Wait! Intuitive power CAN be developed?!

What does waiting on the Lord

have to do with massage? Everything!

I am sure you would agree that intuition is a powerful tool in a massage session. Right?

To hear biofeedback and respond intuitively during a massage session, we must go inward and wait. We often call this full-body listening. We could also call it whole-being listening.

When we practice waiting on the Lord, we are engaging the same process. The more we practice prayerful waiting on God, the easier practicing whole-being listening with our massage clients becomes.

When we pray, we naturally move inward and allow our mind to descend into the heart. We close our eyes and seek out our hearts with great ease. Instinctively we know that we must move into our hearts to find God. We instinctively come back to ourselves to seek out God, from the inside of our deepest being. Not only does prayer lead us to God through an internal process; but also Intuition and clarity are the by-products of holism. It is precisely by engaging in life as a holistic being that we activate our intuitive powers.

Many people think that intuitive powers are a spiritual gift and that being highly intuitive means receiving unique insight. They confuse intuition - their natural God-given, energetic, intuitive powers with having the ability to receive messages from God, the universe and even perhaps otherworldly beings and spirit guides.

Our intuitive power, however, is very specifically, a human power - unique to our being-ness. It is a powerful tool that can be developed and activated and is the foundation of all good energy work.

When practicing energy work, I often tell people that there is no need to interact with otherworldly beings and spirit guides, for when we step into our own personal God-given power, we have all the insight and ability we need to help others in a very natural way. There is no need for "tapping into" spiritual practices connecting us to otherworldly beings and spiritual realms that may or may not be out actually to help us.

Becoming proficient in the spiritual arts can takes years, and practicing the spiritual arts is outside the scope and practice of massage - in that the practice of massage does not allow for prescribing and diagnosing - physically, psychologically, or spiritually. As licensed massage therapists, we can only be aware and use our knowledge of the human frame to guide the massage session and practical outcomes within the scope of practice for which we are licensed - while we encourage and affirm.

In the Total Body Flow Massage® method tradition - we do not view all spirits and otherworldly beings as good. Some are not. And it is often hard to discern the difference between the good and the mischievous, especially for those who have not been mentored for an extended period of time under the guidance of an experienced spiritual guide.

For this reason the Total Body Flow Massage method defines, energy and energy work more precisely and clearly, eliminating any esotericism, so that we understand the function and separation of powers between created beings, visible and invisible, and practice the proper use of our personal powers with wisdom and understanding

Our intuitive abilities are a blend of our experiences with knowledge and facts. It is a pearl of wisdom held in a much deeper place than in rational thought.

We are all spiritual beings, and intuition as a part of our innate, natural being-ness is part of the whole. So yes, intuition springs from an interior place and is an operation of the soul's faculties. Still, it is not spiritual in that when we know something from our intuition - we are not necessarily "hearing" from God.

Differentiating between the natural and the spiritual in this way is vital for massage therapists who are weary and perhaps confused by the many sources of information and spiritual practices in the massage industry and "energy therapeutics."

We know something is happening but what is it really? Can it be defined clearly? Absolutely, YES, it can.

For the purpose of The Total Body Flow Massage® method, we differentiate because of the myriad of spiritual teachings accepting everything invisible as spiritual—intuition, mind, chakras, auras, meridians, angels, and spirit guides. Significantly few people add God to those categories, oddly enough... But I digress...

Often people believe that the Christian Tradition does not speak to a heart-centered lifestyle or present moment awareness. NOT SO. While modern Christianity does not focused so much on this aspect of the Christian experience, it is discussed and encouraged in the ancient Traditions of Christianity in great detail. The TBF method is grounded in the Ancient Christian Tradition and gains its energetic principles from this source.

The Total Body Flow Massage® method calls this energy tradition Ancient Christian Energy Theory (ACET)

There is some overlap in terms of the invisible being both spiritual and natural (temporal/material), of course. Some in the aforementioned categories are spiritual, some are both spiritual and natural, and some are merely natural to our material or temporal self.

For our purpose of understanding the differences between the spiritual and the natural and keeping stable boundaries, the Total Body Flow Massage® method defines the differences between natural and spiritual energies.

The Total Body Flow Massage® method is not focused on whether other spiritual traditions are right or wrong, and one does not have to be Christian to practice the Total Body Flow Massage® method. Many traditions have much in common and identify the same principles but perhaps define them differently.

In Christianity it is understood that our human energies become unified when we allow our mind to descend into our hearts. That is, we experience holism, the joining together of the totality of our interior faculties with our physical body. When we gather our energies together by allowing our minds to descend, we experience a NATURAL HOLISM, a connectedness to ourselves, the universe/cosmos, (and God if we wish).

As a side note...Often when we begin this journey into the heart, we confuse the light of our own soul as being the Light of God. This confusion is often the case in Non-Christian traditions. The confusion is understandable because we are created in God's image, and so when we find the divine spark of our own soul, it is often mistaken for THE Divine Spark, which is God - who is, according to the Christian faith -"Uncreated Light."

However, as Christians, we know that our spark is divine only in that it is a reflection of Divine Spark and not divine in and of itself. There are many layers to the human frame, especially in the heart. --God is found at the deepest center and is the Ground of our being.

It is important to note that while we are made in God's image, and He dwells in us and we in Him, there is no confusion. God is in me- He is the Ground of my being, but He is not me, and I am not Him- and yet we are one, without confusion of beingness.

Everyone can come back to themselves and create a healthier state of being for themselves and by extension, depending on our relationships, for others. It is within the human power to begin the movement of the mind inward so it can be unified with the heart. When this happens we "connect" with ourselves and connecting with others is becomes easy! This is essential for the massage therapist who wishes to connect or "sync up" with their client.

Try this just as an experiment :)

.

1) Become quiet. Close your eyes

.

2) Take a deep inhale breath

.

3) When you exhale, let your thought awareness descend with the out breath (follow the chest's descending sensation with your awareness)

.

3) Now, as you breathe, keep your attention here at the heart center just behind the sternum. (Don't worry if the mind jumps around - keep bringing it back to the heart with this process as needed and know the mind works anchored in the heart just as well and better than when it resides in the head.)

.

4) With the mind remaining anchored interiorly in the heart, allow your awareness to expand outward.

Notice your new level of awareness. Do you feel more connected? Are your thoughts more spacious?

With this internal posturing, our energies unify, our intuitive powers are activated, and we experience acute full-being awareness.

The key is to notice everything but not to enter into commentary with our thoughts. That is, don't think about your thoughts and thought feelings or respond to thought with more thought. Just let them be.

Notice them --that is all. Be aware of a full-being awareness-- listening with the body and soul. There will be a feeling of "waiting."

This is where most people get hung up and quit because the mind has been programmed to be busy. Remember, both prayer, AND intuitive response is a practice.

While some traditions call this practice o fcoming back to ones self a spiritual practice the TBF tradition we define as a natural practice.

The TBF traditions doesn't recognize this as a spiritual practice, although there may technically be some overlap because of our holistic nature, until we began to move with the intention to seek out God.

As mentioned above, there are other spiritual practices as well in the ancient Christian faith. Centering oneself is a physical practice that becomes spiritual only when we are seeking to unify our energies to God, in the "eye of the heart" the deepest center (the Nous) .

This practice can be employed and often is a natural practice to unify our personal interior energies simply to stabilize ourselves and provide a safe natural environment for our clients to rest and recover in.

While it is difficult to define natural powers without speaking about spiritual energies, it is the natural energetic practice, as implemented above, that I am mostly talking about today. Because it most closely relates to what other traditions often define and practice as a spiritual one.

In the Christian Tradition there is clear definition. The ability to divide and separate the natural from spiritual for the purpose of understanding the whole.

We are autonomous beings and have certain human powers that are specific to our humanity and operate in profound ways for the benefit of caring for one another when we have understanding.

***Bonus TIP for the Christian Therapist: Keeping our mind anchored in our hearts, especially when we are moving toward the deep center to encounter God, is how one can pray without ceasing (1 Thess 5:17), stay connected to each other, the environment, and the cosmos for which we were created.

Get ready to study with us! With this understanding of coming back to yourself, unifying your energies in a present-moment practice of mindfulness, along with our other exclusive Total Body Flow Massage® energy principles, your massage sessions will have such an authentic care and attentiveness so profoundly superior to other massages in the industry that your clients will come back to your table time after time.

Your personal energy will be infused with strength, your clients' cares and anxieties will less burden you, AND you will be able to care for them with complete non-judgment and neutrality.

.

Back to YOU! Your intuitive energetic power and practical skill level are uniquely your own, making your massage session an experience that your clients cannot find anywhere else. By unifying your energies you become MORE AUTHENTICALLY YOU, and the more YOU - you become, the less you can be duplicated. (HINT: this is one aspect of attracting your ideal client)

The more you refine your technique and your intuitive power, the more valuable your massage sessions will be to your clients. So it is essential to develop your intuitive capabilities with understanding (Prov 4:7) and always be improving your technique!

1.Step into your power!

2. Relax into yourself.

3 Allow your mind to rest in your heart.

4. Listen

Everything inside of you will respond to the biofeedback from the client.

Your skills AND your creativity will flow.

Enjoy your work! (Ecc 3:22)

_____________

Prov 4:7 (Christian Scripture)

Wisdom is the principal thing; Therefore, get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding.

Ecc 3:22 (Christian Scripture)

So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work.

1 Thess 5:17 (Christian Scripture)

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 in everything give thanks; for this is God's will in Christ Jesus for you.

Psalms 130:5 (Christian Scripture)

I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.