Energy Healing Articles

To Meditate Or Not To Meditate: Easy Ways To Get Started Or Restarted

November 1, 2018 by Juanita Lepage Leave a Comment

I have been an on again-off again meditator for years. I have always envied those individuals that have made meditation a regular habit in their lives. When I met my husband, he would meditate daily for 30-minutes to an hour every morning and evening. He would invite me to join him, but at the time I thought it looked pretty boring to sit silently for that long. He too goes through periods of meditating and not meditating.

Over the years I would read about people such as Ram Dass, Yogananda, or Michael Singer who had mystical and transformative experiences meditating, and I thought, “Well of course if you’re having that type of “wow/life-changing” experience, you would continue to meditate”. Or I would think, “Of course if you’ve chosen the spiritual vocation as your life path, these transformative experiences would happen”. And then at the same time I would read about stories of people who meditated for years and never had that “wow” experience while meditating.

So, if I can’t get a Guarantee of that “Wow Factor”, Why Meditate?

So, without having the “wow” factor goal in mind, I wondered why meditation would be so highly recommended for individuals.

Physical, mental, and emotional benefits

Calmness, focus, centeredness, happiness, better health, and self-love are all benefits of meditation. It seems that as each year goes by, more and more research demonstrates the healing benefits of mindfulness[1] or meditation for more and more things. Pain, mental illness, stress, and burnout is just a few of the things it can help with. Just google “research meditation” or “research mindfulness” and you’ll notice a plethora of information at your fingertips.

When I taught Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to teens and adults, mindfulness was a key component to this therapy. The main benefit of mindfulness in DBT is to help a person pause and connect with their thoughts & emotions and how they are using this information to interact with the world. Many other types of psychotherapy involving mindfulness have been created too, with the most famous probably being Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) created by Jon-Kabat Zinn. In other psychotherapies, the word mindfulness is never mentioned, but it is used in practice to help a person connect to their emotions and bring awareness to thoughts.

Spiritual benefits

If you’re on a spiritual path, meditation seems a key part in going deeper into one’s spiritual journey whether it be with a religion or a more general spiritual path. Meditation allows a person to connect beyond themselves to something on a much grander scale – God, the universe, specific religious individuals such as Jesus or Buddha, and more.

Where Do I Start (or restart)?

Books

Jon Kabat-Zinn’s book Wherever You Go, There You Are, was one of the books that inspired me to start meditation. It’s an easy read with short chapters. This book is especially helpful if you’re interested in the Physical, Mental, & Emotional benefits. If you’re a person who is interested in being mindful but doesn’t want to sit quietly in meditation, this book provides many other options. You can do anything mindfully. Really.
Want a book that also captures the spiritual benefits? Michael A. Singer’s The Untethered Soul is succinct and you can tell from the depth and simplicity of this book that he is a seasoned meditator.

YouTube Meditations

There are a lot of guided meditations available on YouTube, it can be a matter of trying a few to find your favourites.

Tara Brach is my favourite person to listen to for a guided meditation. I love her voice and her variety of meditations. You can find many selections on her website or on YouTube.

Apps

There are many apps related to mindfulness and meditation. After not meditating for many months, I tried the 14-day trial with Headspace. This was a great way to hear if I liked the person’s voice for guided meditation and try out some of their meditations. When flying on Air Canada earlier this year I found some of their meditations available on the online entertainment system.

After the 14-day trial I decided to buy a subscription for a year (They offer a great discount after you’ve completed the trial). I really appreciate the options to have a 1 minute or a 30-minute meditation. Also my screen can be dark and it can keep playing (unlike YouTube). Some days I’m happy if I meditated for 1 minute. Other days I want to meditate for a longer time. They also have great packages for different topics such as sleep, restlessness, worry and more.

Summary

If you notice in your life that it feels busy, even a few minutes of meditation a day can provide benefits of restoration and calm. Often between sessions with clients a take a few minutes to connect to myself and shift my energy from the past client to the next one.

I don’t use the word mindfulness in most of my sessions, but often I’m helping clients to connect with themselves in a deeper way to find the solutions that they seek. Many of us like to spend time in our minds, and while we would benefit from connecting with our bodies or our emotions, we are often not practiced at doing so. We are often on the move.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you found something to inspire you to start or restart your journey with meditation!

[1] Meditation is a form of mindfulness. There are many ways to be mindful without meditating, but meditation is a popular method of mindfulness.

3 Books To Explore Real Magic

October 4, 2018 by Juanita Lepage Leave a Comment

A few years ago one of my sons awoke after having a nightmare that I was drowning. I comforted him that I was indeed okay. His shouts had awoken me from my own dream where a giant wave had covered me and I was floating underwater. You can imagine my surprise that my son was having the same dream as I was, but a different experience of the dream – almost like he was on the shore watching. I did not experience my dream of being underwater as fearful because I knew I wasn’t drowning in my dream.

So is that experience coincidence? Or how is it possible that we could have the same dream at the same time?

I think everyone has a story about something that has happened to them that is unexplainable by the boundaries of science. It’s not to say that science couldn’t explain these things in the future, but currently there are many limitations in what can be measured and validated.

3 great books that explore mystical or magical experiences more in depth are Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson, Real Magic by Dean Radfield, and The Power of Eight by Lynne McTaggart.

Men Who Stare at Goats

This book is written by a journalist who meets some interesting characters who have worked for the U.S. government to study if “magical” methods can be used in the armed forces. There is a movie loosely based on the book with George Clooney & Ewan McGregor. Individuals were taught the skill of remote viewing in which they go into a meditative state to gather sensitive information from other countries or armies. Both the book and the movie do a good job of letting the reader/viewer decide what they want to interpret as truth or fiction.

Real Magic

Dean Radin recently outed himself as scientist who studies magic. In actuality he has studied magic for decades, but used to call it the studying of psi or parapsychological phenomenon. In reality, magic could be anything that happens in our world that cannot be explained by science. He gives many illustrations of documented experiences, his own experience with intention & synchronicity, and of course science to explain some of this phenomena.

If you’re more of a science-minded person, this a great book because he explores the stigma of studying paranormal phenonmena in the realm of science. He explores scientists firmly-rooted fears and experiences of losing credibility when they share scientific research that states the opposite of what they’ve been taught as true. Science can become dogmatic, and Dean shares his own experience of being in the situation where scientists reject facts because it doesn’t fit with their personal beliefs.

Dean’s list of evidence-based articles

The Power of Eight

Lynne McTaggart is a journalist who is an expert on the research of the “science of spirituality”. She is best known for her book The Field. Her newest book, The Power of Eight, chronicles the science of what happens when a group of people focus their intention on healing a person. She is hard-wired for scientific explanations, yet finds herself experiencing miracles in her workshops when small groups of 8 focus their intention on healing a person. She documents her journey and her more empirical work starting out with plants and then working more broadly. If you belong to a prayer group, this all may come as no surprise to you, and for the non-spiritual person this will give some credibility to this practice.

What kind of experiences have you had that you’ve brushed off as coincidence or maybe have had others brush off as nonsense? Once you open the door to exploring these elements of life, it’s likely that your lens of the world will start to shift dramatically.

Want some free online resources about the science of energy healing? Check out my other blog post, Must-read sites about the science of energy healing (that are free too).

Introducing Energy Healing At Home

September 27, 2018 by Juanita Lepage Leave a Comment

After a few months of simmering with this idea, I finally got creative and made a few videos for those interested in learning a few methods of energy healing to do at home.

If your energy field is healthy and strong, this positively impacts your physical, emotional, & spiritual well-being too.

In each video I explain the benefits of each exercise and give you a video demonstration of how to do them. They are easy exercises to add to the start of your day or at a moment when you need to connect with yourself and centre.

Go to www.JuanitaLepage.com and sign-up to learn more.

Riding The Waves Of Life

September 6, 2018 by Juanita Lepage 4 Comments

My husband and I were commenting on the waves of the year both before we had children and afterwards. Before we had kids, September was just an extension of summer. It was a great time to go camping or take a vacation.

Once our children started school in September, the days leading up and into school are filled with new energy. As a parent, I start to get organized for making lunches, ensuring the kids have the things they need for their first day, and realizing what I forgot on the first day of school (shoes). I reconnect with parents at the bus-stop, whom I haven’t seen in a while. I then realize my days of walking my kids to the bus-stop are coming to completion because my kids were at the bus-stop before I even left the house. I’m a little sad and a little happy too.

Then there’s the quiet in the house with the children gone and the increased space to work on my business and meet with clients. Everyone comments how summer has gone so quickly, and most people are ready for fall.

We experience multiple layers of waves in our lives

We have waves related to what is going on in our personal life (emotions related to different circumstances).
We have waves related to the seasons. We see these phases in nature (spring, summer, fall, winter),
We have waves related to our age and period in our life with each decade brings something new.

In each of these waves of our lives we have the phases of Expansion, Contraction, and Stasis.

Wave preferences

Many of us have a preference for the phase we like the most. We can feel that high when life is expanding with fun, creativity, love and pleasure. We can feel relief when things are taken off our plate and we have more space to breath, travel, or do what we want to. We can feel that peace in sitting on the couch reading a book or watching Netflix. We can hide under the covers on a cold day.

You probably notice that you are at different phases for different parts of your life. If you’re highly stressed, it’s likely that the waves in many or all parts of your life are all peaking at the same time. If you’re very bored, it’s likely that the waves in many or all parts of your life are contracting or at a still point in your life.

The one truth about waves is that they cannot keep getting bigger or smaller indefinitely. Movement in the opposite direction is inevitable. This can be the one truth that can help in those times when everything feels too intense or too quiet. Things cannot and will not stay the same forever.

When we are over or underwhelmed by life, this can be an invitation to ourselves to see if we can influence our waves or whether we must ride it out. We consider whether we need to reach out to others or spend more time in quiet. We reflect on the things we think we can’t change and consider whether we can make a tiny change in that area. We consider what we can add to our lives and what we can remove from our lives. We ponder our expectations about life and whether those expectations are true or manufactured by us based on our life experience.

Fall is great time to take space for reflection as the energy of the seasons moves into contraction.

The Shadow Side Of Spirituality: Wild Wild Country

June 7, 2018 by Juanita Lepage 1 Comment

Recently, I finished watching the mini-series documentary Wild, Wild Country on Netflix. It tells the story about the time the Indian Guru Osho moved his commune from India to the small town of Antelope in rural Oregon in the early 1980s. The story gives perspectives from residents of Antelope, residents of the commune, law enforcement, and journalists covering the story at the time.

As conflict increases between residents of Antelope and the commune, the power struggle results in attempted murders, lying, poisoning, and more. Was it the fault of the residents of Antelope who were racist and unwelcoming to their new neighbours? Was it the fault of the commune who never took the time to befriend the community of Antelope and instead took steps to annihilate it? As you watch the story unfold the viewer will see that while the behaviors by the inner circle surrounding Osho were clearly on the wrong side of the law, there were no innocent parties in this conflict.

The Shadow

Watching this series got me thinking about the shadow side of spiritual organizations. The shadow is the darker sides or “negative” qualities that lay hidden in an individual or organization. Sometimes the shadow of an organization is recognized by most people, but not talked about.

It can be easy to label Osho and his followers a cult and their experience as an exception to the rule, but every spiritual leader and organization has shadows. Certainly, Catholicism and the sexual abuse perpetrated by many priests is another shadow in religion and spirituality.

Christianity

I remember my first experience of the shadow of religion and spirituality. I will always remember the day that my church split when I was a child. It was a regular Sunday morning service, but then one of the church elders went to the front podium and read a letter that represented half of our church community. The letter said that these people were planning to leave our church community because they didn’t agree with theological aspects of the church. I remember this elder crying, and then I looked behind me at another elder who was sitting there smugly smiling. In that moment, I hated that man and what he represented. Later we found out that our pastor was leaving with this group after he had told some people that he was planning to stay. It felt like a big betrayal to me.

My family was in the group that stayed, and my best friend was in the group that left. Both sides felt like they were the victims, and there was great pain felt in our church community that took years to begin healing. I was fortunate to retain my friendship. My friend’s parents would pick me up on the way to their new church on Sunday mornings and bring me home after the evening service. As a child, I was given a rare opportunity to spend time with both sides of the conflict. As a child, the new church felt about 2% more strict than my own church. As a child I learned that Christianity wasn’t all about believing in Jesus. This was my first experience of the shadow side of religion and spirituality.

Spirituality

As a young adult, I started to idealize a more broader sense of spirituality after my experience of the shadow in Christianity in my church. In my twenties, my husband and I were once in awe of a meditator who had experienced incredible things on his journey and deep insights. After spending more time with him, we realized that he was using his spirituality to raise himself above everyone else. We were dismayed, and the friendship dwindled. Years later I can surmise that he was using self-righteousness to avoid feeling the pain in his life. I’m not proud to say that in that moment we felt more comfortable judging him and then leaving to seek a “better” guru. (The irony is not lost on me – self-righteousness can feel really good)

There were more learnings throughout the years, and my most recent experience was just prior to graduating from Barbara Brennan School of Healing (BBSH). This is a school that taught me most of what I know about energy healing. It is a journey that is both practical and highly spiritual. During my fourth year, part of the shadow side of the school emerged with a situation where 90% of the teachers left. New teachers replaced those teachers after I graduated. I remember seeing this situation unfold and wondering, “Again??” I didn’t feel strongly attached to either side of the conflict. Partially because I was graduating that year, and partially because I felt relief that the teachers became more authentic and human to me.

Even as I wrote about my experience at BBSH, part of me wondered whether someone would be angry for revealing a shadow side of the organization. Keep that hidden!! So, don’t worry BBSH, I can still say that you were an amazing school and would still highly recommend it. It’s not perfect though because it’s full of human beings!

In each situation I’ve written about, there are individuals who will hold onto “their side” of the argument until the end. There are those who will switch sides. There are those who will leave the spiritual group completely.

I find that most spiritual organizations want to keep their shadow side hidden. This is extremely curious to me.

Exploring our own Shadows

In these experiences, we can be the judge and shake our heads at it all. In fact, I did have judgments in each situation. After some time has passed and our emotions surrounding the experience loses some of their intensity, we can use these experiences as an opportunity to explore our own shadow.

I could explore each of the past situations and use them to explore specific part of my own shadow, but today I’m going to explore a larger theme that was held by each situation.

Image/Belief: The more spiritual I/We (person or organization) become, the less shadows I/We should have

Why? There’s a belief that I should be more virtuous or “pure” if I am spiritual

I’m not going to dive too deep today into my own shadow, but I will share a piece of it to give you an example.

I can feel the struggle with being on a spiritual path and whether that fits with drinking alcohol. I was taught at BBSH that when we drink alcohol we become less effective healers. In fact, there is a policy that during each week of school that no alcohol is consumed because the school members noticed a very distinct difference in the quality of energy healing with times when people had drunk alcohol (even a glass) versus when they did not drink alcohol.

I LOVE a glass (or more than a glass) of wine. I like to get together with friends and have many glasses on occasion. I can feel the one part of me that wants to deny myself this pleasure. I can feel another which says to drink a glass whenever I want and don’t worry about it’s impact on my work. Then there is another which says that I shouldn’t write any of this and take on that image of a more “spiritual” person and just have a drink and say nothing. These are all shadow pieces, but the last one is related to the image of a spiritual person not having a shadow.

I am proud to say that I make a point to not drink alcohol 24 hours prior to a session with a client. I have made that commitment.

Do you see what I did there in the last 2 sentences? – I felt shame and then felt it necessary to defend my choice to you and give you a reason to put me back in the “more spiritual category” in case you judged me and dropped me down a level. GUESS WHAT? The level of my alcohol consumption doesn’t make me a better or a more spiritual than another person, yet part of me thinks it does.

Sometimes, I also idealize others who don’t drink and judge those who drink more than me. I can feel shame if I don’t meet my own standards. That’s more of my shadow to explore.

Exploring Your Shadows

After reading all that, you may either want to run far, far away and stop reading, or you may say, “Alcohol? Big deal. My shadow is WAY bigger than that”. You may want to defend or rationalize my choices and give me a pat on the back. Your response is a glimpse into your relationship with your shadow.

When you go on a journey to deepen your connection to the spiritual world, it rarely (if ever) starts with the desire to explore our shadow side. I don’t think any one has ever said to me, “I really want to get in touch with my anger, rage, disappointment, sadness, and shame, so I’m going to explore that more deeply by becoming a (insert type of religion) or go to India to meditate in the Himalayas for a while, maybe spend time at an ashram”.

I know that my spiritual quest has been towards an experience of more freedom, peace, love, joy, and connectedness. Yet the more I explore this path, I’m also brought more closely to my shadow side. The side that takes pleasure in being a victim, escapes when things get difficult, blames others, and takes pleasure in arrogance and self-righteousness. Often as we move towards light qualities we experience the dark ones too.

Putting Our Spiritual Leaders On A Pedestal

On this spiritual journey, we are given leaders whom we often put on a pedestal. In psychology we call this positive transference. These leaders embody something that we desire in our own lives, whether they be pastors, gurus, teachers, or a really good yoga instructor. Who do you look up to as a spiritual mentor in your life? When we meet this person, we may be in awe of them. They have some sort of “wow” factor for us. It can be like meeting a famous musician, actor, or author.

Personally, I have had multiple experiences of putting someone on a spiritual pedestal only to have that pedestal knocked down. Awe may remain, but the reminder is the same – no matter how spiritual a person may be, they’re human. They can be arrogant, selfish, self-righteous, and make mistakes.

This invites the opportunity to own this shadow in myself: I can be arrogant, selfish, self-righteous and make mistakes.

This journey has been sad, angering and jaw-dropping at times. “You’re so spiritual, shouldn’t you know better? Shouldn’t you behave better than this?” Once the dust has settled, I have found this experience to be freeing. Like my previous blog post about the Myth of Perfect Parenting, the message is the same for those on the spiritual path. The goal is not to be rid of the shadow parts of ourselves but to recognize them and relate to them differently. There is wisdom in the shadow. We can look at our shadow pieces as information to help us grow.

Benefits of Exploring Our Shadows

After reading all of this, you may wonder why anyone explores their shadow side.

When we take the pressure off our spiritual leaders to be pure light, it takes the pressure off ourselves too.

When we take the pressure off ourselves to be pure light, we can take the pressure off our spiritual leaders too.

And compassion my friends is one of the reasons we even bother to explore our shadow. If we can be kinder to ourselves, we can also be kinder to others. As we explore our shadow, we also bring in more opportunity for our light qualities of compassion, love, creativity, pleasure, joy, and connectedness. It also gives the shadow less power so that we don’t get to the point where we do something extreme. The shadow gains power in secrecy until it reaches a breaking point. Bringing light to our shadow also brings freedom.

Questions for Further Reflection

If you are considering joining a spiritual or religious organization OR you want to reflect on your shadow on your spiritual journey, here are a few questions to consider. Guess what? You can apply this to politics too. How uncomfortable is that?

Questions when considering joining a spiritual or religious organization:

What are the shadows in this spiritual organization?

Does this organization recognize that it has shadows?

What does it do when it recognizes a shadow?

Do they blame others or take ownership for their shadow? Do they pretend their shadow doesn’t exist? Do they admonish people who show their shadow side?

Why do I want to join an organization that looks like it has no shadow?

Why do I want this spiritual leader to embody all the positive qualities I imagine them to be and none of the negative ones? What does it say about them if they show their negative qualities?

Now take the same questions and ask them about yourself.

Do I recognize some of my shadows? What are some of them?

What do I do when I see a “negative” quality in myself?

Do I blame others or take ownership for my shadow? Do I pretend my shadow doesn’t exist? Do I admonish people who show their shadow side?

Why do I want to appear to the world like I have no negative qualities?

Do I allow myself to have both positive and negative qualities? What happens if I show negative qualities, what does that say about me?

And remember..be compassionate to yourself on this journey. That is key.

Want to get my blog into your inbox on a regular basis? That’s easy, you can Subscribe Here.

Christianity And Energy Healing: A Book Review

May 24, 2018 by Juanita Lepage 2 Comments

I was excited to buy a copy of the newly released book Blessed with Energy: The Mystery of Energy Medicine Explained Through Science and Scripture by Marcy Meyers. I attended the Barbara Brennan School of Healing with Marcy for a couple of years. During our final year, she gave an excellent presentation about Christianity and Energy Healing. Like myself, she offers counselling and energy healing, but with her own blend of skills. I was curious to learn more about her knowledge and experience.

This book is written for a few different audiences:

Christians who are receiving or contemplating energy healing and are unclear about whether it fits with their beliefs.
Individuals who want to learn more about how energy healing works from a scientific lens
Individuals who are at a roadblock on their healing journey

She starts by giving an overview of the science of energy healing and exploring its relationship to sound and the electromagnetic field. She explains complex things in a reader-friendly way.

She also writes about her own health issues and struggles with medical doctors who couldn’t help her heal from infertility and few other physical ailments. As many people do in this situation, she started to explore complementary healthcare for healing. She had success in healing her infertility using energy healing along with breathwork, good eating, counselling and more.

Alongside the exploration of energy healing in the book she inserts scripture passages that have helped her as a Christian support the concepts of chakras, auras, and hands on healing in general. She has shifted from being fearful of energy healing to embracing it as a gift from God. She masterfully writes without the intention of trying to convince the reader. She provides scriptures passages for the readers to contemplate for themselves.

“Miracles do not happen in contradiction to nature, but only in contradiction to what is known about nature” St. Augustine.

Perhaps my favourite part of the book is the selection of resources she shares. From diet, sound therapy, protection against electromagnetic fields (EMFs), breathwork and more.

If you’re a Christian, you may be a little unsure of this book by looking at the cover. It’s beautiful cover, but a little intense and a bit “new agey”. Try not to let that deter you. If you can keep an open mind, it will be to your benefit to explore whether her interpretation of the Bible fits with your interpretation. Broadening the conversation is the goal.

Whether you’re a Christian or not, if you’re interested in learning more about the science of energy healing as an avenue to healing, this is an excellent book to explore.