Book Review – Energy Work: The Secret to Spiritual Healing and Development by Robert Bruce
I am always looking for new tools for myself and others to help in self-improvement, healing and empowerment. I think having an understanding of subtle energies is one of those tools. So, in the library, I decided to type “energy body” in the keyword search.
This brings me to Robert Bruce’s book. I was immediately drawn to it when I read the introduction to how the author discovered body awareness tactile imaging to better teach energy to blind students. Since energetics is most commonly taught through visualization, as a teacher, he was fascinated by another approach. In teaching, being able to alter the way you present information to different students to maximize their understanding is a highly desirable skill. Since the vast majority of people have visualization difficulties, 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 she recommends trying involves lightly rubbing or scratching a specific area to help focus body awareness. For example, rub your knee to cause a slight tingle. Feel the tingle. Then feel more of your knee and move further away from it as a joint. Move your body awareness around the knee as if you were bandaging it. You can try this on any point on your body. Touch helps you focus on the point, but with practice you don’t need to rub or scratch the area you’re focusing on.
Most of the exercises involve creating some type of physical stimulation in order to create a memory for drawing. This is the same as visualization. The mind depends on memory to assist it in energy work.
Bruce also had some other helpful tips. To calm the mind, he suggests journaling before a relaxation or energy work session. If the mind starts to chatter, say firmly, “I choose not to think about it. I choose to relax and clear my mind.”
For Chapter 3, you will create energy balls and learn different energy work actions that will help you manipulate energy. Bruce guides you on how to use the inhalation and exhalation of the breath with each action; this is something I use and teach myself.
The book covers chakra work, or as Bruce calls it “primal energy center work,” as well as energy charging with intention, energy blocks, self-healing, and healing others with energy. There is a LOT of information contained in the book and it completely covers the subject of energy work. I haven’t digested it all yet.
Bruce slides the display with the touch image (ie “make a green ball”). Also, at several points, Bruce’s energy perspective didn’t quite match mine. However, he would still recommend this book to anyone looking to deepen their understanding of the energy body and its systems. He explains things in a simple and systematic way with a close and realistic style that I appreciated. I think it would be particularly useful for Reiki practitioners, as well as other healers who work or want to work with energy.
