & Create Living Rituals
When we do energy healing, we often go through a pattern of movements and techniques. This pattern helps us focus. Any repetitive pattern, by its nature, was created in the past. However, healing happens in the present moment. A habitual pattern of treating a patient can put us in a rut and drastically reduce the effectiveness of energy healing. We are creatures of habit, but this very superpower needs to be harnessed and used, not just indulged in. We are usually doing energy healing because we deeply care about someone. It’s important that we do it right. But what if doing it right, kills the magic? In this blog, I will describe how to stay true to a structure or form of energy healing without deadening it. I’ll be describing how to create a living ritual, that has none of the problems that dead rituals have. Your healing sessions can become creative artistic relationships with the unseen world, rather than rote procedures. What is a Ritual? So to start with, I’m going to be addressing the big old question of is this a ritual or just a chore? Because I have noticed that a lot of people start treating it like a chore after some time which really takes the earnestness out of it. But we show up in a regular fashion and repeat it every single day. So why is it not just a chore? Because an important element of a ritual is activating the idea of “as above so below.” You are doing something physical hoping to activate something that is beyond the physical. Something that you hope has information to bring healing to your loved one suffering from cancer. Types of Rituals Now that we understand what a ritual is and why we do it, let us understand two types of rituals. The first is a Living Ritual. This is the most effective type. This is where you are experiencing a “living” quality with the subtle realms. It’s where your body experiences sensations that are responses to what is happening. Your mind and the invisible forces within you and outside of you are as much a part of these rituals as your physical body that is just sitting there. There is curiosity and wonder. It’s as if you are “calling” to the non-physical, and the non-physical is answering. There is a sense of relationship in the event. The second kind is a Dead Ritual. Now I hate to admit it, but even these do kind of work a little bit. But the reason I hate them is they are really just a shell of what is possible, and when we do them and think that we are actually doing powerful energy work, we are fooled. Now of course even with dead rituals there is a certain level of consciousness involved. After all, you are showing up regularly to do it even though you may be completely clueless about what is actually happening. It’s not all bad, but the effectiveness pales in comparison what can happen with a fuller participation. Some people think that if their heart is open and they feel love, that the ritual is “living”. I suggest that this is helpful, but without the elements of curiosity and responsiveness to what is happening, a lot of heart-felt rituals are more about the person doing them, not about actually receiving information or healing from the non-physical realms. Just because you are devout, and sometimes especially when you are devout, you can kill your ritual. You should not confuse devotion or reverence with effectiveness. There is nothing wrong with devotion or reverence, but they should arise from the experience, not be superficially placed onto the event. When I lead my group distant healing sessions, I encourage participants to not simply turn on their video and sit in front of the laptop, as that is not the same as really engaging in the healing. Even though they are following every instruction, if they are also not having their own inner experience of the healing, that seems to come from outside of their ego, they are missing something. Don’t get me wrong. I am really grateful that you show up week after week and you are so dedicated to it. I also think that just being there listening adds to the resonant bonding of the group and therefore the potency of the healing. But we have beloved people and pets with cancer to help, and I’d like us to go a step further… together. From 40 years of experience working with healing practices, I know for a fact that most cancer cannot be helped significantly with a dead ritual. If you meet the same gatekeeper every time and go through the same motions, it unfortunately just doesn’t work that well. So what do you do? Bringing a Dead Ritual Alive Think of a simple primary school class. The teacher comes to the classroom every day and goes through the same lessons with the same children. Yet from time to time, when she can sense the students getting bored or when she herself is tired, she tries something new. She may ask the students what they want to do or she may just decide to take them on a picnic or show a movie or do some fun games and art activities with them. This change every once in a while keeps both the student and the teacher engrossed in the process. I want you to take the same example and put yourself in the shoes of the teacher and your mind in the shoes of the students. To make your classroom (healing session) alive, you can do 2 things:
- i) Decide that you are going to do something different
- ii) Ask to do something different
Both of these methods work way better than a dead ritual, but I have experienced that asking and receiving works even better than deciding and doing. You are letting yourself do whatever you can to change it up. Exercise After discussing this on a Live Session with my Facebook Cancer Support Group, we did a little exercise that I want you to try now yourself. We wanted to figure out what each of us could do differently every time. Maybe we could sit or stand differently, or clean up our desks, or hold an object or find a new way of connecting with our gatekeeper. To figure out which of these, or something new entirely will work best for you, I want you to stay quiet for 30 seconds only, and think inside your heart. Connect with your inner guidance and really ask how you can show up in a slightly different way. Look for inner awareness, ask what you can change. The Result Hopefully, you’ve taken 30 seconds now to try it. After doing this in my group, some responses I got were along the lines of caring a little less about it and walking while doing the practice. The answer your mind gives you can be anything. But you need to be the one to try it and really feel the difference. A little story from my own experience of performing shamanistic rituals – whenever I am doing them for pets, I go into the animal and pretend like I am an animal. It gives me a different vantage point and I can feel different things coming out of me than when I do it in a regular way. People who speak foreign languages also experience this difference. When they change their language, their consciousness shifts. Their awareness moves to different things and their vantage point changes. Other ways to keep a ritual Living If you want to feel this shift too, I would most recommend having a trusted spiritual guide with you. This will force you to not rely on your habits. This is the one place where relying on your habits would be bad because habits keep us steady and strong and that is what creates dead rituals in the first place. So the next time you are practicing energy medicine for a person or pet with cancer, or their caretaker, have a new presence with you. Maybe a trusted deity or a companion or an ancestor – whatever feels most authentic for you.
In Summary You can create a living ritual in many ways, including:
- Changing something in your environment
- Changing what you are imagining
- Engage your imagination in a way that what you “see” seems to come to you, rather than you making it up.
- Notice how your body feels as you do a ritual–if it doesn’t feel different, then do something different
A Living Ritual is not too hard to do… and it really matters. If you haven’t practiced energy healing with me yet, that could also help a great deal. You could either reach out to me personally or join my Facebook group for Cancer Support. We are a cohesive community who meet every Friday to practice healing together for our loved ones. Do let me know what your experience is like after trying this. If you feel something new and different, I would really love to hear from you 🙂