Category: Integrated Energy Medicine
Article: Tonglen – An Integrated Energy Medicine Point of View
By Joanna Foote Adler, PsyD, CHT
Much has been written on the practice of Tonglen, the Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice of giving and taking. Tonglen is a powerful and important practice in many of the schools of Buddhism. I would like to offer some thoughts to add to this literature from the perspective of Integrated Energy Medicine as it is taught at the Foundation of the Sacred Stream, which will hopefully help to focus this practice for western practitioners in a skillful way.
Let’s start by defining Tonglen. Tonglen is a meditative practice for cultivating love and compassion through giving and taking. The focus in this practice is to embrace (rather than reject) unwanted and painful aspects of experience, and to work to overcome fear and develop greater compassion for others. The opportunity here is to change the attitude towards pain and to open the heart as one visualizes dissolving pain. In this practice, one uses the breath in conjunction with a specific visualization. One visualizes or imagines taking in the pain and suffering of others on breathing in, and then visualizes breathing out love and peace for the other.
Tonglen is a practice said to help develop wisdom and compassion on both the relative and absolute levels of reality as they are understood in Buddhist philosophy. These levels are known as the Two Truths. Talking about these levels of reality gets us into deep philosophical water, but for the purposes here we can understand that the relative level of existence refers to the everyday ordinary world experienced as solid and “real.” The ultimate level of reality in Buddhism points to the understanding that reality is actually “empty” in that it is always changing, and that all things depend on or originate from the causes and conditions that came before them. Tonglen points us towards letting go, towards releasing the clinging to our sense of self and to the attachment held when one believes they are permanent beings. In different ways on the relative and absolute levels, Tonglen practice can reverse resistance to pain and help develop the enlightened mind qualities of equanimity, love, and compassion in the face of suffering. The concepts of relative and absolute levels of reality are helpful here in the exploration of how Tonglen practice works.
As the Founding Director at the Foundation of the Sacred Stream, Dr. Isa Gucciardi teaches courses of study in Applied Buddhist Psychology and Integrated Energy Medicine, among others. She teaches that one way to understand Tonglen is as an energy medicine practice.
Blog: The Hidden Messages in Water
By Clementine Moss
I recently read The Hidden Messages in Water, Dr. Masaru Emoto’s account of analyzing the effect of the energetic environment on crystals in water. If you haven’t seen these studies, you can pull up the images online and see the beautiful snow flake patterns of the sentiments “I love you” and the song “Amazing Grace,” and the chaotic, disrupted patterns of hate and negativity on the water crystals. The take-away is how we experience a direct response to vibration and frequency, and how our physical being, seventy percent water, might cultivate protection against disruption of our crystals.
One way to guard against this disruption is through gratitude. This information has created new rituals for me around the house. “Thank you water! Thank you! I love you!” now happens before every hydration. “Thank you water! Thank you for keeping Henry healthy!” as I refill the pug’s bowl. I try to remember to do the same for my food, too. Suddenly, a little “thank you” before eating takes on new meaning, as I imagine the molecules arranging themselves into patterns of love as they lift to my mouth.
Blog: How Integrated Energy Medicine Heals
By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
Integrated Energy Medicine is the most subtle aspect of Depth Hypnosis, and also one of the most important features of the model. In addition to providing access to information about subtle experience influencing presenting symptoms, it is an important tool in healing.
With Integrated Energy Medicine, fields of light and sound can be focused by practitioners and guides to help clients move through resistance and blocks. These fields are used to support clients working at any level. They are especially helpful for those who are venturing into new and sometimes uncomfortable spaces within themselves for the first time. They can also be used to reconfigure and retrain patterns of experience and behavior arising from the deepest levels of the psyche.
Article: Light and Sound: The Medicines of the Spirit
By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
Energy medicine is very basic to all experience, yet it is quite difficult to speak about. One of the reasons energy medicine is challenging to talk about is that it refers to phenomena beyond the purview of our everyday waking consciousness.
As children we have a wider perception of the subtle experience that underlies our thoughts, words and actions. When we question these perceptions, we may be met with unhelpful responses or inadequate answers because the adults around us have often lost contact with what we are experiencing. Part of “growing up” involves learning to view our reality primarily with our conscious mind’s value system. Our conscious mind values organization, goal-setting, and fitting into consensus reality in a way that does not stray too far from the socially accepted norms we learn to live by as we are growing up.
Our education system focuses on developing this problem-solving state of being, designed to block out anything disorganizing or disorienting. Seeing lights in the corner of the room or an energy wave coming off of a person expressing a strong emotion are the kinds of phenomena that get filtered out by the conscious mind’s priorities of organizing and categorizing our experience.
If we allow ourselves to return to this wider awareness we were born with, and which we engage with through dreaming, we can learn about the subtle energies that surround and inform us even when we are not conscious of them.
On the Air: A Meeting of the Ways with Diane Solomon and Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.: Understanding Subtle Energies and Integrated Energy Medicine
Diane Solomon, host of A Meeting of the Ways on KKUP, and Isa Gucciardi discuss the fundamental principles of working with the energy of light and sound in the healing environment.
Special Announcement: Sacred Stream Offering Series of Workshops in Iowa’s Quad Cities Region This May
Starting May 9, Sacred Stream will be offering some of their most popular workshops in Iowa’s Quad Cities region. Courses available include: Coming to Peace: Methods of Conflict Resolution (Prairiewoods Franciscan Spirituality Center, Hiawatha), Expanding Consciousness: The Four Immeasurables Resolution (Prairiewoods Franciscan Spirituality Center, Hiawatha), Embracing the Sacred Feminine (Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat, Wheatland), Consciousness and Integrated Energy Medicine (Bettendorf Public Library, Bettendorf), and The Path of Service and the Nature of Suffering (Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat, Wheatland).
Podcast: Episode 31: Healing Beyond the Conscious Mind
Once we have become conscious of our issues, we must then go beyond our conscious understanding to truly transform them. In today’s episode, Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D. discusses how altering states through hypnosis, meditation, and the shamanic journey can lead to deep and long lasting healing beyond the conscious mind. From this perspective, Isa offers a brief introduction to several of the programs offered by Foundation of the Sacred Stream.
Article: An Interview with Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D. on Soul Retrieval
By Gerri Ravyn Stanfield
I was introduced to Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D. through a mutual student and friend who told me “You two are up to the same things.” Through our email correspondence, I came to agree, the Foundation of the Sacred Stream is a place where spiritual seekers and healers can find education and inspiration from a variety of spiritual traditions. I spoke with Isa Gucciardi in September of 2012 regarding her work in the study and practice of soul retrieval.
Podcast: Episode 28: The Path of Service
In this excerpt from a talk given to acupuncture students at ACTCM in San Francisco, Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D. discusses the nature of healing, the role of the healer, and the difference between healing and curing.
Podcast: Episode 18: Managing Personal Energy
In today’s episode, Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D. discusses how to manage your personal energy and transform negativity, especially in relationship with others.
Podcast: Episode 12: The Role of Healer and Universal Flow
In the training programs offered by Sacred Stream, healers are shown how to get their own personal energy system configured so that it can participate as fully as possible in the larger universal flow of experience which is all around us and in which human beings’ experience exists. In these two excerpts from talks given in Rhode Island in July 2010, Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D. discusses the role of healer and the nature of universal flow, how healers can work with it, and what people need to do in order to align with it.
Podcast: Episode 03: Manifestation Pathways of Disease
Energy medicine is a description of the anatomy of non-physical structures that underlie manifestation; in this case, we’re studying the human body. It is also the description of processes of energy flow through those structures. Because we are largely unaware of the dynamics of these structures and processes we allow ourselves to create realities which are unhealthy and which allow energy to run through the structures that is negative and counter to health. As we become more aware of what’s happening at this level we take more and more responsibility for the way in which we are generating our reality. In this excerpt from a 2005 Integrated Energy Medicine workshop, Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D. discusses integrated energy medicine and the manifestation pathways of disease.
Article: Energy Medicine
By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
We tend to think of ourselves as material beings, interacting with material objects – but if you think about it, much of your reality is strongly influenced by the unseen. Are your thoughts material? Are your emotions material? How much of your reality is influenced by your thoughts and emotions? Is there anything that you do that you have not thought about before doing? Is there anything that you do that you don’t have feelings about?
Article: Applying Energy Medicine Techniques to an Autoimmune Response
By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
A basic principle of energy medicine is that health and well-being are maintained on three levels: physical, mental/emotional, and spiritual. In Western culture, we think of illness as related only to the physical. However, the physical presentation of an illness is usually the last stage of a long-standing problem.
Article: Case Study: Combining Energy Medicine and Past Life Regression Techniques
By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
My work takes me to many times and places in my clients’ psyches. During this work, I use many tools to help people discover the origin of the problems they seek help with. One of the most valuable tools is the use of rays of energy. Vedic science, tantric Buddhist healing practices, and other schools of energy medicine articulate many methods of working with rays to create change in the psyche. When dealing with deep issues within the psyche, it is often impossible to address them by any other method than with rays. This is because ray work can effect change beyond the realm of words or even images.